Not Even Past (8 page)

“You have a silent alarm, over there. But the switch is still in the off position.”

“You’re not robbing me.”

“My friend beat the hell out of you.”

“I—um …”

“How about Leonard Baker?”

The cashier froze, just for a second. A slight hesitation before reaching for the silent alarm.

“Stop,” Martin said. He pulled out his wallet. Pulled a couple of bills and dropped them on the counter. “Clean yourself up.”

Donne looked at him. Martin put a hand under Donne’s arm and pulled. He got up. Martin tilted his head toward the door.

“Have a good day, sir,” Martin said.

They walked out into the daylight. As they walked to the car, Donne scanned for the two guys in suits. He didn’t see anyone. A kid ollied on a skateboard a block away. That was the only action on the street.

“He hesitated,” Donne said.

“I know.” Martin pressed the button on his keys and unlocked the car doors. “You probably shouldn’t have punched him.”

“He knows something.”

Martin nodded. Pulled open the driver’s side door. He got into the car. Donne walked around and got in on the passenger side.

Bill Martin didn’t start the car.

“Let’s take our time here,” he said. “See if anything interesting happens.”

He leaned back into his seat.

“You got him good,” Martin said. Then he laughed harder than Donne had heard him laugh in ten years.

M
ARTIN DRUMMED
the steering wheel in time with the Hollies’ “Carrie Anne.” They’d already tracked through “Bus Stop” and “Long Cool Woman.” Donne was ready to shoot himself. It was easier to focus on hating the music than the bruises that were starting to form on his knuckles.

When he opened and closed his hand, a dull pain radiated up into his wrist. Been a long time since he punched somebody, and his mind had been so clouded, he didn’t even take the time to do it right. He’d be lucky if he didn’t fracture anything.

The tapping slowed as Martin’s mix CD—yes, a CD—transition into “The Air That I Breathe.” Donne wondered what Martin would do if he just reached over and hit the AM button and flipped to sports talk.

“Chances are he didn’t call the cops,” Martin said. “They’d have been here by now.”

Donne looked out the passenger window, but couldn’t see the bodega. The kid with the skateboard had disappeared nearly ten minutes ago. The street was empty, save a couple of birds who landed, pecked away at something on the sidewalk, then took off into the air. He twisted his neck and looked down toward the bodega. Nothing going on there either.

“What are we waiting for?” Donne asked.

Martin blew out air out of his nose sharply. “What have you been doing the past two years?”

“Studying.” He wished he hadn’t said the word. The impending morning exam flashed in front of him, and he realized he was going to miss it. He pulled out his phone. No messages.

“We’re waiting for something to happen. Come on, kid. You’ve done this before.”

“Don’t call me kid.” Donne looked out the window.

“You would be dead,” Martin said. “They would have killed you.”

“You’re psychic now?”

“I remember that look. You always thought the risky option was the best.” Martin pulled out a pack of gum and offered it to Donne, who turned it down. Martin shrugged, then popped a piece in his mouth. He almost missed because of that tremor in his hand.

“We’d have more information.”

“Remember Levison Street?”

Donne closed his eyes and tried to pull up the memory. It wouldn’t come. He’d hoped it was just because too much time had passed, not because he’d been on that much coke and booze at the time.

“No,” he admitted.

“Three guys upstairs. At least we thought they were in that old apartment, counting their money, making their meth. We were waiting for them to come out when the bathroom window blew out, big flames, black smoke. Loud as hell.”

The memory didn’t come. Donne’s stomach twisted into a sailor’s knot.

“We thought—they had to be dead. Wait for the fire department to come, put it out. We’d go up and drag out a couple of crispy corpses. But not you. No, you thought it was a distraction, remember?”

Jesus.

Martin blew a bubble, popped it. “You thought they were gonna wait a few minutes, and then sneak out the back, while we were distracted by the sirens and flames. Wait a second.”

Martin turned his head and Donne followed, craning his neck. A dark Cadillac pulled up to the corner near the bodega. The black guy hopped out of the passenger seat and headed into the store. Donne should have gone with them. He opened and closed his right hand again and winced.

“This should be interesting,” Martin said. He put one hand on the key in the ignition.

The motor fired up.

“You don’t remember running into the fire by yourself?”

“Shut up, Bill. Let’s see what happens.”

“You caught them. By yourself. Spent the night in the hospital with smoke inhalation. Soot all over your face. But you got them.”

The owner of the bodega came out, covering his face with a red cloth. The black guy followed, but stopped to close and lock the door. Martin started the car.

“How fucked up were you back then? No wonder Jeanne left.”

Donne took a deep breath. “She came back,” he said.

“Yeah,” Martin said. “She did, right?”

The words seemed to be laced with something. Donne didn’t feel like playing this game. The knot in his stomach tightened.

Martin waited until the Cadillac was halfway down the block before pulling out into the street. If these guys were military, they’d make the tail quickly. Maybe they didn’t care.

But Donne couldn’t let those last words from Martin go. “What are you talking about? What happened with Jeanne?”

“You’ve always been paranoid too.”

