“Listen, I just wanted you to know I’m leaving. Bob wants me to go back to Florida and handle this PTL thing.”
“Oh.”
“It will probably be a few days.”
The message light on my phone came on. Bledsoe, I thought, and silently cursed the timing of his call.
“Okay, Rachel.”
“We’ll have to get together somewhere afterward. I was thinking of taking a vacation.”
“I thought you just did.”
I remembered the notation on the calendar I had seen on her desk in Quantico. It struck me for the first time that was when she must have gone to Phoenix to stalk and kill Orsulak.
“I haven’t had a real vacation in a long time. I was thinking about Italy maybe. Venice.”
I didn’t challenge her on the lie. I remained silent and she lost her patience. My acting wasn’t working.
“Jack, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I hesitated and then said, “There is one thing that’s been kind of bothering me, Rachel.”
“Tell it to me.”
“The other night, our first night together, I called your room after you left. I just wanted to say good night, you know, and tell you how much I enjoyed what we did. And there was no answer. I even went to your door and knocked. No answer. Then the next morning you said you had seen Thorson in the hall. And I don’t know, I guess I’ve been thinking about that.”
“Thinking what, Jack?”
“I don’t know, just thinking. I was wondering where you were when I called and when I knocked.”
She was silent for a moment and when she finally spoke her anger crackled through the phone like a fire.
“Jack, you know what you sound like? A jealous high school boy. Like the boy on the bleachers you told me about. Yes, I saw Thorson in the hall and yes, I’ll even admit that he thought I was looking for him, that I wanted him. But that’s as far as it went. I can’t explain why I didn’t get your call, okay? Maybe you called the wrong room and maybe it was when I was taking a shower and thinking about how nice the night had been, too. And maybe I shouldn’t have to defend myself or explain myself to you. If you can’t deal with your petty jealousies then find a different woman and get a different life.”
“Rachel, look I’m sorry, okay? You asked me what was wrong and I told you.”
“You must have taken too many of those pills the doctor gave you. My advice is that you sleep it off, Jack. I have a plane to catch.”
She hung up.
“Good-bye,” I said into the silence.
48
The sun was going down and the sky was the color of ripe pumpkin with slashes of phosphorescent pink. It was beautiful and even the clutter of billboards up and down the strip looked beautiful to me. I was back out on the balcony, trying to think, trying to figure things out, waiting for Bledsoe to call back. He was the one who had left the message while I talked to Rachel. His message said he was out of the office but would call back.
I looked at the Marlboro Man, his crinkled eyes and stoic chin unchanged by time. He’d always been one of my heroes, an icon, no matter that he was always as shallow as a magazine page or a billboard sign. I remembered being at the dinner table, my position every night always to my father’s right. Him always smoking and the ashtray always to the right of his plate. Me learning to smoke by virtue of that. He looked like the Marlboro Man to me, my father. Back then, at least.
Back in the room, I called home and my mother answered. She went into histrionics asking whether I was all right and gently scolded me for not calling sooner. Finally, after I had calmed her and assured her that I was okay, I asked her to put my father on the line. We had not spoken since the funeral—if we had even spoken then.
“Dad?”
“Son. You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. You okay?”
“Oh, sure. We were just worried about you, that’s all.”
“Well, don’t. Everything’s fine.”
“It’s a crazy thing, isn’t it?”
“You mean about Gladden? Yeah.”
“Riley’s here with us. She’s going to spend a few days.”
“That’s good, Dad.”
“Do you want to talk to her?”
“No, I wanted to talk to you.”
That silenced him, maybe made him nervous.
“You in Los Angeles?”
He said it with a hard G.
“Yeah, at least a day or two more. I just. . . I called because I wanted—I’ve been thinking about things and I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what, Son?”
“Anything, everything. Sarah, Sean, you name it.” I laughed the way you laugh when something isn’t funny, when it’s uncomfortable. “I’m sorry for everything.”
“Jack, you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, you don’t have to say you’re sorry for anything.”
“Yes, I do. I do.”
“Well. . . we’re sorry, too, then. I’m sorry.”
I let a little bit of silence underline that.
“Thanks, Dad. I’m gonna go. Tell Mom I said good-bye and tell Riley I said hello.”
“I will. Why don’t you come down here when you get back? Spend a couple days, too.”
“I will.”
I hung up. Marlboro Man, I thought. I looked out the open balcony door and saw his eyes peeking over the railing, watching me. My hand was hurting again. So was my head. I knew too much and didn’t want to. I took another pill.
At five-thirty Bledsoe finally called. The news he had was not good. It was the final piece, the final tearing of the veil of hope I’d held on to. As I listened to him it felt like the blood was draining from my heart. I was alone again. And what was worse was that the one I had desired had not simply rejected me. She had used and betrayed me in a way I would’ve thought no woman could do.
“This is what I got, buddy,” Bledsoe said. “Hang on to your hat, is all I can say.”
“Give it to me.”
“Rachel Walling. Her father was Harvey Walling. I didn’t know him. When he was in dicks, I was still in patrol. I talked to one of the old guys from dicks and he said your guy was called Harvey Wallbanger. You know, after the drink. He was sort of an odd duck, loner type.”
“What about his death?”
“I’m getting to that. I had a buddy pull the old file out of archives. Happened nineteen years ago. Funny I don’t remember it. I guess I was working with my head down. Anyway, I met my pal over at the Fells Point Tavern. He brought the file. And, first off, this was definitely her old man. Her name’s in there. She was the one who found him. He’d shot himself. Temple shot. It went suicide but there were some problems.”
“What?”
“Well, no note for one thing. And for another, he’d worn gloves. It was in the winter, yes, but he did it inside. First thing in the morning. The investigator wrote down in the reports that he didn’t like that part of it.”
“Was there gunshot residue on one of the gloves?”