I’m at my best in the morning. I shake less, think more clearly, and get more done. I usually exercise in the afternoon, figuring that the better shape I’m in, the better I can shake off the shakes, though my workouts are a double-edged sword, triggering the tics even as they harden me against them. Evenings are an adventure—sometimes easy; other times a pounding combination of tremors and fog, my head feeling as if an invisible hand is squeezing my brain, trying to wring the last drops out of a soggy sponge.
I’ve seen a lot of smart doctors, but none of them can tell me what causes tics. That only seems fair because they don’t know how to cure it either. The upside is that they assure me it won’t kill me and it won’t turn into something worse that will, and that counts for a lot.
I’ve tried the drugs that work for some people. One knocked the bottom out of my blood pressure while the other knocked me for a loop. Neither one worked. The heavier pharmaceutical artillery warns of side effects like Parkinson’s syndrome, so the only drug I take is chocolate. Joy insisted I try neurofeedback, biofeedback, meditation, acupuncture, Rolfing, and subtle energy therapy, none of which helped, but it made her feel better and left me straddling life between taking it easy and taking as much as I can take.
That said, most people don’t know there’s anything wrong with me. I don’t shake, rattle, and roll all the time or most of the time. When I’m with the uninitiated and my neck and head rear back for a direct shot at the heavens or I break out into a speech-throttling stutter, I explain that I have a movement disorder and leave it at that unless they ask for details I’m happy to provide. I’d rather people understand than speculate, but I don’t want to bore them with the details.
It was midafternoon when I got off the bus in Brookside, the long, jostling ride the last straw in a day that didn’t fit my tic-management routine. I grabbed hold of a
NO PARKING
sign, my knees buckling, my chin locked on my chest, my eyes shut tight as I corkscrewed toward the sidewalk, people skirting me, leaving me blessedly alone. The spasm passed, and I pulled myself up, took a deep breath, and walked home, wobbly at first, finding my legs, my head clear by the time I walked in the door and Roxie and Ruby jumped me.
There is only one thing better than a puppy, and that’s two puppies, even when they are no longer puppies. Roxie is white with a faint honey streak down her back you can see only on the day she’s groomed. Ruby’s coat is amber except for her white socks and chest. She’s the dominant sister, though Roxie is smarter, scratching at the door so that we’ll open it so that Ruby will go outside and she can steal the toy they were fighting over. They greet me like a liberator every time I come home, a few minutes on the floor with them climbing in and out of my lap, licking my ears, and nipping at my nose the perfect tonic.
“They’re glad to see you,” Joy said.
I was sitting on the faded oriental rug in the living den, a room whose hybrid name made up for what our house lacked in space, one room serving as two, the dogs flanking me, their front paws on my thighs. They’d met me at the door, sliding across the hardwood floor, attacking my knees until I surrendered.
Joy stood in the doorway to the kitchen, a dish towel over one shoulder. She’d lost her hair to chemo, but it had grown back, a thin, white downy layer. She called it low maintenance, claimed it was every woman’s dream. She was sickly thin, her clothes hanging off bony shoulders, and straight-line hips. The difference makers were the way her eyes glowed, the ease of her smile, and the sure way she carried herself, the combination saying that she’d taken her turn in the barrel and was determined to live as well and as long as she could. It was enough for her, and it was enough for me.
“Who can blame them?”
“Don’t kid yourself. They do that for everyone that comes in the door except they don’t get so excited that they pee when they see you.”
“Familiarity breeds continence.”
Joy rolled her eyes. “Save it for the revival of Urinetown. How’s that girl, Roni Chase?”
When I was at the FBI, I didn’t talk with Joy about my cases because our investigations were confidential and because I thought I was protecting her from things that would only make her worry. It wasn’t until after our divorce that I realized that the wall I’d built to keep her safe had kept us apart. I may have been slow to learn, but I was educable. I followed her into the kitchen and told her about my day, my visit with Roni, the old man on the bus, and the gang bangers.
“So, is Roni going to be okay?”
I shrugged. “Hard to tell. Depends on what happens. Quincy Carter won’t leave it alone. If he can tie Frank Crenshaw to the robbery of the gun dealer, some of that could splash back on Roni since she kept his books.”
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the shooting. Is she going to be okay with that?”
That was Joy, more interested in people than problems, a lesson she says she learned the hard way. Fix yourself first and worry about the rest later.
“I think she’s strong enough to handle it. She went to the hospital to see Crenshaw, but the cops wouldn’t let her near him. She’ll probably feel better once she sees him up and around, even if he’s wearing a jail jumpsuit.”
She nodded, opened the refrigerator, the door hiding her face but not the catch in her throat. “That thing with the boys on the bus. I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“I’m sorry. It just happened.”
“All the same.”
She closed the fridge, crossed her arms, and leaned against the counter, biting her lower lip. I put my hands on her shoulders, and we leaned into each other. I rested my face against her neck as a flurry of tremors bent me at the knees. She gripped my arms, and when the shakes passed, I whispered in her ear.
“Okay.”
Simon called as we were finishing the dinner dishes. I followed the dogs outside, letting them take me for a walk.
“The gun dealer’s name was Eldon Fowler,” he said. “He was hit for a hundred and six assault rifles and fifty-one or fifty-two handguns, depending on who you talk to.”
“Who did you talk to?”
“County sheriff’s deputy who was first on the scene and Fowler’s wife.”
