Five Minutes Alone (40 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

I phone my wife, but there’s no answer. She must be out somewhere with her parents. I think about leaving a message, but what is there to say?
Sorry, Babe, but you somehow showed Schroder where Quentin James is and now I’m going to jail?
The morning is still relatively young when I get to Schroder’s house. It’s ten thirty, but it feels like afternoon already. It feels like the longest day of my life.

You know what you have to do, don’t you?

Yes. I know what I have to do. I have to give up. It’s over now.

“Theo,” Schroder says when he opens the door.

I hold up the bottle of whiskey. “Got some ice?” I ask him.

He looks me hard in the eye, looks at the whiskey, then back at me. His face softens. He sighs. “It’s over, huh?”

“It is.”

I follow him through to the kitchen. He grabs a couple of glasses and tosses a good helping of ice into each one, and an even healthier helping of whiskey on top. We sit at his kitchen table.

“How long do we have?”

“Not long. Thirty minutes maybe. Maybe not even that. Could be a little bit more.”

“You told them?”

I shake my head. “No. If I told them I wouldn’t be here.”

“Then what?”

“Benson Barlow was in yesterday. He’s convinced us we’re looking for a cop.”

“Did you try to convince them otherwise?”

“No, because your test with the cell phone came back to bite
you in the ass. One of the officers saw it before I took it. So they know it’s been taken. So they know it’s a cop or somebody who’s helping a cop.”

“There are a lot of cops,” he says. “You just have to make sure that—”

“It’s too late to make sure of anything,” I say, and I pick up my glass and I swirl it around, the amber liquid inside is like gold, it’s heaven, and I take a sip and it’s strong, so strong, and so, so good. “Maybe, maybe I could have done things different yesterday, but that was yesterday.”

“And today?”

I take a bigger sip. Why did I ever give up? “And today there’s a sketch of you,” I tell him.

“There was a sketch of me yesterday too. I’ve seen it,” he says. “It looks nothing like me.”

“It’s a new sketch from a new witness and it’s being drawn right now.”

“There are no witnesses,” he says.

“Did you get the law-enforcement discount at Tim’s Tires or didn’t you tell Tom you used to be a cop?”

He takes a sip then winces as he swallows. I take another sip, and another, and it’s good, damn good, and there’s a rush here. The warmth is hitting my mind and expanding, and hello whiskey my old friend, thanks for dropping by. I take another sip, only they aren’t sips anymore. I can feel myself smiling.

“He saw you, Carl. Jesus, he got a good look at you and this,” I say, and I lean forward and tap his scar, “this may be invisible to a fifteen-year-old girl, but to Tom the Tim Tire Man or whatever the hell his name is, well, he’s telling the sketch artist right now all about it.”

“That’s . . . unfortunate,” he says.

“Ha. Yes,
unfortunate.
How
unfortunate
I killed people and how
unfortunate
I’m going to go to jail for it. Did you wear gloves when you took those wheels off your car, Carl?”

“No.”

“That’s what I figured,” I say. “They lifted some prints off it. They’re running them now. And they’re going to come up with your name. And even then it wouldn’t matter. They’re running a list of Honda Accords against cops or retired cops. Your name is coming up no matter what.”

“You were supposed to stop that kind of thing from happening.”

I almost choke on the whiskey then. “Are you serious? Are you going to really sit there and blame me for how this is turning out? Top me up,” I say, and slide my glass towards him. He picks the bottle up and gives me a refill. “You killed an innocent man.”

“What, Ron McDonald? Come on, Theo, we both know that’s—”

“Bullshit?” I ask. “No, what’s bullshit is you saying this is bullshit. McDonald was innocent. We messed up, Carl, and we corrected that mistake last night. We’ve arrested Christopher Watkins for it.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“He worked for Ron.”

“The guy with the rattail?”

“That’s him. He was having an affair with Hailey McDonald. We caught him last night trying to dispose of the murder weapon.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Ron was innocent all along.”

He still doesn’t say anything.

“You screwed up, Carl.”

“Shit,” he says.

“That pretty much sums it up. It’s case closed, Carl.”

Schroder finishes off his glass, tops it back up, then tops mine up too. I can’t stop asking myself why I ever gave up drinking. Right now I can’t think of a good reason ever to have given it up. It tastes too damn good and makes me feel too damn good and damn, damn, damn . . . it makes everything look quite okay, and if there’s whiskey in jail then jail won’t be too bad at all.

“So now what?” he asks.

“What do you mean
So now what
?”

“I mean what’s the plan?”

