Damage (20 page)

"If what you're saying is true, then Billy lied to me about Jake," Ray said. He held up his hands in confusion. "Why would he do that? If Jake didn't kill Wallace, then who did?"

"There are several possibilities," Pritchard said. "Try thinking it through. Start with the people most closely associated to Evan Wallace."

Ray stared blankly ahead at the road before them, trying to get his brain to work.
 

"Think it through," Pritchard prompted. "Who is Wallace related to?"

"His wife, of course," Ray started. "And Avery Lowson is his father-in-law."

"Do you know much about Avery Lowson?" Pritchard asked.

"Just that he's richer than me," Ray said. "And that he stepped down as chairman of the county commissioners short after I came to work at the Citizen-Gazette. He used to own a few quarries in the area, I think, and rumor has it he's pretty much a hard-nose bastard."

"Avery Lowson owns one quarter of all the land in Tramway County," Pritchard said. "And hard-nosed bastard is putting it lightly. Back in the late seventies and early eighties, he had a man that worked for him whose job it was to keep all the other employees toeing the line. There were some questionable happenings that never were properly followed up on because of Lowson's political connections.
 
After that, he must have decided it would be helpful to have friends in law enforcement. Can you guess what became of his chief enforcer?"

"Not Redmond?" Ray guessed.

Pritchard nodded.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Ray asked. "And why bother springing me from the Sheriff's Department? You work for Redmond."

"Things are not always as they seem, Raymond," Pritchard said. "I sprung you because I know how the sheriff works. You'd be heading to the hospital right now to share a room with Mrs. Wallace if I hadn't stepped in, but don't go thinking of me as your guardian angel. The only reason your in this car with me right now is because I needed to know what Redmond wanted from you."

"So, now you know," Ray said. "What do we do now?"

"We don't do anything. Something you said a minute got me thinking it would be a good idea to check on Mrs. Wallace to make sure her security is being taken seriously."

Ray thought back through their conversation. "All I said was that Billy's been to see her once or twice. Why would that concern you?"

Pritchard didn't respond. Several minutes later, he pulled the car into the visitor parking lot at the hospital.

Wednesday, Part V

Pritchard slowed as they approached the information desk, but Ray scooted around him and made for the green elevators. Ray was already in the car and pressing the fifth floor button when the detective caught up to him.

"I take it you know where we're going?"

"Fifty-two-oh-three," Ray said. "Unless they've moved her to a new room."

The car stopped almost as soon as it had begun moving. The doors opened on the third floor to reveal a woman with greasy blonde hair in a hospital gown gripping a rolling intravenous pole in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other. She shuffled into the car and pressed the button for the lobby level several times. Each time she pressed it, the light lit while she held the button and went off the second she removed her finger.

"We're going up," Ray said impatiently. "You can't go down until we're done going up." He reached around her to press the door-close button. The woman grunted.

Pritchard burst out of the elevator once the doors opened wide enough to allow him through. With Ray tight on his heels, they almost collided with Officer Hussey, who spun in a graceful circle to clear a path for them and avoid spilling the contents of his cafeteria tray.

"What the hell, man! Slow it down!"

"Sorry, Jason!" Ray said as he ducked out of the way of the swinging tray. Hussey came to a stop and the three men stood facing each other. Ray informed Pritchard that Officer Hussey was one of the men standing guard over Mrs. Wallace.

"Has anyone been to visit Mrs. Wallace today?" the detective asked.

Hussey was about to answer when he suddenly focused intently on Pritchard. He screwed up his face and tilted his head. "I know you."

"He's a detective with the sheriff's department," Ray said hurriedly. "Detective Pritchard. Daniel Pritchard. He ran for sheriff last year against Redmond."

"Oh, yeah," Hussey said, his face relaxing. "I almost voted for you."

Pritchard glared at him, which seemed to please Hussey.

"Okay, enough with your cutesy, country, folksy bullshit," Ray barked. "Has she had any visitors?"

"Only Billy. You just missed him," Hussey said. "I told you last night, you two really ought to time your visits better."

