A time for reckoning, p.9
A Time for Reckoning, page 9
“Anything and everything is welcome, Jo. You never know what might help.”
“I know he’s in touch with at least a few of his old marine buddies. A few work with him now.”
“Names?”
She sighs. “None that come to mind. For the most part, I only know the nicknames they use, y’know? Duckhead, stuff like that. I told this to the police. I don’t know if it helped.”
“Have they been down to search the house?”
She shakes her head no. “I think it’s on their to-do list.”
“Where does Frankie keep his military stuff? Old paperwork? Decorations? Pictures?”
She looks up at me. “Good idea. He has an old marine footlocker he lugged home when he retired.”
“Do you have it here?”
She shakes her head. “It’s probably in Wilmington.”
Crap. I was hoping to find it here.
“Why don’t we go get it?” she asks.
“Because your husband might be there,” I reply, although that seems unlikely. He must know the cops are looking for him. Then again, it’s been over two months since he disappeared. I doubt the cops in North Carolina are continuing to diligently check in on the empty house. But we’ve got nothing else to work with. I call Greenwood, who arranges to have some Wilmington cops meet us at the house.
A Wilmington PD cruiser with a couple of bored uniformed officers is waiting in the driveway when Jo and I arrive early the next afternoon. I paint a thoroughly menacing picture of my brother so they’ll take the risk seriously.
A tall Black officer sets his feet shoulder width apart and carefully studies the closed curtains. “Did you close the blinds and curtains when you left, ma’am?” he asks Jo.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. I’m worried about leaving my home empty like this.”
“Is anyone checking in on the house? Watering plants and such?”
Jo pauses for a beat. “I was scared of asking anyone to do it. In case they ran into Frank.”
The cop frowns. “Why don’t you give me the key and let us clear the house before you come in?”
Jo peels the key off her keychain and hands it over, then turns toward her Chevy.
“Wait in our car,” the cop says, nodding toward the Wilmington PD cruiser. “You’ll be safer in there if anything happens.”
I give the cop a wry grin. “We just flick on the flashing lights and siren and make a run for it if things go sideways?”
He chuckles and waves the keys to the cruiser in his hand before dropping them into his pocket. “Afraid not, sir. I’ll have these.”
The cop comes back to let us out of the car a few minutes later. “All clear, folks. How long do you expect this to take?” he asks as he accompanies us to the front door.
I look at Jo.
“Oh, not long, if we can find things quickly,” she says. “We’re just going to scoop up the locker and some photo albums, plus anything else we think might be useful.”
“Music to my ears, ma’am,” the cops says with a grin. He meets his partner’s gaze, tells him to stay on the porch and keep an eye out for trouble, then follows us in.
“Where’s the locker?” I ask Jo when we reach the kitchen. “I’ll grab it while you get the pictures and stuff.”
She waves a hand toward a hallway running off the kitchen. “Frank’s office is the last door down that hallway. It might be in there. If not, check the crawl space above the garage.”
“The office might be locked,” she calls after I start down the hallway.
I glance back at the cop, who has fallen in behind me. “Did you check?”
He holds up a lock-picking tool and smiles. “Ain’t locked anymore. Sounds like we’re looking for a dangerous dude here, sir. I wasn’t about to let you folks in the house until I was good and sure he ain’t here.”
I smile and nod. “Good to know.”
The door is slightly ajar, so I push it open and walk in. Frankie’s already been here. A few computer cables hang off a dusty desk, the outlines of a keyboard, mouse, and CPU are visible in the dust. The printer stand is empty, save for a ream of paper on a bottom shelf. A closet door hangs open. There are still a few boxes of stuff here, but I imagine he’s taken whatever he thinks might be useful or incriminating. I pull out a couple of desk drawers and find them mostly empty.
“Probably nothing useful left in here,” the cop mutters as he watches.
“Probably not,” I agree. Still. I poke my head out the door. “Do you have suitcases?” I call out to Jo.
