T. Parker - Summer Of Fear

But while I looked at Izzy and her picture, a deep and specific rage began to form inside me, at Martin Parish-for what he had begun that night of July 3 and was attempting to finish at the expense of Isabella. Never had I been more needed.

Never again would Isabella need more love and care and understanding than in the days to come. And what could I do from behind the bars of Orange County Jail? How could I possibly raise bail with no money in the bank and the modest equity in our home? What about the medical bills?

I thought of calling an attorney-I know plenty of lawyers. But if I was to admit myself to the great maw of the criminal-justice system, when might I be free again? And if I was to submit to the machinery of the courts, wouldn't it be, on some level at least, a confession that I was willing to play this deadly game on Martin Parish's terms?

No. I called no attorney that night. Instead, I began to conceive a counteroffensive, one that would take as its keynote the very one that Martin believed was his alone: audacity. If I was to deal with Martin Parish, it would not be through the achingly slow gears of the bureaucracy.

The ICU nurses eased me out around eight. I rose from Isabella's bedside with a sense of purpose in my desperation, and not a little meanness in my heart.

Joe and Corrine were still sitting in the waiting area, but Grace and Theo were gone. Instead, Amber sat across from Isabella's parents. An uneasy detente prevailed over them, grouped together as a family might be, but only a simpleton would not have noted the rigid set of Corrine's back; the contrite, hand-folded isolation of Amber; and the intense attention brought by Joe to a magazine about cars.

"Where have you been?" I said, boring straight into Amber's gray eyes as if I could differentiate truth from fiction in them.

"Taking care of business."

"Grace and your dad left," said Joe.

A pause in the conversation implied Amber's invasion.

"I wanted you all to know I care about Isabella," said Amber. "I'll go now."

"No. You're coming with me."

They all looked to me. I looked at Corrine, then Joe. "This is necessary." "I don't understand," said Corrine.

"What are you going to do, Russ?" "I'm going to try to keep myself out of jail."

I took Amber by the arm and guided her out. The night was compressed and heated, and the air felt dirty. Across the street from the Medical Center, the bright red sign for the World Hotel had gone haywire, now proclaiming, world hot.

"You seem to have a purpose," said Amber.

"Martin Parish was in your room the night Alice died. He beat her to death. We need to prove it."

"You're goddamned right we do, and you saw him."

"I saw him leaving. I need hard evidence now. He's trying to frame Grace and me. But he was there, and he has to have left something. Whatever it is, I need it."

"You sound desperate."

"How I sound doesn't matter."

She took my arm and stopped us. "Russ? She's okay. She's okay."

"Yes, she's perfect." The image of Izzy's swollen, blackened face sat right behind my eyes. She looked as if she'd been beaten half to death, maybe closer. Her pain was everywhere now, even in the air around me.

"You don't have to lie to me about her."

"She's perfect."

"Are you okay?"

"Get in."

I opened the door for her, then slammed it shut on her dress. It protruded from the steel like a caught animal. I cracked the door and she gathered it in, looking at me from the interior. Her expression was of fear and pity, two emotions I've never been eager to provoke from a woman. A wave of shame broke over me-my face went hot and for just a second everything blurred. What I wanted at that moment more than anything in the world was for no one on earth to know me.

I drove fast.

Once I was on the freeway, I called Chet Singer's home number and pleaded my case to him. I told him I needed his official presence at the scene of an as-yet-unofficial crime, in order to gather evidence against Martin Parish for the murder of Alice Fultz. He said no.

I told him an innocent girl was being framed, along with an innocent-in this regard, anyway-father. I told him that Parish was abusing his power with a skill and depravity that challenged the imagination. Chester said no.

I told him, as I flew through the traffic on Interstate 5, that I was helpless against Parish and his official standing, that only an honest and genuine member of the law-enforcement community could provide true resistance to Parish's outlandish- but effective-machinations.

"I can't and won't," said Chester.

Amber yanked the phone from my hand and pleaded an eloquent case to Chet. It might have been the best acting in the world, but I knew that Amber was as serious now as I had ever seen her, that her desire to see Alice's murder redressed was tied intimately with her own desire to believe that she, Amber Mae Wilson, was capable of loving someone other than herself.

Chet must have said no.

Amber literally slumped against the door, her eyes searching my own in obstinate disbelief.

"I'm sorry," said Chet Singer. "I'm very, very sorry."

Then he hung up.

During the silence that followed, I could feel the engine beneath me, the tires on the asphalt, the wind outside the glass, and the continuing speechless scrutiny of Amber Mae Wilson. The suburbs crept by on either side of the freeway, and I noted that most of the lights in most of the houses were on, discouragement to the Midnight Eye, and wondered how many fingers rested inches from how many triggers, how many new dead bolts had been set and reset and reset again, how many nightmares were ending in abrupt and sweat-drenched lurchings, how many fatigued eyes were fixed drowsily on paperback books or scanning the relief of acoustic ceilings in lamplight, how many children were sleeping in the beds of their parents while mother and/or father wondered dimly just what had got wrong in a county that had once promised prosperity, security, a nominally bright future.

"Where have you been?" I asked.

"That is not your business."

"Then here's something that is. It's time to cut the shit, Amber. You sent two thugs to scare Grace back into your power. You're holding money over her. You ought to see what they’d to her. She's scared to death of you."

"I had no idea," she answered quietly, "that Grace's caparity for delusion had reached such heights."

"Well, now you know."

"Could you please tell me who these thugs are?"

"Cute. You hired them, so tell me."

"I hired a licensed private investigator to inform me my own daughter's whereabouts and… habits. I hired him to see if he could find the netsuke Grace took from me. I hired him to tell her in no uncertain terms that she was on the verge of being written out of her trust- because she refused even to acknowledge me as a person, let alone as her own mother!"

Another long silence, then Amber said, quite flatly, "May I tell you a story about when I was young?"

"It's a little late for stories."

Amber's fist smacked into my shoulder, then my thigh, then landed squarely on my jaw. I kept both hands on the wheel. She hit me on the ear, then the jaw again, then brought both her hands into play, tattooing the side of my face with sharp blows. I finally steadied the wheel with my left, then backhanded her with my right, a swat that landed squarely on the side of her face and sent a fleshy report through the car. She hesitated, slugged me hard on the shoulder again, then backed against the door, crying quietly.

"I will not be held responsible for Alice," she said. "I will not."

"Fine."

"You must realize, Russell, that Grace is lying about almost everything."

"She is most definitely not lying about the burns on her feet."