Killertrust (6 page)

It started snowing lightly on
the way back. Rhetta veered off Kingshighway into the drive-through at Rob’s
Roaster, one of her favorite delis. “It’s close to lunchtime. Let’s get a
sandwich and take it to the office.” She ordered a BLT on rye for herself.
Woody ordered two meatball sandwiches, and balanced the food sacks and two
large drinks on his lap as Rhetta navigated noon traffic. She remembered
LuEllen had brought her lunch, so she didn’t call her to ask about bringing
something. Being gluten intolerant, LuEllen usually ate salads. Rhetta wished
herself fat intolerant.

Two minutes later, she pulled
into the parking lot and found no empty spaces near the front door. She waved
at the full lot. “Crap. That DirecTV group in the basement is having a
marketing meeting again and nabbed all the spaces. Where will our customers
park? I think I should call and ask Jeff about this. They do this twice a week,
every week and hog the parking lot all day. They should park in the back, since
they’re employees.” She continued around to the rear of the building, and eased
into a narrow spot between a service van and the Dumpster. A hand lettered sign
taped on the van’s door read, Evan the Handyman. She fumbled a minute in her
purse, but came up empty handed. “Do you have your door keys?” she turned and
asked Woody, who was looking out the window at the van. “Mine are all the way
to the bottom of this freaking black hole of a purse.” The futile trip to the
airport had put Rhetta in a sour mood, so she decided now was a good time to
call and discuss the parking issue with Jeff Patterson, owner of the building.

Woody handed the food bags to
Rhetta, reached into his pocket, and produced his door keys.

“Well, well, Evan is in the
building,” Rhetta said, imitating the long-standing line, “Elvis has left the
building!”

“Pretty suspicious-looking
sign on his van,” Woody jerked a thumb toward Evan’s artwork. He didn’t seem
impressed with it. “It sorta matches his suspicious-looking ratty beard and
homeless persona.”

“I hope he at least knows how
to change a light bulb,” Rhetta muttered as she navigated the steps up to the
back door. She gripped the railing with one hand, while carrying her bag with
her sandwich in the other. The steps were slick from the newly fallen dusting
of snow, and she didn’t’ feel like taking a tumble. “I guess Jeff hired him to
be Tony’s assistant? Or is Tony no longer working here?”

“Tony’s still here. I see him
occasionally. He attends the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Peer Support Group
meetings at the VFW.”

“Why single out his beard?
His hair is a rat’s nest, too.”

“What?” Woody slid his keys
into the lock. “Whose beard?”

“Evan’s. You said his beard
was ratty, but his hair is a disaster too.”

“That beard is so thin, it
just doesn’t look right. He should shave it off.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be
clean shaven. Look at you, you have whiskers.”

Woody stroked his own chin
growth. “If my beard looked like his, I’d shave it off.” He slid his keys into the
lock.

Rhetta turned and pushed open
the door with her backside. “I’m glad you’re still going to the PTSD meetings.
Are they helping?”

Woody said, “It’s always slow
going. So many of the guys are in denial. And of course, funding for the
program is going to dry up before any of their problems are solved. Part of the
VA cutbacks.”

Rhetta swiveled toward Woody.
“That’s terrible. What can we do about it?”

Just then Lu Ellen called
out, “Is that you, Rhetta?”

Woody hadn’t answered her
question. Rhetta thought he probably figured the question was rhetorical
anyway.

“It’s just us, LuEllen,”
Rhetta called back as she clomped down the hall toward the front of the office.
Her fashionable brown leather boots tracked slush from her trek up the steps.
She hadn’t brought any indoor shoes to work. Woody, on the other hand, had slipped
his boots off and tucked his feet into a pair of loafers. He’d hung his coat up
on the rack next to two knitted hats that looked like sock monkeys. Rhetta
grinned. Woody loved sock monkey puppets. He even entertained the sick children
at the hospital with them. Rhetta wondered where he’d stashed his shoes, since
he’d found them long before he’d gotten to his office, or had even passed the
kitchen for that matter. He was always so prepared. She sighed.

“Where did you…?” She didn’t
finish her question about his shoes, since she had already arrived out front
and Woody had detoured into the restroom.

