Gateways. Part 8

"What was my father doing out in the middle of nowhere?"

"That's what we're hoping you could tell us," said a voice behind him.

Jack turned to see a young, beefy cop with buzz-cut hair. His ma.s.sive biceps stretched the seams of the short sleeves of his uniform shirt. His expression was neutral.

"This is Officer Hernandez," Anita said. "He took the call and found your father."

Jack stuck out a hand he hoped wasn't too sweaty. "Thanks. I guess you saved my father's life."

He shrugged. "If I did, great. But I hear he's not out of the woods yet."

"You've been keeping track?"

"We'd like to talk to him, get some details on the accident. Any idea what he was doing out there at that hour?"

Jack glanced down at the report. "What hour?"

"Around midnight."

Jack shook his head. "I can't imagine."

"Could your father have been mixed up in something he shouldn't have been?"

"My dad? Into something shady? He's like..."

Like who? Jack tried to think of a public figure who was a true straight shooter, whose integrity was beyond reproach, but came up blank. There had to be somebody. But no one came to mind. He almost said Mr. Deeds but Adam Sandler had screwed up that reference.

"He's like Casper Milquetoast." Jack saw no hint of recognition in Hernandez's face. "He's a regular everyday Joe who minds his own business and doesn't take chances. My dad is not not a risk taker." Jack didn't want to call him timid, because he wasn't. Once he took a position he could be a bulldog about defending it. "He lived in Jersey most of his life, not fifty miles from Atlantic City, and in all that time I don't think he once visited the casinos. So the idea of him being involved in something even remotely criminal is, well, crazy." a risk taker." Jack didn't want to call him timid, because he wasn't. Once he took a position he could be a bulldog about defending it. "He lived in Jersey most of his life, not fifty miles from Atlantic City, and in all that time I don't think he once visited the casinos. So the idea of him being involved in something even remotely criminal is, well, crazy."

Hernandez shrugged. "Doesn't have to be criminal. He could have been fooling around with the wrong guy's wife or-"

Jack held up his hands. "Wait. Stop. Not him. I promise you. No way."

Hernandez was studying him.

Uh-oh. Here it comes.

"Do you live around here?"

"No. I'm still in Jersey." Where did Tyleski live? All these ident.i.ties...after a while they ran together in his head. "In Hoboken."

"How often do you see your father? How many times a year do you visit him?"

"He hasn't been here that long. Less than a year."

"And?"

"And this is my first visit."

"Do you talk often?"

"Uh, no."

"Then you really don't know that much about your father's life down here."

Jack sighed. There it was again. "I guess not. But I know what kind of man he is, and he's not a sneak or a liar, and people who are have no place in his life."

But how much more do I know? he wondered. What do you know about anyone, even someone who raised you, beyond how they act and what they've told you about themselves?

Anya's comment from this afternoon stole back to him: Trust me, kiddo, there's more to your father than you ever dreamed Trust me, kiddo, there's more to your father than you ever dreamed.

He hadn't paid much attention to it then, but now with Dad the victim of a hit-and-run accident in the middle...

"Say, if he got hit in the middle of nowhere..." He turned to Anita. "Didn't you say a call came in?"

She nodded. "It's in the report."

"But that means someone must have witnessed it."

"That's the obvious conclusion but..." Hernandez's macho cop persona wavered. Just a little.

"But what?"

"Well, it took me about twenty minutes to reach the intersection, and when I got there, your father's car was the only vehicle at the scene and it looked like the accident had just happened. The car was sitting across Pemberton Road. From the debris spray I reckoned your father had been proceeding west on Pemberton. He had a stop sign at South. Looked like he was almost halfway across when he got hit. Maybe he hadn't been paying attention, maybe he ran the stop sign, maybe he was having a little stroke. All I know is that something hit him hard enough to spin the car ninety degrees, and there was no one else in sight when I got there."

"Then who called in?" Jack said. "Man or woman?"

"Tony, the desk sergeant took it. I asked him but he couldn't tell. Said the person was whispering, real quick like. Said, 'Bad accident at Pemberton and South. Hurry.' That was it."

"Did they ID the number?"

Hernandez glanced at Anita. "That's another thing we can't figure out. The call came from a pay phone outside the Publix."

"Publix? What's a Publix?"

"Like a Winn-Dixie."

"I'm sorry." Was this another language they were speaking? "I'm from up north and I still don't-"

"Publix is a chain of grocery stores down here," Anita said. "It's like..." She snapped her fingers. "I've been up your way. What's it called...? A&P. That's right. Like an A&P."

"Okay. And where's this Publix?"

"About three blocks from here."

"What? But how? That's..."

