Shades of Eva, page 44
I looked once more to Brad, wondering if he knew who Elms truly was; wondering if he was that sick and twisted a man as to leave his wife to a stalker the likes of Fredrick.
Brad was shaking his head as if he could read my mind. No one would do that—leave a girl like that with a man who’d done those terrible things to her. But there was someone who did just that! Eva’s brother. He left Eva with Fred time and time again, and didn’t say a word until…until he was sent to this place by a Gulf War POW and a grieving son—and he was just a stone’s throw away from me.
I asked her one word, one thing. “Why?”
Anna’s answer to that question did not come right away. Instead, she, with Brad’s help, helped me to my feet, helped me to the chair beside the open window and folded back the curtains to let the cold morning air wash over me. Anna handed me a cup of water. Brad took a chair and began sipping his beer again. I sat there in stunned silence wondering what in the hell we were going to do now.
***
Chapter 48
Mitchell
I turned the monitors off. I stood there, motionless, almost unable to breathe. Abby had retreated to the bedroom upstairs. When she returned, she was in full military police regalia. She’d holstered her Beretta and was now snapping the band of her knife’s sheath to secure it in place. She was wearing a black beret with the Army’s MP logo on it, a white t-shirt that read 8th Infantry across its front. She had a set of dog tags on, and desert gray camo pants.
“What are you doing,” I said, my voice quivering and my hands beginning to shake.
“I told you this is ending tonight.”
“What are you going to do?”
“The question is what am I going to do with you?”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“Mitchell, you have a life to live. You deserve better than this. We found Elmer and now we found Fred, and your mother has been vindicated in everyone’s eyes that matter—but these things have a price. I don’t want you to be a fugitive for the rest of your life. You’re going to have to turn yourself in, and I’m going to get my aunt’s things.”
“Turn myself in? Are you kidding? What are you talking about? I don’t want to go to jail!”
“You haven’t hurt anyone, Mitchell. I’ve killed someone, and you never really had a choice in this.”
“I had a choice. You said that this was my game—my family.”
“I know that’s what I said, but that wasn’t the reality. This was my game all along! You’re sick, Mitchell. You’re an addict and I took advantage of you for my own purposes. This has to end.”
I stood there in my mother’s old house, shaking my head in disbelief at what I was hearing, and also at what I’d just witnessed. I wanted to continue to fight—to fight whatever or whomever the enemy had become. Things still didn’t seem fair. After all of this, was I really going to lose Abby? Was I going to lose my freedom because I’d been hunting a dead man and a dead baby? Surely the courts wouldn’t excuse the things that I had done, and Ully was going to be walking in a day!
There was no way I was going to jail!
“I know you want a different ending to the chase, Mitchell, but there isn’t going to be one.”
I was shaking my head. I was angry beyond words.
Abby only smiled at me, withdrew her Beretta, and wouldn’t you know it—she pointed it directly at me. “You don’t have a choice anymore, Mitchell. You’re coming with me.”
I grinned. We’d played this game before. “I’m not turning myself in. I told you I was getting your aunt’s art and I’m going to help you do that. And then I’m catching the nearest train out of this—"
And before I could get the next word out of my mouth, a shot rang out and the wall behind me seemed to explode. A cloud of dust fluttered in the air behind me, and at once I felt a sharp stinging sensation on the top of my left shoulder.
I put a hand to it. My shirt was torn. I was bleeding.
I looked angrily at Abby. “You shot me!”
She shook her head. “I didn’t shoot you, but I will if you don’t get your jacket and get in the fucking car. You’re driving, Mitchell, and you’re turning yourself in.”
“And what about you?” I said, grabbing my jacket from the sofa beside me.
Abby didn’t answer me. She gestured me to the front door and opened it.
“You are turning me in!” I said, feeling a sudden stabbing pain in my back.
