The Man From Primrose Lane Part 19

"At least. At least that far. You see, no one really remembers anymore how my family got dragged into this. We kept it so secret, even from each other, until he died, and the Beachum who first had the job is now dead."

"I see."

"I inherited the job of getting things for Mr. King when I was fourteen. Used to walk down to the grocery store and back for him or have someone drive me into Chapel Hill for his stranger requests. On very rare occasions, he instructed me to drive him places. Bellefonte, for instance. Overall, it was pretty uneventful..."

"Except for one time."

Albert nodded. "Except for one time. This was the fall of 1989. End of October sometime. Not yet Halloween. A Friday. I come to his house like normal, a bag of groceries in my bike basket. I go to set the bag down and pick up my money-he paid me in cash, in envelopes, always a little too much-but then I hear all this noise inside. Stuff being thrown against the wall or onto the floor. Sounded like the old man was fighting someone in there. I try the door. It's unlocked. I run inside. And there he is destroying the place. He's throwing all his books onto the floor. He had a TV then, and it was on the floor, busted. He f.u.c.king annihilated a chair. Guy was p.i.s.sed. 'What happened?' I say. He's so scared that someone is in his house, he jumps and it takes him a second to figure out it's me. But then he calms down, real quick. He says, 'Albert, you can't come back for a while.' 'Why not?' I say. 'Because I f.u.c.ked it all up.'"

"What did he mean?" asked David.

Albert shrugged. "h.e.l.l if I know. Something important. I asked him but all he said was, 'Albert, it's not safe here right now. I've made a very dangerous man very angry with me,' he said, 'and I don't want anyone else to get hurt because of me. You have to stay away.'

"Then he goes to a drawer in the corner and fishes out a wad of money. Over five hundred dollars. 'Here,' he says, pushing it at me with his mittens. 'Keep this. Consider this your severance. I may not need you again. But if I do, I'll write to you and ask you to come. It's very important you and your family stay away from here until I contact you. Do you understand?' I told him I did. He thanked me. And then he did something really out of character. The old man hugged me.

"Five months later, I get a letter in the mail. Two sentences: Safe to return. See you Friday, if you are still interested. Obviously, that episode had something to do with his murder. Cops told me memory is too unreliable to be trusted. Whatever, man. We never saw your wife over there. Me or my brother Billy. No one was ever over there except the old man." Albert's eyes wandered away from David's and found a s.p.a.ce in the corner of the room. "If it's true that they found her fingerprints inside, then someone must have planted them. You need me to testify to it, I will. I don't care."

"Thanks."

For the first time, Albert's wife spoke up. "You said you wanted to buy the house?" she asked.

"Yes. As executor of the estate, Albert, it's in your power to sell the home as long as all parties with a claim agree to it. I would pay into an escrow account set up by the court-my attorney can arrange all this, free of charge, of course-and those funds would accrue interest while you wait for the judge to make his ruling. It's an old house, not likely to fetch much on the open market. I checked online. Its a.s.sessed value is a hundred and twelve thousand. I'd be willing to pay twice that. Then at least all you'd be fighting for is money and not property. Might make things easier."

"What if we want to keep the house?" asked Keek.

"Honey, shush."

"Well, Albert, it's obviously worth a lot to this man."

David sighed. "All I can tell you is my interest in the house is less about money than it is about covering all my bases. I need to find the guy who shot the old man. Maybe there's something in there that will help me out."

"We've been all through there," she said. "Nothing but a bunch of old books and dirty clothes and about ten thousand mittens."

"Well, you never know," he replied. "I'd also be willing to have my lawyer look at your claim to the estate and see if he can't move things along in your favor."

Suddenly the old biker seemed more attentive. "We could use a good lawyer, Albert."

"You know I don't care about the money," Albert said. "But we have no use for the house, either. I think I can get everyone on board for this. One thing everyone can agree on is the more money, the better." He shot a glance at his wife.

"Great. I'll have the guy who handles my accounts call you in the morning. His name is Bashien. He's going to create a realty business with me and my son as primary stockholders and silent partners. For reasons you can understand, I need to keep my name off this transaction as much as possible. And I know, from your work for Joe King, or whoever he was, that you will keep my involvement in confidence. This is probably the last time we'll meet. In fact, all communication from this point on will come from McGuffin Properties Limited, and as far as you know, some guy named Bashien is in charge of the operation."

Albert laughed.

"What?" asked David.