"What was he doing here?" Pritchard said.

The sound of Pritchard's voice distracted Hussey for a second. "Just sitting with her..."

"Praying at her bedside again?" Ray asked.

"I gave the man his privacy."

"Who is watching Mrs. Wallace right now?" Pritchard stepped uncomfortably close to the officer.

"Billy said he'd keep an eye on her so I could go get a bite," he said. "It is almost dinner time, after all."

Hussey and Ray followed as Pritchard scurried out of the waiting room and headed off to room 5203. A heavy set nurse with short dark hair called after them as they passed. Hussey dropped his tray on the station desk and told her not to worry, then hurried after Ray and Pritchard who were just entering the room.

The blinds had been pulled closed over the window that looked out onto the parking lot. Slivers of golden light penetrated through tiny gaps between the vertical slats. A single fluorescent bulb on the wall above the bed cast a harsh light over the patient. Correen Wallace lay still, one eye swollen shut, the other closed. Ray watched her chest until he could tell it was rising and falling ever so slightly. Ray and Pritchard stood on either side of her. Hussey remained near the door. The nurse appeared in the doorway.

"What is going on in here?" she hissed.

Pritchard responded in a hushed, yet urgent, tone. "Where is the man who was in this room a few moments ago?"

"The big guy?" the nurse asked. "I thought he was still here."

Pritchard cursed and headed for the hallway, dialing a number on his cell phone as he went. Ray checked the bathroom, but didn't find anyone. He decided to follow Pritchard out and search the hallway. He left Hussey in the room with the nurse, who continued fussing about the disturbance. To his right was the nurse's station with rooms and the elevators beyond it. To his left, the hallway continued another twenty feet and dead-ended at a window. Near the window was an entrance to a stairwell. Ray pushed open the stairwell door and poked his head through. He saw and heard nothing. Stepping all the way out onto the landing, he looked over the railing. Quiet as a church, he thought.

When he turned to leave, a figure that had been hiding in the shadows behind the door stepped quickly toward him. Ray jerked back from fright. The big man grabbed him before he could react and spun him around. One thick forearm forced Ray's head forward as the other reached around and pressed up into his neck. The force was intense. It felt like his collar bone was ready to snap under the pressure. Ray flailed his arms uselessly. He couldn't break Billy's grip. Panic overwhelmed him as he struggled to breath. The lightbulb on the wall ahead of him began to blur and grow dim, and then everything went black.

Wednesday, Part VI

Someone far away was calling to him and pulling him closer. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant feeling, at first, yet it was accompanied by a dull aching in his temples. The throbbing in his head rapidly became more intense. He realized the voice wasn't part of a dream. Someone actually was calling to him. It just seemed to be coming from far away.

As he came to, Ray found himself lying on the floor in an empty hospital room that appeared to be under renovation. Paint buckets and dirty tarps were stacked to his left near the window. To his right was a ladder and lengths of two-by-four. With his head lifted for a quick look around, he saw Billy sitting in a folding chair near his feet looking down at him. It took Ray a minute or two to recall enough bits and pieces of what had just happened to know he should be angry. He dropped his head back and rubbed his temples.

"What the hell?" Ray groaned.

"Sorry, cuz," Billy said. "How's your head?"

"It fucking hurts."

"What are you doing here, Ray?"

Ray clumsily pulled himself up to a sitting position. The sharp pain in his ribs made it a difficult procedure. "I should be asking you the same thing. I showed up here with Pritchard. He freaked out when Hussey told him you were here."

"I like Pritchard," Billy said. "He's honest. What'd he say about me?"

"About you?" Ray was trying to shake off the effects of having been choked to the point of passing out. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes to try driving back the pressure. "What should he tell me about you, other than the fact that you're an asshole?"

Billy stood and walked over to the window. Squinting into the late afternoon sun flooding through the window, he rubbed his face and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

"I'm sorry I got you sucked into this mess," he said. "I honestly thought I was doing you a favor. Get you a hot story. Get you in good with your boss. You always say nothing big ever happens around here."