I walked hesitantly to the door. Abby, like Fred Levantle, wasn’t someone you said no to. She turned the light out on the place and I said my silent farewells to the river house.
I pointed the car in the direction of the Asylum as I was told. Abby was very quiet, and I guess I was, too. What was there to say, really? What do you tell a woman scorned in the manner Abby thought she had been scorned?
She finally broke her silence. She told me to take my phone out and give Ben Levantle a call.
“Ben? Why Ben?” I replied.
“Pick up your phone and call Ben. I’m quite sure they’re going to try and use him to bargain with you, like they will use the art to bargain with me. I want to see what kind of cards they’re holding.”
“What do I say? What do you want me to tell him?”
“Just dial.”
I did as I was told and placed the call. I turned the phone’s speaker on so that Abby could hear the conversation. Ben answered his cell phone on the first ring.
“—Mitchell?”
“You were expecting me?” I replied, surprised for some reason that he’d picked up.
“—Sweet Jesus, where are you, kid?”
Almost as soon as Ben had picked up, my phone’s tracking program was alerting us to his location.
“—Mitchell? Are you there?”
Abby had taken the phone from me. “Yes, he’s here,” she said. “I see you’re staying at the Knight’s Inn on East Ridge, Ben.” There was a brief pause.
“—Who’s this, please?”
“Abigail Angstrom.”
“—Abigail, I’m so glad you’re there? Listen, we can work this out.”
“Listen to me, Ben. Mitchell was just a pawn in this. He didn’t have any choice. I used him to help me find Eva’s rapist and my aunt’s artwork. I needed someone Anna wouldn’t recognize to do the dirty work. This wasn’t his idea. He’s sick.”
I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I looked intently at Abby, who just put up a hand and gestured me to hush. Abby continued. “I’m not very happy with you guys at Coastal State. Where does Ully think he’s going?”
“—I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m alone right now.”
“Don’t play stupid with me! They can’t hold him past tomorrow.”
“—Abigail, Ully’s not going anywhere. Anna had hospital maintenance pull the records for lost items back in ’54. There’s a toolbox listed as missing, a red toolbox just like Ully said. They even documented its serial number. None of that was in the police record, or Eva’s file. She never saw a toolbox—she only saw my brother carrying something she thought was Elmer, so there’s only one way Ully would know about it.
“—I know you know what I’m talking about,” Ben continued. “—If you have found Elmer, and you found that toolbox, then you need to bring them in and let’s put this to rest. If you have Elmer’s remains, you have to do this. It’s the only honorable thing to do.”
Abby appeared stunned. She seemed to have lost control. Her eyes were closed and she was shaking her head as if trying to decide what to do next. She put the phone down for a moment. “He’s lying,” she whispered to me. “It’s a trap. There isn’t any record for a fucking lost toolbox. I know he’s not alone.”
She put the phone back to her ear. “I gave Mitchell a role to play,” she responded. “That’s all it was. Mitchell needs help. He didn’t hurt anyone. I’m willing to turn him over, but there’s something of mine you guys are holding!”
I heard an audible sigh over the phone, and then Ben replied. “—You need to come in and make the right choice. What can we do to work this out?”
“Anna has some things that I want, Ben. If you want Mitchell back, then you better figure out a way to get me my aunt’s artwork.”
“—Please, please listen to me! We understand what you did and we know the truth. Dr. Norris needs you to come in. She has the things you want, and she wants to offer her protection to the both of you.”
Abby grew silent again. She was becoming quite annoyed.
Ben cleared his throat. “—You wanted to know where my brother is. Well, we know, now. If you know what happened to Elmer, you have to tell us. We have Emily’s artwork, but you need to come in and talk to us…tell us what is going on so we can help you resolve this.”
“Brad made a deal with me,” Abby said, indignantly. “And so did Ully. This could have been over tonight. They broke their promises to me and now someone is going to have to pay.”
“—No one else has to get hurt. Anna wants to help you both. The art is safe, but you have to trust us.”
