Joe Dillard: Reasonable Fear Part 11

"Get dressed," Lips...o...b..said. "I know what to do."

Chapter Twenty-One.

The following Monday, a little after eleven, I was looking over the subpoenas for the grand jury witnesses when I sensed someone walking though the door. I looked up, and my heart lightened. It was my daughter, Lilly, auburn-haired like her mother, green-eyed like Sarah and me. She was wearing an orange University of Tennessee T-shirt covered by an open, black jacket and a pair of jeans. She was trim, athletic, ridiculously young and vibrant, and smiling the radiant smile that always turned me into a ball of pliable putty.

"Hi daddy," she said brightly.

"Lilly! What are you doing here?" I stood and bashed my thigh against the corner of the desk as I hurried around to embrace her. Pain shot through my leg, but I ignored it and limped the last couple of steps.

"I came to take you to lunch," she said.

"Why aren't you in school? Have I missed something?"

She hugged me tightly around the neck and kissed me on the cheek. She'd done it thousands of times, but the touch of her lips against my skin and the warmth of the embrace always warmed me.

I cupped her face in my hands. "Has anyone told you lately what a drop-dead gorgeous young lady you are?"

"I don't think I've heard 'drop-dead gorgeous' lately."

"That's a crime. Give me the name of every boy you've seen in the past month, and I'll put them all in jail. So what are you doing here? This is your third year in college and it's the first time you've ever showed up unannounced."

"I've been missing you. And there's something I need to talk to you about. Can you get away for an hour or so?"

"Absolutely. Where do you want to go?"

"Someplace private."

I ordered take-out from The Firehouse in Johnson City and we drove to Rotary Park off Oakland Avenue. Something was bothering her, because she was quiet and seemed distracted in the car. Lilly was rarely distracted, and she was never quiet. I'd been on hour-long walks with her in the past during which the only syllables I uttered were, "uh-huh." When we got to the park, we walked through the woods to one of the small pavilions and sat down at a picnic table. The day was overcast and a bit chilly, and the canopy of oak leaves rustled in the breeze above our heads.

"Is this private enough?" I asked, opening a Styrofoam container of salad and sliding it across to her. She smiled half-heartedly and started picking at the salad with a plastic fork.

"So what's on your mind, Lil? Is everything okay?"

"I guess it depends on your definition of okay."

"Spit it out. You know you can talk to me about anything."

"I'm afraid I've let you down."

Her bottom lip began to quiver slightly and her eyes became translucent with tears. I couldn't imagine what she'd done, or what she thought she'd done, that would upset her so. Lilly had been entirely too easy to raise, a child that was as close to perfect as I could have hoped for. She was a tremendous student, she worked hard at dance and theater, and she loved to read. She'd never been moody or rebellious, she didn't drink, smoke or use drugs, and she'd managed to stay away from boys until after her senior year in high school. She'd started dating a young man named Randy Lowe just before she went off to the University of Tennessee, and they were still together. She was almost a prude in some respects, so much so that one evening when she was fifteen years old, I offered her twenty dollars just to say "s.h.i.t." She blurted out the syllable and stuck out her hand. The word sounded so strange, so out-of-character, coming from her lips that it was hilarious, and I laughed so hard that my stomach cramped. I paid up, though, and it was the only time I'd ever heard her curse.

I reached across the table for her hand as tears began to run down both of her cheeks.

"What is it, Lil? Tell me."

She looked down at the salad, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Her eyes rose up to meet mine.

"I'm pregnant," she said softly.

The words were so unexpected, so utterly shocking, that I stopped breathing for a second. I released her hand and straightened up, momentarily unable to think, to feel, or to understand. The phrase echoed in my sub-consciousness like I was standing at the precipice of a deep canyon listening to an echo, but instead of fading, it grew louder.

"Excuse me," I said, and I stood and walked a few steps away from the table, trying to gather my thoughts. Pregnant? Lilly? Impossible. Caroline and I had had the pregnancy conversation with both Jack and Lilly dozens of times. Don't get pregnant. Don't get someone pregnant. If you're going to have s.e.x, use some kind of contraception. You're not ready for a child. Get your education, find a career, get married, then have a baby if you want one. Set the parameters for the child's life, don't let a child set the parameters for yours. I stopped ten feet from the table, turned, and asked the dumbest question I possibly could have asked.