"What are you talking about?" Ray asked.
 

"The Wallaces," Billy said, as if it explained everything.

"I don't understand," Ray said. "We went out there because somebody complained about the noise from the car stereo."

Billy turned to face him. He opened his mouth. No words came out. His shoulders dropped and he lowered his eyes. "It was supposed to look like that. The neighbors even called in the complaint like I'd hoped they would, otherwise I would've had to have done it myself."

It was as though Billy had suddenly started speaking in French, but there were no subtitles. Ray wondered if his brain was working correctly, because he simply could not follow the thread of what Billy was telling him. Why would Billy have to call in to complain about loud noise coming from the car in the Wallace's barn?

"You're not making any sense," Ray scolded.

Billy looked him in the eye. With a grim expression on his face, he said: "Ray, I killed Evan Wallace."

Ray heard the words. He understood them. His brain and body went numb.

"I shot him through the heart with one of his own hunting rifles," Billy continued. He spoke in a soft, understated tone that betrayed no hint of remorse. Ray stared at him, wide-eyed and incredulous. "His wife got a running start on me. I chased her up to that attic room and she jumped out the window, straight through the glass and everything, to get away from me. Damnedest thing I ever saw. I never bothered to check if she was dead. I mean, who would've thought anybody could survive something like that?"

"What about Jake?" Ray asked. "He was at their house. You found his knife. The neighbors saw his car."
 

"Jake should have stayed away from my wife," Billy growled. "I drove his car out there, and him in it with me. I left him passed out at that fancy house after I put the rifle in his hand and fired off another shot to make sure he had powder on him."

"And the broken glass?"

Billy shrugged.

"Why would you want to kill the Wallaces, Billy?" Ray whispered.

"Orders," Billy matter-of-factly answered. "Redmond told me where and he told me when. I knew better than to ask why. If I had to guess, I'd say either he or his daughter figured out some way to get their hands on old Avery Lowson's money. They went ballistic when Wallace started developing the land around St. Thomas to build that country club. They were scared he might blow through everything before they had a chance to grab any of it for themselves. All that's just guesswork, of course. They might've wanted it done for no other reason than they wanted it done."

"So what went wrong?" Ray asked.

"That's a stupid question," Billy said. "Mrs. Wallace didn't die. That's what went wrong. And then Jake went MIA. Instead of a dead couple with a passed-out crackhead in their house, I ended up with one dead, one clinging to life who could identify me if she ever came to, and a missing fall guy. I think it's pretty fair to say I was panicked."

"So," Ray started, getting to his feet. "What happens now?"

"I can't undo what I've done," Billy said. "I've got to face a reckoning for my deeds in the next life, but I'm not the only one who needs to be reckoned with."

"What do mean?" Ray said.

"I mean Redmond and his daughter," Billy said. "You can take me out of the picture, but you still have them to deal with. You think that woman downstairs would still be breathing if I hadn't been camping out here watching over her? The sheriff sent Greevey down here a couple times already, but I made sure he never got the chance to be alone with her. And then there's old Avery. What do you think they'll do to him once all this dies down? If they've said it once, they've said it a hundred times, he ain't dying fast enough for their liking. They're the ones at the heart of all this. It won't be over until they're properly reckoned with."

Ray needed a moment to balance what he was hearing from Billy's mouth with what he had just learned his cousin had done. It should have been easy to rally in support of bringing justice to a corrupt and violent man like Redmond, yet the man in the room with him was someone he'd never met before. He was a stranger who looked and sounded familiar. By his own words, he was guilty of murdering an innocent man and attempting to murder his wife. He also had framed one of their best friends from childhood to take the blame for it all, simply because he suspected Jake of having an affair with Amy.

"What's your idea of a proper reckoning?" Ray asked. "More violence? We have a legal system. You could probably provide a world of evidence against them, probably enough to put Redmond away for the rest of his life."

Billy turned to the window again and shook his head. "Some problems require a more direct approach. If I've learned nothing else during my years working for that man, he's taught me that. Anyway, it's time to stop talking and get moving. There's work to be done."