The Last Dead Girl (26 page)

He kept silent until we reached the edge of the parking lot. Then he said, “I owe you an apology.”

“What for?”

“If I'd known who you were, I could've warned you to take off. Saved us all some trouble. But I believed what you said, about your grandmother.”

“Sorry.”

He ambled along beside me. “My grandmothers are gone. Both of them.”

“One of mine is still around,” I said. “In her seventies. Not ready yet for a place like this.”

“It's kind of shitty then. Lying about her.”

He had a point.

“Yeah,” I said.

We reached my borrowed car. Karl lingered, rubbing a palm over his bare scalp.

“You need to go and stay gone,” he said. “Do I have to tell you?”

“I've been told.”

I got the keys out of my pocket and turned away from him to unlock the door. A mistake. Karl put a hand on my shoulder and pushed me against the car. Then he hit me fast, one time, off center in the small of the back below the rib cage. A kidney punch.

I've never been gored by a bull, but it can't be much different. My lungs emptied and my knees gave way. I slid down the side of the car. Ended up on my hands and knees on the ground. I thought I would throw up, waited for it to happen, drool trailing out of my open mouth. It didn't happen.

I raised my head and the movement made me dizzy. I sat on the ground. Saw Karl standing over me, shaking his right hand, flexing the fingers.

“That wasn't so bad,” he said. “I went easy on that one.”

He got a grip on my arm and tried to haul me up. I swatted at him. He bent his knees and lifted, tried to brace me against the car. The small of my back touched the side mirror and I groaned and almost went down again, but he held me up.

“You're okay,” he said. “Just breathe.”

I tried to push him away and stand on my own. Too soon. I would have fallen, but he didn't let me.

“Take it slow,” he said. “You'll be fine. I had to make sure you listened. There's being told, and then there's listening. You get that, right?”

I nodded once to let him know I got it. After a while he helped me into the car.

A
strange thing had begun to happen to K. He wasn't sure what it meant. He had started seeing Jolene in different spots around the city.

Not the real Jolene, of course, but copies, clones, Jolene
types
.

Blond, athletic, good legs—those were the basics. But it was more than a physical type. There were swarms of leggy blondes roaming the quads of Bellamy University, but they didn't remind K of Jolene. They lacked a certain quality. Some people would have called it damage; K thought of it as vulnerability.

A woman selling sunglasses at a kiosk at the mall, bored to death. A shy girl with a pockmarked face working the cash register at the place where K got his hair cut. A woman stranded on a roadside at night, anxious, waiting for a tow truck. K saw Jolene in all of them.

He saw her again, late Friday afternoon. A crumbling street in south Rome—definitely Jolene territory. A hardware store next to a liquor store next to a laundromat. K walked out of the hardware store and saw her in an empty lot across the street. A near-perfect match, down to the short skirt and the tight top. She was even holding a red Solo cup.

K stopped to watch her. She lit a cigarette and sat on a graffitied concrete wall. The wall separated the lot from a train yard. West of the lot stood an abandoned building that had once been a skating rink. All the entrances were boarded over.

As K watched, a tall, skinny kid with a patchy beard walked along the front of the skating rink. Ripped jeans, black T-shirt, late twenties. If he had been cleaner and more prosperous, you could have described him as bohemian.

He joined the girl in the lot—the near-Jolene. They sat together on the wall. He bummed a cigarette. K got the impression they knew each other, but not well. After a minute or two the skinny kid reached into his pocket. Something passed from his hand to the girl's. They got up from the wall and went off together, disappearing behind the skating rink.

Time to leave, K thought. The girl was a distraction. He didn't need distractions. He needed to stay in control. He knew that.

But he didn't leave. He walked into the liquor store, bought a cold six-pack of beer, made the clerk put it in a paper bag. He took it across the street and found a spot to sit on the concrete wall, a few yards down from the spot where he'd seen the girl. He twisted the cap from a beer and took a drink. Put the bag on the wall and hid the bottle behind the bag so no one would see it from the street.

