“Sir, we have help on the way. He called us but went unconscious. What is his condition now?”
“It’s Frank Merret.” The name sounded like he was saying it in slow motion. Blood seeped out of Frank’s chest. “He’s been shot!” Damien threw off his jacket. He put a gloved hand over the wound.
“Is he breathing?”
He put an ear to Frank’s mouth. “I don’t know! I can’t tell! He’s still unconscious!”
“We’re on the way. Stay on the line with me.”
Suddenly Frank moaned and opened his eyes. His pupils looked very big, and his eyes rolled back in his head over and over.
“Frank, Frank! It’s me. I’m here. Hang in there, buddy, please. Okay? Help is on the way.”
Frank’s dim eyes focused on Damien. He opened his mouth, and Damien heard a gurgling sound.
“Don’t talk. Just . . . just stay calm.” Damien shook so badly he could barely hold his hand in place on the wound or the phone up to his ear. “He’s been shot,” he said again into the phone.
Distantly, the first sirens approached. The 911 operator’s voice faded in and out. Something about putting pressure on the wound.
Frank stared up at him, his skin pale, almost gray. He whispered something. Damien couldn’t hear, so he bent down, putting his ear to Frank’s mouth.
“I can’t move . . . can’t feel any . . .” More gurgling.
“Okay, buddy. You’re not in pain?”
“No,” he whispered. Then he mumbled something again. Damien put his ear back to Frank’s lips. “She’s worth fighting for. . . .”
Damien looked at him again. In the midst of frail, glossy eyes, life sparkled and flickered like a struggling flame.
“Angela? Okay, yes. Hang in there. You’ve got way more hang-ups to overcome.”
“Don’t give up. . . . She’s worth it. . . . Fight for her. . . . She has worth. . . .” Frank’s eyes rolled back in his head again, and his body convulsed.
“Not me, Frank!” Damien shouted, tapping his face. “Not me, you! You have to fight. Don’t give up!” Damien pressed the cell phone to his ear. “Where are they? I’m losing him! I’m losing him!”
He knew where they were. He could hear the haunting wail of the sirens just outside the door and the abrupt end to them as they parked. Voices outside.
“Hurry!” Damien shouted. He grabbed Frank by the shoulders. “Frank! Don’t do this, man! Don’t leave me! Hang in there! Who did this to you?”
Frank’s eyes closed. “Take care of—”
Footsteps behind him, then heavy hands, standing him up and backing him away. EMTs and firefighters swarmed around Frank to the point that Damien could only see his fingers twitching against the carpet.
Damien moved, trying to see what was happening. “He’s been shot! He can’t move his legs or his arms!”
A small gap gave Damien a glimpse of Frank. Two EMTs were sliding an orange board underneath him. Another was squeezing a bag off the mask they’d put over his mouth. Within seconds, Frank was on the stretcher and they pulled it to waist height. An EMT crawled on top of Frank, pressing his palms against his chest.
The stretcher was whisked out. Damien hurried after it, watching them load Frank into the ambulance. Three police cars circled the street. Damien rushed toward the back doors of the ambulance, intending to climb in, but the doors were slammed shut and the ambulance rolled forward, its sirens blaring against the brick walls of the complex.
Damien stood there, staring at his bloody right hand. The phone was still in his other hand. He tried to dial Kay’s number, but the phone fell and the battery popped out and onto the sidewalk next to his foot.
Nearby Captain Grayson got out of a dark sedan, frantically motioning for Damien to get in the car.
24
“Damien, what did you see?”
“Nothing. I got there; Frank was on the floor.”
“Nobody else?”
“No one but me.”
“And you received the text from Frank this morning.”
“Yes. It was very jumbled, but we read it as
Help me. Angela’s house
.”
“So you went right over?”
“Yes. I didn’t think anything was really wrong. I didn’t know where Angela’s apartment was exactly. I saw the truck, then saw the apartment door open. I knocked and saw him.”
“I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“We’ve been internally investigating Frank for about four days now.”
“Why?”
“The Web site.”
“What about it?”
“We came across some information that led us to suspect that Frank might be involved.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I know this is hard to hear.”
