Fallen Idols (37 page)

They ate outside on the deck. To go with the fresh juice and coffee, Emma made sourdough French toast, topped with caramelized bananas and berries.

“If I stayed here a week I'd put on ten pounds,” Clancy told Emma, as he forked up a mouthful of toast.

“We don't generally eat like this,” she said. “We wanted to spoil you.”

“You're doing a great job.”

Callie rummaged around in her purse. “I'll be right back,” she declared. She jumped up and ran inside.

Walt put his paper down and turned to Clancy. “How are your brothers doing? I know Will's fine, but what about Tom? For real?”

“He's okay,” Clancy said, pouring milk into his coffee and stirring it “He needed a break.”

Walt looked worried. “Is he going back?”

“I don't know. I don't think he knows.”

Walt shook his head sadly. “All that time and talent wasted. It's criminal.”

Emma leaned toward him. “It's his life, Walt. You can't live it for him.”

“Smile!”

Everyone turned instinctively toward Callie, who was looking through the viewfinder of a throwaway camera. She clicked the button, and the flash went off.

“That was a good one of the three of you,” she said happily. “Walt, move closer to Emma. Let me get one of the two of you.”

“No, please,” Emma protested. “I don't like the way I look this morning. I don't have any makeup on, my hair's a mess …”

“You always look great,” Callie told her, laughing.”Like you just stepped out of a magazine ad. I wish I could look as good as you, first thing in the morning or anytime.”

“No, really,” Emma said, trying to get away from Walt, who had draped an arm over her shoulder. “I need to refresh the coffeepot.”

“And … good!” The flash went off again. “That was a nice one. I'll send you copies after I develop them.”

Emma stood up. “Why don't you leave it here? I'll do it, and send you the pictures. Sometimes when you take a camera on an airplane the negatives get ruined, especially now that they've turned up the X-ray machines.”

“I've never had any problems,” Callie reassured her.

“Okay,” Emma conceded. She held her hand out. “Let me take one of the three of you.”

“Great.” Callie reached toward Emma to hand the camera over, then pulled her arm back. “Except this one's finished,” she said, as she looked at the counter. She dropped the camera into her purse, pulled out another. “This has a full roll.” She handed it to Emma as she I walked over to Clancy and Walt and knelt down between them. “How's this?”

“Perfect.” Emma put her eye to the viewer. “Smile into the camera, everyone.”

Walt helped Clancy carry their bags out to the rental car. “Bye, dad,” Clancy said. He gave his father a hug. “Sorry we couldn't stay longer.”

“Next time.” Walt hugged him back fiercely. “All of you. Will, Tom, Callie. Your baby. A family reunion. We're overdue.”

“Way overdue,” Clancy agreed. How sad this is, he thought, this deception.

Walt looked back to the house. The two women were still inside. “What we talked about yesterday,” he asked. “Emma and me. Did you mention anything to Callie?”

“No, dad,” Clancy answered. “I assumed you wanted that to be between you and me.”

Walt nodded. “Let's keep it that way, okay? Until Emma and I are ready to go public.”

“You'll tell me when.”

They leaned against the side of the car. “Life,” Walt said heavily. “It's too damned complicated, isn't it?”

“If you make it,” Clancy replied. “Me, I try to make it simple, direct, and honest.”

Walt nodded. “That's good advice, my son,” he said sagely. He looked back at the house again. “It isn't always possible, unfortunately.”

“Yes,” Clancy replied, unable to look him in the eye. “I know.”

C
HICAGO

T
om, wearing polypropylene long Johns under his sweats and a Michigan Wolverines watch cap pulled down around his ears to ward off the below-freezing late-autumn cold, went for a long morning run along Lake Shore Drive. Then he showered, shaved, dressed, made himself a late-breakfast omelet, read the Tribune and Sun-Times cover to cover, and did a load of laundry. By then it was one, and he went to an early-bird movie, a Denzel Washington cop film. When he got out, the sun was already beginning to arc down into the west, casting an industrial-feeling pink-orange glow across the rooftops and watertowers. He browsed a bookstore for a short time, but didn't buy anything—he already had enough unread books lying about the floor of his bedroom. In the end, he grabbed a coffee near DePaul University, checked out the coeds, and walked back to the apartment. It was almost four o'clock. He had managed to get through another day.

