Redemption Road: A Novel (54 page)

Beckett came next, and the meeting would be hard. She’d spent long nights concocting theories of why he’d done the things he’d done. She had one or two, but theories weren’t answers, and she needed to understand so many things.

Parking near his house, she saw him on the porch in a wheelchair. He couldn’t walk anymore and wasn’t a cop. He taught criminology at the community college, and in the pictures she’d found online, he seemed well enough, though sad. She watched him for a long time, realizing as she did that, in spite of everything, she’d missed him. They’d been partners for four years, and he’d saved her life more than once. Was the wheelchair a large enough price for whatever mistakes he’d made? She didn’t know, yet, but planned to find out.

He didn’t move when he saw her. He didn’t smile, either. “Every day.” He nodded when he said it. “Every day I’ve waited for you to come.” His eyes were dark and troubled, his legs wasted beneath a quilt.

Elizabeth stepped onto the porch. “I’ve tried very hard not to hate you.”

“There’s that, at least.”

“Why’d you do it, Charlie?”

“I never thought anyone would die.” His eyes filled as he said it. “Please believe me when I say that.”

“I do. Now, help me understand. What did he have on you?”

“Elizabeth…”

“I want to know what leverage was so strong you’d put those children and me in danger. No bullshit, either, Charlie. You owe me the truth, at least.”

He sighed and watched the street. “If I do this, I’ll never repeat it again, not to you or anyone else.”

“You understand I can’t make the same promise.” Elizabeth couldn’t hide the way she felt. She was angry and frustrated.

Beckett seemed to accept that. “My wife is an educated woman. College degree. A master’s. She didn’t always cut hair.”

“Okay.”

“When she was young, she worked for the county.” Beckett smoothed the quilt. “Specifically, she worked for the comptroller.”

“She was a bookkeeper?”

“An accountant,” Beckett said. “Gideon’s father worked for the county, too. He was an assistant county manager, believe it or not. A different man before his wife died. Young, ambitious. He didn’t drink. Didn’t even smoke.”

“I remember he was working with Adrian and Francis.”

“A quarter million dollars were missing from the county treasury. He was helping Adrian and Francis figure it out. They were close. Another week and they’d have found her.”

Elizabeth saw it, then. “Your wife.”

“I couldn’t let her go to prison. She had a problem then, but not anymore. Gambling in secret. Stupid stuff that caught her out. She’s not a bad person. You know her. You have to believe that.”

“She was stealing funds, and Adrian was close to figuring it out.”

“I just wanted him distracted. That’s it. I thought the beer can would make him look sloppy, make people doubt. It was just a distraction. Liz, please…”

But, she had to walk away, down the porch and back. “You planted evidence in a murder case. You implicated another cop.”

“I didn’t know about the scratches or the DNA match. I didn’t think Adrian would go to prison. When the match came back, I thought he was guilty, that I’d actually helped.”

“You didn’t.”

“I know that.”

“We could have caught the real killer—”

“I thought we
had
the real killer! Don’t you see the horrible truth of it? I thought I’d done this selfish thing and gotten lucky. I thought it was providence.”

Elizabeth stared out at the street, feeling the weight of it. The can led to Adrian, then to the blood sample and the DNA match. It led to his conviction, his torture, and all the evil the warden had brought into Elizabeth’s life. “Without the can we might have caught my father thirteen years ago. Lauren Lester, Ramona Morgan, Adrian’s wife. They might all have lived. Eleven women, Charlie. We could have stopped it.”

“Maybe.”

“Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night?”

“I’d apologize a thousand times if I thought it would help.”

But Elizabeth didn’t want to hear his apologies or explanations. It was all so clear. A stupid crime and a simple misdirection, prison and pointless death, ripples on some foreign shore. “Tell me about the warden.”

“We were friends before I knew what kind of man he was. I got drunk once and told him what happened. My wife, the beer can. He’s held the truth over me ever since.”

“What did he want?”

“Adrian’s location. He wanted that, and he wanted you to stay clear. That’s it. That’s all.”

“Until he tortured Gideon and killed my father.”

“Liz—”

“The innocent people in that motel room.”

Beckett looked down. He had no words.

“Does your wife know?”

“None of it. She can’t. It would kill her.”

Elizabeth leaned against the porch rail, crossed her arms.