Before long, near-Jolene and the skinny kid reappeared from behind the skating rink. The skinny kid went on his way—head down, fast clip—and near-Jolene walked to the wall. A tiny hitch in her step when she saw K, an unfriendly glance, and then she lit another cigarette. She still had her red Solo cup.

K drank his beer. He finished a bottle, pulled another from the bag. He checked in on near-Jolene now and then, but he didn't stare at her. He stared at the laundromat across the street or at the weeds growing through a crack in the pavement at his feet. He thought she might come over when she ran out of whatever she had in the red cup. He was right.

“Hey, Steve,” she said.

She stood before him, one bare leg in front of the other, putting herself on display. Medium smile. Teeth ever so slightly crooked.

He said, “How'd you know my name was Steve?”

“I didn't,” she said. “I like to guess. It's fun. You try me.”

He tilted his head, pretending he had to think about it.

“Jolene.”

“Jesus, Steve. It's like you're psychic.”

K reached into the bag and brought out another beer. Twisted the cap and started to pour it into her red Solo cup.

“I can drink from the bottle, Steve.”

He kept pouring.

“Or whatever,” she said.

He moved the bag off the wall and out of the way. She sat beside him.

“What are you up for, Steve?”

“It's hard to say.”

She flicked her used-up cigarette onto the pavement.

“You can tell me,” she said, toasting him with the cup. “We're buddies.”

“I want to spend some time with you.”

“You're reading my mind again, Steve.”

“Let's go somewhere.”

She nodded in the direction of the skating rink. “There's a place nearby we can go, if you want it quick. Or I know a hotel. If we go to the hotel, it's more. But you get more. Know what I mean?”

K felt himself frowning. “Maybe we could slow down.”

“Slow. Absolutely. We'll go as slow as you want.”

“I don't like the way you make it sound—like it's cheap.”

“Oh, it won't be cheap, Steve.”

“I want to talk first.”

“Absolutely,” she said, digging in her purse for a fresh cigarette. “We're talking now, aren't we?”

“I mean about real things. Important things. Like what you wanted to do, before you started doing this.”

She tapped the unlit cigarette against her thigh. “Oh god,” she said. “Are you one of those?”

“One of what?”

“Are you gonna try to rescue me? Save my soul?”

K laughed. “No, no.”

“'Cause that's not my thing.”

“It's not mine either, Jolene,” K said. “I just want to go for a drive.”

Her body language changed. She'd been leaning toward him, intimate, but now she leaned away. She lit her cigarette and dropped the lighter in her purse.

“I don't go for drives,” she said. “I don't get in anybody's car, unless it's a friend.”

“But you said we were friends, Jolene.”

“I said we were buddies.”

“I want to go for a drive,” K said. “And then get out and take a walk.”

“Sounds like we want different things.”

“It'll be nice. A walk along the water. What do you say?”

“I say I'll have to pass.”

She started to get up, but K took hold of her left wrist.

He felt her muscles tense. She glared at him. “That's not cool, Steve.”

“We're going for a drive.”

She tried to pull away. He knew he shouldn't try to stop her. Someone might see. He should get himself under control. But he felt his grip on her wrist tightening.

“You can finish your beer,” he heard himself say. “Then we'll go.”

“You're hurting me, Steve.”

“Don't try to fight me, Jolene. I have a gun. Finish your beer.”

Her beer was sitting on the wall. She didn't reach for it. She took a hit from her cigarette and let the smoke run out between her lips. In a soft voice she said, “My name's not Jolene.” Then she twisted around suddenly and jabbed the tip of the cigarette into the back of his hand.

A pure shock of pain and the sound of his own flesh sizzling. K jerked his hand away and his whole body jerked with it, throwing him off-balance. The girl followed through with a solid shove—the heel of her palm against his sternum—and the force of it sent him backward over the wall.

Dirt and weeds on the other side. K landed hard on his shoulder and rolled. Sprawled on his back for a moment—everything hurting, nothing broken—then scrambled to his knees. He stood up with the Makarov pistol in his hand, the one he'd taken from Simon Lanik. Not sure how it got there, because he'd been carrying it around on his ankle. He didn't have a holster; the gun had been stuffed in one of his socks and held in place with a couple of thick rubber bands. Now he had it out, his finger on the trigger.