That was the problem. Except when he was working at the bar, he had nothing to do. For a few weeks, when he'd first started there, he had fallen into his old undergraduate routine—sleep late, start the day slowly, then work (it used to be study) late and stay up later. The nights he wasn't working he'd have dinner with Will, Clancy, and Callie, but that was only a few days a week. Mostly, he was on his own. The only friends he'd made were people who worked at the bar, or came in regularly. But meeting people at the bar, in his position behind it, rather than on the customer's side, didn't promote anything deeper than surface acquaintanceship. He had resisted asking Rhonda the barmaid out, because of Clancy's no-fraternization rule, but rules were made to be broken, and he wasn't a normal employee, he was family. Tending bar wasn't going to be his life's work, he wasn't going to be there much longer. Nor was she, once she got her teaching certificate. They could have lunch together, go to a movie, have an afternoon lay. They were both adults, they could be discreet. Clancy wouldn't have to know.

Of course, she might turn him down. Or she might have a boyfriend.

He thought yet again, as he watched the late-afternoon news on CNN, about Emma Rawlings. Clancy and Callie had walked Will and him through what they had learned in Los Angeles—most important, Callie having placed Emma at their mother's funeral. That had been an incredible revelation. The overriding question that needed to be answered now, as soon as possible, was how Walt and this woman had met, and under what unsavory circumstances, which would cause her to lie about herself as thoroughly and deeply as she had. They also needed to find out if their father knew she was lying: was he complicitous with her, or was he being duped, too? Given the evidence, they had to assume the former, but they hoped it was the latter. Either way, they had to know. And then, of course, they had to find out who she really was.

The first thing they did was to check over the list of the volunteers who had accompanied Walt and Jocelyn to Central America, but they'd drawn a blank. They weren't surprised to discover that there was no Emma Rawlings on that trip. Earlier this morning Callie had developed the pictures she'd taken of Emma, and overnighted a set of prints to the L.A. detective. Hopefully something would come of that.

Tom's stomach had knotted into a fist as he had listened to Callie talk about Emma. This woman was dangerous, probably a criminal, but he had a raging emotional hard-on for her anyway. That was going to be a sonofabitch to deal with, especially if, or more likely, when, he and she got together again. Before that, though, he was going to have to come to grips with how she played him for a sucker, charming him, seducing him.

He was going stir-crazy, and the old fifth-wheel feeling was creeping back in. The TV news was depressing. He clicked it off. He needed to do something.

The accordion file containing the list of the volunteers from the trip to La Chimenea was tucked away in the bottom drawer in the desk in his room. Maybe there was a kernel of information they had overlooked, something peculiar in a résumé. It wouldn't hurt to check it over again. He still had a couple of hours to kill before he had to go to work.

He started down the list, working alphabetically. The first two names he called weren't in; he left a brief message on their services. The third picked up.

“Kurt Campbell?” Tom asked, reading from the list.

“Yes?” came the tentative reply.

“I'm not a telemarketer,” Tom said quickly, before the man could hang up on him. “My name is Tom Gaines. My father is Professor Walter Gaines.”

“I see,” came the slow reply.

“Do you have a second? I have a couple of quick questions.”

There was a pause.

“Only a few questions,” Tom reiterated. “It won't take any time at all. I know it's dinnertime, but just give me a minute or two, can you?”

“Okay,” came the grudging reply.

“Great, thanks. I appreciate it.” Tom plunged in. “You were present when my mother was killed, weren't you?”

“Yeah, I was there.” The voice sounded younger, more college-age. “I'm really sorry, man. That was such a stupid, tragic accident,” he added with the anger of memory. “She was a super woman, your mother.”

“Thank you.” Tom hesitated before pressing on. “Thinking back on that, and I know it might be fuzzy, it was over a year ago, and the circumstances were terrible, was there anything you noticed, or saw, or heard during that time that seemed … well … unusual to you?”

“Unusual like what?” came the muted question.

“I don't know, frankly. Anything strange involving my parents, or one of my parents and a volunteer, or someone connected with the government. Have you been on other digs?”

