T. Parker - Laguna Heat

“Of course, he’s very interested in the hospital, too,” Wade said. “I can see the questions swirling behind that glum young face of yours, Tom. I raised a good detective. But don’t be afraid to accept a miracle. Expect them, accept them.”

Wade’s voice was confidential, his smile assuring. And his advice seemed to lift Shephard’s concerns out of an arena he wasn’t yet willing to leave. He nodded. “I met Dorothy Edmond on Friday,” he said. “She didn’t exactly portray Joe as a miracle worker.”

“Oh?” Wade’s smile had turned wry, as if he knew what might be coming next.

“Do you know her?”

“In a sense, yes. ‘I knew her once’ might be a better way to put it. She was and still is a very unhealthy woman.”

“She coughs a lot.”

“She does at that,” Wade said gently.

“She told me some, uh, disturbing stories about Joe.”

“Don’t be disturbed. I told you a thousand times who the best liars are. Do you know?”

“Those who believe their own lies,” Shephard answered quickly.

“She must be one of them,” Wade said.

“I want to give them to you just the same. I saw Joe last Thursday. When I was leaving the Surfside, Dorothy took me aside and said she knew something about the murders. When I met with her the next day, she told me a long tale about Joe and a woman named Helene. Joe mentioned her, too. Helene Lang.”

“I knew her, too,” Wade said with a new smile. Again he leaned back and crossed his hands.

“She told me that Joe fought with his partner, Burt Creeley, and arranged to have him drowned in the bay at Newport. Helene had professed her love to Burt and had managed to alter his will so that his thirty percent of the Surfside stock came her way if he died. According to Edmond, Joe and Helene Lang were in it together. They planned it in advance so Joe could get the stock control. She said Burton’s ideas were too... democratic.”

As Shephard recounted Dorothy’s story, he was aware of its gross unlikelihood. Coming from his own mouth it sounded impossible. But from Edmond, as she had sat in the cloud of smoke and lilac perfume, it was convincing enough to be real.

“I read parts of Hope Creeley’s diary,” he continued, bringing fresh conviction to his voice, “and the affair checks out. She wrote about it, knew about it.” Shephard stopped for a moment to ponder his collapsing narrative. Wade was listening patiently, calmly studying his son’s face. “She said I’d have to ‘reopen’ the case if I wanted to get to the killer of Hope and Tim Algernon. Then she told me to know myself. Even if everything she said were true, I still don’t see how it connects. But if she’s pointing a finger, it’s at Joe Datilla.”

“Murder is a rather heavy finger,” Wade answered. “Did you wonder why she was telling you this?”

“It’s not the kind of story you’d want to keep inside, if it were true,” Shephard answered after a pause. The truth was, he hadn’t been able to figure out why she had come to him with it.

“Or even if it weren’t.” Wade sagged forward and poured himself a glass of water from a pitcher on the desk. “I don’t know what she would gain by telling you something like that. I’ve known Dorothy Edmond for many years, and I’ve prayed for her many times. If Joe didn’t have the heart to keep her on at the Surfside, she’d probably be back in one of the hospitals. She’s been in quite a few, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

Wade pushed himself up from the large desk, taking his glass of water. He looked through the blinds out to the Church of New Life drive-in lot. When he turned back to Shephard his face was drained of joy, like a fighter answering the bell for a round he can’t win.

“I knew her quite well when she was engaged to Joe,” he said finally. Shephard saw that his hunch had been right: she was a jilted lover, out of hope and ready for revenge. Fool, he thought. Ass. “The reason she’s so intimate with the details of Helene Lang’s life is because... she is Helene Lang. She’s gone by a dozen names in the last thirty years. Dorothy Edmond is relatively new.”

Shephard felt his ears warm with embarrassment, like a schoolboy who has multiplied the numbers he was asked simply to add. Wade sipped the water and set the glass back on the desk.

“The Creeleys, Joe and Helene, your mother and I were all pretty close for a while. Joe broke the engagement when he found Burton, his partner and closest friend, with Helene snuggled nice and tight below deck on Burt’s boat one night. It broke his heart, Tom. True, she had convinced Burton to will his stocks to her, but it sure wasn’t Joe who engineered that.” Wade moved again to the window. When he drew up the blinds, Shephard could see the drive-in far below, the trees around it swaying in the growing wind. The last of the cars waited at the exit.

“Of course Helene was disgraced. She was a beautiful, powerful woman, but she started to crack when the entire club found out what she had been doing. When Joe found them that night on the boat, he roughed up Burton pretty good. Helene, too. Some of the people around the club probably knew already, but they had two black eyes and a broken engagement as evidence. Still, Helene Lang wouldn’t let go. She stayed there at the Surfside, an outcast from Joe, an outcast from the life of the place. She drank. Made a spectacle of herself more than once. Then she cut her wrist one morning. The maid found her. It was Joe who took her downstairs and put her in his car for the hospital. The doctors didn’t have any trouble putting her back together, but they weren’t sure she was stable enough to let out. They kept her for observation. Which went into treatment. It never stopped. She still goes to a psychiatrist three times a week, or rather he goes to her. Joe Datilla pays for it. When she squandered all the money she had, she had to sell the stock and Joe bought it. That was years later. He didn’t have to, but he threw in a suite as part of the deal. He never could turn her out, Tom.”

Wade sat back down and poured more water. Shephard saw the pained look on his face, the row of tiny droplets above his lips. He had told his son — many years ago when he was a detective, too — that a cop’s job wasn’t to ponder human nature, just to understand it. Maybe those years of understanding the human animal had led him to God, Shephard thought.

“Tom, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, about Helene. I’m not sure why she would tell you what she did or didn’t do. Her doctors probably couldn’t tell you. She probably couldn’t either. Maybe she feels like it’s time to confess. Maybe to hurt Joe. Maybe she doesn’t feel anything I would even understand. But I’ll tell you this. I’m deeply sorry that she did. I’m deeply sorry that you fell into it. I know how bad you hurt after the shooting, and Louise. I wanted Laguna to be a fresh start for you. I’m sorry she brought this onto your shoulders. I apologize for her.” Wade’s voice was shaking as he spoke his next words. “It’s hard for me to talk about, son. It takes me back to a good time that turned out so bad for so many of us. I don’t know how you’re going to find out who killed Tim Algernon and Hope. You may never find out. But you’re not going to find it at the Surfside. Handle it your way. Do what you think is best. But don’t let the bitter heart of an old woman hurt you. She may be dangerous. And not only to herself.”

“She showed me a check that Joe had written to you,” Shephard said, staring down at the floor. “I don’t know why. She wouldn’t say why.”

When he looked back up, there was a wry grin on his father’s face again. Wade shook his head slowly. “I shouldn’t make light of anything that has happened here today,” he said. “And certainly not scoff at the strange imagination of a sick person. That was the down payment on the house I brought you up in, son. Joe had the cash, and his terms were easier than the banks could offer. Every interest point I could save was worth it, you know why?” Shephard honestly didn’t. “Because I was twenty-eight years old and I had a son on the way. I figured the least I could do was put a good roof over his hard little head. I knew you’d come out hard-headed.”