"Impossible?" Hernandez said. "Not really. The hit-and-run driver might have been into something illegal and that's why he didn't stop. But he might have had an attack of conscience and called a friend and told him to call it in from a public phone so we couldn't ID him."

"Thank G.o.d for attacks of conscience," Anita said.

Hernandez nodded. "Amen to that. All I can say is it's a good thing we got the call when we did, otherwise your father might have been DOA."

15.

Jack's mind raced as he drove toward the south end of Novaton.

After telling Hernandez where he was staying and promising not to leave without checking in with him-in case the cops had more questions-he'd left the police station in something of a daze. But not before getting directions to the impound lot where his dad's car had been towed.

A hit-and-run driver d.a.m.n near kills his father but has enough Good Samaritan in him to arrange for the cops to be notified. A mixture of bad luck and good.

But the big question still remained: What the h.e.l.l was Dad doing out there in the swamp at that hour?

The light had pretty well faded by the time Jack reached the south end of town. As Hernandez had told him, he pa.s.sed an old limestone quarry, then a trailer park, then came to the impound lot.

It turned out to be a combination junkyard/used-car lot called Jason's. The place was closed. Jack could have climbed the chain-link fence but didn't want to risk an encounter with a guard dog, so he wandered the perimeter, squinting at the wrecked cars within.

The accident report said the make was-what else?-a silver Mercury Grand Marquis, the unofficial state car of Florida, and gave the plate number. Jack found it near the gate. He clutched the fence and gaped at the front end. The b.u.mper was gone, the right front fender was a memory, the windshield was a caved-in, spider-webbed mess, the engine block was tilted and canted and twisted to the left.

Had he run into a tank?

Jack's fingers squeezed the chain-linked wire, making it squeak. Who'd done this and run off? Maybe Dad had been thinking of something else and hadn't seen the stop sign. Okay. His bad, not the other driver's. But still...what the h.e.l.l had the other guy been driving?

16.

Jack's stomach started to growl as he left Jason's. He realized he hadn't eaten anything since the crabcake sandwich at Joanie's. He'd seen a Taco Bell on the way in and couldn't help thinking of little Oyv. He stopped for a couple of burritos and a Mountain Dew to go.

As he ate and drove, he decided to swing by the hospital on his way back to Gateways South and have another look at his dad.

On the third floor, Jack met Dr. Huerta coming out of the room, followed by a red-haired nurse. Her picture ID badge read C. MORTENSON, RN.

"How is he? Any change?"

Dr. Huerta shook her head and brushed back a vagrant strand of hair. She looked tired.

"The same. Still a score of seven. No better but, thankfully, no worse."

Jack supposed that was good. But he hadn't come here tonight just to see his father.

"Where are his personal effects?"

"Effects?"

"You know, his clothes, his wallet, any papers he had on him."

Dr. Huerta glanced at Nurse Mortenson who said, "They're in a locker by the nurses' station. I'll get them for you."

Dr. Huerta moved on and Jack stepped into his father's room. He stood by the bed, watching him breathe, feeling helpless and confused. This wasn't right. His father should be at Anya's place, drinking gimlets and playing mahjongg instead of lying here unconscious with tubes running in and out of him.

Mortenson came in with a clipboard and clear plastic bag.

"You'll have to sign for this," she said. As Jack made an illegible scrawl across the sheet, she added, "We couldn't keep his clothes. The blood, you know."

"But you emptied his pockets first, right?"

"I a.s.sume so. That's done in the ER, long before he gets to us."

Jack handed back the clipboard and took the bag. Not much in it: a wallet, a watch, some keys, and maybe a buck's worth of change.

When the nurse was gone, Jack checked the wallet: an AmEx and a MasterCard, AARP and AAA cards, a Costco card, seventy-some dollars in cash, and a couple of restaurant receipts.

Jack dropped it back into the bag. What had he been hoping for? A note with a cryptic message? A sc.r.a.p of paper with a hastily scribbled address he could check out?

Watching too many mystery movies, he told himself.

Maybe there is is no mystery. Maybe it was just an accident. Maybe Dad was simply out for a drive and wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time...got clocked by accident by someone who wasn't quite legit and couldn't hang around to explain himself to the police. no mystery. Maybe it was just an accident. Maybe Dad was simply out for a drive and wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time...got clocked by accident by someone who wasn't quite legit and couldn't hang around to explain himself to the police.

Jack understood that. Perfectly.

Just an accident...a random collision...

But his gut wasn't buying. Not yet at least.

Jack looked down at his father.

"Have you been holding out on me, Dad?"

No response, of course. He patted his father's knee through the sheet.

"See you tomorrow."