"Nothin'," he said, shaking his head. "Just sounds like something he'd have said. How does my family keep getting involved with people like you guys? No offense."

"Luck, I guess."

"Mr. Neff, I don't think luck's got anything to do with it."

One thing troubled David as he led Tanner back to the car-Beachum's expression when he'd said the only person he'd seen at the house was the old man. The avoidance. He was hiding a piece of information. David knew this as if it had been written in a caption over the man's head. The question was whether or not it was an important piece of information or just some random memory he wished to keep private. Some part of the man was still protecting the Man from Primrose Lane's legacy. But Beachum also seemed invested in finding the man who'd shot his employer. Whatever the secret was, David believed it had nothing to do with his investigation. He had to trust the man. Confronting him with such suspicions would likely bring a quick end to their relationship, and at the moment their relationship was more important.

"Boss?"

David could hear the primal thump-thump of loud music diminish as Jason stepped away from whatever dance club he was cruising to take his call. "I need some information."

"That's why you pay me the big bucks."

"It's probably nothing, but I can't root around after this guy myself without making certain people angry with me."

"I'll be conspicuous."

"Inconspicuous."

"That's what I meant."

"You remember that redhead? The one from Facebook?"

Jason laughed. "You getting some strange? Good for you, man. About G.o.dd.a.m.n time. You, what, want me to look into the boyfriend or whatever?"

"No. I want you to do some digging on her father. I don't know anything about him. He wouldn't talk to the cops about the Man from Primrose Lane business. So it's a loose thread."

"I'll tie it up. Give me a couple days."

Sleep eluded him.

Had Elizabeth really known the Man from Primrose Lane? Was there an innocent explanation for the fingerprint? Was he a victim of happenstance or was someone trying to frame him? Why was he attracted to the same women targeted by Elaine's abductor? Why did his life intersect with the dead man's in tenuous ways? Were they even intersections or was he inventing a pattern that wasn't there, making constellations from random stars?

Was it possible Riley Trimble was behind all this? A paranoid thought. Riley didn't resemble the description of the man who kidnapped Elaine or the man who had gone after Katy-the man in the Members Only jacket had been well dressed and put-together, Riley was always a mess. And, while Riley was technically a free man, he was far from free. But it was not entirely outside the realm of possibility, was it?

Certainly Trimble had motive for revenge.

EPISODE TEN.

THE HOUSE ON PRIMROSE LANE.

"I'll be lucky if we get a hung jury at this point," said Russo, pacing around the conference room adjacent to Siegel's court, hands on his hips. After a relentless attack by Synenberger, the judge had called a short recess so that David could collect himself. The jury had not looked at him as they exited the courtroom. "We went over this. We went over and over and over this. You knew how to dodge his questions. What happened in there?"

"I'm tired of spinning everything," David said. "If we just explain how it is, the jury will see I'm not trying to hide anything."

"The jury thinks you're a nutcase. I would if I were on the jury. Everything you testified to"-Russo raised his hands in fists and opened them-"gone! Poof. Over."

"There are other witnesses who-"

"You were the case, David!" said Russo. "You were the case. Remember that when we lose." The a.s.sistant prosecutor marched out of the room.

David sat there for a moment, feeling rotten and corrupted and poisonous. He searched within himself, a quick journey into his inner psyche, to determine if he'd done the wrong thing. But his soul was still. He could live with his decision to tell the whole truth, even if it did kill the case.

He stepped into the hallway. It was a short recess, so Elizabeth and his father had remained in the courtroom. Cindy Nottingham had not.

"Alone at last," she said demurely.

"I don't have anything for you, Cindy."

"If you don't feed the media, it will eat you, you know."

"Then go ahead and eat me, Cindy."

"Nice."

"What would you have done in my place?" he asked her. She knew what he meant.

"I would have come to me."

"I didn't have that choice. Andy walked ...

... over to David's cubicle in the writers' den. It was after eight and outside the Warehouse District was aglow and b.u.mping, Cleveland's last bit of social equity. The editor had spent much of the day sleeping off a migraine. The rest of the staff had already gone home.

"Whatcha readin', Davey?" Andy asked.

David held up several pages of double-s.p.a.ced ma.n.u.script. "Cindy's story," he said. "I took it off the shared folder. I like to read the covers before they hit the streets."

"That's a good habit," said Andy. "I used to do that. So, whaddya think?"

"It's good. She made the whole family dynasty thing work without bogging the reader down in all the legal details."

