Dead Wrong (40 page)

O
N THE FRONT porch of the Youngs’ home, McCarthy, unable to shake an increasing dread that something bad was about to happen, paused to scan the neighboring vehicles. Mostly there were SUVs, trucks, a few muscle cars. Fewer than expected. Probably because people had already staked claims at one of the many nearby beaches or lakes, or were readying backyard barbeques for later this afternoon. Yet something seemed out of place. Then it dawned on him: the navy Benz at the end of the block. Without a word, he hurried Sarah across the street to the rental, started the engine, and pulled away from the curb.

Sarah said, “Boy oh boy, talk about creeping me out …” and began rubbing her arms as if chilled. “You didn’t warn me her husband’s name was Don.” She glanced over at him.

“It wasn’t intentional, I assure you. I didn’t put it together until we were inside and I blundered into it.” With a glance at the rearview mirror, he flipped the turn signal, saw the Benz moving now, following him.

She asked, “How in the world can you explain what we just heard? Especially the part about not knowing Bobbie Baker.”

Rounding the corner, he accelerated, heading for Highway 2, using the route they had taken to come here. He vaguely knew a more direct route from Monroe to Seattle existed but wasn’t about to waste time searching for it.

“Tom?”

“Huh?” He was alternating between the road and the rearview mirror, the Benz on their tail, only one other car separating them. The person following him certainly wasn’t skilled in covert surveillance, making it unlikely it was one of Sikes’s men. Still, the person could be alerting Sikes or the cops to his location, which was bad news either way

Sarah said, “I asked a question.”

“Don’t turn around, but a car’s following us.”

“You kidding me?” She turned around to look out the back window. “Oh crap, you’re serious!”

They were on Highway 2 now, McCarthy observing the speed limit, doing everything possible to not attract attention. Being pulled over by a cop was the last thing he needed. He said, “The navy Mercedes. See it?”

“I know, I know, and it looks like the driver’s on a cell.”

McCarthy’s mind was spinning, trying to think of who it might be. A Benz limited possibilities, leaving one prime suspect: Wyse. Okay, so Wyse maybe was driving. So now what to do about it? He thought about the gun in the glove box and figured he had to do something now because sure as hell, Wyse was giving Sikes their location. He asked, “See anyone else in there other than the driver?”

She leaned over the seat for a better look. “From here, it looks like he’s alone.”

Up ahead, the traffic light changed to yellow. McCarthy glanced right and left, and saw the stopped cars at the cross street ready to accelerate on green. He didn’t want to chance running the light and get involved in an accident. He stopped, slammed the transmission into park, leaned over to the glove box, and came away with one of the guns.

“Jesus, Tom, what are you doing!”

Then he was out the door running toward the Benz, the guy in the car directly behind them laying on the horn. Through lightly tinted windows he saw Wyse talking on a cell. Wyse must have seen him coming because he started yelling into the phone, both eyes wide and fixed on the gun in his hand. Tom aimed. Wyse dove for the floor.

He squeezed the trigger, blowing out the left front tire, stepped around the car did the same to the right, then was back in the rental, peeling rubber as the light turned amber.

T
HEY DUMPED THE rental on a residential street in Everett two blocks from an Enterprise car rental where, using the Rush ID and credit card, Tom picked up a beige Toyota.

Next, they drove I-5 north of Everett to the Premium Outlet Mall where he purchased new jeans, a sweatshirt, and a baseball-style cap at Ralph Lauren while Sarah got a new blouse and slacks. He also picked up a cheap cell phone at a Verizon kiosk. Dressed in the new clothes and cap, he stopped by the Sony store and purchased a 12-megapixel camera with a supplemental sixteen gig flash memory card and a second set of fully charged batteries. Tasks done, he located one of the few existing pay phones left in the world.

Sarah stood next to him, scanning the crowd for anyone paying too much attention to them. “Who we calling?”

“Charles Russell.”

Sarah said, “Don’t look now, but a security guard’s checking us out.”

M
CCARTHY’S FIRST REACTION was to hang up the phone and get the hell out of there, but he figured that’d only draw more attention. “Where is he?” The pay phone was in a hall to the lavatories.

“To your right, by the doors.”

A woman, who McCarthy assumed was Mrs. Russell, answered the phone. Without identifying himself, he asked to speak with Charlie. A moment later Russell picked up.

“Charlie. Tom McCarthy. Can you talk?”

Russell hesitated. “Am I going to get into trouble for it?”

With all the news reports during the past twenty-four hours, McCarthy could understand if Charlie might be hesitant, but it was crucial to learn what few facts he could. He hoped their excellent doctor-patient relationship would override any concerns the media reporting might cause.

“If talking to me makes you nervous I’ll hang up, but I really need your help. You might be one of the few people who can clear this mess up for me. For what it’s worth, I didn’t kill anyone yesterday. The press has it wrong.”

