Fool's Ride (The Jenkins Cycle Book 2) (19 page)

In a fractionally higher octave than normal, Tara said, “Don’t you have a patient then?”

Tomorrow’s nine thirty was another in-and-out scammer.

“He cancelled,” I said. “Schedule’s wide open.”

“Well, great,” Jane said. “I’ll see you then.”

I shook her hand again—my flesh and blood—and let her go.

“I guess that’s it then,” Jane said. “Mrs., um … sorry.
Tara
. I’ll send you both a packet from the agency. It’ll have all the information about that government program I mentioned, and tips on how to get your house ready to show when we get to that phase. And thank you so much for having me over.”

“Our pleasure,” Tara said, visibly relieved we were back to talking about the house again.

Tara walked Jane out.

Jane Jenkins, after all these years.

I
t was Wednesday morning
, approaching eight thirty, and I was standing in front of St. Stephen’s church wearing a backpack. There was nobody around outside, and the place was just as deserted when I walked in.

The confessional, when I found it, was an ornately constructed wooden affair with doors on the front. Looking around the quiet church, I wondered if I’d gotten the time wrong. What a shame that would be. I’d never gone to confession before and thought it might be fun—especially if I told the truth.

As I stood there twisting with uncertainty, one of the doors opened and an old woman with a cane came slowly out. She stumped past without saying hello, her head bowed as if from a lifetime of sins. They must have been doozies, because she didn’t look up even once.

Wouldn’t want to be her when she dies…

“Just in time,” the minister called from the other booth, its door now open.

He stepped back in and closed it.

I entered the booth the old woman had come out of, shut the door, and sat down on the narrow bench. The window between my booth and the minister’s was a wooden latticework of tiny roman crosses inside bigger roman crosses.

“Whatever you do,” I said, “don’t bless me.”

“I don’t understand,” the minister said. “You’re supposed to say—”

“Consider that the latest of my many sins, Anthony.”

The minister chewed on that briefly, then said, “I’m sorry, Scott, what’s this about?”

As fun as it was acting all mysterious and clever, I was too nervous to keep it up.

“It’s me,” I said. “Dan Jenkins.”

And just like that, my seat in the confessional felt like sitting at the bottom of a deep dark well looking up, the walls spinning round and round and making me dizzy. Normally it was something the minister could control, but I’d surprised him.

“You’re back,” he said.

“We’re both back,” I said. “What are you doing in those wizard robes way up here in Toledo?”

The minister got up and left the booth.

Just as I worried he’d fled on foot, the door to my booth opened and he said, “Follow me.”

I got up and closed the door, then followed him to another part of the church. He reached out and opened a door I hadn’t even realized was there, so well did it blend with the textured wall. Kind of like a secret door—my second secret door in five years. Inside was an office with bookshelves and a desk and even a computer.

From a little radio on a shelf came the sound of a morning news program, which he lowered.

The minister sat down and invited me to do the same.

“What about the other sinners?” I said. “Don’t they get to confess?”

He checked his watch. “Eight twenty-five. Close enough. So where have you been?”

No chitchat. Didn’t ask me how I was doing or who I’d seen on the other side.

“Stuck in the Great Wherever,” I said. “For five years.”

The minister nodded. “What are you doing with Scott?”

I thought about how to proceed. He was a man, after all. And there were things I needed him to do, but only if he was the right kind of man.

“One second,” I said, and got out Scott’s laptop, which I’d snagged from work earlier that morning. I set it up on the minister’s desk and clicked Beth’s folder. There were eighty-three files. I opened the latest one and turned the laptop his way. “Go ahead and click play.”

“I hope this isn’t what I think it is,” he said.

“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”

The minister frowned, then reached over and clicked.

I didn’t need to watch to tell what was going on. Beth sitting down in front of that close-up camera and Scott sitting beside her. He told her how naughty she was and she disagreed vehemently, playing into his hands and not even realizing it. My hands were hurting, and then I remembered to unclench them. When Scott started groaning the minister slammed the laptop shut, crossed himself, and said a quick prayer.

He glared at me, his face livid—and the world turned upside down and sideways on me. Unbalanced, I fell out of my chair, overcome with that smell you get from a punch in the nose.

