Dropped Dead, page 11
I stared at Jack and couldn’t help but wonder if he still had feelings for Olivia. “So what happened with you two?”
“Me and Olivia?”
“If I only went by appearances, I’d say you looked good together. You’re a good-looking guy. She was an attractive woman… ”
He looked straight ahead and held the glass up to his mouth. “Everything is different on the outside.” He sipped his drink.
I looked down the far end of the bar and watched a young couple laughing together, having drinks and fun. I thought to myself, Everything is different on the outside.
“So you and Olivia split up, but Ted stayed close with her? You don’t normally hear that: someone keeps hanging around his brother’s ex-wife.”
Jack laughed. “Ted looked up to her, but more like a big sister. He had the brains, but he wasn’t exactly a business person. Olivia tried to help him with that, get him to look at things through a different lens. She used to say maybe he was too nice.”
“Enough where maybe one of his partners might’ve felt being nice wasn’t good for business?” I said.
“You mean, to a point one of them would kill him?” He looked straight across the bar without answering.
“Do you think Ted was cheating on Lynn?”
Jack shot me a quick look and shook his head. “I don’t think so, although I’m not sure he would have told me if he was. I’d say there were things about his personal life he may have chosen not to share with me. But, either way, their marriage wasn’t going to last.” Jack held his glass in front of him, his elbows on the bar. “You ask me, I wouldn’t be surprised Lynn really believed he was cheating on her. She might’ve hired you just to cover her bases. Maybe get lucky he was cheating, make things easier in a divorce.”
I nodded. “That thought did cross my mind. She was never even able to give me the name of any woman she suspected he might’ve been fooling around with.”
Jack lifted his drink, tossed back whatever was left in the glass and slapped it down in front of him.
Billy walked through the swinging door from the kitchen, a somber look on his face. “Don’t you have your phone?” he said.
I stared back at him and pulled my phone from my pocket. I’d missed six calls from him. “Shit, I’m sorry. I had the ringer turned down.”
“It’s Alex,” he said. “She’s not good.”
I jumped up from my stool. “What? Why? What did they say?” I shook my head.
“Not much. At least not to me. Her parents were there. I heard the doctor tell them there’s an infection. But I didn’t want to bother them asking for details.”
I nodded. “I talked to them this morning when they got in from Virginia. They’d talked to her. Alex was doing great.”
Billy looked down at the bar for a moment, then looked up at me with moistened eyes. “I’m afraid it’s not good.”
I shook my head. “She’s strong, Billy.”
Jack sat there, watching us. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “If there’s anything I can do.”
We both looked at him, but neither Billy nor I responded.
I headed for the door without another word to anyone and looked down at my phone, wishing I had gotten Billy’s call the first time.
I walked onto Alex’s floor at Memorial and hurried past the nurses' station, in case they weren’t allowing non-family visitors. But nobody said a word, and I continued down the hall until I got to Alex’s room.
The door was ajar and I pushed it open, stepped around the corner expecting to see Alex. But she wasn’t there. In her place was a young man who looked up from his phone and stared back at me without a word.
I walked out and had to stop myself from running full speed but moved well beyond a normal pace until I got to the nurses' desk. “Where’s Alex? Alex Jepson?”
The older woman behind the desk looked up from her computer as if she didn’t hear a word I’d said. “Excuse me? May I help you?”
“Alex Jepson.” I pointed toward her room. “Where is she?”
“Oh, Alex has been moved back into intensive care.”
“Where? What floor?”
“The ICU? It’s family members only, right now. Are you family?”
I didn’t hesitate. ”Yes, I am.”
She nodded toward the elevator. “One floor up.”
I turned and ran past the elevator and crashed through the door right after it, ran up a flight of stairs and pulled open the door. I stood in the hall and looked back and forth, saw a doctor step from one of the rooms. I ran toward him and grabbed his arm. “Alex Jepson,” I said. “I’m looking for Alex Jepson.”
He yanked his arm from my grasp. “Sir!” he said with a snap to his tone. “You’ll need to go to the front desk if you need help.” He turned, grabbed a folder from the plastic pocket next to the door, and opened the door to the next room. He disappeared inside.
I moved as fast as I could down the hall. All the rooms' doors were closed, and I continued until I got to the desk at the very end.
“Ma’am?” I said to a nurse, with her back to me, standing in front of a filing cabinet. “I’m looking for Alex Jepson. She was supposed to be moved up here.”
A voice called from behind me. “Henry?”
I turned. Alex’s mother stood behind me. She had tears in her eyes. Just behind her, in a chair in the waiting area, was an older man I recognized as Alex’s father. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and looked up at me.
I hugged her mother. Her father stood and walked toward me, reached out, and shook my hand.
“Is she okay?” I said.
Neither answered but instead just looked at each other.
Her father said, “She’s in surgery. She had a blood clot in her lung. It caused an infection, from what we were told.”
“They’re doing all they can,” her mother said.
Her father looked down toward the floor. He lifted his eyes to mine, shaking his head. “I don’t want my little girl to die,” he said. He wiped a tear from his cheek with the back of his hand. “I need to know what happened.”