“It’s not hard to hear. It’s ridiculous.”
“Did you know that Frank has a sister?”
“Frank doesn’t have any family. His parents died years ago, and he has no siblings.”
“He does have a sibling. Her name is Meredith. She’s in an adult home a few miles from here in Camden, where they grew up.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“We’re just now putting the pieces together, having just learned it ourselves. But apparently she tried to commit suicide when she was twenty. Frank walked into the garage and found her and cut her down. She was alive, but her brain lacked oxygen for too long, and she’s been in a vegetative state all these years.”
“I don’t understand what this has to do with anything.”
“Meredith attempted suicide after she overheard a conversation. Two friends went into a room at her house, said some horrible stuff about her, not knowing there was a baby monitor in the room. She heard all of it. Three days later she hung herself.”
“How do you know this?”
“His ex-wife told us.”
Damien pushed the conversation from the night before out of his head and walked without breaking pace down the softly lit hallway, took a right, and found himself in a small, black room carpeted from floor to ceiling. Against the back wall was the casket, gaping open like a mouth.
He wished he could stop playing the conversation in his head, but it was relentless, like a fly darting around his face that he couldn’t ever quite shoo away. He focused on the elevator music in the background. For once it was actually welcomed.
Frank looked peaceful. Damien stepped closer, within a few inches of the casket. At first he studied the plump, fragrant flowers set on the floor on either side of the casket. But then slowly, he made himself look.
Frank in a suit made him smile. Damien had made the decision, mostly because Frank was always uncomfortable in his uniform. Called it “ill-fitting.” But he was equally uncomfortable in a suit. Said they never looked right on him. But Kay had convinced him that if Frank had to choose, he’d choose the suit. He had only one in his closet, so that made it easy.
His badge stuck out of his pocket. And beside him was his cell phone. Damien smiled again, but this time the smile couldn’t stop the tears, and he found himself laughing and crying all at once.
That guy loved his iPhone.
A few other medals were put into the casket too. Frank didn’t have much hair to fix, but what he did have was slicked down like he would never wear it. Also, his cheeks were kind of pink, and Frank never had a hint of pink on any part of him.
Still, he looked like he was resting, as if he’d fallen asleep during a Sunday afternoon football game. His hands were folded over his belly as if he’d just eaten a big bowl of chili.
Damien touched the casket, running his fingers along its rim, grazing the silk lining.
Captain Grayson’s words whispered in the corridors of his mind again, and their conversation at the hospital started to replay. He blinked, trying to kick it out again.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Meredith?” Damien said to Frank, wiping the tears from his eyes. “How could I not know that? I know everything about you.” He never told anyone except Angela. Not even his closest friend. What kept him quiet all these years? Was it guilt? shame?
He took a few steps back and felt a hand on his shoulder. He knew it was Kay.
“The kids are here,” she said quietly.
Damien nodded and turned. Jenna rounded the corner first, followed closely by Hunter. Jenna’s dress glided around her knees as she walked. Hunter fidgeted with his collar. Damien held out his arms, and they each buried their face in a shoulder.
“You know,” Damien said, still blocking their view, “you don’t have to see Frank like this. It’s all right to remember him how he was.”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Jenna said, her gaze drifting toward the casket. “Frank was family. We should be here for him, even like this.”
Damien took them each by the shoulder and turned. Hunter trembled beneath his hand. Jenna leaned into him. Kay came up beside them and they stood silently for a while, just looking.
“I hope you two find as good a friend as Frank was to me.” Damien wanted to say more, but his voice quivered and he hated his kids seeing him like this.
Then Jenna lightly laughed. “Is that his cell phone?”
Damien grinned through his tears. “Yeah. Figured Frank wouldn’t want to go through eternity without his technology. The police finished their investigation of it and gave it back.”
Hunter looked at him. “Is the lid going to be open during the funeral?”
“No. This is called a viewing. We’ll close it before the funeral starts.”
“Good,” Hunter said. “Frank would not want to be seen in a suit.”
Damien laughed. “Exactly, buddy.”