“I can’t do that, Ben. The SMs are just waiting for police to round me up so they know where to find me. You can’t ask me to just lie down like that.”
Again, Ben paused as if he was looking to someone else for an answer to that. If I thought Abby was going to turn herself in—or should—I realized then that I was mistaken. Jackson Greer’s people weren’t going to let her get away with what she’d done to him. She wasn’t scared of imprisonment—she just wasn’t suicidal. Going to prison in this area meant a death sentence for her.
“—Anna can help you, Abigail, but you have to come in with Mitchell and hear us out. We know who Jackson Greer was, what he was. We aren’t going to put anyone at risk, here. But you have to trust us.”
Abby just turned her head to stare out the window. We were nearing the Southwestern University campus. The water tower, illuminated so beautifully that night at CSA in the distance, seemed extra bright. It seemed to be shining like a beacon, as if the city’s energy had been somehow concentrated there.
Just when I thought she was going to hang up on Ben, Abby said, “All right! Where do you and Anna want to meet?”
“—We can meet here at the hotel. It’s secure. No tricks.”
“Okay, Ben. Have Anna transfer my aunt’s artwork to your room there, and have her sign the artifacts over to me. I want a legal transfer. If she can do that, I’ll hear her out and I’ll turn Mitchell over to you.”
“—I understand. We can do that.”
“Ben, I didn’t mean for this to get so out of control. I hope you know that. Mitchell will be there in thirty minutes.”
We drove on toward East Ridge. I was looking for the Knight’s Inn marquise and thought I saw it in the distance. “There it is!” I said. I moved into the left lane to prepare to turn in, but Abby put a hand up to halt me, and said, “Wait!”
I gave her a double take. “But I thought you said—"
“Just keep driving. Head over toward Sacramento Drive. There’s something I need to take care of before you meet Ben.”
Sacramento Drive meant Coastal State.
I passed the Knight’s Inn and did as I was told. I got out onto Park Drive and pointed the car north toward the water tower. We were passing Vole Stadium when Abby said, “Pull in here!”
She directed me to enter one of the stadium’s overflow parking lots and to cut the lights. I pulled in and pulled to a stop near the stadium’s concession stand. The stand was a relatively small building directly behind the football field, nestled just down the ravine from Asylum grounds. I threw the car in park and killed the engine.
“What’s going on?” I asked Abby.
“I want you to go back to the hotel and turn yourself in,” she said. “Tell them that I was behind this. It might be a lie, but it might mean your freedom, Mitchell. We have to stick to the plan. Just stick to that story and you’ll be fine.”
“I can’t do that!” I told her. “I’m not selling you out to save my own ass. I made the choice to go along with you.”
“You might have, and I am thankful for that, but you have to do this for me. This isn’t for you. I want you to be happy. You have to know that. Go and hear what they have to say. See if Anna and Ben will keep to their word and release my aunt’s property. If they will, I want you to keep it for me.”
“Abby, I—"
“Mitchell, please. See what offer they have for you.”
I never felt as desperate as I did at that moment. I felt like everything I’d ever wanted was slipping away. I was in love with Abigail and I wasn’t about to let her go like this, but I didn’t dare cross her, and I didn’t know what to say other than to regurgitate Ben’s promise.
“I don’t think Ben’s lying,” I said, practically pleading his case. “I think they might be able to protect you.”
“It’s not me I’m thinking about, Mitchell. I can protect myself. It’s you I’m worried about, and Christian.”
Before I could respond to that, Abby put a finger to my lips. “You once told me that you trusted me. If you trust me—if you care about me—then do this for me. Go and see Ben. Keep your phone on you. I’ll listen in on the conversation. If they have an acceptable offer, then I’ll come in with you. But I can’t come just yet.”
“What are you going to do? I thought you wanted your aunt’s things.”
“I’m going to talk to Ully. I’m going to bargain with him. He needs to come clean on what happened in the Caymans.”