Evan was standing in front of
LuEllen’s desk. His shaggy grey ponytail hung down past his shoulders from
beneath a grubby black wool sock hat crammed down on his head. His grey beard
was the usual scraggly mess drooping past his collarbone.

Woody had told her that Jeff
allowed Evan to stay in the small apartment in the lower level that had once been
a storage area that she called the Dungeon. As she recalled, it didn’t have any
windows. Evan’s red plaid jacket barely buttoned over a bulging tummy. Strange
how older men like Evan gained weight all around their middle, while their legs
remained stick thin. His were no exception, their thinness made more prominent
by the loose-fitting faded blue jeans he wore. His work boots had tracked in
slush, and he stood in a small puddle in front of LuEllen’s desk.

Rhetta sauntered over and
stood in front of the desk. “Hi, Evan, how are you?”

“Good, ma’am,” he answered,
studying his feet.

“Can you help us out and
change the outside light? Woody said it’s burned out.”

“Yes,” was all he said.

Did
he mean, “yes” it was burned out, or “yes” he’d change it?
She shook her head as Evan shuffled away.

Rhetta turned to LuEllen.
“How long was he here before we got here?”

LuEllen reached for a roll of
paper towels in her desk drawer and circled her desk on her way to wiping up
the puddle of slush that Evan left behind. She tore off a handful of towels and
stooped to sop up the mess. “Just a few minutes. He said he thought you wanted
him for something.”

“I wanted him to fix the
outside light, but I don’t remember calling about it. Did I?” she added,
addressing the question to Woody, who had returned from his detour to the
bathroom. She didn’t remember calling either Jeff or Tony. And she had
certainly not called Evan. She didn’t think Evan actually had a phone.

Woody lifted his shoulders in
a shrug. “Don’t know. Didn’t hear you if you did.” He filed past her and sat at
his desk. He touched the mouse and his computer screen sprang to life.

“Hm. That’s strange. Oh,
well, just as long as he fixes it.” She swiveled to watch Evan as he limped
from the bowels of the building, paint-splattered metal stepstool in hand. He
set it carefully, then climbed on to it, and reached for the light. Rhetta
turned, set her purse down on her desk, then pulled out the chair. She sat
quickly and gazed at her monitor, checking her email. When she looked up a few
minutes later, Evan was gone.

“I’m glad Jeff gave him a
place to stay,” LuEllen said, dragging a large bag of trash past Rhetta’s desk
on her way to the back door. “He said Evan is a Vietnam vet who suffers from
PTSD, and who has trouble holding down a steady job. He’s such a tenderhearted
man.”

“Who, Evan?” Rhetta scooped
up her trash bag and trotted after LuEllen. Evan didn’t appear to be the
tenderhearted type. He always looked unhappy, or maybe angry. Anyhow, she
didn’t think
tenderhearted
when she was around him.

“No, I mean Jeff is
tenderhearted. Did you know he’s letting Evan stay in the apartment downstairs
in exchange for handyman help?” She made
tsk
-ing noises. “I hope he checked him out carefully. I
wonder if Evan has access to all of our offices.” LuEllen reached the back door
and pulled it open. “Here, let me have your trash, and I’ll go and toss it into
the Dumpster.” She reached for Rhetta’s sack. “Hold the door for me. I didn’t
bring my keys.”

Rhetta pushed open the door
and held it while her head spun with what LuEllen said about Evan having served
in ’Nam and suffering from PTSD. Woody didn’t know him. He must not go to the
support meetings. And did he truly have access to the offices? She needed to
call Jeff. She doubted if Philip Corini, the new tenant, an accountant who
recently moved to the area from Saint Louis, would like having Evan lurking
around and possibly entering offices after hours.

Thinking about Corini made
Rhetta shudder a little. She wasn’t sure whether she preferred Evan or Corini.
The accountant was slender, medium height, of indeterminate age, with a
comb-over the blue black color of a raven’s feathers. His eyes were
inscrutable, concealed as they always were behind oversized tinted glasses. She
had spoken to the man a few times, mostly exchanges about the weather when
she’d run into him as he retrieved his mail from the bank of mail boxes out
front. He always looked her up and down several times before answering her.
When she was within sniffing distance of him, she always detected a mixture of
sweat and cheap aftershave, a combination that made her queasy. Being anywhere
near him made gooseflesh explode on her arms, and her neck hairs stand at
attention and salute.  

