Window of Guilt (9 page)

Susie edged over to her dressing room mirror, where she attempted to remove the black ponytail holder without pulling her hair out along with it. A smaller version of herself, replete in POMs uniform and ponytail holder, plopped onto her bed. “Hey!”

“Hey to you, too.”

“How was POMs camp?” her younger sister asked.

“Really fun. We learned two new routines.”

Carly sat cross-legged on her bedspread and nibbled her toenails. “I got to stay at Molly’s house all week.”

“Dad close up the office before he and Mom left to volunteer in New Orleans?”

“Uh, uh. Doc Wiley took care of all the sick dogs and cats. When you and Todd become veterinarians, Dad will have it easy.”

“That’s a long way off. Todd’s still got four years of grad school and I’m just starting SIU. Maybe someday you’ll join us, too. The whole Gray family! Wouldn’t that be sweet?”

The younger girl’s face clouded. “What if Todd dies first?”

Susie spun around at her little sister’s words. “Where’d that come from?”

Her sister stared back at her, a serious expression on her face. “I heard Mom and Dad fighting about how they’re going to pay for Todd’s heart transplant.”

“He’s going to have the surgery, don’t you worry.”

“How do you know for sure?”

“Promised not to tell.” Susie logged on to the computer and pulled up her e-mail. “That’s weird. Nothing from Todd.”

“I tried calling him after Mom and Dad left,” said Carly. “Maybe his cell phone’s broken.”

“Yeah, right,” said Susie. She grabbed her iPod from the computer desk. “Wanna see my new POM’s routine?”

“Yes!” laughed her little sister.

“What he says he doesn’t mean,

And what he means

He doesn’t say.”

Jewish Saying

12

How long has your brother gone missing?” Officer Gomez asked, holding the phone receiver between her shoulder and ear as she dove into her top desk drawer for a legal pad.

“A couple of weeks,” a tearful voice responded.

“Why aren’t your parents making this phone call?”

Suzie Gray sniffled into the phone. “They’ve been down in New Orleans, operating the Pit Bull Rescue and delivering dog and cat food to residents. My brother should have been down there with them, but he was doing something even more important.”

“What’s that?”

“Talking to the health insurance adjuster who turned him down last year.”

“Medical problem?” asked Gomez.

“Todd had a heart defect ever since he was a kid. Tired fast. Couldn’t play sports in school. Always in and out of the hospital.”

“Can’t be good for him to be traipsing all over the universe.”

Susie laughed. “My parents don’t overprotect him. He comes and goes as he pleases.”

“The victim’s face has been plastered all over the Internet and TV.”

“When my parents get involved in their work, they tune out the rest of the world.”

“Your brother make contact with any friends, family, or neighbors?”

“I contacted everybody on his Instant Messenger Service but came up empty-handed. Nobody’s heard from him since the third week of August.”

“Why’d you wait so long to contact the police?”

“’Cause it’s normal for him to disappear for a couple of days at a time.”

“It’s very possible the young man in question is not your brother.”

A storm of tears clouded the phone connection. “TG’s going to work in our family’s veterinarian clinic when he finishes grad school.”

“Perhaps your brother joined your parents in New Orleans, after all.”

“Todd e-mails me twice a week. He would have mentioned he was going and asked me to come along.”

“You’re welcome to come up here to view the body, but from what you say, odds are your brother voluntarily tripped out of sight for awhile,” said Carmen.

The young woman’s words came fast and hard. “Todd went to see the health insurance adjuster to convince him to reconsider a heart transplant. The insurance company refused to cover it.”

“Why would the insurance company deny coverage for a heart transplant?”

“The first surgery, including the hospital bill, cost like a million dollars. Todd developed complications and needed to stay in the hospital for several days. The insurance company told my parents there’s a million-dollar cap on Todd’s policy.”

Carmen spoke in a reassuring voice. “First thing you need to do is hop a Greyhound bus up to Milwaukee. Let me know when you arrive and I’ll meet you at the station.”