“He’s in heaven,” Jenna said. “I know it. I remember when we were little, Frank would always talk to us about heaven and God and Jesus. He always said he wasn’t getting there by his merits, which he thought was funny because of his last name.”
Damien smiled. Sounded like a Frank joke.
“Jenna, you got your cell phone?” Hunter asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Let me see it.”
She dug in her purse and handed it over. Hunter’s thumbs flew over the number keys.
“Son,” Damien said, “now’s not a good time to be texting—”
Suddenly Frank’s cell phone lit up and vibrated. Hunter smiled.
Damien leaned in to read it:
We luv u Frank. Rest well
.
With another smile came another swelling of emotion. Tears dripped down Damien’s face faster than he could wipe them. Kay brought him into a hug, then let go, nodding that he should look behind him.
He turned.
Angela.
“Honey,” Damien said, “why don’t you take the kids out. I’ll be there in a minute. It’s almost time for the funeral to start. We need to get over to the church.”
Kay gathered them by the shoulders and ushered them out, disregarding Angela as she walked by her.
Angela gave a short, polite smile, clinging tightly to her black clutch. She was dressed from head to toe like a mourning widow.
Damien drew in a deep breath, careful to keep his emotions—and tongue—under control.
Without saying anything, Angela came up beside him, her eyes fixed on Frank. She blotted her face every which way with a tattered tissue. “Oh, baby . . .”
Damien stepped back and rolled his eyes. He couldn’t watch this. In fact, he couldn’t be near this woman. He started to leave.
“I know what you think of me,” she said.
Damien stopped, willing himself not to turn around.
“But I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Damien faced Angela. “He was at your apartment when he was killed. You had something to do with it.”
“Like I told the police, I wasn’t there. I was at work, which has already been confirmed.” Angela glanced at Frank. “I went in early because I’d skipped some days and was behind on my work. I have no idea why he was there.”
“I imagine that he was there because he still loves you.” Damien looked down. “Loved you, I mean. After everything you did to that man, he never stopped loving you.”
“You probably don’t believe this, but I never stopped loving him either. Frank was not an easy man to live with, but that didn’t mean I didn’t still love him.”
“Sure. You loved him enough to keep calling him from time to time, giving him hope.”
“That’s not true.”
Damien sighed. “I don’t want to get into it. Not here. Not now, over Frank’s . . .” He shook his head and turned to leave.
“I’m a suspect. They haven’t officially said it, but I know it. They keep returning, looking through my stuff, asking me questions.”
Damien turned around one more time. “Why didn’t he tell me about Meredith?”
Angela shook her head. “He made me swear to never tell. I never visited her myself. He wouldn’t allow it. But he told me once that every time he went, he would whisper in her ear.”
“Whisper what?”
“All the good things about her. All the things she couldn’t believe about herself.”
Damien kept walking. He couldn’t take any more of Angela. Maybe she was worth fighting for in Frank’s world, but she wasn’t worth dying for.
The police chaplain greeted Damien as he left the hallway and entered the foyer of the funeral home. Walking behind him was Reverend Caldwell.
“Chaplain, good to see you,” Damien said, shaking his hand. Captain Grayson stood beside him and shook Damien’s hand too. “Hi, Lou. Reverend Caldwell, thanks for coming.”
“Sure,” Reverend Caldwell said, holding his hand with a tight, knowing grip. “Have any questions about how or when you’ll be speaking?”
“No, I’m good. Thanks,” Damien said.
“We better get to the church,” the chaplain said. “They’ll bring Frank over in about ten minutes. I’ll see you both there.”
Damien nodded, then turned to Lou. A tense moment of silence passed between them. Damien couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I know Frank wasn’t behind this Web site. I heard you found nothing on his computer linking him to it.”
“We’re still investigating. There’s the possibility that he used a remote computer not tied to him.”
“I would hope that you’d be investigating his murder.”
“They may be all connected.”
“How so?”
“When we went to Frank’s apartment, his computer was on. He’d been checking the Web site.”
“So? Everyone is checking it.”
“We can tell that he viewed it early in the morning, before he went to Angela’s.”