“Are you all right?” came the minister’s voice, as if from far away.

“I’m not Scott,” I said, and got up carefully. “You gotta … wow … remember. That was a big one.”

I’d had a lot of kicks in my time, but what the minister had done was simply stunning. Like getting two kicks at once from two directions. I’d thought he had to touch me to cause the full-on kick, but righteous fury seemed to work, too.

I sat back down.

“I read that in your story,” he said, shaking his head. “Hard to believe, if I hadn’t felt it myself. Right here.” He pointed at his face. “A jolt, like a punch.”

Fascinating. The
minister
had been kicked. An intriguing development, and scary. Maybe he could get kicked out? And maybe something else could slip in?

“What’s your name?” I said, warily.

“Why?” he said.

A dangerous ten seconds passed and then he said, “Anthony. Why?” Then his eyes widened in understanding. “Oh …
well
. Very interesting. I think we should tread carefully.”

“You’re the one with the super powers,” I said.

“Never mind that—tell me about the video.”

I gave him the bare bones of the story: Joan, Beth, the scam with his perfectly healthy patients coming in and out and signing their names. He listened carefully without interrupting.

When I finished he said, “How can I help?”

From my backpack, I took out the video camera and laid it down next to the laptop. I’d checked it before coming in. Both the visual and audio quality of the recording were excellent.

“This,” I said, “has Beth’s mom admitting to giving her daughter to Scott, and me admitting my part. I also hit her and expressed remorse. That’s the part that worries me.”

“You
hit
her?”

“I’ve been hitting a lot of people lately.”

The minister shook his head. “What’s this about remorse?”

“If I’m on camera expressing remorse…”

“Ah, yes, I see,” he said. “You’ve helped Scott’s case.”

“Right. I’m remorseful, and Scott can maybe twist that into something to reduce his sentence, then let Joan take most of the blame.” I frowned. “Only he’s
not
getting off the hook, is he?”

The world felt stretched and narrow again, like I was at the bottom of a deep pit.

The minister said, “I cannot let you harm Scott Schaefer. He’s under my protection. You still have enough to convict, so we do it the legal way. This way, nobody gets killed again.”

He was still sore about Nate’s evil fiancée.

“One second,” I said, and opened the laptop.

“I’ve seen enough already.”

“No you haven’t,” I said, and turned the computer back around so he could see. “Look at the filenames.”

After a brief hesitation, he said, “So?”

“
Read
the filenames.”

The minister sighed patiently and did as I asked—and then his superpowers kicked-in again, making me dizzy. Unlike last time, he squelched the effect before it got too bad.

“Twice a month for three years,” I said.

“She can’t be more than twenty,” he said, shaking his head slowly.

“She’s nineteen. Which puts her at sixteen when he started on her. And you want the law to handle this?”

The minister grew quiet.

It was getting close to nine, and I needed to get to the office.

“That summer you sent me your story,” he said, “I decided to quit the wedding business and get a job somewhere. Maybe an office building, managing a different sort of folk. Years before, I’d abandoned the church for a more personal relationship with the Almighty and an open mind. Then, after spending my whole life searching for the truth, along comes Dan Jenkins, a somewhat tiresome fool enjoying the most personal relationship with God I’d heard of in two millennia. And what did he do with it?”

“You tell me.”

The minister smiled patiently. “Anything he wanted to.”

Despite my being here to help Beth, in his typical negative way the minister had turned this around so I was somehow to blame for his problems. I’d trade him my so-called personal relationship any day for his lavish office with the neat secret door and all those people looking up to him. He even got to hear the confessions of sinful old ladies. And all those church bake sales…

“Keep the laptop and the recorder,” I said. “Do whatever you can to help Beth. Also, take this.” I handed him one of Jane’s business cards. “That’s my sister. For some reason, she lives up here, just like you live up here. I’d appreciate if you contacted Nate and had him buy Tara’s house—for way more than the asking price. He can afford it, and he owes me big time. Tara’s a good woman, married to a snake, and she could use some good fortune.”

The minister nodded and said, “I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?”

“Just a question—why are you in Toledo?”

The minister smiled. Then he laughed. He wasn’t a big one for laughing and I found it jarring.

“I contacted a friend of mine and mentioned I wanted to come back. There was an opening here for a Parochial Vicar, so I took it.”