“Thanks for your help, officer.”

“By the way, your brother ever take the Greyhound?”

“Nope. Todd’s got a red pickup truck. He treats that thing like a baby. Doesn’t even let me drive it.”

“Where’s the truck now?”

“Like I said, he was supposed to be in Chicago. Can you run his license plate number?”

“If you can’t make a positive ID, all else is moot.”

“What if the pickup truck is missing?”

“One thing at a time.” Officer Gomez replaced the receiver. It was going to be a long day.

*

Ryan stood in the darkened kitchen of his Lincoln Park home, swatting at Rocky as the dog inched towards the remainder of his son’s Dairy Queen vanilla milkshake. “After you peed in the car on the way home from Wisconsin? I don’t think so.”

Tomorrow he’d bring Rocky to the vet and find out what the hell was wrong with the dog’s bladder. They’d only been home for three hours and already the house was beginning to smell like a dirty urinal. Reaching into his pants pocket, Ryan scattered a handful of dog biscuits several feet from the dog. The little dog raced across the ceramic tiles, his rabies tag clanging through the silence. Ryan paid no attention. His focus was elsewhere.

Ryan assumed that once his family returned home to Chicago, Todd Gray’s death would resemble a cavity whose decay had been drilled out and replaced by a new porcelain crown, all sparkling and white. Yet he was consumed by the nagging certainty that his moral fiber had been drilled away along with the decay.

Moral chaos swirled inside him. As a recovering heart attack patient, he didn’t need this stress. The worst part was that he’d brought this misery upon himself. Ninety-nine percent of the population would have called the police upon finding a dead body on their property. Why did he have to belong to the one percent who chose an alternate path?

Initially, Ryan had planned on depositing the wheelbarrow’s contents farther down the block, but when he’d discovered the drapes drawn across the picture window of his nemesis, he’d felt giddy with pleasure. If anyone deserved to have a dead body dumped on her driveway, it was Helga Beckermann. Each morning, the Nazi stared out at him as he made his way down to the beach. Her disapproving frowns and grimaces were enough to make even the most stoic man develop hardening of the arteries.

When it came to making bad choices, Ryan was no virgin. He could enumerate them, one by one: quit company, harbor secrets from wife, download Department of Insurance fraud form, then fail to fill it out, neglect to notify police about dead body on property, and transport dead body to neighbor’s driveway. He’d even torn up the Greyhound ticket receipt he’d found mashed in the young man’s pocket. And he’d tossed the empty canteen in a Chicago dumpster when he and Laurie had returned home from summer vacation.
You’re a real prince
,
he castigated himself with such fury that Rocky cocked his leg on the kitchen cabinet.

“No!” Ryan hissed, not wanting to awaken his family. The dog scooted into the dining room, his tail between his legs. Ryan dabbed a wet paper towel with dishwater detergent and commenced to wipe down the offending site. Although he’d done his best to shield his family, it was just a matter of time before the veil would be lifted and his wife would see him for who he really was. A piece of shit.

Ryan suddenly felt his heart pounding, his breathing getting shallow. A whimpering Rocky edged towards him. Roughly pushing his dog away, he glanced at the neon framed kitchen dock.
I am not going under again.
But dread was already clawing its way into his innards, shutting the faucet of reason. One o’clock a.m. His breath was coming short and fast now. Sweat poured from his body like a tsunami.

Phone nine-one-one.
Sinister memories of being attached to an intravenous unit and strapped to a gurney while ambulance sirens blared him into oblivion. No way was he entering Round Two.

His ribs pinched his chest like a walnut chopper. Panic infiltrated each breath. Who to call? He wasn’t planting a land mine at the exit of his dad’s sweet dreams. He racked his brain. No buddies from grammar school dotted his path to manhood. No fraternity brothers he’d kept in touch with after the fuzz of alcohol had lost its appeal. No business colleagues whose friendship he’d secured with Cubs games tickets and barbecues.