I remember a sudden feeling of terror as I realized what Abby was about to do. She was going to do more than bargain, because Ully wasn’t the bargaining type.
I had no choice but to trust Abby, once again, and to meet Ben, to listen to what they had to say and see if they were going to live up to their word. I had no choice that I was going to have to place some trust in Abby’s persuasive abilities again, and hope that Ully would do as she said, and come clean.
Abby got out of the car and walked off toward Cascadia Creek. I had one eye on her and the other on the water tower in the distance beyond. I allowed Abigail to walk away. I didn’t have a choice, really. She never turned back.
I started the Impala, sat there behind the concession stand idling for a few minutes. When I was sure that Abby was out of sight, I shut the engine off. She might have had some unfinished business of her own to attend to at Coastal State, but so did I.
I set my telephone to silence. There were two uniformed guards patrolling the rear of the Asylum grounds. I was watching two of them pacing back and forth behind the Sax halfway house, where my father was still staying as far as I knew. I had a few things I wanted to get off my chest with him before I turned myself in.
I watched the guards from the crest of the ravine. These were actually police officers, not Asylum security. Things had ramped up just a bit in the wake of Chester Imil’s departure.
I had taken up a spot in the root crater of the fallen oak tree in the ravine. Abby had crested the rim of the canyon and had moved off, unbeknownst that I had been trailing her. I lost track of where she went. Within minutes, the field between me and the back of the halfway house cleared. Both police officers had taken up a seat on a picnic table just inside the driveway entrance where the wrought iron gate was, mostly out of view from the lawn between me and my father’s room.
I snaked my way slowly across fifty feet or so of lawn until I reached a cluster of bushes at the back of the facility. There I sat for what seemed like an eternity, listening to two medical staff, an attendant and a nurse, whose voices I didn’t recognize, chatting away over a smoke. Once they finished and I was content they were back inside, I took one last look around for the two police officers. I could not see them. I’d have to move and move quickly and hope for the best.
I made my move. I wormed my way to Dad’s window without incident and tapped lightly so as not to alarm anyone, hoping Dad was still awake and wouldn’t panic when he saw me.
I tapped one more time and then heard the window slide open just a bit.
Twenty-five years ago, my father was a young man. Time had not cut him any slack. He had aged and not so gracefully. I imagine the drinking had something to do with his appearance, which seemed far in excess of his sixty years. He looked to be mid-seventies maybe, and his face was fuller and almost ashen as if he were jaundiced or sick. His eyes were darker than I remembered, but maybe it was the darkness from outside that seemed no doubt to be pooling in them. Maybe it was the booze.
Regardless, I recognized him and he recognized me.
Without saying anything, Dad pulled the screen from the window and slid the glass further open and reached out a hand to me. This time it held no bullet, only nothingness and nothing but an offer of assistance to heft me inside.
I took his hand and climbed into the halfway house—Mom’s old seclusion, and sat down on the bed to catch my breath.
Dad replaced the screen and slid the window shut before anyone outside ever saw me.
I was trying to gather my thoughts. I almost couldn’t believe where I was. I’m sure Dad was surprised to see me. He probably thought he might never see me again based on my behavior in the last few years. Now we were together in the madhouse of all places, in another of Mom’s old rooms. So in true Dad fashion, not a hello, not a welcome to the day, not a Hi son! He had only one question, and an emotionless one at that: “What’s your name?”
I thought for a moment he must be joking, but in hindsight it was a fair question. I was the son who’d given up his name in exchange for random aliases. He had a right to ask, but I wasn’t sure he had a right to an answer. I owed the reclamation of my surname to Abigail Angstrom, and her appreciation for true names.
I remembered something she’d said: she had told me that I deserved a proper seat at the Rennix family table—perhaps a prominent seat at that. So I took pride in my name. Rennix was my name, too—not just Dad’s.