"How? How did this happen?"

"I made a mistake."

"A mistake? I don't think I'd call this a mistake, Lilly. This is more along the lines of monumental blunder. What are you going to do now? What are you going to do with a baby?"

"I'll love it, daddy. The same way you love me."

I walked back over to the table and stood over her. Part of me wanted to hug her and part of me wanted to smack her.

"It's a little more complicated than that," I said. "Have you thought this through at all? What about school? What about dance? And theater? What about your career? How are you going to feed this baby and clothe it and shelter it? Dammit, Lilly! How could you be so stupid? What about your future?"

"Stop yelling at me!"

"I'm not yelling!"

"Yes you are!"

"No I'm not!"

"I'll have the baby and raise it. We'll work it out somehow."

"You don't have the first clue about how to raise a child. It's not like they come with instructions."

"You and mom will help me."

"Your mom and I have lives of our own. We have plans of our own, and right now our plans don't include raising another child."

"Fine, then I'll raise it myself."

She got up from the table and started walking down the path toward the parking lot. I stared at her for a minute, still incredulous.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going back to school."

"How are you going to get back to your car? Walk?"

She kept going.

"Lilly! I'm sorry, alright? Come back here and let's talk."

She stopped and turned.

"No more yelling," she said.

"Okay."

"If you yell again I'm leaving."

"I promise."

She trudged back up to the table and sat down heavily. She refused to look at me, and I knew she was angry. I suppose she expected a sympathetic response from me, which is exactly what she should have gotten, but the utter shock of her revelation had rendered me temporarily unable to feel compa.s.sion.

"You have a choice, you know," I said, and I immediately regretted it.

"Is that what you want me to do?" Her eyes blazed with fury, and I found myself face to face with no less formidable a force than maternal instinct. "You want me to have an abortion? I should have known. Always the lawyer. Your precious law says I can kill it in the first trimester, so that's what you want. You'd rather me kill my own child than cause you any inconvenience."

She was standing again, glaring at me. My little girl had grown into a woman somewhere along the line, and I'd missed it. She was protecting her unborn child like a mother grizzly, and she regarded me as a threat rather than a father. I backed away a few steps and shoved my hands in my pockets, feeling a chill and a sense of shame.

"I apologize for even suggesting it," I said. "I don't want you to have an abortion. You'd never forgive yourself. I'd never forgive myself. I just don't understand how you could have done this."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"It was the third anniversary of our first date," she said. "I cooked dinner at my apartment. Spaghetti. We ate by candlelight. We had a gla.s.s of wine with dinner. It was the first time I ever drank alcohol. Then we had another. Before we knew it, the bottle was gone and we were. . . we were. . . I'm sorry. I really am. I know how much this disappoints you, but you have to forgive me. I need you. I need you more than ever."

"Have you told your mother?"

"Not yet. I wanted to tell you first. I figured if you killed me, it would save me the trouble of having to tell mom, too."

"Come here."

I opened my arms and she walked to me. I wrapped her up and kissed her on top of the head as she began to sob.

"It's alright, baby," I said. "We'll figure it out. We always have."

As Lilly cried, I squeezed her tighter. A vision entered my mind, and a smile gradually spread over my face. I pictured a tree covered in brightly colored lights on Christmas Eve. Beside the tree stood a wide-eyed toddler, eagerly tearing the paper away from a gift-wrapped package.

"You know something?" I said. "I'm too young to be a grandfather and you're too young to be a mother. But I suppose there are worse things. Don't worry, baby. Like your mother says, everything will be alright."

Chapter Twenty-Two.

John Lips...o...b..graduated from fledgling drug dealer to illegally disposing of a body to murderer in three years. His best friend and co-conspirator, Andres Pinzon, went along for the ride. Pinzon could have walked away early maybe. But the allure of easy money and a nagging sense of fear kept him in.

