The Proteus Cure (36 page)

Paul Rosko charged in murder of local. Town up in arms against bookworm gone berserk.

Oh Jesus, Sheila thought.

She paused, her hand numb on the mouse. Finally she forced herself to click the link. She had to know.

She came up with Henry “Hank” Sammer, a laborer at the local paper mill, killed in a barroom brawl at the Last Call. Details of his life—high school football star and such—and funeral arrangements followed, but no details about what had happened that night. A fight in a bar? Was it a one-time thing?

Sheila bit her lip. One time or not, Paul had killed a man … got so angry he’d killed someone. What more did she need to know?

She continued searching the more restrictive websites. After an hour she knew little more than she had at first. The details were all the same: some kind of fistfight, Paul killed a local, and spent a year in jail for second-degree manslaughter.

Sheila shut off her computer.

True, he had anger issues, but were they that bad? She’d felt so safe around him. She didn’t get it. She wanted—
needed
—more information.

She called Paul’s cell phone but he didn’t pick up, so she left a message to call her, and then built a fire. She got out a blanket and huddled under it on the couch. The logs burned hot but couldn’t warm her.

Paul and Coogan were finishing off their Whoppers in their basement hideaway of Innovation Ventures.

Thank God for whoever had dreamed up the drive-thru. Paul had stopped to buy a paper at a newspaper lock box and had seen his face on page one. He’d skipped the paper and hurried back to the car. By now everyone in town must know. Standing in line at a burger place would have been tantamount to turning himself in.

The phone rang and the light on the attached answering machine flashed.

He and Coog stopped in mid-bite to listen.

Swann. It couldn’t be anyone else. Paul fought a fierce urge to pick up and start in on him. Here was the guy who’d killed four people and framed him. He wanted to hear the creep’s voice, tell him what he’d like to do to him—
would
do if he ever caught up to him.

But he didn’t move. Picking up now would give away his location.

Two rings, then the machine clicked on. Half a minute later it clicked off.

Paul put down his burger, and leapt to the receiver. “Coog, I’ll repeat the numbers as I get them. Remember them.”

He dialed *-6-9. Seconds later an electronic voice said, “The number of the party is 978-333-1222.”

Paul gave Coogan the number and then hung up.

“So now what? You gonna call it?”

“No. Whoever it is could have caller ID and recognize this number. We’ll call information and see if we can get the address.”

Paul dialed 4-1-1 then waited until someone live came on.

“No problem, sir. The address for the phone number is two-nine-three Kingsbury Way. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, that’s all. Thanks.” Paul stood there stunned, the receiver cold and heavy in his hand.

“What’s wrong, Dad? Don’t tell me they couldn’t give you the address.”

“They gave it to me.”

He felt hollow. He knew that address: Tethys Medical Center.

He had to get to Sheila.

As he hung up the phone, Bill felt a spasm of fear. The unexpected message had shocked him. Rosko wasn’t on the run. On the defensive, yes, but not running.

He wanted to talk a deal.

Which was out of the question. Too big a chance that Rosko would recognize his voice. He couldn’t have a man with a history of violence—of murder, no less—come looking for him.

But Bill now had his cell phone number. Would that be of any use?

He called the Bradfield PD and asked for Lieutenant Zacks. Zacks had been a Tethys patient. VG723 had cured his lung cancer. He’d said he’d be eternally grateful. Time to see if he meant it.

After pleasantries and a little catching up, Bill came to the point.

“What’s the status of the Rosko case? He was a volunteer here and frankly he’s an embarrassment.”

“We’ve got the usual all points out on him, pictures all over the papers. We’ll get him.”

“I have his cell phone number. Will that—?”

“We’ve got it too. Unfortunately he’s turned it off. His last two calls were about six o’clock last night to a small company named VecGen and to your place.”

“Tethys? Do you know what extension?”

“Sorry, no. He called the main number, probably got transferred.”

The question had been for show. Shen had played him the message Rosko left for Sheila. Pathetic.

