Dark to Mortal Eyes (26 page)
Read Dark to Mortal Eyes Online
Authors: Eric Wilson
“If this is some scheme to—”
Turney said, “He’s telling the truth, Josee. That’s what I’ve been tryin’ to tell ya. Just got word of it myself.”
“No. No. See, that doesn’t make sense. I just freakin’ talked to her a few days ago.” Josee aimed her anger at Marsh. “Maybe she ran out on you. What about that?”
“That’s not what happened.”
“How do you know?” Josee’s mind refused to process the alternatives.
“Not her style. She’s not the type.”
“They never are. Never thought my own birth parents would throw me
to the system. And before Scoot, every guy I went out with performed a disappearing act. What’m I saying? Now he’s gone too. Nice. Very nice. In the span of two days, my entire world’s been turned upside down.”
“Know the feeling,” said Marsh.
“This is wrong! Totally wrong.” Josee moaned. “Please, God, open my eyes.”
Marsh acted as though he’d been slapped. “What’d you say?”
Sergeant Turney broke in with an offer of assurance. “Keep in mind, we’re doing all we can to find Mrs. Addison. Chief Braddock says that—”
“Braddock?” Marsh spat out the name. “What’s he got to do with it?”
“It’s his job, sir.”
“He and I go way back. Don’t like the guy. Don’t trust him. Better if he kept his paws off this, and you can tell him I said so.”
Alert to her client’s change in demeanor, Ms. Wilcox pranced over on long legs in sheer nylons and rested a hand on his arm. Josee glared at her. Who did she think she was, touching Marsh in an intimate manner? Josee knew all about the game of female guile and was annoyed by this other woman so well equipped to play.
Ms. Wilcox said, “Marshall, we might want to take this conversation elsewhere. No offense to you, Sergeant—you’re one of the few I respect in these hallowed halls—but my client here is all lawyered up. We’re done talking.
C’est la vie
.”
“Just tryin’ to help, ma’am.”
“Tell you what,” she said. “Give us thirty, forty minutes. Josee and Marshall and I will grab some dessert around the corner at Barkley’s. Then you can join us. A little give-and-take. Sound fair? I’d like to know on what grounds the department’s chosen to turn the spotlight on Mr. Addison. He has no priors, no history of domestic abuse. You wouldn’t want to stir up trouble where there’s none to be found,
capice?
”
“Thirty minutes.” Turney nodded.
Marsh said, “Coming along, Josee?”
“Is that an invitation?”
“I know I’m not your favorite person, but a cup of coffee won’t hurt. I’ll buy.”
“Jonesin’ for a cigarette.”
“There’s a market around the corner.”
Ms. Wilcox said, “Marshall, this might not be—”
“Not asking you,” he retorted. “I’m asking Josee.”
Josee tugged at her earlobe, anything to occupy her hands. A rush of anxiety coursed through her. “Sure, whatever. I’ll go. But I can pull my own weight, in case anyone’s wondering. Something I need to know first though.”
“Yes?” He dipped his chin.
“Just give it to me straight. Are you my father?”
Marsh’s gray eyes wandered off. “Your guess, Josee, is as good as mine.”
As they moved down the station steps, his cell phone chirped from his belt.
A determined voice broke through the poor cellular connection. Standing in the shade of acorn trees on a bluff over the McKenzie River, Stahlherz smiled. Time to play out this little drama between Marsh Addison and himself. Time to take the stage.
A: “Hello?”
S: “Crash-Chess-Dummy.”
A: “Who is this? I don’t normally answer blocked numbers.”
S: (
curtains rise on a black-and-white set where two actors face off at center stage
) “This, my friend, is the voice of a longtime foe. Your deadline’s just over twenty-four hours away. 4:30
PM
Allhallows Eve. We’ll meet at the Camp Adair monument.”
A: (
soft, yet belligerent
) “What do you want? Do you know where my wife is? Is she there? Let me talk to her.”
S: “I’ll be seeing her shortly. Would you like me to pass on a message?”
A: “So help me, if you’ve done anything to—”
S: “No journal, no wifey. That’s the way of it.”
A: “What’re you talking about?”
S: “I want your father’s journal.”
A: “First tell me this, what’s your response when I play the King’s Gambit?”
S: “King’s Gambit Accepted.”
A: “When I use the Sicilian Defense?”
S: “The Wing Gambit. It’s my pet opening.” (
a forced smile
)
“And a tricky beast to control, I’ll grant you that. You’re crafty, Marsh. Well done. Now that you’ve tested my identity, can we carry on?”
A: “Steele Knight.” (
snarling
) “What’s this about? How do you know my name?”
S: “We’re brothers in arms.”
A: “You’re no brother of mine! How’d you find me? Why’re you doing this? You have no right intruding into my personal life.”
S: “No delays, Marsh. The end game approaches.”
A: “I’m no patzer. I’ll draw blood if I get the chance!”
S: (
bitter laughter, a glance at the transfixed audience
) “Chance. Funny that you should mention him. He’s the one who left me for dead, the one who poisoned your loins, and yet you worship at his grave. Read his journal. I’m sure it’s all in there. I’m doing you a favor, opening your eyes to the truth.”
A: “What truth?”
S: “Chess … a parable of life. Study the board and learn.”
A: “This isn’t funny. What are you, some sort of online stalker? How’d you track me down? How do I know you really have her? I want proof, or I’m not doing jack for you!”
S: “Would a severed pinkie suffice?” (
a gasp from the audience
)
A: “I’m not laughing.”
S: “No, I suppose it’s not funny. Understand this, Marsh. I have every right to be here, more right than you ever had. You are a usurper born of a usurper. Question is, are you willing to face the past?”