She appears at the end of the hall with an armful of photo albums. “Good idea. I was wondering how to lug these around. The suitcases are in the loft out in the garage.”
I glance at the cop, then look around for a door that might lead to the garage.
Jo points at a steel door right behind me. “That one, Tony.”
The double garage is oversized and holds an impressive collection of cabinets, plus a green John Deere riding lawn mower. There’s a pull-down door in the ceiling, the type you’d find leading to an attic.
“Guess that’s the crawl space,” my companion mutters. “How high can you jump?”
I decide not to tell him about my NCAA championship volleyball career. I couldn’t jump that high even back in the days when I led our school to a national championship. “Not that high.”
We look around for a moment before my eyes land on a long stick with a hook. It’s tucked into a corner behind the garage-door frame.
We have the stairs down a moment later. The cop scrambles up first and disappears, gun drawn. I’m startled when I hear a thump on the floor a minute later, as if something—or someone—just fell.
“What’s going on up there?” I call.
“All clear,” he replies as his face reappears in the opening. “We’ve got suitcases and a footlocker up here.”
He stops me when I start to climb. “Wait there. I’ll drop the suitcases down and then wrestle the locker over. The darn thing is all steel instead of one of the newer pieces of crap with tin sides or worse. Getting it down is gonna be a chore.”
Three suitcases follow in short order. I deliver them to Jo and head back to the garage. When I poke my head through the crawlspace opening after I climb the ladder, the cop is dragging a footlocker across the floorboards. I scramble the rest of the way up and give him a hand.
“Heavy beast,” he grunts. “You’re gonna need monster shears or a darn big hammer to get this lock off, man.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
“Amen,” he agrees as he backs toward the opening. “I’ll go first and tip it over the edge. You do your best to take some of the weight while I climb down.”
“At least you’ll be there to break the locker’s fall if this goes wrong,” I quip as we get started.
His response is either a grimace or a failed grin as he takes the weight of the locker on a shoulder. I clasp a hand strap with my legs braced on either side of the hole as he edges down. By the time he finally plants a foot on the ground, I’m on my stomach, hanging precariously through the hole with one hand on the locker strap.
“Good thing I’ve got long arms,” I mutter after he sets the locker down on the garage floor.
“How the heck did this thing get up here?” the cop asks in wonder.
“My brother probably lugs it around under one arm.”
He meets my eye. “Now, that’s just scary, sir.”
“Yeah, he is, Officer.” I fill him in on a little additional Frankie history, scaring myself a little in the telling.
“Maybe there should be a few more of us here,” he says with a wry grin.
I take a final look around the loft, see nothing of interest, and climb down. We lug the trunk into the house and find Jo waiting with two closed suitcases at her feet. She watches us staggering along with our load and smiles. “Glad you found it.”
“Aside from the twin hernias I’ve probably given myself, me, too,” I reply.
The cop chuckles as we let the weight drop with a heavy thud.
I look into the living room and see the last of the suitcases sitting in a corner, then turn back to Jo. “While we haul this thing out to the car, take that suitcase and grab as much paper as you can from Frankie’s desk and closet.”
Five minutes later, the footlocker and two suitcases fill the trunk. I toss the third suitcase into the back seat. Given the weight of the suitcases and the locker, I’m almost surprised that the front wheels of Jo’s car are still on the ground when she slides behind the wheel.
“How you gonna get that thing into the house wherever you’re going?” the cop asks.
“House?” I ask with a grim chuckle. “How about a third-floor walkup apartment?”
“You’re kidding me,” he says with a laugh.
“Afraid not,” I reply while opening the passenger door.
“Hire some movers, man.”
“Not a bad idea.”
His expression sobers. “Your brother sounds like an operator, right?”
I nod.
“He might be in the neighborhood watching us right now. We’ll follow you for a few miles, try to make sure your six is clear.”
