Fall Guy (24 page)

I didn't know if Francis Connor had recognized me. The first time I'd seen him, he'd never looked up. But I wasn't about to take a chance. Instead of turning around and heading home, which is what I would have liked to do, I kept on walking, following the crowd. That way, even if he realized he'd seen me before, he might assume seeing me now was mere coincidence, that, like everyone else coming up the stairs, I was going to the play. Besides, there was safety in numbers. Once inside, I looked around, found the nearest ladies' room, pulled out my cell phone and called Maggie, listening to the ringing, wondering where she was.

Monk, my ass, I thought, leaning against the inside of the bathroom door. Why had I thought that only the children were lying, making up acceptable stories to cover homely, painful truths? Where had the children learned it from?

And where had Francis really been all these years? Reform school? Jail? A psychiatric hospital? Or had he been with the circus? Who would notice one more freak?

Maggie still hadn't picked up. I was about to give up when she answered. “Did I wake you?”

“Rachel?”

“Yes, it's me.”

“No. I slept a little when I got home, but now I'm up. I had to feed Dashiell and take him for a walk. Rachel?”

“Yes?”

“I feel so safe with him here. I can't begin to thank you. I know you must miss him terribly.”

I didn't want to think about that, about how it felt not to have Dashiell with me or waiting for me at home. But now, with what I had just seen, it wouldn't be long. If I acted quickly, if I had just a little bit of luck, it was possible I could get him back in the morning. But if I was going to tell my story to Brody, I wanted all the answers, and there was a piece missing I thought Maggie could help me with.

“I hope I can get back to sleep. I'm really tired. But I can't stop thinking.”

“Me, neither.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Your father,” I said. “About that last day, locked up in his study.”

“I wish someone had known what
he
had been thinking that day.”

“But no one did.”

“No. He never said a word.”

“He was alone all day?”

“Yes, all day. Tim knocked once. I was two rooms away and heard my father's voice, it was that loud.”

“Saying what?”

She hesitated. Old habits die hard. “Telling him to go away.”

“That's it? What exactly did he say?”

“Get the hell away from the door.”

“Was that all?”

“No.”

“What else did he say?”

There was another silence on the line.

“Maggie? It's important. Was there something else? Did he say something else?”

“There was one other thing.”

“Which was?”

I heard her put the phone down on a counter or a table. Then I could hear her sobbing. There was a little table with a mirror over it, a chair in front of it. I pulled out the chair and sat, looking back at the door, half expecting Francis to open it, half thinking he might have figured out that seeing me here wasn't just a coincidence. But the door remained closed, no other ladies needing to use the facilities, no obsessed murderer coming in to do whatever was necessary in order to keep his secret, in order to survive.

I heard a scrape as Maggie picked up the phone again.

“He said, ‘Haven't you done enough already?'”

“Had he been angry at Tim the day before?”

“No. In fact, they were working together in the front yard. My mother had gotten some shrubs and Tim was helping my father plant them.” There was a pause again. Maggie blew her nose. “And then Francis came by.”

I glanced at the door again, as if the mention of
his name would make him appear. But the door remained closed. I was all alone.

“And then what?” I asked.

“Well, they stopped planting. Tim came inside.”

“And Francis helped your father with the shrubs?”

“No. They went into the study. No one planted the rest of the shrubs. They'd planted one, an azalea. But it died. It was the wrong season. They're supposed to go in the ground in the spring.”

“So the shrubs sat on the lawn and Francis and your father went into your father's study, and what?”

“Why, they shut the door.”

“Wasn't that unusual, Maggie?”

“No, I don't think so. Francis adored my parents. And he looked up to my father. In some ways, he was closer to them than to his own folks. He might have come for some advice.”

Or to put down the secret he was carrying, to confess his lie, put the blame where it belonged, on his uncle's oldest son.

I thought about asking Maggie for her aunt and uncle's phone number, but then I thought it was probably in Tim's address book. And what would be the point in calling them? I already knew their son had not given his life to God. Quite the opposite, as far as I could tell.

“And after Francis left, then what?”

“I don't know. It got very late and I'd gone to bed.”

“And the next day?”

“I never saw my father again after that. The next day was the day he was in his study alone, the day he shot himself.”

“Was anyone home at the time? Did anyone hear the shot?”

“No one was home. Tim and Dennis had things after school and they came home late. I was at a girlfriend's house. But my mother heard the shot. She was getting out of her car, just home from her rosary group. She ran inside but the study was locked. She called 911, the way we were all taught to do in case of an emergency, but she didn't wait. She went outside and smashed the study window with the shovel that had been left out on the lawn the evening before. But of course it was too late to do anything.”

“How awful for her.”