"That's the third draft. Lot of heavy lifting all the way up to deadline. It's been a rough edit."

"Well, it's working now. Especially how she uses the device of telling the story through the eyes of the maid."

"You like that?"

David nodded.

Andy picked up on a subtlety of expression. "What?"

"No. Nothing. I like it."

"Don't bulls.h.i.t a bulls.h.i.tter."

"I'm not."

"Then what?"

"Nothing. I just suggested to Cindy that that might be a way out of the hole she'd dug herself. That if she had some outside observer, it might read better."

Andy's expression didn't change. But David watched the color drain out of his editor's face. Finally, he exhaled one long, "That f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h!"

David was so surprised, he jumped. "What?"

"You told her to find a maid to use as an observer?"

"Yeah."

"And then she finds a maid she'd never interviewed before, just like that?"

David started to see where he was going. "That's not what I was trying to say."

"I know," said Andy. But he was already punching numbers into his cell phone. "Cindy?" he said. "Cindy, where are your notes on this family thing?" Andy turned to her desk, a scaled-down version of a garbage dump. "Where?" he shouted. He rummaged under a sweater. He tossed an empty iced tea container against the wall so hard the plastic dented. Finally, he came up with a stack of notes. "Where's your interview with the maid?" A pause. "Why is it at home if everything else is here?" A longer pause. "Don't you f.u.c.kin' lie to me, Cindy, not after everything I've done for you." Pause. "Just tell me ... you know what ... you f.u.c.king know what ... tell me, Cindy." Pause. "Do I need to spike the story before it goes out tomorrow?" Pause. "G.o.d-f.u.c.king-d.a.m.n it! G.o.dd.a.m.n it! You stupid b.i.t.c.h! You have any idea? Any idea what could have happened? You're lucky David figured it out. We're lucky. You stay the f.u.c.k away from me if you know what's good. Send someone for your stuff. You have a day before I throw it all out. Yes, you're f.u.c.king fired!" Click.

Andy stood in the doorway, panting like a boxer on the ropes. He looked to David. "Good job, kid," he said. "We got a hole to fill in this week's issue. Write me something good." And before David could tell him he didn't have anything ready, that he'd gotten distracted again with the Brune story, Andy disappeared into his office behind a locked door.

Twice-a-week sessions with Athena had helped. And his two-night respite inside the Glenns suicide ward had been enough to frighten him into fighting harder against the symptoms of PTSD-the renovated Victorian mansion-c.u.m-loony-bin had smelled like dried puke and Clorox. But Brune's voice had not been silenced entirely. David discovered quickly that the more stressed he became, the more susceptible his mind was to a full-blown Brune invasion, or, if you like, an "episode" in which his id manifested itself as Brune's voice in order to wreak havoc upon his conscience. He hadn't made up his mind on which explanation he believed. For now he had convinced his doctor to keep him off pills, but she had threatened to lock him away again at the first sign of mania or depression, and then he would have to be medicated.

And he was getting stressed again.

The first thing he did was call Elizabeth, but she didn't answer. This was a little odd, given the late hour, but she might have told him that she was staying after work to help with the school musical. He couldn't be sure.

He'd gotten Cindy fired. He didn't feel good about that, even if he had caught a crafty act of fiction. Now Andy wanted him to fill the hole in the paper created by that silent explosion. And he didn't know where to begin.

He scoured the local dailies for a hint of a story. Nothing. It was too late to call what few sources he'd kicked up in the nine months he'd written for the Independent. He thought about calling Frankie, but he had just written the cover for the previous issue-a five-thousand-word piece on a minority front company skimming money from an airport contract.

The techno-tone of his in-box chimed. Someone named had just sent him an email. He clicked it open.

I hear you're looking into Riley Trimble.

I can prove he murdered Sarah Creston.

Let's meet. Edgewater Yacht Club. Now. (I know you're still at work. I can see you sitting at your computer.) The shock of being spied on struck him like a slap. He looked out the window, across a condom-littered parking lot where hoboes grazed, to the row of apartments that marked the beginning of the Warehouse District. He saw people milling about, but no one seemed to be watching him.

He heard laughter. Brune. Somewhere deep inside.

"Shut up," he muttered.

Is it a trap? he wondered. Is it Trimble?

He was a junkie, he realized. Too hooked on the mystery to think logically. A part of him enjoyed this.

By the time he stepped into the elevator, David had already forgotten he owed Andy an article.