Chapter 22
I jumped up from my soaked sheets, startled. Sweat poured down my face. I wasn’t sure I was fully asleep. Stuck somewhere in between my conscious thoughts and whatever else was boiling deep in my brain when I dozed off. The light next to my bed was still on.
I’d gotten used to it. That’s how it’d been for a couple of years now. I didn’t believe in taking prescription drugs to help me sleep, although I’d tried everything else.
A real sleep, a deep one, was as rare as a blue moon.
Until that point I hadn’t been able to picture the face of the man who wore the Ronald Reagan mask until I knocked it off his face. All I could see, no matter how hard I tried, was the stupid mask. But somehow, in my dream, the image of a tattoo on his forearm, just above his wrist, finally came to me.
I jumped up and hurried into the kitchen, frantically pulling open drawers to find a pad. I’d taken to art as a kid but hadn’t done much with it since, but started to sketch out the image I had in my head.
It may not have been much, but it was something.
I grabbed my phone. It was a little after midnight on the West Coast when I dialed Annie’s cell phone.
She answered on the first ring. “Henry? What are you… Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. Yeah, I guess. You okay out there?”
She was quiet for a moment. “I think I am, Henry. I’m going to stick it out.”
“You need to be happy.”
She didn’t respond. “Are you sure everything’s all right?” she said.
“Actually, no. Alex is in the hospital.”
“Oh no! Why? What happened?”
“She was shot in the back. The same men who held us are responsible.”
“I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could do. Is she going to be all right?”
I hesitated to answer. Because I didn’t have the answer. I could only hope.
“Last I knew she had surgery, and had gotten out when I left. She’s in the ICU at Memorial.” I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath or else… “Listen, there is something you can do.”
“Anything.”
“It’s easy. I just need you to think. Remember the main guy? The one with the Reagan mask?”
“Of course I do.”
“He had tattoos running up and down his arm.”
“His whole body was covered, from what it looked like,” she said.
“Well, I fell asleep and had a dream, right before I called you. I saw one of the tattoos. I don’t even remember seeing it in person—I mean in real life, when we were there—other than just now in my dream. It’s like my subconscious took a snapshot. I was able to draw it. I’ll send it over to you so you can see it. If you take a look, and it looks like something you might’ve seen, then I’ll know I’m not crazy.”
“Can you send it to my phone?” she said.
I took a photo of my sketch, then sent it over to Annie in a text. “You should have it,” I said.
“Hold on.” The line went quiet for a couple of moments, then she came back on the line. “You drew this just from memory?” she said.
“No. Like I said, I don’t remember seeing it. I dreamed about it.”
“Well, you’re right. He had this on his wrist. I do remember, but I would’ve never thought of it. He had so many up and down his arm.” I could hear a TV or radio on in the background but Annie was quiet. “But do you know what it is?”
I looked over the drawing. “Well, no. Not yet. That’s the part I’ll have to figure out. But, I swear, I’ve seen it before. I can’t imagine it’d just come to me like that, out of the blue.”
“The brain can do funny things,” she said. “Maybe somebody delivered a message to you.”
“All right,” I said. “We don’t have to go that far. You and your newly found spirituality out there on the West Coast.”
She laughed. “What? I’m serious. You never know how some things work.”
We both stayed quiet.
“Henry?” she said. “Don’t you think you should just bring your drawing to the sheriff's office? See what they can do with it?”
“I’m working directly with Mike Stone,” I said. “He and Alex have been friends for a long time, so I have to trust him this time.”
“They’re friends?” she said. “Is that it?”
I thought for a moment. “I guess I’m not sure. I used to wonder if there was something more there.”
Annie let out a slight laugh into the phone. “No wonder you don’t like him.”
“When did I tell you I didn’t like him?”
She said, “You didn’t have to say a word.”
I tried to get another hour or two of sleep after having the feeling my body didn’t want to be pushed any more than it had already been. But I tossed and turned until a hint of orange filled a piece of the sky.
The sun was on its way up.
I jumped in the shower, got out and called Billy, hoping he’d be awake.
“Is she okay?” he said as soon as he answered. “I thought you’d call me last night.”
“I almost did. But I kept falling asleep, waking up every half hour or so. I’m heading over to the hospital around eight.”
“So no word from anyone? Her parents?”
I poured myself a cup of coffee. “I called and spoke to a nurse. She was asleep, came out of surgery okay.”
“Why don’t you stop by on your way out?” he said. “I’ll make some coffee.”
Billy was out on his porch with a coffee in his hand when I walked up the stone walkway and handed him the paper I’d used to draw the tattoo. “This mean anything to you?” I said.
He took it from my hand and studied my drawing. He looked up from the paper. “Where’d you get this?”
“I drew it. It’s the tattoo that was on the wrist of the man who held me and Annie. Same one who, I believe, shot Alex.”
“You drew it from memory?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t need to go into how I pictured it in my dream. There was no need.
“And you think it’s accurate enough?”
