Kirk Russell - Counterfeit Road

‘No, things have changed; it doesn’t look like I will be.’

Yesterday Doug had a fever or said he did. It was impossible to tell any more, though he did sound sick.

‘Was he coughing this morning?’

‘Bit of hacking.’

‘Did he take anything for it?’

‘No, you know him.’

Maybe she did once, but not any more. Barbara was quiet and then said, ‘I’ll let you get back to the menu.’

‘No hurry, I’m fine.’

New York investment banker types liked to ski in January, so this is when Doug usually entertained the ones he needed. No doubt the two bankers coming to dinner tonight were both wealthy and incredibly boring. No doubt they would talk their cars and their houses. That they even got called bankers was a joke to Barbara. They were more like hustlers in expensive clothes. They worked where the money was. That was their whole secret. All their smug certainty came from that and trained as she was in finance she had learned that few of them really understood numbers.

Barbara had paused too long and Gail was a little curt asking, ‘Shall I give him a message?’

‘No, don’t worry about it. I’ll call him later. When is he due home?’

‘At six thirty. Dinner is at seven thirty.’

‘Tell him I’m out this afternoon but will call him later tonight.’

‘Should I tell him a time?’

Barbara hesitated. She wanted to leave her guessing. It was her way of making her presence felt, her scream.

‘I don’t know what time yet, but it’ll be after his dinner.’

‘We’ll miss you here tonight.’

‘Are you eating with them?’

‘No, of course not, and I didn’t mean to sound as if I was. I may be in the kitchen helping though. Doug said tonight is very important.’

They are all very important until they don’t matter any more, Barbara thought. She hung up without another word and now felt like she might faint. She didn’t know why she bothered to make the call. She couldn’t believe her marriage had come to this and sat for an hour without moving, without knowing what she should do next.

Then her thoughts returned to the homicide inspector’s questions. She scrolled through her cell directory to the name Lisa Chou and called it as she rose and walked unsteadily back down the hallway to the great room. It rang four times before he picked up.

When Larry answered she said, ‘It’s me. A San Francisco homicide inspector visited me this morning. They’re working the case again. He wanted to know if you moved the body or removed a wallet.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘That I wasn’t watching you.’

‘Barbara, what’s wrong?’

What’s wrong, everything is wrong, she thought, you, Doug, almost everything I’ve done with my life is wrong.

‘He and his partner run the Cold Case Unit for San Francisco. He said they have new information.’

‘Good for them.’

‘They have a videotape of the killing.’

‘They what?’

‘They were sent a videotape.’

There was a very long quiet now and Larry’s voice was the low flat one that used to sometimes scare her when he asked, ‘Well, how could that be?’

‘I saw it. He brought a CD with him.’

‘When did they get it?’

‘Recently, and he wanted to surprise me with it.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine.’

Larry wouldn’t ask any more than that about her. He didn’t care at all about her. He probably never had. If she said she was considering killing herself he’d insist she get help, but he wouldn’t feel anything.

‘They’ll do a little bit of investigation and then give up,’ he said. ‘It’ll go back to being a dormant file.’

‘You figure it out. It’s yours to deal with.’

‘I’ll take care of it, but there’s nothing to worry about. There never was. You built all this in your head. I’ll find out what’s going on and the homicide inspector isn’t going to get anywhere. He’s going through the motions. The bottom line is everyone has bigger problems to worry about in 2011 than a dead ex-Secret Service agent

killed in 1989.’

Barbara thought about Raveneau. She thought about his eyes. She saw the video in her head. She saw Krueger fall. She couldn’t stop the next words from coming out.

‘In all the time we were married you were never once truthful with me. You were always controlling, but you aren’t as good at it as you imagine you are. You say there’s nothing to worry about but this inspector is smarter than you. Do you know why Inspector Govich came to Canada?’

‘There was never anything you ever had to worry about. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’ve obsessed on this way too long and it’s not going to go anywhere now. The homicide inspector is just going through the motions.’

‘You already said that.’

‘I’m saying it again to make sure you hear me.’

‘Inspector Govich flew to Calgary because a witness phoned them after we went home. They couldn’t get the witness to come in. He wanted to remain anonymous but said he heard shots. He left them a message with the time of day he heard the shots. He checked his watch. Inspector Govich came to Canada because the time was very close to when we said we found the body. That was the real reason he wanted to re-interview us.’

‘What’s this current murder cop’s name?’

She reached over to the coffee table and picked up his card. ‘Benjamin Raveneau.’

‘Spell the last name.’

She did and her head was floating, Doug lying to her, Doug sleeping with that bitch who had wormed her way into their lives. Doug was happy to get her calls because it told him where she was and meant she wouldn’t bother him for several more hours. He probably got a text from Gail as soon as she hung up. And Larry had always lied to her. Nothing was real. She couldn’t believe anything, not even herself. Her whole life was false. She was just a form of property stored in the house here.

‘I could answer some of his questions,’ she said. ‘I could end that part.’

Larry was quiet for several seconds before answering, ‘It all ended quite awhile ago and it’s very troubling to hear you talk like this. Do you really want to risk the life you have?’

Yes, she thought, I want to risk it all.

‘Don’t take any more calls from the inspector and I’ll look into it. Don’t say anything to anyone until we talk again. Can you do that? I think it’s important that nothing more get said and I’ll ask for help. You don’t need to worry. How’s the skiing?’

She looked out the window at the skiers in the far distance. She pressed End and cut the call off. She had lived and slept with him. That seemed impossible now.

La Rosa was in her car on her way to Santa Rosa to sit next to an elderly woman and take her cold arthritic hand with its misshapen and swollen knuckles into her warm hands. Then she would tell her bones found during a construction excavation seven months ago were a positive DNA match for her daughter who had disappeared forty-two years ago. The daughter was a fifteen year old runaway in 1969 and though the rest of the world forgot about the girl long ago, her mother couldn’t.

The last time la Rosa saw her she revealed the fantasy world she had constructed. Her daughter had fallen in love with an Australian and lived in an unnamed remote area of the Outback without a phone. Marsha Fairchild had an answer for all the reasons why her daughter had never contacted her.

From a distance it was an inability to face the probable truth, but for all her toughness, la Rosa dreaded this meeting. She was in her car north of the Bay Area driving through hills south of Santa Rosa where the cell reception was poor. Her focus was on what she was going to say to convince the woman when Raveneau called.