“What’s a Parochial Vicar?” I said.

“Associate priest. Mostly the same duties as the pastor, except it’s harder for me to get to Heaven.”

What the … but that doesn’t…

I pointed at him and said, “Almost had me there. Who knew you were funny?”

The minister shrugged.

“But why are you
here
?” I said. “In the same place as me? It can’t be a coincidence.”

He nodded. “I’m inclined to agree with you. For some reason, your Great Whomever—who may be God, though I have an altogether different theory—has thrown us together again. For now, the best we can do is pray for guidance and see where that takes us.”

He was an awfully cool cat when it came to divine intervention.

“So what’s this theory of yours?” I said. “Because I’ve been thinking he’s not God, either.”

The minister shook his head. “Not yet. Call me when you’re ready. Did you get that email I sent? The one with my phone number?”

“Yeah,” I said, turning to go.

“Good,” he said. “One more thing: if you harm Scott, other than sending his sorry ass to jail, whatever understanding we’ve had is over.”

I glanced back and said, “So that’s how it is, now.”

The minister smiled in a way that seemed both kindly and dangerous at the same time.

“You bet.”

I
t was
after nine and I needed to move if I didn’t want to miss seeing Jane. As I approached my car, I flinched at the screeching of tires. When I turned around, Melody’s brother jumped out of his silver sports car, baseball bat in hand.

“Don’t got no gun
now
, asshole!” Johnny yelled, and moved toward me. Probably to teach me a lesson, or show me who was boss, or fix my little red wagon.

I pulled out the gun Tara had given me and pointed it at him.

He yelped and hit the deck, eyes wide with terror, bat raised to block any bullets I shot at him.

“Don’t shoot, man!” he yelled. “What the fuck?”

Lowering the gun, I looked around for witnesses, but the parking lot was empty.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” I said.

“With me?” he said. “What about you? What you did to my sister. That shit’s whack, yo.”

“Now what did I do?”

“You hit her, that’s what. Nobody hits my sister.”

“Have you
seen
your sister?”

“Course I … why?”

I laughed. “Johnny, what your sister and I … Whatever she’s been telling you, you shouldn’t believe it.”

“She said you punched her where it wouldn’t leave a bruise.”

“Come on, Johnny. She’s bigger than me.” I pulled back my shirtsleeve to show my upper arm. “I mean look at me.”

To emphasize the point, I flexed one of Scott’s flimsy psychologist muscles.

“See that?” I said. “Like a little white soda straw, with freckles.”

Shaking his head, Johnny said, “You could have threatened her with that gun.”

He loved his sister. It wasn’t his fault she was a woman scorned.

“I didn’t start carrying it,” I said, “until you and your buddy George jumped me. I’m a psychologist, not a gangster—we don’t carry guns. All I did was break up with her. Just a guess, but how many men have broken up with Melody that you know about? I bet you can’t name one.” I could see him thinking about it. “Now, how many men have stalked her over the years?”

Johnny glanced at me, then he looked away, then back at me, then away again, then at his bat, then up in the air, then back at me again. He started to say something, but then he stopped. Then he opened his mouth again and said, “Shit.”

He stood up.

“She did it
again
,” he said. “Like high school all over again. Dude, I’m sorry. This one’s my bad, not yours.”

Despite the loaded weapon in my hand, he walked over like everything was okay now and took me in a crushing bro-to-bro hug. Then the strange brotherly moment was over and he stepped back.

“Sorry again, man,” he said, laughing ruefully.

I needed to get to my appointment.

“No worries,” I said. “Take care, Johnny. I’m in a hurry, so…”

“Go ahead, man, it’s cool. Thanks for not shooting me.”

I threw him a thumbs-up and jumped in the car.

J
ane was coming
out of the clinic entrance when I got there.

“Hey, hold up,” I said. “You’ll never believe it, but I got held up by a crazy guy with a bat. Then we hugged.”

Jane blinked at me and smiled. Then she laughed. It was her fake laugh, the one she used with all her friends when they were pretending to be grownups. Her friends almost universally hated me, except for one of them—a pretty brunette named Darcy, who was never nice to me in public.

“I was about to call and suggest a reschedule,” she said. A soft rebuke.