“I should have told her. I should have told my mother.”

“What?”

“That he was so angry at Tim.”

“It can't have been the only time.”

“No. But…”

“He was angry often, wasn't he?”

“Yes, but it was just because he loved us and wanted…” Maggie stopped.

“Try to get some rest,” I said. “I'll call you in the morning.”

I sat in the ladies' room for a few more minutes, the phone still in my hand. What was his explanation for his poor burned hands, I wondered, that he'd been a cook perhaps and there'd been a grease fire? Is that where Parker got the notion to say he'd worked as a cook, from Francis? Or, if
he'd been with the circus, he might have said there'd been a tent fire, fast and furious, a match dropped in straw, that he'd gotten burned saving the sword swallower or the big cats. He might have been a hero in the story. Why not? What else did he have but his stories?

Francis Connor had come from a family of storytellers. The skill, the art of storytelling was his birthright. I bet they all told good stories, every last one of them. But the best ones, the most compelling ones might have been the ones Francis told, especially the ones he told himself.

The lobby was empty when I left the ladies' room and headed home. All the pieces fit now. In its own horrible way, it all made sense.

I thought of walking over to the precinct but went home instead. It would be easier to talk to Brody in the garden. I was ready, I was thinking as I unlocked the gate, to make what I'd told Irwin the truth. I had the answers I'd been looking for, even, I thought, why O'Fallon had chosen me for the job that no one wants. I was ready to put it down, to leave it to the cops. I sat on the top step, looking up at the cloudy, dark sky, and dialed Brody's cell phone. Listening to the phone ring, I wondered how I'd tell him what I knew. I wondered where to begin.

Where's your better half?” he asked, standing at the gate and looking down the tunnel toward the garden.

“He's with Maggie.”

Brody frowned.

“It's just until…I thought she might be in danger. That's what I wanted to talk to you about, about Parker's friend Andy and—”

“Andrew Chase. We know all about him,” he said. “Parker told us that it was Andy who got him out of the house the morning Tim died, that he'd gotten one of his buddies to pretend his name was Freddy, claim they'd met before.”

“But—”

“Parker couldn't possibly remember every guy he got drunk with, every piece of garbage he bull-shitted in the past six months.”

“Then you have him? You have Parker?”

Brody nodded.

“I just saw him,” I said, the things I had to say coming out backward, not the way I'd planned.

“Who? Parker?” Scowling.

“No. Andy. At the Hotel Riverview. That's why I called you.”

He didn't seem to be listening. He walked past me into the dark tunnel. I locked the gate and began to follow him, but he turned so suddenly, I nearly walked right into him.

“But that's not his real name.”

Brody frowned again.

“Andrew Chase.” I stopped. A chase, I thought. His life's work. Waiting for his aunt to die, then coming after Tim.

“Not now, Rachel,” Brody said, his voice hoarse, a man who hadn't slept in too long a time. “We know all about Andy. We're taking care of everything.”

I wanted to tell him that Tim hadn't committed suicide, that Parker hadn't killed anyone. “You don't understand,” I wanted to say. But I didn't. I didn't say another word. I thought he probably did understand, that that was why his eyes looked so old and sad, that that was why he was reaching out, putting his hands on my shoulders, why he was pulling me toward him, because it was all over now, because everything was okay.

I could feel my shirt clinging to me, the evening so warm, barely a breeze anywhere. It was even hotter in the tunnel, all closed-in the way it was, no air moving at all, Brody standing so close I could feel his breath on my skin.

So I didn't say that when I'd waited across the street from the Hotel Riverview to see who had registered there as Freddy Baker that I'd seen Francis Connor, that I'd seen his hands, that finally everything made sense. I didn't say that Tim
was the point of it all, that Elizabeth was killed to set up Parker and that poor Dennis was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that Francis had seen that flash of recognition in his eyes, and that that's why he was dead now, too.

Brody slid his hands down my arms, taking my hands in his, stepping even closer.

They were taking care of it, he'd said. Maybe they'd been at the hotel when I was there, waiting outside or following him out, not wanting to arrest him in the middle of the theater crowd. Is that what Michael was trying to tell me, that they had him already? Surely there was nothing I could tell them they didn't already know. Or, if there was some small detail I knew that they didn't, well then, it could wait. It had waited for twenty-nine years, it could wait another few hours.

I pushed my face into Brody's neck, breathing in the smell of his skin. When I looked up into his face, he bent to kiss me. We stood together in the tunnel a long time, holding on to each other with everything we had. Then we went inside and up the stairs. He removed the .357 magnum from his holster, emptied the cylinder into his hand, placed the unloaded gun and the bullets on top of the dresser. Without a word, we stood in the dark undressing ourselves and each other, inhabiting a world apart from the one that had obsessed us both for so long.