You could call it good reflexes—except that he was facing the wrong way, his back to the wall. He whirled around, brought the gun up, found the girl. She was walking fast, not running, but she was already at the street. He aimed the pistol at her back.

Daylight. Witnesses. A woman loading laundry into her hatchback. Two young kids passing on bikes. The girl who wasn't Jolene yanked open the door of the laundromat and went inside. K came to his senses and moved his finger off the trigger. He sank down behind the wall. Returned the pistol to his sock.

Reckless, he thought.

After a few minutes he got up and looked around. There were people on the street, but none of them paid any attention to him. He climbed over the wall, picked up his bag of beer, and left the lot.

•   •   •

T
he water calmed him.

He had gone for a short drive, and then for a walk—just as he had planned, only without the girl. Now he squatted on the bank of the Mohawk River, not far from the neighborhood where he grew up. He listened to the water gurgling over a fallen tree; he watched a family of ducks floating downstream. He held his right hand under the water. The cold felt good.

•   •   •

T
he cigarette burn was a small red circle. K studied it on the drive home. In time, it would leave a scar, he thought.

He flexed his hand on the steering wheel, just so he could feel the pain again. The burn was a punishment for his recklessness. He would need to be more careful. He had been wrong to go after the girl in the lot. He had crossed a line. It was hubris. Like Icarus with his wax wings, flying too close to the sun. You shouldn't overreach. That was the lesson.

Or was it? There could be another way to look at it, K thought. The girl in the lot was a prostitute. She was nothing. So when he tried to take her, he wasn't overreaching. He wasn't aiming too high; he was aiming too low. Aiming too low was a waste. A sin. What if that was the real lesson?

The more K considered it, the more he thought he was onto something.

He would need to remember. He had the red mark on his hand to remind him.

Next time he would aim higher.

K made the turn onto his street. He saw one of his neighbors picking up her newspaper from the sidewalk. He saw his house in the distance. Saw someone sitting on the front steps. Saw the man rise to his feet, haltingly, as if he might be in pain.

David Malone.

For a split second, K forgot himself. He had an urge to hide his face, to keep driving. The urge passed. He eased on the brakes and parked at the curb. Cut the engine of Malone's pickup truck.

He took the bag with him—his beer—and crossed the street. He called out a greeting. He touched his own car as he walked past it. And traded keys with David Malone.

N
eil Pruett was a chatterbox.

He apologized for using my truck. He'd had some errands to run. He hoped it was okay. I told him it was.

He wanted to know about Moretti—if I'd been able to follow him, and where he had gone, and if I'd learned anything useful. I didn't feel like talking. There was a storm coming. The woman at Summerbrook Manor had warned me. The sky was still light, but I could see the clouds gathering. They looked unnatural, like clouds on an alien planet.

I still had that gored-by-a-bull feeling. It hurt to stand and it hurt to walk. I felt unsteady on my feet—and more than that: I felt like the world was an unsteady place. So those alien clouds made sense; they were the right clouds for the world I was living in.

I told Neil Pruett I was sick and we would have to talk another time. I left him standing on his lawn with his grocery bag and climbed into the truck and drove out of there. I drove slow, the way you would if you were traveling along the edge of a cliff.

Halfway home I felt nauseous. That's not true: I felt nauseous the whole trip, but it peaked when I was halfway home. I pulled into the lot of a fast-food joint and stood by the side of the truck with my hands on my knees and didn't throw up. Then I went inside, into the men's room, and bent over a sink and didn't throw up again. After a while I went into a stall and unzipped and peed for a very long time. It came out a vivid yellow, maybe too vivid, like the color of the sun on that alien planet. But not pink or red. Not bloody.

I got back on the road and the world seemed steadier. The ground stayed solid and no chasms opened underneath me. I reached Jana's apartment and pulled into the driveway. The wind blew through the leaves of the oak as I stumbled to the front door. The storm was coming. I turned my key in the lock and went in and found Napoleon Washburn sitting in my kitchen.

