Joel Goldman - No way out

“I’ll find someone who will work with you on the fee.”

She came back to her seat, folding her arms on the table. “Why are you doing this for me?”

I smiled. “Like you said, you saved my life.”

She reached across the table, taking my hand in hers. “Well, at least I did one thing right.”

I patted her hand, letting go and easing back in my chair. “What about the lawyer?”

She chewed her lip, focusing on the table, then swiveled in her chair, looking out the windows to the west. The torch at the top of the Liberty Memorial was lit, a ring of fire glowing in the dark. She wheeled around, facing me, hands in her lap, her face cool and calm.

“I’m not guilty of anything, and I’m not going to act like I am. Tell Detective Carter I’ll answer his questions.”

I nodded. “You know it’s not always enough to be innocent. Sometimes it’s smarter to be innocent and have a lawyer to make sure you stay that way.”

“I’ve got you. That makes me smart enough.”

“Okay, then. Let’s run through it a few times. Make sure I know what you know.”

She was a solid witness, recalling details as we went through it until she had it nailed down, serious until I gave her a taste of a bad-cop interrogation, leaning on her. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from giggling, gave up, and dissolved into laughter.

“Hey, I’m not practicing my stand-up routine, here.”

She wiped tears from her eyes and sat up straight. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it. I promise to be really scared when Detective Carter asks me how I’m going to like being a girlfriend on a chain gang.”

“All I said was that you could go away for a long time, maybe the rest of your life.”

She started laughing again. “I know. I know. I can’t help it. What can I say? You kind of scared me at first, but now you don’t. Is that a bad thing?”

My head tilted back, my chin elevating past the perpendicular, my neck telescoping and leaving me hanging until the spasm evaporated and I found Roni’s eyes again. They were narrow and sober, her lips pursed as if she had been twisting beside me. I took a deep breath, restoring order for both of us.

“Only if you don’t listen to me. That could really get you in trouble.”

She nodded. I opened the door and told our sentry that we were ready to talk to Detective Carter. A few minutes later, Officer Fremont appeared at the door. I looked past him at Joy, who was standing alone at the entrance to the administrative suite.

“We’re ready,” I said.

“Detective Carter said to tell Ms. Chase that she can go home. He’ll give her a call tomorrow and set something up.”

Roni and I exchanged glances. Her quick smile vanished when she realized the same thing I did.

“What about Brett Staley?” I asked.

“Detective Carter says Ms. Chase shouldn’t wait up for him.”

“What? No way!” she said. “He didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m not leaving without him.”

“I’m sorry, miss. He’s already gone.”

“Gone! Where? With who? Is he under arrest?”

“You’ll have to talk with Detective Carter about that, miss.”

I grabbed Roni’s arm when she bolted for the door, clamping her to my side.

“Tell Carter I want to talk to him.”

“Next time I see him.”

“What do you mean next time you see him?”

“Detective Carter packed it in for the night. Said if you wanted to talk to him to call and leave a message. He’ll get back to you soon as he can.”

Officer Fremont walked us to the lobby and watched as we stood outside the hospital entrance. Roni called Brett’s cell phone and left a message when he didn’t answer, doubling up by sending him a text. She hugged me, and I made her take a blood oath not to talk to Carter alone.

She nodded, squinting, her brow furrowed, half-listening and looking over my shoulder as if Brett would emerge from the shadows. We were parsing the same puzzle, neither of us certain what had just happened or why, the worry lines around her eyes and mouth telling me the one thing that was certain: Despite her protests, she would let Brett buy her funeral dress, though not for a long, long time. I watched until she got into her Toyota Highlander and drove away.

Joy didn’t add much to what we knew. Soon after Carter and I left to talk with Roni, Fremont told her to leave. The last time she saw Brett Staley he was still sitting on the bench next to the fourth-floor elevators. She waited for us in the lobby until she saw Fremont and followed him into the administrative suite.

My movement disorder does more than put me through impromptu and involuntary gymnastic routines. It stresses the rest of my brain, sometimes gumming up the gears and making it impossible to concentrate, other times giving me jelly legs. When that happens, I’m no good to anybody. I closed my eyes on the drive home, my questions bogged down in neural quicksand. Joy held my arm as I stumbled into the house, staggering up the stairs and into bed.

“You’ll figure it out tomorrow,” she said, turning off the light.

“Too late. Whatever’s happened has happened.”

“It’s never too late, Jack Davis. Not for any of us.”

Lucy called at seven-thirty Tuesday morning.

“I wake you?”

“Roxy and Ruby beat you by an hour and a half.”

“Simon told me you want to hire Roni Chase, give her a shot at one of our cases. Not that I’m surprised, but how’d that go?”

“Hard to tell.”

I gave her a rundown on my day and night.

“Some people are trouble magnets.”

“I don’t know. Maybe Roni was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Twice.”

“Not her, moron. You. That’s what you get for trying to fix the world one messed-up kid at a time.”

“I thought I did okay with you, but keep giving me grief and I may have to rethink that.”

“Wait until I tell you who called me yesterday.”

“Who?”

“It’s a beautiful morning. Go outside and play with the dogs, and I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes.”

Fall in Kansas City is a season of gentle regret, evoking good times past and trials yet to come as summer surrenders to September and October’s fiery leaves drape the city in a fragile rainbow canopy back-lit by the sun, low and sharp, nature’s high-definition broadcast. November’s cold, cleansing rain readies us for December’s frozen, pale shroud, the promise of spring faint, distant but certain.

I waited for Lucy in the front yard, the dogs swirling around me, chasing squirrels because that was their job. They were unburdened by the past, oblivious to the future, living in the moment while I straddled all three dimensions.

Lucy was wrong about one thing. I wasn’t trying to fix the world one messed-up kid at a time. I was trying to fix me, put the pieces back together that were shattered when Kevin and Wendy died. There was nothing gentle about my regrets, nothing soothing about my dreams. Memories of my children were a saw-toothed reminder of broken promises. If I could help Roni Chase and if I could find Evan and Cara Martin, I might save myself.

My cell phone rang. It was Roni.

“Detective Carter wants to meet me at my house at three o’clock. Can you make it?”

“Sure. Don’t start without me.”

Lucy pulled up just as I finished talking with Roni.

“Had breakfast?” Lucy asked when I got in her car.

“Coffee.”

“Good. We’re going to the Classic Cup.”

“Because?”

“Because we’re having breakfast with Ethan Bonner.”

“Jimmy Martin’s lawyer?”

“One and the same.”

“Who’s buying?”

“He is. Jimmy told Bonner we came out to the Farm to see him on Sunday. Bonner called me yesterday afternoon. I thought he was going to chew me out, tell us to stay the hell away from his client. But he didn’t. Instead, he asked us to meet him for breakfast.”