For over a year, I had been sharing my bed with my dog and only with my dog, feeling wounded and unready to risk getting hurt again. Now desire changed all that. I reached for Brody and pulled him close, wanting nothing other than to
lose myself completely in this man and this moment. We made love again and again, holding on to each other as if for dear life. When Brody finally fell asleep, I couldn't. My hand on his chest rising and falling with the rhythm of his breathing, my breathing in harmony with his, I felt as I did when I lay close to Dashiell—that we were separate, but we were one.

I might have dozed off. I didn't hear the downstairs door open. I heard it close.

I sat up, the sheet coming with me. Brody sighed, rolled over, taking the sheet as he did, now covered from head to toe.

Another step. Another sound, the old boards groaning under the weight of a man. He was on the wooden steps now, coming slowly, trying hard not to make noise.

I rolled off the bed, stood, grabbed Brody's gun and the bullets, crouching as low as I could at the side of the bed away from the door. There was another sound, in the hall this time. I grabbed the pillow, loaded the gun, folding the pillow around the gun to muffle the sound of the cylinder snapping into place, my breathing sounding as loud as a respirator in the quiet, dark room.

He appeared in the doorway, standing still for a moment. Then he raised both arms, one hand cupping the gun, the other ready to pull the trigger, pointing it toward the bed, toward the figure covered by the sheet. There was no time to think, to weigh options. There were no options. I pointed Brody's gun at the intruder's chest and fired, the gun flying up, the concussion feeling like an explosion in my face, the sound seeming
to crush everything else out of the small room, even the air. And then there was silence. I saw Francis Connor crumple to the floor. I saw Brody leap up. I saw his lips moving, but I couldn't hear what he was saying.

Brody came around the bed, took the gun from my hand and wiped it on the sheet. Then he held the gun straight out in front of him and fired once into the frame of the door.

He pulled me up. I saw his lips moving again.

“Wash your hands,” he was saying, “and put on a robe.” He reached for the phone, balling up the sheet he'd used to wipe the gun as he did.

Brody stayed after all the others had left, Francis carried out in a body bag, his mission over at last. We sat in the garden, on the front steps, neither of us speaking. Brody was deep in thought, not sharing what he was thinking, not a man who wasted words. He hadn't wasted words when the cops arrived, either—uniforms, detectives, the whole damn station house squeezed into my little bedroom or standing in the hallway, an explosion of blood and bone on the wall behind them.

He'd heard a noise, he'd told them. He'd rolled out of bed, grabbed and loaded his gun. When Francis had appeared in the doorway, when he'd lifted his gun and pointed it at the sleeping figure in the bed—that would be me in this story—Brody had fired twice, missing him once, firing again and hitting him fatally in the chest.

“It doesn't seem right, Dashiell not here,” he said after a while.

“No, it doesn't.”

“He would have heard Francis when he broke the lock on your gate.”

“He would have.”

“He would have barked,” he said. “We would have had some warning.”

“Correct.”

“Without him…” He stopped and looked at me. “If not for you…”

I waved a hand at him, telling him to stop.

He took the hand in both of his. “You saved my life.”

“Guys always say that after sex,” I said. I got up and stretched my back.

“Tell me something,” he said, standing too.

“What?”

“Tell me about Tim in the group where you met him. Tell me every detail, everything he said.”

“There isn't much to tell,” I said, describing what had happened, and, more important, what hadn't happened, repeating what Tim had said to me that last day.

The sky had started to lighten. It was time to go get Dashiell. Brody told me I could use his car. He said he'd take care of the lock on the gate, that it would be replaced by the time I got back, and that he'd get someone in to take care of the upstairs.

“Michael, when this first happened, did it make any kind of sense to you? Did you think of Tim as the kind of man who would…”

He shook his head. “Nobody's that smart, Rachel. Nobody knows what's going on in someone else's head, in their heart.”

“He didn't talk to you about any of this?”

He shook his head, looking over toward the oak tree, the muscles in his cheeks jumping.

“But you knew about it?”

“Some of it. I knew he'd lost his kid brother.”

“But not how.”

“An accident.”

We walked out onto West Tenth Street. A uniform was standing outside the gate. Brody pointed to his car and handed me the keys.

“I'll call you when I'm on the way back,” I said.

When we got to the curb, I stopped and turned toward him.

“Michael, I did what I had to do,” I whispered. “I did what you would have done. There's no need to discuss it.”

“Are you okay?”

I shrugged. “I will be,” I said, “in time.”

He touched my arm, then headed across the street toward the station house. I stayed where I was for a moment, watching him go.