I shake my head. “You don’t get it, do you? There is no plan. The plan is we’re fucked. There is no plan, but to stay here and have a few drinks and wait for the police to come and arrest you. That’s the plan. Then maybe we’ll be cellmates, huh?”

“That’s not much of a plan,” Schroder says.

I look left and right and notice my vision lags by a split second. I’m getting drunk. “That’s why I said there isn’t a plan.”

He pours the rest of the bottle into our glasses. That’s the thing about hip-flask bottles—they don’t hold anywhere near enough.

“Is there a liquor store nearby? We need more. We still have . . .” I say as I look at my watch, “the best part of twenty minutes.”

“You’re drunk,” he says.

“No. Not drunk. Just resigned to the fact that because of you I’m not going to see my child grow up. That because of you innocent men have died.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Yeah, I’m sorry too, you know? I get what you were trying to do, and yeah, you know what? Of course I took care of Quentin James. I shot that son of a bitch in the head. He took away my daughter. He took her away and now, and now you’re taking away my other daughter.” I realize I’m starting to cry. What in the hell is wrong with me?

“You were right,” he says, “about me losing control.”

“For a man so full of principle, for a man who really believes he’s doing the right thing, I don’t understand why you’re here and not at Naomi McDonald’s house right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well that’s the irony, isn’t it?” I lean back in the chair, and for a second it feels like the chair has no back and I’m going to keep tipping, all the way to the ground. God I’m tired all of a sudden.
“She’ll want her five minutes with the man that killed her husband—her completely innocent husband. That’s what you believe, right? That everybody wants their five minutes?”

“That’s what I believe.”

“If you were a man of his word you’d be offering the same deal you offered the others. And you know what? I’d like to be there. I’d like to see exactly what karma looks like.”

I take another drink. Schroder has both hands flat on the table, the glass between them, and he’s staring at me. Hard. The room is starting to spin. I tilt the glass back and forth and watch the ice rattle. Cool, clear ice coated in cool, clear whiskey. I pop one of those cubes into my mouth and start sucking on it.

“You’re right,” he says.

“About what?” I ask, and I bite the ice cube and it cracks into a few pieces then starts dissolving pretty quickly.

“Then that’s the plan,” he says.

“What’s the plan?”

“We go and see Naomi McDonald. You get to see me being a man of my word.”

“Come on, Carl, I didn’t really mean you should go there. I was just trying to make a point.”

“It was a good point,” he says.

“Let’s just wait here for the police. It’s over.”

“It’ll be over in fifteen minutes,” he says.

“Because you have a plan.”

“Yeah I do, Theo.”

“So what, we drive there and you talk to McDonald’s widow and what? Ask her to shoot you?”

“Why not? I have a gun.”

“I’m not going with you.”

He looks confused. “You just said you’d love to be there.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean it. Just like I didn’t really mean you should go there.”

“Come on, Theo, you’re the one always saying the world is out
of balance. You’re the one who just said you wanted to know what karma looks like. Hell, I’m giving you that chance.”

“I’m not going with you. I’m going to go and find a liquor store.”

“I could threaten to shoot you.”

“Yeah? You could. But you wouldn’t.”

“Don’t be so sure, Theo. You’ve killed people too, remember. You’re the Second Chance King, but maybe not anymore, huh? You’ve done the same shit I’ve done, why should I be the only one with a death sentence.”

I point at him while rocking the glass side to side, the ice cubes getting smaller. “I’m not coming with you. And you know why? Because I can control myself, Carl.”

“I’ll tell you where Quentin James is.”

I stop moving the glass. I look up at him.

“I can tell you exactly where he is, and nobody ever has to know. I’ll keep your secret.”

I finish off the rest of my drink in one long swallow. “And then what? The police are going to figure out I was helping you. The fact I’m here now tells them that.”

“They may suspect it, but there’s nothing to prove it. What do they have? Phone records? Is that about it? Hutton gave you a valid reason for calling me.

I think about it. There’s still the problem of the shower curtain. If the police chase down that angle, they’ll discover I beat them to it by days. But that’s only if they chase the angle. . . .

“If I leave you here and the police show up in five minutes, you’ll tell them where I am, won’t you,” he says.

“Probably.”

“So come with me now. It’ll be just like old times, right? The two of us wrapping up a case together. And there’s something in that that feels right. There’s some symmetry there. Together until the end. Tell me you don’t feel it.”

“I come with you now, and you tell me where Quentin James is.”

“Yes.”

“You keep all my secrets.”