“Uh huh. I worked in Belize the year before that one. The summer before,” the student said, more specifically.

“And this one wasn't any different?” Tom asked.

“It was better. More complete. Your dad was the best teacher in the field I've ever had. He really made ancient civilizations come to life. It was like the ancient Maya were living with us. It's a shame what happened to him, afterward,” the student commiserated. “He didn't do anything wrong.”

It's great that you feel that way, Tom thought. “One last question,” he said.

“Shoot.”

“Do you remember all the people on the trip?”

There was silence for a moment. “I don't know,” the student answered.

“If I asked you a name, you'd know if they were on the trip or not.”

“Yeah,” the student replied. “For sure.”

“Emma Rawlings,” Tom said. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

“No,” came the immediate reply.

“There was no one named Emma Rawlings in the group.”

“Nope, there wasn't.”

“Okay, then,” Tom said, deflated. “Thanks for your time.”

“No problem,” the student replied. “How's your dad doing these days?”

Tom thought for a moment before answering. “He's doing remarkably well, under the circumstances,” he decided to say.

“That's great to hear. Is he teaching anywhere?”

“Not currently.”

“Well, I hope he does again,” the student said with enthusiasm. “He's the best I've ever had. Almost anybody who ever had him would tell you the same thing.”

“Thank you,” Tom said sincerely. “I'm glad you feel that way.”

He hung up. Nothing there, except that his father was a saint.

He continued calling: two nonanswers, two volunteers who repeated what the first one had told Tom. Nothing unusual happened until the incidents of the last day, there weren't any problems they saw or knew about, it had been a great summer of work. What happened to Jocelyn Gaines had been a terrible and shocking accident, but nothing more than that. Nothing sinister.

He glanced at his watch as he hung up from his last call. He needed to get rolling, change into his working clothes and head out. A couple more calls, and that would be that. He dialed a telephone number in Vermont.

“Hello?” a woman answered.

“Is this …” He glanced at the volunteer list. “… Bridget O'Malley?”

“Yes? Who is this?” came the reply, in a strong New England accent.

“My name is Tom Gaines, Ms. O'Malley. I'm the son of Walt and Jocelyn Gaines.”

There was silence from the other end.

“Ms. O'Malley?” he said into the receiver.

“I'm here. What do you want?” The voice was cold, distant.

“I'd like to ask you a few questions about the summer work you did with my dad and mom. The summer my mother was killed,” he said, almost wincing as he said the word “killed.”

“I can't help you,” came the terse reply.

“Look, Ms. O'Malley,” Tom said wearily. “I realize it was a traumatic experience for everyone. But no one suffered more than my father did, and my brothers and me. He lost his wife. We lost our mother. So please—just answer a few questions for me. I promise it won't take any time at all.”

“That's not what I mean,” the woman replied.

“How so?” Tom asked.

“I can't help you, because I wasn't there.”

“You weren't? But …” He glanced down at the list. There was her name, her telephone number, her school information, passport information.

“No,” she said. He could hear anger from the other end of the line. “I was dropped.”

“Dropped?” he repeated, a beat behind her.

“Yes, dropped,” she said emphatically. “I was all set to go. I had everything in order. I had already turned down two other summer fellowships for it, and then with a week to go, they dropped me.” The woman was still livid and carrying a chip on her shoulder about it, a year and a half later.

“How did that happen?” he asked. “Did my dad call you?”

“He sent me a goddamned e-mail. He said they had overbooked, that the government down there wouldn't let as many students in as he had planned. So I was dumped.”

“I'm sorry,” Tom said.

“No kidding. I blew my entire summer,” the woman ranted, “it was too late for me to get anything else going. I wound up waitressing in Provincetown, which was the pits, in case you've never been there. I had great credentials, it was wrong of him to do that, so close to when we were leaving.”

“I'm sorry,” Tom said again, taken aback at the vehemence of the woman's wrath. “I'm sure my dad explained it to you the best he could.”

“He didn't explain anything. All I got was this damn e-mail, and that was it. Not even a phone call.” She paused. “I heard about what happened to your mother. I'm sorry about that. But I can't help you.”