Moving Target (22 page)

“He shouldn’t have,” Thomas said. “Langston was a liar. He was always a liar. I tried to tell Mr. Brooks as much at the time, and I thought he believed me. He said he did, but nothing came of it because he died before he could do anything about it.”

“You thought he believed you about what?” Ali asked.

“That Langston was slandering Leland. I told him there was no way Lee would have betrayed his country. As soon as I got out of hospital and was able to get around on my own, I made it a point to see Mr. Brooks at the print shop here in town to tell him so.”

“You were in the hospital?” Ali asked. “Why?”

“Because Langston came by my house and beat me up,” Thomas said. “He knocked out a couple of teeth and then kicked me while I was down. My knee hasn’t been quite right ever since. Put an end to my cricket days, Langston did.”

“Did you report the attack to the police?”

Thomas shook his head. “You know about Lee and me? The truth, I mean?”

“I know that you were attracted to each other.”

“That’s a diplomatic way of putting it, but that’s what it was. We were very young. I think it was the first real romance for either of us. These days they’d call what Langston did to me ‘gay bashing.’ They might even refer to it as a hate crime, but back then it was business as usual. If it had been reported to the police, chances are I’d have been
laughed out of the police station. Or worse, one of the coppers might well have taken a swing at me, too.”

“When was this?” Ali asked.

“The beating? Right after Lee left town. Days after. It was a couple of weeks later when I was up and able to start teaching when I got wind of what Langston and that high-placed pal of his were saying about Lee behind his back. I heard rumors that Mr. Brooks was considering disowning Leland, if he hadn’t already done so.

“I was offended by that. I was still on crutches, and I didn’t have my own car, but I wanted Mr. Brooks to know the truth. My mother drove me to the print shop. I gave her the excuse that I was thinking about ordering some engraved stationery.” He paused and smiled grimly. “My mother was a sweet woman, you see,” he added. “She was also incredibly naive. She bought my story in its entirety, just like she believed my telling her that I broke my leg when I fell down the stairs.”

“Did you tell Mr. Brooks about the beating?”

Thomas pursed his lips. “No,” he said. “I didn’t, and I didn’t tell him about Lee and me, either. I said that Lee and I were friends and that he would never betray anyone, much less his country.”

“Did he believe you?”

“He seemed to. It sounded like he had some idea that Langston was up to no good.”

“At the time you saw him, did Jonah say anything to you about changing the will?”

“No, not in so many words. What he did say was that he would get to the bottom of it and that he’d do the right thing. The next thing I heard, he was dead. If he intended to change his will, I have to assume he never got the chance.”

“When Jonah was murdered, did you go to the police with any of this?”

“No. They focused on the car-thief angle, and that’s where the investigation stayed. If there were any other suspects, that information was never made public.”

“It might have if you had come forward.”

Thomas nodded. “If I weren’t a coward, you mean.”

“I never said that,” Ali objected.

“You didn’t have to,” he replied with a tight-lipped smile. “I’ve said it to myself often enough. Had I come forward it would have complicated my own life. Leland was gone. We were clearly over. Mr. Brooks was dead. I couldn’t see any point in endangering my whole future by mucking about in all the mess, so I didn’t. I stayed away and left the police to sort things out as best they could. Besides, I’d already met Linda by then.”

“Linda?” Ali asked.

“My late wife,” Thomas explained. “Linda and I were first-year teachers together, and we hit it off right away. I thought that if Langston had left any rumors floating about concerning my sexual proclivities, having a good-looking girl on my arm might hush the gossip. That’s the real reason I sent Lee’s letters back unopened. The irony was, Linda was a mirror image of me, using me in the same way I was using her: to camouflage the fact that she was a lesbian.

“On that score, the two of us were made for each other. We both loved kids and teaching and books and cooking and traveling. For a long time we were just an ordinary couple walking out. After a while people started asking about when we’d get around to marrying. Eventually it simply made sense to tie the knot. We were compatible in every way but in bed, and we each allowed the other to have freedom of action on that score with a safe haven to come home to afterward. We were married for over fifty years.”