“No need,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I held the door like a gentleman, and she went in first.

Melody glared at me from across the room, her face pinched and angry. Pam pretended to read her book.

Jane said, “I really appreciate you seeing me on such short notice.”

“Happy to help,” I said, and casually flipped Melody the bird behind my back.

Behind the desk, Pam gasped.

When we were both inside, I escorted Jane over to the cushy chairs and said, “One second.”

From Scott’s desk, I grabbed a straight-backed chair, a pen, and the sign-in sheet. I set the chair outside the door and put the clipboard and pen there in an unmistakable gesture of trust. Then I shut the door.

“Is it always this muggy in here?” Jane said, rubbing her arms.

Same old critical Jane, getting everyone defensive and worrying about her.

“Only in the morning,” I said. “Would you like some tea? I was about to pour myself some coffee.”

Jane threw me a curious look. “What makes you think I don’t drink coffee?”

“Jane, please,” I said, smiling enigmatically. “I
am
a psychologist, after all. Let me guess … no sugar, right? Two bags?”

“That’s right…”

“Give me a minute.”

I unlocked the door and left the room, then skirted the desk with Pam and Melody, both pointedly ignoring me. I poured coffee for myself and brought back a cup of hot water and two tea bags for Jane.

“So, Jane,” I said, after the caffeine drinks were arranged to our mutually professional satisfaction. “Did you grow up here in Toledo?”

Jane glanced quickly at her watch like she didn’t want me to notice, except she really did. She was a busy real estate agent. Places to go, people to sell places to.

“No,” she said. “Just outside of Allentown. Mom’s still there, same house I grew up in. She’s actually why I’m here, so…”

“She’s why you’re here in Toledo? Or why you’re here in my office?”

Jane laughed her trendy laugh again.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I mean here in Toledo. After Daddy died, Mom got even more messed up than before. My boyfriend’s from here and … it sounds bad, I know, but I had to get away from her.” She shrugged. “So I moved.”

Jane folded her arms briefly and then lowered them. She’d done everything she could to look like someone else, even dying her hair thirty different shades. But in the ways that mattered—how she paused for breath, where her eyes roamed when she talked, the speed she moved her head, the things she did with her hands—all of these were classic Jane.

I said, “Why did you have to get away from your mom?”

“After my brother killed himself—sorry to just spring that on you—she was a broken woman. Weak. She cried all night long and slept all day. Nothing Daddy said helped. That’s when the calls started coming.”

Jane studied my face for a reaction, but I kept it as blank of emotion as possible. I felt my heart thumping in my chest, and my breathing came quick and shallow. As casually as I could, I slipped my hands under my legs to keep them from trembling.

“What calls?” I said.

“That’s the part that actually weirds me out a little,” she said. “It goes back to when my brother committed suicide—it’s sort of embarrassing.”

I smiled thinly. “No worries. You were saying?”

“So the calls—it seemed like every week for a while, then every month, we’d get these calls from people saying they were looking for Suzie, Pete, Mike, Louie, Alex … you know, just random names, right?”

I nodded.

“The thing is, they all said the same thing: the numbers were so similar. They hit seven when they meant to hit eight.”

“It’s plausible, right?”

“Maybe,” Jane said, biting her lip. “But they were always for different people—and
from
different people. Different voices, anyway. And we got so many calls, at least for the first few years…”

“Maybe it was a prankster,” I said. “Faking a different voice every time. Something like that.”

She shook her head. “In the end, it doesn’t matter who they were—Mom wouldn’t change the number. Dad and I gave her hell about it because it was really sort of creepy, coming on the heels of my brother’s selfishness and all.”

“
What?
” I said, sharply.

Jane flinched. “What?”

“Sorry, you said your brother’s selfishness—didn’t mean to shout. I was just surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your brother. Most people … that is, you know, when someone commits suicide, you don’t…”

Jane laughed. “Don’t speak ill of the dead? That kind of thing?”

I nodded.

“Please,” she said. “He was a weirdo, and yeah, he was selfish. Killing himself—over a girl.” She laughed again. “She wasn’t all that, trust me.”

Yes, she was
.

“Let’s go back to your mom,” I said. “You said something happened recently?”