When Sheila confronted him about knowing Paul had killed someone, he’d frozen up. He had wanted to tell her about Paul’s criminal record as soon as he found out, but then logic hit. If he had known before, he couldn’t have let him volunteer. He thought he managed to look pretty surprised to learn about Paul’s prison time from the detective though, and was relieved she bought it.

“But if he turns on his phone again you’ll get him?”

“If he’s still in the area. But getting blanket coverage of the region isn’t going to happen. For a terrorist, yeah, but not a simple homicide.”

“Let’s hope he’s still in the area, then.”

“You sound like you’re pretty sure he’s going to turn on his phone.”

“I believe it’s inevitable.”

“Yeah, so do I. He’s not the brightest bulb in the box.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, I mean, leaving the murder weapon in his garage. Christ, all he had to do was make a fire and throw it on. Whoosh, all the evidence up in smoke.”

“Obviously not a deep thinker. Oops, got to take another call. Thanks for your help, Lieutenant.”

Bill smiled as he hung up. He felt sure Rosko was still in the area, hoping to meet with Swann to “come to an agreement that is to our mutual benefit.”

I think not, Mr. Rosko. When you turn on your phone at six o’clock, it will all be over for you.

Sheila heard a noise at her back patio door and jumped. She’d fallen asleep and the day had turned dark. She checked her watch: barely five o’clock. Night fell early this time of year. She looked out her front window. The rain was falling heavier than ever.

There it was again—knocking. She walked around the house, squinting as she turned on light after light. She picked up her phone, ready to dial the police as she stole into her kitchen and peered outside. She flipped up the patio light. Two figures stood there, one man-size, one teen-size.

Her heart leaped. Paul and Coog, dripping and shivering. She hesitated only a second before opening the door.

“My God, come in! You must be freezing!”

They kicked off their boots upon entering. Paul looked ashamed, hesitant as he guided Coog ahead of him.

“I didn’t know if you’d let me in. I’m not sure what they told you.”

“They told me a lot and I found out some things on my own.”

She watched him, hoping he would reveal more about those stories, come out and say it was all lies.

“I’m going to tell you everything. I brought Coog along because it’s time he knew too.”

“Knew what?” the boy said, confusion written on his face.

“About me—
all
about me. I wanted to wait till you were older, but that decision’s been taken out of my hands.”

Sheila had never been so confused. Emotions pulled her in all directions and she wondered if this is what it felt like to be bipolar.

“I know you didn’t kill Kaplan—don’t ask me how I know, I just do. But this other thing … ”

“What other thing?” Coog said.

Paul reached over and hit the kitchen lights. “We need to shut these off. Anyone driving by can see in. Let’s go sit down somewhere where we can’t be seen,” he said. “I’ll tell you both the whole story.”

Sheila shut off the lights as she led them down the hall, avoiding the windows. They entered her dark home office. Too dark. She turned on the closet light and opened the door a hair.

A sliver of light framed a rectangle on Paul’s face.

“Before I say anything else, I want to tell you how sorry I am that our relationship was waylaid by all this. It seemed wonderful, brimming with potential, and now … now I don’t know where it is.”

“Neither do I,” she told him. Might as well be honest.

“You may give up on me when I’m through, but it’s time for truth. Long past time.”

Coogan leaned closer to his father, eager to hear. Poor kid had been through enough, and now this.

“The novel I’m writing,
The Four Walls of Jim Grisbe,
is about a guy who went to prison for killing someone.”

“I don’t care about your book right now. Tell me about you,” Sheila said.

He stared through her and she understood. “It’s about me. My life. That’s why I didn’t tell you the plot. I was afraid you’d figure it out.”

Coogan looked at them in shock. “You went to jail?” Tears welled up in his eyes and he wiped away.

“’Fraid so. But let me explain. It’s important for you, for both of you to understand. I really was sensitive kid, like I told you, Sheila, and my dad hated me for it. I was a wrestler in school. All that was true. I got my English degree and then my Masters.”

“You have a Masters in English?” she said, stunned.

But in an instant she realized it explained so many things. His love of books, his vocabulary … his novel.

“Yes. All set to be a teacher. Everything going just the way I wanted. I’d landed a job at Saint John’s prep right here in Massachusetts. I was the happiest I’d ever been.”