Ryan’s chest was aching like a battlefield gone asunder. He fumbled around in his robe pocket for a nitroglycerin tablet. Shit. He’d left it upstairs in the bedroom!

Rocky was whimpering now, his paws on Ryan’s knees. Ryan inched forward to comfort the dog but pain whispered sweet nothings in his ear as it encased his chest in a cement corset. “Laurie!” Ryan called into the void. Their bedroom was down the hall and up twelve stairs. No way could she hear him.

Fear cloaked his consciousness like undersized jockey shorts. Only one person to call. Ryan dialed his number. The seconds stretched like Silly Putty as he waited for someone to pick up. For three weeks, he’d ridiculed his wife when she insisted she’d found a young man lying on their lawn. He’d ridiculed her when she claimed to have discovered a folded napkin upon which was scrawled both their home and summer addresses. A napkin he’d not detected. What would she say when she learned of his duplicity?

“Yeah?” mumbled a drowsy voice.

“Hey, man, it’s one o’clock in the morning. See you at the fitness center in the morning.”

“Don’t hang up. Can’t breathe.”

The voice sounded more alert now. “Take your nitro?”

“Can’t get to it.”

“Wife there with you?”

“Upstairs asleep. I’m alone in kitchen.”

“You call the paramedics?”

Panic stroked the contours of Ryan’s body. “Help me.”

The voice was more forceful now. “Hang on. I’m calling nine-one-one. In the meantime, use one of the calming visualizations we practiced.”

Ryan pictured himself and Laurie walking along the beach, cool breeze in their hair, sun beating down upon their tan shoulders. That image ceded to reality where fiery words over money problems volleyed for serve.

“You still there, dude?” the voice asked, concerned.

“Uh huh.”

“Full body breathing. Lie down on the floor or couch,” the voice commanded.

“Gonna pass out.”

“The ambulance will be there in a few minutes. Lie down, man.”

Ryan positioned himself between the kitchen table and the refrigerator. Better to die than burden his wife. Laurie, so upright and true. Laurie, to whom honor and saving face meant everything.

“You lying down, Ryan?”

“Uh huh.” Too late to confide in Laurie his work was a sham.

“Good. Close your eyes now. Breathe in from your toes all the way up through your legs, pelvis, stomach, and chest.”

Ryan breathed in but panic engulfed his efforts.

“Still there, man?”

“Not working,” he gasped. Too late to tell her what he’d done to keep her and Rory safe.

“Hang in there, dude,” the voice consoled him. “The paramedics will be there soon.”

A high-pitched tone rang through his dizziness. Too late to tell her she was all the friends he needed. “Can’t make it to the door,” he mumbled into the phone.

Suddenly, Laurie and the paramedics were running towards him. His wife’s frightened glance sent a sharp pain through his heart. “I’m all right,” he protested weakly. A whiff of orange essence was the last thing he remembered before losing consciousness.

13

The trees were decked out in their fall costume of reds, oranges, and yellows. Unusual for early September. A brisk rustling of trees accompanied squeals of laughter as little feet pumped their swings skyward. Laurie breathed in the palpable energy that zipped its way through the playground as a handful of fearless girls and boys navigated the nine-foot climbing wall.

“Faster, Mom, faster,” Rory yelled, as his black tire swirled like a Tilt-A-Whirl.

“You go any faster, you’ll zoom off into the universe,” Laurie joked, giving the tire swing a hefty push.

“We should have brought Rocky,” Rory giddily shouted.

“Rocky would pee up a storm,” his mother laughed. Once home from Wisconsin, Ryan had planned to bring their pooch to the vet. That plan had morphed into an emergency room visit. “We’ll take him for a nice long walk along the lake tonight.”

“Dad too?”

Laurie’s face fell. “Probably not.”

“Pizza always makes me feel better.”