Jane nodded. “She got another phone call. Same M.O. Called and said he hit seven instead of eight. Only now Mom’s saying he called from up here, in Toledo.”

“Probably just a normal wrong number.”

“That’s what I said! What’s it been, like eight years since the last time?”

Five years, ten months, eleven days…

“So what’s the problem?” I said, trying to hide my impatience. “Moms are funny sometimes. That’s why they have loving daughters, right? To be there for them.”

“
I
was there for her,” she said, a trifle haughtily. “Never mind that. Here’s the problem: Mom thinks all this has to do with Dan. Sorry, Dan’s my—
was
—my brother. She thinks it’s his spirit reaching out and messing up everyone’s dialing. Can you believe it?”

I grinned and shook my head like it was harmless. No big deal. Moms and their funny ways. One day we’ll all look back and laugh.

“It’ll pass,” I said.

“Nope,” Jane said. “She’s been like this forever. That’s why I finally left—couldn’t take the craziness. I needed my own life again after my second divorce—long story, don’t ask. Now I have a career, a wonderful new boyfriend, and I’m making good money. We’re planning on moving to L.A. to sell houses at an agency I contacted.
Better
money.”

I spread my hands wide—crazy mom, second divorce, better money.

“How do I snap her out of this? Medication? You must have seen this kind of stuff before. It’s embarrassing, if you ask me. The way she talks about it.”

I couldn’t help it—I dropped my head in my hands, right there in front of my sister, and a sob burst out of me like a bomb.

Jane said, “What the…?”

My shoulders shook as I cried—for what I’d done to my poor mom and dad with all those stupid, stupid,
stupid
calls. I’d just wanted to hear their voices. Every time, hoping they’d pick up sounding happy. Maybe with a lingering trace of laughter from one of Dad’s lame-o jokes.

“Uh, Mr. Schaefer? Is this a part of your therapy, because that’s not why…”

I said, “What do you care about?”

“What?” Jane said, shifting uncomfortably. “Pardon?”

With tears streaking down my face, I repeated: “What do you care about?”

“Um, I’m just gonna go now, okay?”

Jane moved to get up but I got there first and pushed her back in the chair. She opened her mouth to scream and I covered it.

I pulled my gun, held it pointed up, and said, “If you scream I’ll blow your head off. You got that?”

Jane nodded frantically.

“What do you care about?”

She made a noise and I moved my hand out of the way.

“What?” she said, panting for breath. Crying now, shuddering in fear.

Good.

“I asked what you cared about: your stupid life in L.A or your mother. Which is it?”

Blubbering now, red-faced and splotchy and crying a mewling sound I’d never heard from her before, Jane said, “W-what are you going to do to me? Please don’t hurt me. Please, I’ll do anything you want. Just don’t shoot me. Please!”

She was starting to get loud again, so I shook the gun—being very careful to keep my finger off the trigger and the barrel still pointed up.

“Your mother needs you,” I said. “She’s all alone in that damn house and you’re out here because she had the temerity to
embarrass
you? Because she misses her son? Her husband’s dead and now her daughter’s gone and she’s alone. And you sit there calling her crazy? What the hell happened to you?”

Through her fear, a glimmer of confusion poked through. “Please just let me go.
Please!”

No, I wasn’t about to shoot my sister. The gun had a single round in it, in case I decided to shoot myself. It would fire on the third pull.

I looked down at her and … and just looked at her. Sitting there crying and sniffling, messing up her makeup and staring at me in terror. To my own sister, I’d done this.

The madness was starting to recede.

“If I let you live,” I said, “you gotta promise me something. Think you can do that?”

Desperately, she nodded.

“I’m leaving town in a couple days,” I said. “You’re gonna call the cops, and—”

Shaking her head, Jane said, “No! I’d never call them, I swear, I wouldn’t, I—”

“I
know
you’d never do that,” I said, smiling like the friendly guy I was. “But I want you to. Tell them I went to Canada. Don’t tell them I’m still here in the city.”

Jane nodded. Canada, absolutely.

“Stay where you are for thirty minutes before calling. Got it?”

She nodded again—she’d stay there forever if that’s what it took.

“And call your mom after,” I said. “You’re all she’s got left.”

Sermon completed, I pocketed the gun and walked out.