Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery Part 36

As Trey took Tuan, I made sure his eyes registered what was going on. Good: The thousand-yard stare was fading. Trey was coming back.

I hustled into the small bedroom. It was crowded: Myna Roper on the twin bed, the EMT working over her, both cops watching. But one whiff and one glance told me everything I needed to know.

"She just pa.s.sed out," I said. "Drunk."

"It's not even nine," Matt said.

I pointed at the bourbon and vermouth that topped the presswood dresser in the corner.

"I think he's right, fellas," the EMT said as Myna began to snuffle and blink.

In the living room, Trey sat on the sofa. Tuan faced him, legs spraddled, and played with his father's s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.tons and spoke soft Vietnamese.

I said, "What happened? Why didn't you clear everybody out?"

"I tried," he said. "Tuan slipped out the front door while I was shaking Miz Roper. You've seen how quick he is. He was three houses down by the time I got outside. Then he spotted a cat in the bushes, and that was that: I had to chase him down. But I swear we weren't gone ten minutes."

"Then what happened?"

"Coming back up the driveway, I heard a noise like somebody beating a rug. I joked with Tuan that mommy was overcleaning again. She can never relax, you know?"

I nodded. Needed info now, but I had to let Trey tell it his way.

"I heard a man's voice and I knew something was wrong," he said. "The voice kept saying 'Where? Where? Where?' And then I'd hear that rug-beating noise. So I picked up the pace. And then I heard..." Trey paused for a deep breath and shook on the inhale, holding Tuan close to his chest. The boy wrapped his arms around his daddy's neck. "You know the sound a Ping-Pong ball makes when you hit it and it breaks?"

I went to one knee. "Was it Josh Whipple?"

"I'll never forget that sound. I don't know what this Josh looks like."

"Younger than you, redhead, slim."

Trey nodded and held his son. In a few seconds he began to cry. I rose, got set to leave. From the bedroom I heard Myna. She sounded p.i.s.sed. She said she'd just been resting her eyes, was an old woman allowed to do that anymore, and what in the good Lord's name were all those sirens for? Myna's voice made me wonder again where Patty was. I hadn't noticed her Jetta outside, but I hadn't been looking for it.

I turned back to Trey. "When you came in, Josh was still here?"

He nodded.

"Why didn't he start pounding on you?"

"I told him where I hid the money," Trey said, staring at nothing. "If Tuan hadn't run out the door ... if I'd grabbed him a little faster..."

"Where's the money?"

"Right where we found it."

"What?"

"The false floor, the shack in New Hamps.h.i.+re," he said. "I thought since the shack had already been searched..." His voice trailed "... I thought that was very clever of me."

As I left, stepping around the EMTs while they put Kieu on a backboard, I heard Trey in the living room. "Very clever of me," he said over and over.

Matt Bogardis had told me to stick around. He'd said it as a cop, not as a pal. But I needed to go. I angled, ducked, cut through backyards. It worked: By the time I made the street, I'd cleared the perimeter set up by the cops.

As I neared my truck I saw Randall had parked up at the mouth of the street, knowing that if he drove inside the perimeter they wouldn't let him out. That was smart, I thought. Very clever, Trey had said.

Yeah. Me and Randall, clever as h.e.l.l. Now Josh was gone, Patty was probably with him, they were flying toward the seventy-five grand, and Kieu Phigg was dead or close to it.

Very clever.

I backed toward Randall and saw he hadn't parked after all: His father's wagon was at a crazy angle. And its hood was buckled. Huh.

Closer. Now I saw why: Randall had rammed a car trying to leave the street.

A Jetta.

"Hot d.a.m.n," I said out loud, putting the F-150 in neutral and hopping out.

Patty Marx sat in her driver's seat, looking dazed. The car's left front corner was destroyed. Randall stood next to the car holding its keys. "I was up here blocking the street," he said, "and I watched her sweet-talk a cop and roll past the perimeter. It seemed like a good idea to halt further progress."

"It was," I said, grabbing the Jetta's door handle. It didn't budge.

"Crunched shut in the wreck," Randall said, and nodded toward my house. "How bad?"

"I think Kieu's dead." I looked around as I spoke. Spotted a rusty old wheel near a curb, stepped to it, hefted it.

"Dear Lord," Randall was saying. "Conway, I ... I thought trailing you was the smart play."

"Very clever," I said. "Lot of that going around."

Then I heaved the steel wheel at the driver's window, not much caring if it went through and wrecked Patty Marx's face. It didn't, but it shattered the safety gla.s.s nicely. I elbowed most of the gla.s.s out, reached across Patty, undid her seat belt, grabbed her jeans jacket with both hands, hauled her out the window.