“Stop screwing with me.”

“I have to concentrate. Let’s see where these guys are going.”

They were winding down toward the docks. Donne could smell the bay through the cracked windows. Bill Martin hated air-conditioning. Donne felt lightheaded and energized at the same time, as if he’d drank two cups of coffee and taken a sedative simultaneously.

The Cadillac acted like they didn’t know they were being followed. Martin said a few car lengths back, but it never felt like they were going to lose them. If these guys wanted Donne to go with them, having him follow them was an easy way to accomplish it.

Three minutes later, Martin stopped the car. The Cadillac kept cruising up to on old shipping warehouse. Behind it was the water. One way in, one way out.

“Looks like we’re both about to learn something new, kid.”

Martin turned off the car and got out. Before Donne could do the same, Martin was ten feet away and heading toward the warehouse.

K
ATE DELETED
the text message without hitting Send.

Outside the sun was starting to set, reflecting off the glass of the building across the street. The sun always made the apartment warmer in the late afternoon. She got up and turned on Donne’s air-conditioner and then found an unopened bottle of pinot in the fridge. She took it out, removed the cork, and poured herself a glass.

After taking half the glass in one sip, she topped herself off again. The cool liquid spread thread her body, and she felt her muscles ease. Playing the scene in her head again, she tried to place the voice on the other end of the intercom. Nothing registered.

Another sip of wine. She tried not to think about going into the office tomorrow; fighting through a hangover to catch up on the case she was working on.

Her phone rang. It was a number she didn’t recognize. She answered.

“Kate? Your father asked me to call.” It was a voice from a million TV commercials over the past year. Senator Henry Stern.

“I’m in trouble, senator.”

“Your father filled me in. Jeanne Baker’s been dead for years, Kate.” He took a breath. “This can’t be real.”

“So you haven’t heard anything? You two were close when you were at Rutgers.”

“She’s dead.”

“Jackson doesn’t seem to think so.”

“Why do you need me?”

The question rolled through her mind. “I didn’t know where else to turn. Jackson’s run off with someone.”

“Jeanne?”

She exhaled. “No. A man. They were on to something. They must have been looking for her.”

“Who, then?”

She finished the second glass of pinot. The alcohol was rushing through her veins now, a good buzz going on. Sitting back, Kate closed her eyes and ran through her memories as if they were a Rolodex, trying to figure out who was in the picture. It had to be someone Jackson knew, maybe someone he’d introduced to to at a party?

Jackson had said a name before he rushed out. Bill. Kate got up and went and poured the rest of the bottle of wine into her glass. Then she went into Jackson’s office, cell phone at her ear. The room was a cluttered mess: old textbooks strewn across the floor, paperbacks dumped on the table, and four old shoe boxes pushed off in the corner.

“She said his name was Bill.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

It was the shoeboxes she was looking for. Jackson kept them out in the open, but never went through them. She asked him about them once, and he just shrugged. Old pictures, he said. Time to throw them out. When she asked if she could look through them, he just shrugged and asked if they could do it another night.

They were of his old life. Mementos of his dead fiancée that he never talked about. Times he tried not to remember.

Hell, he always said he
couldn’t
remember a lot of them.

She didn’t bother him about it again. But now she wanted to find a picture of him in his old uniform. See if there were pictures of this Bill person. Maybe if she could see what he looked like, it would jar an old memory loose.

“Is there anything else, Kate?”

“If you hear anything, please help.”

“I’ll look into it.” He paused. Then, “Listen, Kate. Do you love him?”

“Of course.”

“I’ve been divorced. Twice.”

She knew. Everyone knew. Anyone who ran against him brought that up.

“And here’s what I’ve learned.” His voice was soft, like a kind uncle. “Find him. Don’t let him go. Call him. Text him. Facebook him. Talk to him. Hold on to him as well as you can.”

Her eyes burned. “Goodbye,” she said.

She pulled the first box and started scanning through the pictures. It felt funny looking at developed film. She’d become so adjusted to seeing pictures on Facebook or a phone. The real thing felt odd; smooth, but sticky at the same time.

The first few pictures were of Jackson at a bar, eyes slightly closed, crooked smile, toasting the camera or pretending to throw a dart. They were silly, drunken nights of his early twenties.

Kate flipped through them quickly, not allowing herself the smile she would have if he’d been sitting next to her. Arm around her, pulling her close. She would smell his aftershave and tell him how cute he was in those pictures, and then give him a kiss on the cheek.

The next picture was what stopped her short. Jackson was still in the bar. It must have been the Old Towne Tavern—where else could it have been? Must have been early in the night too. His eyes were clear and the smile was wide. He had his arm around another woman. The woman from the website.

Kate’s heart was slamming against her rib cage, and the buzz had gone from her system. She picked up the wineglass and took another slug. Then she flipped the picture over. It was dated nearly eight years ago. Beneath that it said “Jackson and Jeanne” with a smiley face drawn next to it.

She wondered if Jackson would do the same with a picture of the two of them. Her phone suddenly vibrated, and she snatched it up. It was a message from her father.

Does Jackson have an iPhone?