A: “The past?”
S: “Glad to see you’re paying attention.”
A: (
stage left, the actor paces in thought
) “Okay, here it is. You ask Kara where she and I are planning to go this weekend. A romantic getaway, just the two of us. You tell me the correct answer, then I’ll know you’re for real. Then I’ll do as you ask.”
S: “I’ll play along. I’ll call you in a few hours with an answer. Of course, you should know to leave the police out of this.”
A: “I can’t avoid them. They think I’m guilty.”
S: “No tricks, Marsh. I’ll know the difference. Given the evidence now mounting—your bloodstained chair, for starters—it’s no wonder the police suspect you in her disappearance. What’ll you do when they come for you, when you stand before a jury in ankle chains, when your name’s dragged through the muck by the media?”
A: “They have nothing to go on. No motive. No body.”
S: “I can provide one, so don’t push me. Hard to identify but irrefutably Kara Addison. Alas, after a basic match with her DNA—an object as mundane as a toothbrush can provide a sample—they’ll be hounding you for answers. You’ll be the prime suspect.”
A: “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
S: “You’ve lost sight of your queen. An unforgivable chessboard blunder. Yet I can provide you a means of escape: a man who’ll not only take the blame for your wife’s disappearance but will also provide evidence to reinforce his guilt.”
A: “A pawn sacrifice.”
S: “That’s it precisely. Watch the news at eleven if you wish confirmation. In the meantime, locate that journal, or your game will be ended in mate. Stated more accurately, your mate’s game will be ended.”
A: “What if I can’t find the journal? What’s in it that is so—”
Stahlherz flipped off his phone. With this act concluded, he moved along the river bluff to his waiting van. Soon he would see Mrs. Addison for himself. An entirely different scene but no less engrossing for an audience weaned on the melodramatic.
Josee squinted through a cloud of smoke. So it wasn’t the best cigarette she’d ever had—GPC brand, or, in Scooter-speak, Generic Pieces of Crap—but it
did the trick. She took a final drag, crushed the end against her heel, and perched it on a brick windowsill. Waste not, want not.
“Coming in?”
Marsh held the door as Ms. Wilcox went into Barkley’s to arrange seating with the hostess. His face was blank. It seemed, Josee noted, that his cell phone conversation had sucked the life from him. He hadn’t said much in the market or during their stroll to this restaurant.
“You always sound so angry on the phone?” she inquired.
“My conversation a few minutes ago? What’d you hear?”
“Heard you sounding angry on the phone.” She turned her eyes on him. Searchlights. “Anything wrong? Don’t hold out on me. Is my mother involved?”
“Personal business,” Marsh said. “Something I have to take care of.”
“Right.”
Josee brushed past him into the restaurant, caught a whiff of his cologne. Pine and cloves—earthy, yet urbane. An inexplicable yearning welled in her. She helped herself to a menu from the deserted podium with the piano light. At rosewood tables, business transactions were taking place over cups of Earl Grey. An easel proclaimed Viennese
Sacher torte
as the dessert of the day.
“Why’d you approach me at the station?” she asked.
“I thought you’d have answers about my wife. I shouldn’t have dragged you into it. My mistake. I tried to warn Kara. Told her this was a surefire way for someone to get hurt—you go digging up the past, you’re bound to get dirty—but she wouldn’t listen. She’s an idealist, has this rosy picture in her mind of how things’ll work.”
“She told me you were like this.”
“Like what?”
“All heart. One big warm fuzzy.”
“Josee, I’m trying to protect you.” He paced, flipping a menu in his hand. “Trying to put two and two together, because whatever’s going on, I don’t want you mixed up in it. Might be best if we said our good-byes now.”
“Have we said hellos?”
“Be safer for you this way.”
“Oh, now you’re worried about my safety?”
Marsh swallowed. Glanced at his polished watch face.
Josee noticed it was a Bulgari—oooh, was she supposed to be impressed?—and saw a snapshot of the life that might’ve been her own. Expensive fragrances. Casual elegance. NutraSweet smiles to hide the loneliness at the top. No wonder they shuttled her off at birth—just too stinkin’ inconvenient, a cloud on their financial horizon.
Josee Addison? Little rich chick? As if I’d ever want that
.
“You know, all I wanted,” she barked at Marsh, “was one meeting, pure and simple. One moment in my life to look back on so I could say that I met my mom, that I know what she looks like. When Oregon’s Measure 58 passed, I got the itch. Took me awhile to actually do it, but I thought if I could get a copy of my preadoption birth certificate, then I could track down my biological parents. Put this whole issue to rest.”
“So you applied, and they sent it to you.”
“Got my very own copy. Office of Vital Statistics in Portland. Had to do a little digging to find my mother. Hospital staff wouldn’t give me squat, but I demanded to talk to the administrator, and then he found your name connected to the birth records, even looked up your number in the local directory for me. Could’ve kissed him through the phone. I just crossed my fingers, hoping I was on the right track.”
Marsh said, “Are they going to seat us or not? What’s taking so long?”
“Have you heard a word outta my mouth?”
He was peering back through the glass-paneled doors. Nervous.
“So you’re not my father?” She knew that would snap him back. “Sure looks like your name on my certificate. Not that it proves anything, I know. But why’re you so unsure? You don’t remember committing the act, is that it? Not like I’m after your money. I just want an answer, that’s all.”
“Twenty-two years, Josee. That’s a long time.”
“My entire lifetime,
Dad
.” She breathed sarcasm into the final word.
“You’re sensitive right now, I understand that, but let’s not overstep our bounds.”
From the far end of Barkley’s, Ms. Wilcox shrugged and held up a finger to indicate one more minute till they could be seated.