Joel Goldman: The Dead Man

I pulled on my clothes and went looking for her. The house was empty and my car was gone. If the dogs knew where she was, they weren't talking. I started to call her cell phone when the doorbell rang. It was Kent and Dolan. I'd forgotten that my forty-eight hours were up.

"We've come for the monkey," Dolan said.

"Anyone else, Dolan, and that would be the dumbest thing they'd ever said."

"C'mon, Jack," Kent said. "We've seen the letter your daughter sent you. Ammara Iverson knew about the stuffed animal. She's the one that put it together."

"You're telling me that you got a judge to sign a search warrant for a stuffed monkey?"

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Kent said. "The harder you fight us, the harder we come at you."

He was right and I was buying time until I could find Lucy.

"Wait here."

I ran upstairs, coming back with Monkey Girl.

"You can look at it here. You want to take it with you, get a warrant. Until then, you've got my word I'll take good care of it. Deal?" Kent nodded and I handed it to him. "There's a pocket on the inseam of one of the legs. There's a piece of Velcro inside. I don't know if something was hidden there, but if there was, it's gone."

Kent handed it to Dolan and stared at me, deciding what to do next when his cell phone rang.

"Kent," he said, listening, the veins in his neck bulging. "You're shitting me! That is total bullshit! All right, all right! Here."

He handed me the phone, grabbed Monkey Girl from Dolan, and threw it on the floor, pulling Dolan to one side, whispering to him, flapping his arms like he was drowning. Dolan's face turned red and he tried to push past Kent who bodychecked him.

"You son-of-a-bitch!" Dolan screamed. "We'll get you for this if it's the last fucking thing we do!"

Kent dragged him into the kitchen. I walked into the living den where I could see them, holding Kent's phone to my ear.

"Hello," I said.

"Jack, it's Ammara. I hope you know what you're doing."

"At the moment, the only thing I'm doing is watching Kent and Dolan pitch a fit. It's a good show but I don't know what it has to do with me."

"Don't play with me, Jack. This is serious shit," she said.

"I'm not playing with you. I have no idea what you're talking about."

She hesitated. "Okay. Here it is. We got an anonymous tip this morning that two and a half million dollars each was wired into Kent's and Dolan's bank accounts. We checked it out and the money came from an account in the Caymans that was closed immediately after the transfer was made. We don't know whose account it was or how the transfer was made but we'll find out and when we do, you better hope you still don't know anything about it."

I looked out the front window as Lucy and Simon pulled into the driveway, Lucy in my car, Simon in his. They got out and waved to me. Simon pointed at the government sedan parked at the curb, his eyes asking the obvious question. I nodded and they high-fived, kissed, and drove away in Simon's car.

"Maybe they won the lottery," I told Ammara.

"That's the best you can do?"

Dolan was on his phone, his eyes popping out of his head, Kent pacing circles around him. Roxy and Ruby raced in through the doggie door, jumped up on them, and peed on their shoes.

"What can I tell you? Every dog has his day."

After Kent and Dolan left, I showered and shaved, went to the grocery store, and came home. A taxi pulled in the driveway behind me and Joy got out of the backseat. She was wearing jeans, a down vest over a turtleneck sweater, her hair tucked behind her head, the only color in her cheeks coming from the cold. The driver pulled her suitcase from the trunk. She paid him and he drove away. We looked at each other, my arms filled with grocery bags, hers hugging her chest.

We were married a long time before we got divorced, long enough to know when something was wrong. I saw it in her flushed-out features, her slumped shoulders. I tilted my head at the front door.

"Let's go inside."

The dogs swarmed her while I put the groceries away. She sat on the floor with them, offering no resistance. I took my coat off and joined her. The dogs exhausted themselves, curling into our laps. I took her hand.

"Tell me," I said.

She cleared her throat. "It's funny. All those years I spent running from doctor to doctor and nothing was wrong with me except that I was a drunk. When I finally quit drinking, I quit running. Then, a few months ago, I felt something in the shower. I decided it was nothing, just my imagination. But it got bigger and I got scared and so I went to a doctor here and she sent me to M. D. Anderson."

"What did they tell you?"

"I have breast cancer, probably stage three or four. They won't know for sure until they get the rest of the tests back."

I let out a long breath. "I'm sorry. Is it curable?"

"Treatable. That's the new mantra. Nobody promises a cure."

"When do you start?"

"Soon. Surgery first, then chemo and radiation." She looked at me, her eyes filled. "If I live long enough, I get new boobs."

She dipped her head to my shoulder and I cradled the back of her neck in my hand. My phone rang. It was Kate. I didn't answer.

May 2009

My parents lived in Dallas when I was assigned to the FBI office there. My dad and I had lunch together every Friday. The best part of lunch was arguing over whose turn it was to pay, each of us trying to convince the other to pick up the check. He and my mother stopped by our house one Sunday morning and the conversation turned to whose turn it was to buy, my dad reminding me that he'd bought the week before. I said he would have to pay because I was broke and turned one pant pocket inside out to show that it was empty. He pointed to the other pocket and I turned it out. It was as empty as the first. He looked at me and said wear a different pair of pants, telling me not to make excuses when it was my turn to step up.

I told Kate that story when we had lunch at the end of May. We were sitting at a table on the sidewalk at Axios. It was my way of explaining why I had gone with Joy to her doctor appointments, sat in the waiting room during her surgery, and moved her into the house Lucy and I shared when she came home from the hospital. Joy's surgery had gone well but she was struggling with chemo and radiation. Her hair was falling out and she was losing weight and hope.

"What's your relationship with her now?" Kate asked.

"I'm taking care of her. When we were married, she went through some pretty hard times when I didn't do that."

"What's that mean for us?"

Sherry Fritzshall had been true to her word, reaching an agreement with Kate to compensate her for the damage Milo Harper had caused her firm. After the ink was dry, she tried to recruit Kate to the institute but Kate told her she had accepted a job in California.

"I don't know. You're moving to San Diego next week so you can take care of Brian. We're both doing what we need to do."

Kate finished the last of her wine, setting her glass down and folding her hands on the table. "Will you come see me?"

"When I can."

She rose from the table. "Don't wait too long."

I watched her drive away. My cell phone rang. It was Lucy.

"It's after one o'clock. Are you planning on coming in to the office today?"

I never asked Lucy or Simon about the money that showed up in Kent's and Dolan's bank accounts and they never said a word about it. Some things are better left unknown and unsaid.

"You and Simon are the partners. You're supposed to be in the office. I'm just a consultant and consultants don't punch a clock."

She laughed. "Well, try to work us in to your schedule. You won't believe who just hired us."