Sheila looked at him and understood. Just how she’d felt right before Dek died. A primo fellowship, a wonderful husband, a baby on the way—life couldn’t get any better. She knew a tragedy was coming in Paul’s story. As she looked to Coog she knew he was bracing for bad news. She put her arm around him and he leaned into her. Poor kid needed a mother.

“About a week after graduation my dad came out to see me. Said he came to make up with me, to apologize. My brother and he took me out for a few beers at the local VFW hall. I was excited. It was the first time he’d been civil to me since I started college and now he’d come all the way from Albany to apologize. Except that’s not what happened. Dad and my brother had a few too many and started making fun of me. How I must be gay to want to teach English to a bunch of prep school sissy boys. ‘
What’s wrong with you? Can’t be a real man? Wants to play with little boys all day?’
”

“Oh, man!” Coog whispered. “Grandpa said that?”

Paul nodded. “That’s why you see him only once in a blue moon.”

Sheila wanted to protect him from the memory but saw no way to do it.

“Bad enough the two of them giving me the business, but then Dad enlisted some of the other vets in the room. They were all laying into me. ‘
Faggot, faggot, faggot.
’ ” He shook his head. “I lost it. I completely lost it. I picked up my dad and slammed him into a wall. Learned later I’d broken his collarbone. Then I ran out, got in my car, and sped off. I stopped at the nearest bar. Some dive filled with a pack of locals who’d just finished a shift at the mill.”

Sheila remembered that detail from the Internet accounts. The dead man had worked in a paper mill.

“I went there just to unwind, but one of them started in on me about giving him my bar stool. Not a big deal. I should have just moved over, but I was ready to explode and wasn’t about to give an inch to anybody. So I ignored him. Well, he’d made a point of getting my seat and all his buddies were watching. He couldn’t back down so he shoved me. Not hard, but enough. All I heard were my father’s words over the years: Loser, faggot … ”

Knowing what came next, Sheila wanted to close her ears. She pulled Coogan closer.

“I laid into the guy. Knocked him down. He should have stayed down. But with his buddies around he had to come back at me. He wound up on the receiving end of twenty-five years of pent-up anger. I pounded him, broke his nose and he fell back, hitting his head on the edge of a table. He never woke up.”

Silence in her office. Not even the sound of breathing. Sheila stole a look at Coog. She’d expected to see horror, revulsion. Instead she saw wonder.

“Good thing someone had already called the cops because the rest of his friends jumped me. I hurt a number of them as well but would have ended beaten to a bloody pulp if the cops hadn’t broken it up.”

“But Dad, it was self defense!”

Paul shook his head. “Not according to his buddies. They said I was drunk and looking for a fight. Said I sucker punched the guy.” He looked from Coog to Sheila with pleading eyes. “But I didn’t have to sucker him. I was too full of rage for anything but a head-on frontal assault. Didn’t matter what I said, though. The evidence was overwhelming—just like now in this Kaplan thing—and so my lawyer worked a plea bargain and I went off to jail for a year.”

Sheila rubbed his arm. “Paul, I’m so sorry. That must have been horrible.”

“What? The jail part? Yeah, it was bad but it paled in comparison to the rest: Living with the guilt that I’d killed someone; my mom never speaking to me again—going to her grave being ashamed of me; or maybe worst of all, my dad finally being proud of me.”

He sighed and for a moment looked like a lost little boy.

“No, that wasn’t the worst. Not even the fact that no one would ever let a manslaughter felon be a teacher, or that from that day on my future wasn’t bright anymore because one senseless act had forever derailed the life I’d planned. No, worst is the lingering memory of the fierce dark joy I took in pummeling that poor bastard.”

Another silent pause. Then Paul cleared his throat.

“An MA in English and I wound up a cable installer. And glad to be one.” He turned to Coogan.

The boy said nothing, simply got up and threw his arms around Paul and hugged him.

In the faint light Sheila could see the glitter of tears in Paul’s eyes. Her own vision blurred.

They held that tableau for a full minute, then Paul spoke in a thick voice,

“Thank you, Coog. You can’t know how much you mean to me. If I ever lost you …”