•   •   •

A
haze of cigarette smoke hovered in the air. I saw that Washburn had taken the clay bowl down from the mantel—the one that held Jana's quarter. He was using it as an ashtray. He sat with one elbow resting on the table, his long, lanky frame sprawled in his chair. He wore jeans and a gray fleece shirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His dark hair was unruly.

He had his feet up on a second chair. His work boots were worn and stained. I recognized them. I'd seen one of them up close.

“Come on in,” Poe Washburn said. “Shut the door. Sit down.”

He was mellower than I remembered—but the last time I'd seen him, his house had been on fire. I heard confidence in his voice, along with a trace of menace. He gestured at the chair across from him with the hand that held his cigarette.

I could have gotten angry, but I didn't have the energy. I sat.

“I'm glad you're here,” I said.

He drew on the cigarette, let out a plume of smoke. “I bet.”

“How'd you get in?”

“Back door. I broke the window and reached through.”

I looked back there and saw the remnants of the glass in the frame. I had to lean sideways in the chair to do it. The effort made the room sway a little. I felt sweat breaking out on my forehead.

“You didn't have to do that,” I said.

“Tell you the truth, I kinda wanted to.” He tapped ash into the clay bowl. “I came here thinking I would bust some things up, maybe kick your ass. I thought it would make me feel better. But now that I see you, I don't know. You look like you're barely holding it together. What happened to you?”

“I've had a rough day.”

“It shows.” He brought the cigarette up. Inhaled. Exhaled from the side of his mouth.

He said, “Do you have any money?”

“Why?”

“I could use some.”

I thought of all the bills from my wallet, torn in pieces, lost in the grass of Summerbrook Manor.

“I don't have any.”

“That's what I figured,” Poe Washburn said. “I was looking around before. You've got a thirteen-inch TV that might get me ten bucks at a flea market. You've got a computer, but it's not a laptop. It's a desktop and it's probably four or five years old—”

“Six.”

“—which means maybe I could donate it to the Salvation Army. They'd be happy to have it. No one else would. You've got a clock radio and an electric toothbrush. You've got jack shit. Some people keep a roll of cash in a coffee can or in a baggie in the freezer, but not you. How long have you been living here?”

“Not very long.”

“It's kind of a dump. You know that, don't you?”

I didn't answer him.

He shrugged. “I grew up living in dumps. So I'm not judging.” He tapped the cigarette out in the clay bowl. “I did find one good thing,” he said, “in your nightstand.” He reached below the table and pulled out Agnes Lanik's pistol. It had been resting on his lap, out of sight.

“It's got a foreign name,” he said. “Markov.”

“Makarov,” I told him.

He leveled it at me across the table. “I've never seen one like it.”

“Funny story about that gun—”

“Yeah?”

“I borrowed it from a woman I know, after I left that note at your house. I figured I should have it in case you came here with the wrong attitude.”

“That
is
funny.”

“You can put it away,” I said. “You don't need it. We're not enemies.”

“We sure as hell aren't friends.”

“I didn't set the fire at your house.”

“Somebody set it. I don't believe it was an accident.”

“Neither do I.”

Washburn brought his feet down off the chair, kept the gun trained on me.

“Doesn't matter,” he said. “Let me have your wallet.”

He didn't say I should reach for it slowly, but it was implied. I brought it out and pushed it across the table. Every little movement hurt.

He opened the wallet with his left hand and looked inside.

“You don't have any money.”

“I already told you.”

“You don't have
any
.”

“Funny story about that—”

“Save it,” Washburn said. He snapped the wallet shut and slammed it on the table, but it was too small a gesture. It didn't soothe him. He aimed the gun at the ceiling and I thought he might fire off a round. He rocked it back and forth instead. A bobblehead motion. Letting off steam.

“I don't want to hear stories,” he said. “I don't ask for much. Honestly, I don't. All I'm looking for is some traveling money.”

The words might have been for me or for the world at large. He delivered them with downcast eyes.

“Where are you headed?” I asked him.