She screamed. Down the street, a cop turned. He gave us a long look, spoke into his shoulder mic, and began walking our way. With his right hand on his holster.

"Stay here," I said to Randall. "Deal with the cops, Trey, the hospital." I walked Patty Marx to my truck.

I didn't know what I expected to find at Jut Road, other than an empty s.p.a.ce where seventy-five grand used to be. But I didn't know what the h.e.l.l else to do either. Called McCord's real cell-not the prepaid one-got voice mail, said the staties should head for Rourke and look for Josh Whipple.

I aimed north and tried to muster adrenaline. Felt empty, heavy, slow on my feet. I thought about Fred telling Josh how to find my house. Thought about Patty Marx, playing both ends against the middle and then some. Betrayal all around.

"How'd you work it with Phigg?" I said after a while.

"f.u.c.k you." She twisted the rearview mirror to look at her face. Made a tutting sound, pulled Kleenex from her jacket pocket, began dabbing at air-bag dust and tiny gla.s.s shards.

"How'd you work it?"

Long pause. "I explained it in straightforward fas.h.i.+on," she finally said, still wiping. "I told him Bobby Marx laid hands on me four hundred and three times. That was a stone-cold fact. I kept a tally on the flyleaf of my Bible. The figure I had in mind was a thousand dollars a pop."

"Straight blackmail?"

"That's the way I planned it. But the jacka.s.s went and fell in love with me." That last part hung for a split second too long before she said, "As an estranged daughter, of course, and a link to his oh-so-happy past."

"And the Canada plan fell out of that."

"I needed a tool to convince him to liquidate everything."

"I can't believe he went for that," I said. "He wasn't a dumb guy."

"Around me he was."

It didn't hang together. I had that heavy feeling again, knowledge bearing down. "What was the stick?"

"Hmm?"

"The carrot was a chance to help his daughter who'd had a h.e.l.luva rough break," I said. "But what was the stick?"

Nothing. I glanced at Patty as we neared the exit for Route 119. And I knew. And my heart hurt.

We played chicken, neither wanting to say it.

The game lasted 2.3 miles. I lost. "You f.u.c.ked him," I said.

Nothing.

"Deny it," I said. "I'm begging you."

Patty Marx said nothing.

My heart hurt.

"Please deny it."

She folded her arms.

"You slept with Tander Phigg," I said. "Then you told him he was your father."

"I didn't kill him," she said so quickly I barely made it out.

"You must have helped."

"No no no! Josh knocked him out, then lifted him by himself. He's ridiculously strong."

I thought back to the first day I saw Josh. He'd carried a tire and wheel under each arm like they were spare pillows.

"The cops never said anything about Phigg being knocked out." But I knew they weren't looking for anything like that, were content with their path-of-least-resistance suicide theory.

"Josh knew how to half fill kids' balloons with sand," Patty said, "and tunk people on the head, knock them out with minimal damage. He bragged about it."

"A sap," I said, nodding. "Old school." It fit. It worked. But then I thought of something. "Did he hit me in the head, that day at Motorenwerk?" I fingered the lump. "Because that was no dainty minimal-damage shot. Busted me open."

"It was him," she said, "and that one wasn't supposed to be dainty. He thought he could scare you off."

We rolled north in silence.

After maybe ten minutes Patty said, "I won't cop to that. Not in public. I'll dime out Josh all day long, but if you mention ... what you just said about Tander and me, I'll deny it. And I'll sell the denial very, very well."

I said nothing. Everything felt so heavy.

"What do you say to that?" Patty said.

"You won't have to dime out Josh."

I felt her looking at me. "You are a very serious man," she finally said.

"I a.s.sume Josh and Fred met in Brattleboro?"

She nodded. "That's what Josh said. After his granny died in Utica-after he killed her, as we now suppose-he took his s.h.i.+tty little inheritance and b.u.mmed around a few years. Wound up broke in Vermont."

"So? What was the connection?"

"When I told Josh that Tander was meeting one Conway Sax for breakfast, Josh looked like he'd won the lottery. He said he had a lever for you."

"How'd he make the connection between my father and me?" I said. "I hadn't seen Fred but once in fifteen years."

"Apparently you were all he talked about with the homeless set," she said. "His son, the big-deal NASCAR driver."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

"He talked that way about me?" I said.

"I guess he did."

We were quiet awhile.

"What was the pitch?" I said. "What did Josh promise Fred?"

"The usual, I would guess," she said, rubbing thumb to fingers.