“According to Jeff, Evan
doesn’t have keys to our offices,” Rhetta said, hanging up. “But I did remind
Jeff that our cable company friends are copping all the parking spots again
with those stupid meetings. I don’t know why Jeff rented the basement out to
those guys anyway. It’s too dingy down there for offices, anyway.”

For
heaven’s sake, Rhetta, they’re only here two days a week. As Momma used to say,
don’t get your panties in a knot.
She
regretted complaining to Jeff. She could almost hear Randolph chide her about
her impatience. She pulled open her middle desk drawer, again. The manila
folder was still there, taunting her.

Rhetta couldn’t shut her brain
down enough to fall asleep. Having tossed and turned after going to bed, she
finally turned on her bedside light and began a new mystery novel. After an
hour into the plot, and learning from the eerie green glow of the LED clock
that it was already well past midnight, she finally got drowsy enough to
attempt sleep for the second time. Just as she lay the novel down and was
reaching to turn out the light, the phone shrilled, making her heart pound and
adrenaline surge through her like white lightning through a mountain man.

She hated middle-of-the-night
phone calls. They never brought good news. Like the time her sick mother took a
bad turn and the detached voice at the hospital summoned her. Every late night
phone call brought that sickening memory streaming to the forefront, as though
it had only been a few weeks instead of many years. Her stomach clenched. She
groped on the nightstand for the phone to silence it before it woke Randolph,
but instead, she sent it crashing to the floor loudly enough to wake the dead.

She rolled over the side of
the bed and snatched it. Before she could speak, she heard a voice that she
instantly recognized. Except it warbled like it was traveling though through a
barrel of water. “Rhetta, I’m sorry if I woke you, but this is urgent.” More
warbling.

“Right now, sleeping is
what’s urgent to me.”
Damn, now what?
“I’m going to hang up. I don’t
want to talk to you!” The surge of anger instantly replaced the knot of fear.
She thought how good slamming the phone down in his ear would make her feel.

“That would be a big mistake,
Rhetta. Please don’t hang up.”

Randolph propped himself up
on his elbows as she untangled herself from the covers and stood. “Who is it?”
he mouthed.

“My father,” she mouthed
back. Randolph groaned and lay back against the pillows.

The warbling stopped,
replaced by a far-away sounding voice. “I’m using a satellite phone, so listen
carefully. I don’t have much time. You have to write this down. Do you have a
pen?” His voice remained stonily calm.

Groping for a moment since
she’d already removed her glasses, she finally located the pen and pad that she
kept on her nightstand. “Hold on, Buster, I need to know some things, first.
How can you be alive and bothering me when I have your death certificate?”

“I can’t answer your
questions right now. Just write down what I tell you. I’m taking a chance at
even calling you on your house phone.”

“What?” she said, unable to
conceal the agitation in her voice. “I have to write something down but you
won’t answer a question? I don’t think so.”

He ignored her protest and
continued, “I had a video for you, along with some paperwork, but it got stolen
from the airport locker, so now this is the only way for you to see the video.
It’s vital that you see it. I started a YouTube account. Here’s the login.” He
read off the information. “Read it back to me, please.”

“A YouTube account? Are you
freakin’ kidding me? You call me in the middle of the night to give me a
YouTube login? I’m going to hang up.” She fumbled for the off button on the
handheld, but couldn’t find it without her glasses.

“Be still, Rhetta. I’m not
playing games. Please read it back to me. I need to know you have this
information.”

His serious tone made her
change her mind about disconnecting. Instead, she grabbed the pen and scribbled
the information, in large characters, then read it back.

“Go to your computer right
now, and log in. I’m going to publish a video within the next five minutes, and
then two minutes later I’m going to take it down. I can’t risk anyone else
seeing it.”

“It’ll take a minute for my
computer to boot.” Her feet found her slippers automatically. She always left
them in the same place.