“I know,” Ali said quietly. “That was one of the shocks that hit Leland this week. I forget which one mentioned it, Maisie or Daisy. When he heard that you had been married for such a long time, I believe he assumed he was mistaken about what the two of you had together.”

“Oh, no,” Thomas said. “That was entirely real, but given the times, it was also impossible.” He finished his wine, looked around for the barmaid, and reached for his wallet.

“Don’t worry about the bill,” Ali said, waving him away. “I’m going to charge it to my room.”

As she watched Thomas limp back out through the bar and into the lobby, what Ali Reynolds felt in that moment, more than anything, was a seething hatred toward a long-dead bully named Langston Brooks.

L
eAnne had thought the days at the hospital were endless before they brought Lance out of his drug-induced coma, but this day with him awake was by far the worst. Medication did only so much to relieve his pain. Changing the dressings on the burns was pure agony for Lance, and when he screamed about the pain in his legs, it broke his mother’s heart for two reasons: because he was in pain and because there was only one leg left.

Nevertheless, she refused to leave her son’s side for anything other than the time it took to visit the restroom down the hall; visitors’ use of the facilities in patients’ rooms was frowned upon. Glued to her son’s bedside, LeAnne’s thoughts strayed back and forth between two unwelcome topics: She distinctly remembered reading a newspaper report about a phony nurse who had made her way through a hospital somewhere—Seattle maybe?—stealing pain meds from patients’ IV trees. Then there was the fact that Lowell Dunn was dead.

News reports about the house fire made it clear that the authorities were treating Dunn’s death as an accident, and LeAnne had no intention of trying to convince anyone otherwise. If the person responsible for Lowell Dunn’s death was also involved in the attack on Lance, she
didn’t want to call a killer’s attention to the fact that Lance, although gravely wounded, was still very much alive.

Late in the afternoon, with Lance again asleep, Sister Anselm returned to his room and took LeAnne aside. “Have you been home even to visit your other children since Lance has been here?”

“No,” LeAnne began, “but—”

“Go back to San Leandro and have dinner with them tonight,” Sister Anselm suggested. “I’ve just had several hours’ worth of rest, and I’ll be glad to stay here through the night. Your focus on Lance is commendable, but it’s not fair to your other boys. They need to know that you haven’t forgotten them, and it’ll do you a world of good to sleep in your own bed.”

“Still—”

“There’s one more thing we need you to do while you’re there,” Sister Anselm interrupted.

“What?”

“Track down Mr. Dunn’s family. I believe he mentioned having a daughter and grandson living in the area. I want you to stop by and offer your condolences.”

“Even if I can find out what his daughter’s name is or where she lives, why would she want to hear that from me? I’d only just met her father.”

“If there’s even the smallest chance that Mr. Dunn died because he offered to help Lance,” Sister Anselm said, “then you owe him something, and you owe his family, too.”

The nun spoke in a manner that brooked no argument. For a few brief moments, LeAnne was propelled back in time. Long ago, as a first-grader, she briefly attended a parochial school, a Lutheran one rather than a Catholic. Mrs. Grace, the stern teacher in charge, hadn’t been a nun, but the rules were the same: What Mrs. Grace said went. She allowed no weaseling or excuses. She issued orders with the confident expectation that they would be obeyed without question.

In this instance, Sister Anselm and Mrs. Grace could have been
twins. The nun had couched her remarks about LeAnne’s going back home for the night in the light of its being good for all concerned. Even so, LeAnne recognized it as a direct order rather than a suggestion.

“What am I supposed to do when I see his daughter?” LeAnne asked.

“Put yourself in her shoes,” Sister Anselm said. “You’ve been at the hospital all this time with all the reports circulating that Lance was supposedly responsible for his own injuries. Wouldn’t it have been nice if someone had come forward who seemed to take Lance’s side?”