He looked up sharply. “Away from here.”

“How much do you need?”

He scowled the way you might if a homeless person offered you a loan. But I could tell he was thinking about it. I watched the gun rocking back and forth.

“Five hundred,” he said.

“I have questions about Gary Pruett.”

“I know.”

“If you answer them I can give you five hundred.”

“So says the man with the empty wallet.”

“It won't be cash,” I said. “I'll write you a check.”

He sneered and shook his head. “I don't take checks.”

“I heard you used to steal bicycles.”

“So?”

“So what's harder, fencing a bike or cashing a check?”

“A check could bounce.”

“This one won't.”

“Or you could stop payment.”

“That won't happen either. You'll get the five hundred.”

The gun stopped moving. “Just for talking to you?” Poe Washburn said. “Because I'm not talking to anyone else, and I'll never testify to anything.”

“Just you and me.”

I watched him thinking and then I watched him open my wallet again and fish out my ATM card. He pointed the gun at me and said, “If you've got five hundred in your checking account, then I could take you to an ATM right now and make you withdraw it.”

“You could.”

“And I wouldn't have to answer any questions.”

“That's true.”

“So why don't we do it that way?”

I didn't relish the idea of going for a ride with him. Out there with the storm growing and the ground threatening to give way.

“We could,” I said, “if I were afraid of that gun.”

Washburn's eyes narrowed. “You're not afraid of guns?”

“Not that one.”

“I know it's loaded. I checked.”

“If it were a real Makarov I'd be worried,” I said. “But it's a cheap East German knockoff. It's been sitting in a drawer for thirty years. If you pull the trigger, maybe it'll fire. Or maybe nothing'll happen. Or maybe it'll blow up in your hand. If I were you, I wouldn't be too eager to find out.”

He turned the gun sideways, examined it, aimed it back at me. “You're bluffing,” he said. “If you don't think it'll fire, why did you keep it in your nightstand?”

“I wanted it around, for show. I'd never be crazy enough to use it.” I stared past the muzzle of the pistol and focused on Washburn's face. “Maybe you should think about why you're trying so hard to steal the money that I'm offering to give you voluntarily. I'm going to get up now and go to the desk and bring back my checkbook. You can keep that thing pointed at me if it makes you happy.”

I got up without waiting for him to respond. The floor stayed level. He didn't try to shoot me. I dug my checkbook out of a drawer and came back and wrote a check to Napoleon Washburn in the amount of five hundred dollars. I tore it out and started to pass it across the table to him, but at the last moment I held it back.

“The gun's not mine,” I said.

“So?”

“So you'll have to leave it. That's part of the deal.”

Washburn chuckled. “Do you think I'm dumb enough to hand you this gun?”

“You don't have to hand it to me. You just can't take it with you.”

We passed a moment in silence while he decided I wasn't trying to trick him. Then he aimed the gun toward the living room and popped the clip. He ejected the remaining round from the chamber and laid the gun on the table. For good measure he used his thumb to flick each bullet from the clip until they were scattered like marbles over the floor. He tossed the empty clip after them.

I gave him the check and he looked it over and slipped it in his pocket.

“Gary Pruett never confessed to me,” he said.

“I know,” I told him. “Frank Moretti convinced himself that Pruett was guilty. He had his reasons. I understand that. He wanted to make sure Pruett was convicted. But he needed help. I've wondered how he contacted you in jail. Did he talk to you in person?”

“He sent a message through a guard.”

“Okay. So he asked you to get a confession from Pruett. And you gave him what he wanted. He didn't want the truth, because in his mind he already knew the truth.”

Outside, the wind picked up. A branch of the oak scraped the front window. I continued: “I want to know about what happened after, when you made the decision to come clean and tell the real story—when you decided to contact Roger Tolliver and his Innocence Project. Why did you do that?”

Washburn was shaking his head. “I didn't. That's not what happened.”

“Sure it is. You called Tolliver, and Jana Fletcher was the one who answered the phone.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “You've got it wrong. I'm not the one who called. It was never my idea. Jana Fletcher called me.”