 
“That’s about how long it will take to upload this. Do
it now.” He ended the call.

“What’s going on?” Randolph
asked as he slipped into his own house shoes and followed her to her computer.

“It’s my father again. He
said he’s using a satellite phone, and gave me an account login for YouTube. He
instructed me to log in and see some video he’s posting.”

“A YouTube video? What on
earth?” Randolph padded up alongside her.

She powered her computer,
then found a pair of reading glasses by her keyboard. The computer quickly
chimed, signaling it was ready.

She opened a browser and
typed the information he’d given her. “Invalid login” appeared on the screen.
She closed the window and reopened it a moment later, and tried again. This
time a video window appeared and she clicked on “Play.” As it began to load,
she clicked “save” and stashed it onto her hard drive.

A grainy color video
flickered, revealing six men standing in a semi-circle, backs to whoever held the
camera. The video bounced unsteadily, then captured an image of a man’s arm
obviously adjusting the camera. There was no way to discern a location, other
than they were inside a dimly lit building. Light bounced from a single hanging
light bulb. The camera light stretched out weakly ahead of the subjects, barely
illuminating them.

“Frank, come over here,” a
gruff voice called out.

“Coming, hang on a sec.” The
man tossed the cigarette he was smoking to the floor and ground it out with his
boot.

She recognized that man’s
voice.

She watched as the back of
him joined the others. The film kept rolling. Frank had apparently set the
camera down. All she could see was mostly the backs of everyone’s heads and a
couple of profiles. The gruff voice began speaking. “We are all Garibaldi
Tontine,” he intoned. All the heads nodded once. “I am Laurent Delor,” he
continued. A second man spoke, “I am Marcel Grisando.” Following him, a man
announced he was Cooper Worthington, then William Beshnarik, Alejandro
Rodriguez, and George Erickson all identified themselves until finally, the
voice she recognized. “I’m Frank Caldwell.” Her stomach clenched at hearing the
name. Her father!

Laurent wordlessly handed
Frank a stainless steel cylinder roughly the size of a small vacuum bottle.
Each man placed his right hand on top of it, like a baseball team grasping the
top of a bat handle. They recited in unison, “We live and die together until
there is just one. We are called Garibaldi Tontine.” Then they turned and
displayed their bared right arms to the camera. Rhetta peered at the screen,
wanting a better look at the mark on their arms. The camera moved so shakily
she couldn’t identify the marks. The men stepped back, except for Laurent, who
turned toward Frank.

“Because you are the youngest
of us, I, the eldest, bestow this duty on you.” Laurent ceremoniously opened
the cylinder and placed a scroll inside, then carefully closed it back up again
and handed it to Frank. “You will be the keeper. Our secret name is Garibaldi
in honor of  Guillermo Garibaldi, our fallen platoon leader.” They all nodded
solemnly. Frank accepted the cylinder. The men stepped aside. Rhetta could see
well enough to read the date on the hand written banner tacked up behind them:
August 6, 1973.

Frank turned sideways. Rhetta
gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as she recognized a younger version of the
man she’d encountered recently. It was her father, she was sure of it. The
video faded out. Cold chills enveloped her. What about the man in the video who
called himself George? Could it possibly be the same George Erickson who was
killed by a hit and run? And the date on the banner—August 6, 1973—the same
date as her father’s death. And George Erickson’s too, according to the
newspaper article. Her hands shook. She needed to watch the video again. As she
clicked on it, a window opened. “The content of this video is no longer
available.” She swiveled around to stare up at her husband, who had watched it
over her shoulder.

“It’s gone. I wanted to watch
it again. He said he wasn’t going to leave it up.” She shook her head and
turned back to the blank screen. “What on earth does this mean? Who is
Garibaldi Tontine?” She sunk her head in her hands, and rubbed her temples. “Or
what is Garibaldi Tontine?”

Randolph massaged her
shoulders. She leaned back gratefully. “My clever wife downloaded it and saved
it, remember? Let’s watch it again. I think I may know what, if not who,
Garibaldi Tontine is. I also need to see what that mark is on their arms.”