“What are you going to do?” Beckett asked.

“About you? That’s Adrian’s decision.”

“Liz, listen…”

She didn’t plan to listen. The anger was too intense. It was all so stupid and needless and destructive. She felt the love for Charlie down deep, but like a shadow on her heart. Her father should have been stopped years ago. Those women should be alive, and Adrian should never have gone to prison. What excuse was there? What path to forgiveness?

She was about to leave without another word, to turn on her heel and never look back, but she saw Charlie’s wife in the open door, Carol, who’d started it all.

“Hello, Liz.” She stepped onto the porch, a soft, round woman with warm eyes and a broad, rich smile. “I’m so happy to see you.”

“Are you?”

Elizabeth felt the stiffness and the cold, but Carol seemed oblivious. She swept across the porch, wrapped her arms around Elizabeth, and pulled her into all that softness. “You poor thing. What you’ve suffered, my God. You poor, sweet, unfortunate thing.” Elizabeth kept her guard up, but Carol’s affection was unstoppable. “Charlie told me you saved his life, that he’d have died without you. Thank you for that, for my husband’s life.”

She stepped back, and Elizabeth wondered at the lie Charlie had told. There was such love between him and Carol, and maybe that’s why he’d done it, so Elizabeth would be part of that, too. She didn’t know, and looking at Carol’s broad, beaming face, she didn’t really care. The past was past, and she was moving on.

“You should know,” Elizabeth said, “that Charlie would do anything for you.” She held Carol’s eyes. “Anything at all. That’s how much he loves you.”

Carol beamed even more, and that was Elizabeth’s final gift, not of forgiveness but silence, the chance for one good thing to remain when she left.

“Good-bye, Charlie.” She stepped off the porch and left them there. “I’m sorry about the wheelchair.”

“Liz—”

“Take care of each other.”

“Liz, wait.”

But Elizabeth didn’t wait. She walked away and took a final look from the truck. Beckett was in the chair and unmoving, his hands spread on the quilt as his wife leaned close and smiled and kissed his cheek. What would Adrian do with what she’d learned about Beckett’s betrayal and Carol’s original sin? She didn’t know for sure, but a stillness had been in Adrian these last weeks, a keenness to lift his arm and let life break like a current around him. Like her, he cared more for the future than the past, more for hope than anger.

She thought Charlie would be okay.

Starting the truck, she worked it past the abandoned plants, and down the long hill on the bad side of town. She followed the creek and found Gideon’s home as abandoned and broken as the one she’d left behind the clapboarded church. A foreclosure notice was nailed to the frame, but it seemed the bank didn’t care too much for the house. The door stood open. Dead leaves stirred on the threshold. Elizabeth sat for a long time and worried for the boy. Without her, the house was all he had: the sad, small house and the sad, small father. Turning across the broken road, she went to the fourth place on her list and found Faircloth on the front porch of his grand old home. He was draped in blankets and safeguarded by a round-faced nurse with a sunny disposition. “Are you here to see Mr. Jones? How lovely.” She bustled across the porch and met Elizabeth at the top step. “He gets so few visitors.”

Elizabeth followed her to Faircloth’s side. His mouth and left eye drooped. At his right hand was a table with pen and paper, and an old-fashioned with a straw that was curved and damp and as red as the cherry in the bottom of the glass. “He can’t speak,” the nurse said, “but he’s in there all the same.”

Elizabeth took a seat and studied the old man. He was thinner and older, but the eyes were still bright. His hand shook as he wrote. “So happy.”

“I’m happy, too, Faircloth. So very happy to see you.”

“But dangerous,” he wrote.

She took his curled left hand and held it in both of hers. “I’m being careful. I promise. Our mutual friend is fine, too. He’s far away and safe. Channing is with us.”

Faircloth began to rock minutely. Tears brightened the seams of his face. “Give love,” he wrote.

“That’s why I’m here. We have room for you, too. We have space and time and money for nurses. Come back with me.” His head moved as if he were shaking it. “It would be no inconvenience. We’ve talked about it for months.”

He looked at the pad. His hand moved. “Lived here. Die here.”

“There’s no need for you to be alone.”

He wrote again. “Pretty nurse. Soft hands.” Elizabeth looked up from the pad and saw the smile in his eyes. “Belvedere?” he wrote.