Then, one day when he was twenty-one years old, Pinzon opened the pa.s.senger side door and slid into John Lips...o...b..s new Mercedes. It was precisely the type of vehicle they'd agreed to stay away from. It was flashy and expensive, the kind of car that attracted attention.

"I hate this car," Pinzon said as Lips...o...b..climbed in behind the steering wheel. "It screams, 'Look at me! I'm rich!'"

"You're probably the most up tight person I've ever known," Lips...o...b..said. "When are you going to learn to relax a little?"

"We've been under the radar so far. I'd like to stay there."

"Your friend is very wise," a heavily-accented voice said from the back seat. Pinzon spun around, frightened.

"Who are you?" Pinzon asked.

"I'm surprised you don't recognize him," Lips...o...b..said. "He's your second cousin on your father's side."

The man in the back nodded. He was young, only a few years older than Lips...o...b..and Pinzon. He was wearing a shiny, gray sport coat over a baby-blue b.u.t.ton-down with an open collar. His black hair, which was the same color as his lifeless eyes, was combed straight back from his forehead. He looked like a South American wise guy. He had a deep, pink scar that ran from the corner of his mouth to his left temple in the shape of a scythe blade.

"What's he doing here?" Pinzon said.

"He's going to take care of something for me."

"Does he have a name?"

"Some people call him Santiago. Others call him El Maligno. Sit back and enjoy the ride."

El Maligno meant "the evil one." Pinzon had heard of him. The man in the back seat was a sicario.

"Where are we going?"

"To the airport."

Pinzon looked out the window as Lips...o...b..drove through the streets of the Back Bay toward Logan International Airport. The Charles River gleamed bright green in the sunlight, but as they pa.s.sed through the long shadows cast by the buildings on Beacon Hill, Pinzon began to feel a strong sense of uneasiness.

"Why are we going to the airport?" he asked Lips...o...b..

"To pick up a friend."

"Which friend?"

"A new friend. You've never met him."

"How can he be a friend if I've never met him?"

"He's a friend of mine. You can call him a business a.s.sociate if you want."

The cryptic nature of Lips...o...b..s answers, coupled with the stranger in the back seat, deepened Pinzon's anxiety. Lips...o...b..s behavior had become increasingly erratic over the past three years. He'd gained more than forty pounds since their freshman year at Harvard, and he spent more time in clubs than in the cla.s.sroom, having developed a seemingly insatiable appet.i.te for female companionship, especially blonde-headed females. After the Mallory Vines incident, Pinzon had been unable to sleep in their apartment and had moved into a studio flat on Newbury Street. The image of Mallory's lifeless face lying on Lips...o...b..s bed haunted Pinzon nearly as much as the cavalier manner in which Lips...o...b..had disposed of her body. Lips...o...b..had dressed her, and the two of them had draped her arms around their shoulders and taken her down to Lips...o...b..s car as though she were pa.s.sed out from drinking. Pinzon's involvement ended there, but Lips...o...b..later told him that he'd taken Mallory to the stash house they were renting at the time. He enlisted some help, he said, to cut her body and load it into a cooler which was subsequently loaded onto Lips...o...b..s plane. Mallory's body was dropped in pieces out the windows of the plane into the Atlantic Ocean a hundred miles off the coast of Maine. They'd never heard another word about Mallory Vines. Pinzon wondered if the "help" Lips...o...b..had enlisted was sitting in the back seat now.

"That's got to be him," Lips...o...b..said as he pulled up to the curb outside the United Airlines terminal at Logan. A tall, slim young man wearing a fringed, buckskin jacket, blue jeans, and cowboy boots was leaning against the building smoking a cigarette. Lips...o...b..threw the Mercedes into park and got out. Pinzon watched as Lips...o...b..approached the cowboy. They talked for a minute and the cowboy followed Lips...o...b..back to the car. He climbed in behind Pinzon.

"This is my man, Tex," Lips...o...b..said as he pulled out into traffic. "He flew all the way up here from Dallas just to meet us and take care of a little business. Tex, this is my friend and partner Andres and the gentleman sitting next you there is my buddy Santiago."