I reach out and shake the officer’s hand. “You’ve gone beyond the call of duty. Thank you.”
“Can’t spend all our time drinking coffee and eating doughnuts, sir.”
I cock an eyebrow. “They’re finally cracking down on that, huh?”
He laughs, and we say goodbye.
“What’s your six?” Jo asks as we pull away.
“Our back.”
“Oh,” she says. “That makes me feel a little better.”
“Me, too.”
It’s after ten o’clock when we get back to Jo’s apartment complex, takeout dinner and monster sledgehammer in hand. Carly is sleeping over at Jo’s sister’s place, so we decide to start work after we eat a late dinner. McDonald’s take out and beer, a classic. I can’t help feeling—or maybe I’m just desperately hoping—that something in Frankie’s footlocker might hold the key to tracking him down. I’m tempted to wrestle it out of the trunk and take the sledgehammer to it in the parking lot. Bad idea. The neighbors wouldn’t like it and someone would probably call the cops. So, we spend two hours getting a good start on the paperwork inside the suitcases, then fall back on the sofa exhausted and disappointed.
Jo looks up at me and smiles. “I have an idea.”
I return the smile. “A good one, I hope?”
“I’ll check with the building super in the morning. Maybe he can get Frankie’s locker open.”
“Good idea.” Maybe he can carry it in, as well.
We waste a few minutes speculating about what we might find in the trunk, then reluctantly call it a night. I decide to buzz Trish before turning out the light. We’ve taken to brief phone calls every few days to check in. It’s a tenuous lifeline, but at least we’re both holding on.
14
Trish is in the kitchen of her Lake Point Tower condo fixing a plate of nachos when her phone rings in the living room.
“It’s Tony,” her mother calls. “Should I answer?”
“Of course!”
Trish smiles when she hears her mother happily exclaim, “Hi, Tony!” It’s great that her parents adore Tony and that they all get along so well. They bonded tightly during Trish’s stay in the hospital after she was attacked. Mom and Dad have been indefatigable cheerleaders on behalf of her and Tony’s relationship, even as Trish has struggled to regain her footing. Her parents had seldom been enthusiastic about the men in most of her past relationships—particularly Trish’s ex-husband, who had more in common with Tony’s brother than with Tony. She frowns and pushes the thought aside. The merest thought of Frankie unfailingly threatens to tug her into the undertow she’s been battling since the night he upended her life.
Her mother is laughing when Trish walks into the living room. Trish smiles, sets the bowl of nachos and a pair of bread plates on the glass coffee table, then deposits a handful of napkins alongside. She sinks onto her wine-colored fabric sofa and listens to Mom and Tony.
“It’s been nice chatting,” Mom says a moment later. “Enjoy South Carolina. I’ll let you talk to Trish now.”
“Hey,” Trish says after she takes the phone.
“Hey, yourself. How’s it going?”
“Having a nice visit with Mom.”
“How did last night go?”
Trish smiles at the memory of her parents hosting a dinner for relatives from England, then gets up and crosses her sprawling living room to gaze out at the expansive view of Lake Michigan from her fifty-third-floor condo.
“It was great,” she replies. “They’re such nice people, Tony. I wish you’d been there.”
“Me, too.”
“I feel guilty that I haven’t been to visit England since I was fifteen or sixteen.”
“Maybe now is a good time?”
Is it? The past few months have been hellish as she’s tried to put the trauma behind her and get on with her life. “Maybe,” she says cautiously. “A change of scenery may do me good.”
Or it might not. Trish isn’t sure of anything these days. She’s afraid almost all the time. Sometimes she’s not even sure what she’s afraid of. There are so many things to fear. Losing Tony. Frankie returning. Life in general. It’s all so exhausting.
“What do you think?” Tony asks.
Trish realizes that she’s been lost in her head yet again and has no idea what Tony’s asking about. But he’ll let it go. He always does, somehow seeming to intuit when she’s lost the thread of a conversation. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs.