LeAnne thought about how she had blurted out her story, first to someone on the phone and later to Sister Anselm. She nodded.

“What if Mr. Dunn’s daughter is in a similar situation? Maybe it’s true that her father’s death was an accident. No doubt she will have heard that version of events from the fire marshal, but what if she has another opinion? What if she has some ideas about what happened that the cops aren’t willing to consider? What if her concerns have been brushed aside the same way yours were?”

“You’re asking me to leave Lance’s bedside to go on a recon mission?”

“If that’s what you wish to call it, yes,” Sister Anselm said. “If I were to show up unannounced, she’d look at me as a stranger and I most likely wouldn’t get anywhere, but you as a grieving mother to a grieving daughter? That’s going to work like gangbusters.”

“How do I find her?”

Sister Anselm handed LeAnne a piece of paper. On it was written the name Susannah Dunn Bissell, with an address on South Seventh Street in San Leandro along with a telephone number. Below it was another San Leandro address, this one on Main Street.

“How did you get this information?” LeAnne asked. “I don’t remember seeing the daughter’s name or address mentioned in any of the reports.”

“Sometimes,” Sister Anselm counseled, “it’s better not to ask about the origin of one of God’s mysterious blessings and simply go with the flow.”

“What’s the second address?” LeAnne asked.

“That’s a gun shop: Jake’s Guns and Ammo. It’s just off Main and Mountain. A Taser has been purchased in your name. They’re holding it for you.”

“You bought me a Taser?” LeAnne said. “Are you kidding?”

“Not at all,” Sister Anselm responded. “I’m dead serious. Considering what may have happened to Mr. Dunn, I regard your having a Taser as a wise precautionary measure. I didn’t purchase it personally. It went on the expense account.”

LeAnne studied the paper. Although she had never ventured inside Jake’s, she recognized the name. It was located on the north side of town in a small strip mall that she drove past twice a day. The other address was close to downtown. “All right,” she said at last. “I’ll do it.”

“If you like, I can call ahead and let them know you’re coming.”

LeAnne glanced at the clock. It was three-thirty. “What time does Jake’s close?”

“Nine.”

“There should be plenty of time. They’ll just give me the Taser and that’s it?”

“You’ll need to fill out the questionnaire for a background check. The Taser won’t be activated until that comes back. In the meantime you can watch the training video.”

Capitulating, LeAnne folded the paper and stuffed it into her pocket. Half an hour later, having called to let her mother know that she’d be home for dinner, LeAnne Tucker rode downstairs in the hospital elevator wondering as she went what kind of weird nun Sister Anselm could possibly be.

Don’t worry about it, LeAnne told herself. Just go with the flow.

In the parking garage, she had to pay a king’s ransom to bail her aging Taurus out of hock. Fortunately, there was enough room left on her one working credit card for the charge to go through. The car had been parked there long enough to be dusty, but there was sufficient charge in the battery that it turned over on the first try, and there was
enough fuel in the tank to make it to San Leandro. Thinking about trying to find the money to refill the tank made her wish that she had kept Mr. Crutcher’s check rather than giving it back.

Traffic heading for the freeway entrance moved at a snail’s pace. Even though it was cold and windy outside, LeAnne had to admit that after close to two weeks of being confined to the hospital’s stale atmosphere and artificial light, it felt good to be outdoors in real sunlight and real air. Despite the chill, she drove with her window cracked, savoring the wintery breeze on her face.

LeAnne wasn’t exactly lighthearted, but with each passing mile, she felt slightly more hopeful. However Sister Anselm had come into the equation, her reassuring presence made all the difference because LeAnne was no longer alone in the battle. She could leave the hospital for a few hours, knowing that Lance wouldn’t be there alone. She’d be able to look Thad and Connor in the eye and tell them honestly and in person that she believed Lance would make it. His life would be altered and so would theirs, but somehow, together, they would make it work.