“I promise.”

I reach across and grab his drink. He’s barely touched it. I take two long swallows and then it’s gone. “Okay,” I say, and when I stand up the room spins even more, and I have to reach out to the table to stop from falling over. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

Schroder helps Tate out to the car. Ex-cop and current cop. Hell, a year ago it was the other way around. Tate was the one screwing things up. Schroder was doing good work, Schroder was the one headed for a promotion. He and Tate were worlds apart. He gets Tate into the front seat, and by the time he’s moved around to the driver’s side the man is asleep.

“Theo,” he says, and shakes his shoulder, and Theo mumbles a little, but then nothing else.

The Evolved Him has come to the end of the road, that road paved with mistakes the recent versions of him made. The Final Him drives and thinks about calling his wife, but what would he say? He would tell her that he loves her, but what good would it do? It wouldn’t change anything. It would just upset her. There would be questions and tears and, really, it’s easier just not to call. The Old Him would. But the Old Him died. He switches off his cell phone and tosses it into the backseat.

He knows where Ron McDonald lives. Or lived. Of course he does. You don’t plan on killing a man and not at least know where he works and where he lives. He drives there now, the sun slowly making its way higher as the temperature does the same, the police somewhere in the city looking for him or about to start looking, maybe knocking on his door this very second, maybe going and seeing his wife. The way it’s going to go down—he can’t believe it’s all because of those tires getting slashed. All because Peter failed to find a pulse when there was one there.

“Don’t blame the dead guy,” he says, and then Tate mumbles something, turns his head and slumps it against the window. He starts to snore.

The McDonalds live in a neighborhood like any other, and he pays little attention to it, just watches the street names and then the letter boxes until he gets to where he is going, and this could be it. The final destination. And Tate, poor Tate is going to wake up in a world full of shit, but he’ll get through it. All he has to do is say the right things and don’t change his story. After all, Tate is the Second Chance King. Hell, Tate could probably waltz in there dragging the remains of Quentin James behind him, and people would still let him off with a warning and let him keep his job. He searches Tate’s pockets and finds a pen and his notepad and tears out a page.

“I’m going to keep my promise,” he says, because despite how annoyed he is that Tate gets to keep bouncing back, despite how annoyed he is that he’s One Chance Carl, they did used to be friends. Great friends. They were together when Bridget gave Tate her number. He remembered laughing when Tate confessed to him how he had never gotten her name. He was there when Tate got the call and his life changed, his daughter gone, his wife only marginally better. They made a good team. Good cop and good cop, then it was good cop and bad private investigator, now it’s bad ex-cop and Second Chance Cop. But none of this is Tate’s fault. If anything, he’s jealous. What he wouldn’t do right now to swap positions. And Tate never killed anybody innocent.

He writes down the location of Quentin James’s body, then slips the pen and pad and paper back into Tate’s pocket. The instructions are simple. Tate is probably going to kick himself when he reads them.

There are no cars out front and none up the driveway and he makes his way to the front door and he knocks and nobody answers, and then he knocks again and nobody answers again, but he gives it another minute and gives it a third attempt. Then there are footsteps, then the door is slowly opened, then a woman holds her hand over her eyes to shield them from the glare. Her hair is a mess and her eyes are red and this woman is experiencing the remains of
what is left when a hurricane comes through your life and destroys all the good bits.

“Yes?” she says.

“I don’t know if you remember me,” he says, “but my—”

“I remember you.” She looks out at the street at the car and sees Tate in the passenger seat. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Heat stroke.”

She leans against the door frame and crosses her arms. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here to tell you I’m sorry about what happened to Ron.”

She shakes her head. “No you’re not. Seven years ago you tried to arrest him for murder. You’re not sorry. You’re just feeling guilty, and neither of those things will bring him back.”

“I know. You’re right. But I really am sorry, and he was innocent. I know that now.”

She unfolds her arms so she can poke him in the chest. “I know that now and I knew that then,” she says, “and I’m glad you know it now too. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s dead now, does it?”

“No.”

She folds her arms again. “So what do you want from me? Just to apologize?”

“Have the police told you they found the man who killed Ron’s first wife?”

“Yes. They were here a few hours ago.”

“Then it’s true,” he says.

She looks confused. She frowns at him. “Of course it’s true. I don’t understand why you’re here and not out there finding the person who killed my husband. You’re the reason he’s dead, you know. You and your narrow-mindedness,” she says, and now she’s pointing at him again, getting ready to poke him again. “You focused on my husband and because of that this madman was running around out there focused on him too.”