I shrugged. “I sent it to Annie; she recognized it right away.”
Billy sipped his coffee and looked at the drawing for another few moments. “What makes you think I would know what it’s supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. You have a tattoo.”
He made a face and stared back at me. “Or is it because I’m of Chinese descent, and you think I would know what symbol you’re guessing might have some Asian meaning?” He laughed and shook his head. “Is that it?” He stood up from his seat. “Chloe or Jake might know something about it,” he said.
Chloe and Jake both worked for Billy at the restaurant, Jake being one with tattoos running up and down both arms.
Billy looked at his watch. “Jake’s in there now, doing prep work. Why don’t you follow me over, see what he thinks?”
Jake was outside the back door at the restaurant checking in deliveries from the seafood delivery truck. He lifted his eyes off the clipboard he held in front of him and gave me a nod. “Hey, Henry.”
Billy stopped the man with the hand truck and lifted the cover on one of the fish buckets. He reached inside and pulled out a fish, gave it a sniff, and nodded at the man. “Looks good,” he said. He placed the fish back inside the container and closed the plastic cover. He wiped his hands on his pants and took the clipboard from Jake. “Henry needs your help with something.” He grabbed Jake’s hand and lifted it up in front of me. “See?”
I was well aware of Jake’s tattoos, but I’d never taken the time to actually study them. He had crosses and snakes and letters and flowers; you name it, Jake seemed to have it tattooed on his arm.
“What’s up?” Jake said. He pulled his arm back from Billy.
I handed him the paper with the symbol I’d drawn on it. “Have you ever seen a tattoo like this before?”
Jake grabbed the paper from me and looked down at the drawing. “Where’d you see this?”
“On the arm of one of the men who put Alex in the hospital.”
Jake looked at the paper again, then lifted his eyes to mine. “It’s a prison tattoo. Only reason I recognize it is my guy—”
“Your guy?” I said.
“Yeah, the tattoo artist I use. He spent a couple of years in Raiford. A lot of his customers are ex-cons.” He laughed. “I know that sounds funny. And if they’re not ex-cons, most of his customers were recommended by someone who was.”
“How’d you find this guy?” I said, out of curiosity.
Jake shrugged. “He’s got a good reputation. Probably one of the best in Jax.”
Billy looked up from the clipboard at me and shrugged. “Told you he’d know something.”
“Jake, you sure you recognize this?”
He nodded. “Yeah, it’s a whole group in there. I remember him telling me. I don’t know if they’re technically a gang or anything. But if you have that tattoo… You’ve spent time in Raiford.”
Chapter 23
Lynn Parker opened her front door wearing a kimono over her bathing suit and a martini glass in her hand. She leaned on the knob with one hand, lifted the glass to her mouth, and looked me up and down. Her eyes appeared heavier than I remembered, her lids halfway down over her dark brown eyes. “Henry Walsh,” she said. “I was wondering when you were going to come by to see me.” Her words were somewhat slurred. “I’ve heard the rumors you’re still trying to prove Teddy didn’t take his own life?” She let out a slight laugh.
“I don’t know what’s funny,” I said. “But my partner, right now, is in the hospital fighting for her life.”
Lynn straightened herself up. The expression on her face changed. “I’m sorry. Won’t you come inside?” She stepped back from the door.
I followed her inside, and we walked down a hall, through the kitchen at the back of the house, and out through a set of double doors and into the yard.
We walked out onto her stone patio to a small round table.
“Please have a seat,” she said. “What would you like to drink?”
I wasn’t usually one to turn one down, but it was still a little early. “I’m all right for now.”
She flapped her hand through the air at me. “Nonsense.” She looked at her martini glass, drank what was left, and started for the cabana next to the pool. “I’ll get you something to sip while I get myself a refill.”
She walked into the cabana and came out a moment later with a glass in each hand. “I hope you like Maker’s Mark? It’s what Teddy used to drink.” She put the glass down in front of me.
The woman had clearly spent her morning with the bottle. She sat down and pushed open her kimono, shot me a glance some might consider seductive. If you’d asked me, I would’ve said she’d had enough to drink, just by looking at her heavy eyelids. She sipped her martini and kept her eyes on me from over the rim of her glass.
“I wanted to talk to you a little more about Ted’s death. And see if you can perhaps help me with some of the things I’ve discovered.” I put my hand on my glass and had yet to take a sip.
She shrugged, eased her glass down on top of the table, and leaned with her elbows down, her hands together under her chin. “Whatever I can do to help you, Henry.” Again, she gave me that look.
Maybe another time. Another life. She was beautiful; there was no doubt about that. But not for me.
“Okay, I’d like you to be straight with me, Lynn. Did you really believe Ted was cheating on you? Or did you hire me hoping I’d find something else?”
She leaned back in her chair and crossed one bare leg over the other. With her eyes down, she pulled the front of her kimono over her thighs. After a pause, she lifted her eyes and looked across the table. “Are you going to tell me about some crazy theory you have about why I’d hire a private investigator to follow my husband but not tell him the real reason why?”