Russell let out a dismissive snort. “I didn’t believe a word of it when I saw it. Wouldn’t be the first time reporters got something wrong. What can I do for you?”

As he remembered, Russell’s accident occurred while he was working at a shipyard in a cherry picker thirty feet up, painting numbers on the hull of a dry-docked freighter. For no apparent reason, the machine collapsed, crashing the basket onto the cement below. Luckily Charlie survived but his injuries included several long bone fractures, a crushed lumbar vertebra, and a pulped left temporal lobe with an acute subdural hematoma. A swift emergency airlift to Lakeview Medical Center saved his life.

“I need to ask you a few things about your memories, Charlie.” Tom scanned the immediate area for someone eyeing him, then turned to face the wall and pulled the baseball cap low on his forehead to hide as much of his face as possible. Sarah leaned in close to hear what she could and also block the view of his face.

“Thought I told you all about them in the hospital.”

“You did. But the thing about the prostitute, can you think of any way we could determine if it really happened? Just to double check. It’s really important to do this.”

Russell gave a soft groan. “Believe me, it happened.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I remember it as clear as just about anything that ever happened to me.”

“I know you do. But bear with me on this. I know you remember it, but the question is, did it really happen to
you
. Maybe it happened to someone else and for some reason it’s now one of your memories.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. I remember it too well.”

“I understand, but let’s think about this a moment. Can you remember what date it happened?”

“Clear as spring water.”

“Okay, we’ll come back to that. Now, is there any other memory like the prostitute thing that you wish had never happened?”

“What do you mean?”

During the interview, Russell had become emotional, eaten up with self-loathing and embarrassment for an act he couldn’t imagine himself doing. It had taken a great deal of patient coaxing to bring him to the point of recounting the incident. McCarthy wondered if other heinous acts were eroding Charlie’s conscience too. Every one of his instincts told him that Charlie Russell could not have killed the prostitute.

“I know how much that memory eats at you and that you can’t believe you did it. Is there anything else like that you haven’t told me? Things you might’ve done?”

Charlie didn’t answer.

“Here’s the thing, Charlie. The other week I saw another patient who, just like you, who remembers things other people—her family, mostly—swear never happened. And guess what? When we checked out her story, it turns out the family was right. Those things never happened to
her
. They happened to someone else. See what I’m saying?”

“Not really.”

“We think, for reasons we can’t explain, she’s experiencing someone else’s memories.”

Russell sounded doubtful. “How could that happen?”

“I don’t know. But in a lot of ways, she’s very similar to you. In particular, she had a head injury like yours. What I’m thinking is, maybe sometime in her past someone told her about the things she now remembers, or maybe she saw them on TV. Then, for some reason the head injury scrambled her thoughts so much that she believes they happened to her. Make sense?”

“You think there’s a chance I really didn’t do them?” For the first time in the conversation Russell sounded hopeful. “Exactly. In your case, maybe you saw it on one of those true-crime shows.”

Sarah was leaning close to the earpiece now, so he angled it for her to hear more easily. Her body heat radiated against him, carrying a faint lemon scent.

“Hold on a second. That means there’s a way I can get rid of them?” Russell sounded excited.

Good question. “I don’t know, but the first thing we need to do is to find out for certain if those bad things you remember really happen to
you
.” McCarthy turned his head slightly for another look at the security guard. Was he still sizing him up?

“I understand what you’re asking me, but, like I told you before, I don’t want to talk about them. They make me feel awful.” “I know, but I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t really important.” Charlie let out a short moan. A moment later, “I told you about the cat?”

“Yes.” The interview had been recorded when McCarthy first started Charlie’s work up. Just ten days ago, after Tom’s first interview with Bobbie Baker, he reviewed it again, so it was still fresh in his mind.

McCarthy asked, “How about this, is your mom living?”

Russell answered, “Yes. Why?”

“Will you call her?”

“About what? I’m not going to tell her that story. Not in your lifetime.”

“No, no, that’s not what I’m suggesting. Just ask about the neighbor’s cat, ask what happened to it.” He paused to let that logic sink in. “Can you do that?”

“Aw man …”

“And then I want you to verify where you were the date the prostitute thing took place. Go back over any records you have, a diary, calendar, scheduler, whatever. See if you can reconstruct where you were and what you were doing that day. Okay?”

After a few beats, Charlie said, “I’ll try.”

“How long you need? Fifteen minutes?”

McCarthy hung up and, with Sarah matching him step for step, headed straight for the glass door to the main concourse. “And our plan is?” Sarah asked.

“What happened to the guard?” There was none in sight now.

“I didn’t want to look obvious, so I didn’t keep an eye on him. The one time I did look he was gone.

They passed through the doorway, turned left, and headed for the parking lot.

Someone from behind them yelled, “Hey, you.”

McCarthy felt Sarah hesitate, so he said, “Keep moving. You didn’t happen to notice if he’s mall security or county sheriff, did you?”