“Can we go inside? There’s something I need to discuss with you.”

“No,” she says. “No you can’t. Say what you want to say and then leave, okay?”

“You’re angry with me,” he says.

She smirks at him then, her face pulling back a little. “Of course I’m angry with you.”

“Would you kill me, if you could?”

“What?”

“Would you kill me because you blame me for what happened?” He can feel his heart thudding, he can feel the end coming, and he felt none of this over the last few days. Not even when the Collards locked him inside the mental institution. Right now he feels alive.

“Would I kill you?”

“Yes,” he says. “That’s what I’m asking.”

She steps back and reaches out with her right hand and grabs the edge of the door, ready to slam it. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I killed your husband,” he says.

“I know you did. You killed him by being a useless cop, and no doubt you would have killed others too if you’d stayed on the force.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t understand.”

“No, I understand everything. You thought that—”

“No,” he says, interrupting her, and he puts up his hand. “You don’t understand. I killed your husband.”

“So you said.”

“I went to see him two nights ago because I thought he had killed Hailey.”

She stops talking then. She looks at him and twists her head to the left as if she can eyeball him better from her right-hand side. She lets go of the door and straightens herself up. “What are you talking about?”

“I went to see him because he had to pay for what he had done. He told me he was innocent. I didn’t believe him. I had a gun and I
shot him in the stomach. It took him five minutes to bleed to death on the garage floor and I did nothing to help him.”

“Is this some kind of joke? Some kind of sick . . . of sick . . . of SICK TWISTED JOKE!”

“I used this gun,” he says, and he gets it out.

She looks at it, then at him. “YOU KILLED MY HUSBAND!”

“Yes.”

She screams then, and she lunges at him, there’s a flurry of fists and she strikes him over and over again, connecting with his face mostly, some to his neck and chest, a few to his arm. She knees him in the groin. But it’s the blow to the side of the head that hurts the most, not on the outside, but somewhere deep on the inside, right around the area where his new best friend is hiding out, the bullet with his name on it. For a few moments he can see stars, bright colors, fireworks, he can see all of it. He holds the gun towards her, offering it to her. She digs her fingers at his eyes, he feels skin tearing up there, and then she stops. She collapses, landing on her ass, sitting on the path leading up to her front door.

He’s still holding out the gun. The lights in his eyes start to fade, but the dull ache remains. Like a toothache in the middle of his skull. He crouches opposite her.

“It’s loaded,” he tells her, and the words are coming from somewhere else, perhaps somewhere as far away as the Old Him. This is the Old Him and the Evolved Him teaming up to the do the right thing. “All you have to do is say I attacked you. We fought. I pulled out a gun and it went off.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ll be in the news for a while. People will think you’re a hero.”

“You want me to shoot you?”

“All you have to do is keep saying it was self-defense.”

She shakes her head. Tears are running down the side of her face and hanging from her chin. “You’re wrong. You are absolutely wrong. Killing you wouldn’t make me a hero. Ron was a hero. He
survived what you put him through. He went to work every day and he came home every day and he loved me, he loved me more than anybody ever had. That made Ron the biggest hero in the world and that makes you the worst person in the world. Killing you doesn’t make me a hero. Killing you just makes me as bad as you.”

“I don’t understand,” he says. “Here,” he says, and reaches forward so she can take the gun.

She shakes her head. “You messed up, and the same thing you judged Ron by you are now judging yourself by, and maybe I should respect you for that, but I don’t, because I hate you too much. At least I can’t call you a hypocrite, huh? But you’ve come here because you think you owe me the chance to put you down, you think it’ll make me feel better and I sure as hell know it’ll probably make you feel better, but you know what? Screw you, Detective. Get the hell out of here and take that gun with you, and live with what you’ve done. There is no redemption here for you, no ending. Why don’t you drag your sorry ass down to the police station and turn yourself in?”

“I still . . .” he says, shaking his head, then stops shaking his head because the world sways a little, and he can almost feel the bullet jumping up and down a little. “Everybody wants their five minutes.”

“Not everybody.”

“Yes. Everybody.”

“Then go and offer them to somebody else, because this everybody wants you to leave her the hell alone so she can get back to mourning what you took away from her. Part of me hopes you find what you’re looking for. Part of me hopes you find somebody to put that gun to your head, but more of me wants you to live forever so you can always regret what you’ve done. Do I want you dead? No. I want you to sit in a cell every day and suffer for your sins. Hell, if there is any justice in this world, I’ll still get to see you hang. Now get the hell off my yard.”