“Faircloth…”

“I’ll get it.” The nurse stood. “He asks me all the time, this time of day. But I’m not much for alcohol or forward men.”

Faircloth wrote, “Tease.” The nurse kissed his forehead, then went inside to fix Elizabeth’s drink. When she was gone, he wrote, “Gideon?”

“That’s part of the reason I’m here.”

He wrote an address, then, “Foster.”

“Foster parents.”

“Not good.” The light left his eyes.

Elizabeth squeezed again. “I’ll find him. I’ll make it right.”

The nurse returned and handed Elizabeth the drink. “I’m going to start dinner. Will you sit with him for a while?”

“There’s nothing I’d rather do.” She waited for the nurse to leave, then lifted the old-fashioned so Faircloth could take a sip.

“You and Adrian?” he wrote.

“He’s a strong man, and healing. I think we’re doing well.”

“How well?”

She saw the twinkle that time and took the question exactly as Faircloth meant it. “The next man I kiss will be forever. Adrian knows that.”

“So kiss him.”

“Soon, I think.” She lifted her glass and sat beside the old man.

“Happy,” he wrote. “Will die happy.”

*   *   *

Elizabeth found Gideon in a neighborhood park three houses down from the one his foster parents owned. He was alone on a swing, and she watched from beneath the brim of her hat. None of the other kids called out or looked at him. He sat still on the plastic seat, his sneakers scuffing in the dirt. She watched for a long time as if her own heart beat in the emptiness of that park.

He never looked up.

He barely moved.

Even when her shadow stretched across his feet, his interest was perfunctory. That changed when he looked up and the hat came off.

“Hello, Gideon.”

He didn’t say a word, but came off the swing in a tangle of limbs. His face was hard and hot as he squeezed her.

She felt tears through her shirt. “Are you okay?”

He squeezed harder, and Elizabeth checked the park for parents or cops. No one looked at them twice. “Let’s take a walk.” She caught his hand, and he fell in beside her. “You’ve grown.” He smeared a forearm across his face, and she knew he was embarrassed. “Are they feeding you well?”

“I guess.”

It was a start. She squeezed his hand. “How’s your father?”

“Homeless. Still drunk.”

“I’m sorry, Gideon. I would fix him if I could.”

“It’s been seven months.” He pulled his hand free. “You said you would come for me.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I wanted you to have a chance.”

“To do what?”

“Decide.” She sat on a bench. She wanted his hands again, but they were shoved deep in his pockets. “I’m here, now.”

His eyes were bloodshot and bright, but different, too. Older. More guarded. Behind him, the sun was setting. “Decide what?”

“If you wanted to stay here or come with me. It’s a big decision. I wanted you to be ready for it.”

He looked down the street. “I was in the hospital for three weeks.”

“I know.”

“Everyone I had was dead or gone. My father only visited once.” Anger. Shiny eyes.

“People were looking for us. Police. FBI. They may still be looking.”

He weighed her words, and she hated the distance between them.

“Do you like your foster parents?”

“Your father is the one that did it.” He wiped his nose again, intent. “In the church. He killed my mother.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

“What if I’d killed Mr. Wall?”

“You didn’t.”

The boy looked down the street, and Elizabeth realized he was looking at his foster parents’ house. “He lives with you now, doesn’t he?”

“He does, yes.”

“Does he hate me?”

“Of course not.”

“Is he nice?”

“Yes, he’s nice. He’s also smart and patient and knows everything about horses and cattle and the desert. He loved your mother very much. I think he’ll love you, too.”

“If I come?”

“If you come, yes.” He stared at the dirt. “That’s my truck.” She pointed. “It’s a three-day drive. Just you and me.”

He looked at the truck. It was dusty and travel-streaked. “What about my stuff? You know…?”

“I’ll let your foster parents know you’re safe. Your father, too, if you like. People might look for you, but we can handle that, if need be. As for your stuff, we’ll get new stuff. Clothes. Toys. A new name if you want it. Channing is with us, too. She hopes you’ll come.”

He looked at the house again, and at the near-empty park. “Is it nice where you live?”

“Very.”

He tried to be tough, to be grown up about it. But, his face crumpled as she watched. “I’ve really missed you.” He leaned into her.