“We could visit and make a little UK vacation out of it.”
“Hmm. I’ll think about it,” she answers noncommittally.
“Sure thing.”
Trish turns back into the living room, noticing that her mother has discreetly vanished to give her and Tony some privacy. She recalls her mother mentioning South Carolina.
“Where are you?” she asks Tony.
He explains that he’s visiting Jo and Carly for the weekend, and why.
“How’s it going?” she asks.
“We found a footlocker Frankie keeps his old marine memorabilia in. Hopefully there’s something useful inside. We’ll check it tomorrow.”
She doesn’t want to talk about Frankie. “How are Jo and Carly?”
“Ah, you know, they’re Jo and Carly.”
“I do,” she says with a smile, which quickly dissolves into a frown as curiosity overcomes her. Jo’s a sweet, sweet woman married to a monster. Trish and Pat O’Toole had been urging Jo to leave Frankie before he inevitably did something awful to her and Carly. Instead, he’d brutalized Trish. Does Jo realize just how big a monster he is? “Does she know, Tony?”
There’s a lengthy pause before he answers. “I told her today.”
“Oh, Tony. It must have been awful for her.”
“It was. It’s not pleasant for anyone, Trish.”
Truer words were never spoken. Trish shivers and leaves the topic behind. “You’ll be home tomorrow night?”
“I will,” he says reassuringly. “I’ll let you know when I’m there.”
He’s so sweet, recognizing the insecurity she lives with now—the irrational bursts of anxiety over the safety of the people she cares about. Trish suddenly has an overwhelming desire to spend time with him. “You’ll be in town next weekend?”
“Yes.”
“Any plans?”
She hears the smile in his voice when he replies, “Don’t think so. You want to make some?”
“Dinner?”
“Dinner and a show?”
“Sounds great,” she says. “How about seeing what’s playing at Broadway in Chicago?”
“Whatever you want, Trish. Pick something and let me know. Now, I can barely keep my eyes open, and you’d better get back to your mother.”
“Okay. Good luck tomorrow and don’t forget to call when you get home.”
“Thanks. Talk to you then.”
“I love you,” Trish whispers softly after she ends the call. Why can’t I just say it to him? she wonders. Because he may not reciprocate? When will she be able to give herself to him the way she used to? Her doctors keep telling her that, physically, she’s largely healed from the assault, which is no small thing. Frankie had brutalized her for five hours. Torn her rectal vaginal wall, left her with sphincter injuries, a bruised cervix—and that was before he washed her out with household bleach to eliminate any possible trace of DNA. Those burns had taken the longest to heal, yet the doctors assure her that the tissue damage has healed. There’s some residual nerve damage that makes intercourse uncomfortable and may never heal completely, but they keep urging her not to give up hope.
A woman doctor had questioned her about her partner: Don’t let him pressure you. He needs to be patient. Trish wipes away a tear. As if Tony hasn’t been patient. Or understanding. But how much longer can he be? He says indefinitely, but Trish knows—has always known—that her body and sensuality are her calling cards. Tony seems to value everything about her, but her past life has taught her that the rest of her isn’t enough. She needs to be able to physically entice and satisfy a man. If she can’t do that anymore, why on earth would Tony stick around? The thought of the day when his patience runs out haunts her constantly. It’s not something she wants to face, but she can’t shake the fear that it’s coming, and that there’s nothing she can do to alter the outcome.
15
I wake up in an unfamiliar bed just before seven the next morning, disoriented to be surrounded by the wall-to-wall movie posters in Carly’s bedroom. The aroma of fresh coffee brewing stirs me to get out of bed and into the bathroom to brush my teeth and take a quick shower. I throw on a pair of jeans and a polo shirt before wandering barefoot out to the kitchen, where the smell of sizzling bacon makes my mouth water.
Jo is bustling about in a pair of white capris and a flowery blouse. “Good morning, Tony!”