“What about ATF? Wouldn’t they be running an investigation like this?”
“They are running it. They just aren’t talking about it. The sheriff’s deputy said it was one for the books. Fowler hit a deer. They figure he was going fifty miles an hour, which is a hell of a speed for a narrow gravel road in the woods, especially pulling a trailer full of guns at night in the rain.”
“Was he drunk?”
“He’d had a couple of beers with his buddies at the gun show, but he tested legal. Anyway, the deer smashes through the window, a big-assed buck, and spears Fowler in the chest with his antlers.”
“Christ! That’s a helluva way to die.”
“Only it didn’t kill him. He had a heart attack.”
“What happened to the deer?” I asked.
“That’s when things get really interesting. Someone put a bullet in the deer’s brain.”
“Fowler?”
“Don’t think so. The bullet they took out of the deer was a .44 Magnum. Fowler’s wife said he was carrying a Glock 22 .40-caliber pistol, but the sheriff’s crime scene people didn’t find it. She said he also kept a Browning shotgun on the rack in his pickup, but they didn’t find it either. Thieves must have taken both guns.”
“Sounds like the thieves were following him and one of them took pity on the deer.”
“That’s what the deputy said. I talked to Fowler’s wife, and she told me that Fowler had called her when he was leaving the gun show in Topeka. He told her that someone had stolen a Ruger .44 Magnum Redhawk from him during the show. Said it was his favorite gun. The sheriff’s deputy found Fowler’s inventory sheet for the guns he took to the show. Fowler had checked off what he sold and what he was bringing home. The Redhawk wasn’t checked off.”
“That’s why they don’t know whether the thieves stole fifty-one or fifty-two handguns,” I said.
“Right. And there’s one other thing. Highway Patrol got a call from someone an hour before Fowler’s wife found his body. Caller said he and his wife had passed a crazy man in a pickup truck that was pointing a shotgun out the driver’s window as they passed him on Highway 24. Fowler’s wife said he always took that highway. There was a hole in the passenger door of Fowler’s truck. The deputy told me it looked as if someone had fired a shotgun at point-blank range. Doesn’t make sense.”
“Part of it does. The thieves were on him at the gun show, at least one of them cocky enough to shoplift the Redhawk. Fowler realizes his favorite gun is missing and gets antsy, figuring they may be after the rest of his inventory. He thinks he’s being followed when he points the shotgun out the window. The driver who called the Highway Patrol, what was he driving?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Well, ask. The thieves may have been driving something similar, and that’s what spooked Fowler. And that means Fowler thought he’d seen the thieves and what they were driving.”
“I can buy that, but it doesn’t explain Fowler’s passenger door,” Simon said.
“Who knows what was going on inside Fowler’s pickup? Guy is in a panic, maybe already having a heart attack. He’s got the shotgun off the rack. He’s pointing it out the window and pulls it back when he sees who’s in the other vehicle. A loaded shotgun is harder to handle than a cell phone while you’re driving and scared shitless. It’s a wonder he didn’t blow a hole in himself. What are those guns worth?”
“Retail, the handguns would go for an average of four to five hundred and the assault rifles from eight hundred to a grand, same for the shotgun. Makes the lot worth around a hundred and fifty thousand,” Simon said.
“Less if you’re fencing them one at a time.”
“Maybe more if you’re selling them as a lot to a motivated buyer.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“Cartels in Mexico. Drugs are a big business down there, and a handful of gangs and cartels are fighting each other and the government over it. They all need guns, and they’re getting some of them from the U.S.”
“How?”
“They have affiliates in this country. The American gangs steal the guns and smuggle them to Mexico,” he explained.
“I saw a kid on the bus today inked up with symbols of Nuestra Familia. Is that one of the cartels?”
“Yeah, along with Gran Familia Mexicana and the Cholos and some others. Is that what you wanted to know, or do you want me to keep digging?”
“I’ll settle for that for now. Take the rest of the day off.”
Frank Crenshaw was a charter member of the Upright Citizens Brigade. Worked hard, paid his taxes on time, and tried to protect his wife from bad news. I understood how someone like that, who’d played by the rules, could break under the pressure of losing everything, how in a mad moment, he could go crazy and kill his wife. It was the kind of sad crime that was committed countless times all across the world. But, how, I wondered, did a guy like that end up with a stolen gun? That was hard to do.
The phone rang at nine-thirty. I was dozing through the news. Joy was reading, the dogs asleep at her feet. I picked up the cordless phone.
“Who is it?” Joy asked.
“Caller ID says unknown.”
“Let the machine answer. You can always call back if it’s someone we need to talk to.”
She didn’t like calls from unknown callers, especially late-evening ones. The ringing triggered the primeval fear that had never left her since we lost Kevin. There had always been calls in the night when I was an FBI agent. They were part of my job. She hated those as well because they took me away, leaving her alone, uncertain when or if I’d come back.
“It’s probably nothing,” I said, answering the phone. “Hello.”
“Mr. Davis. It’s me. Roni Chase.”
I was surprised by her formality but realized she hadn’t called me by name at LC’s or at her office. Her voice was strained and hushed.
“Roni, you can call me Jack. What’s up?”
“Frank Crenshaw is dead.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What happened? I thought that nurse told you he was going to be okay.”
“He would have been except someone else shot him.”
“Who?” I asked.
“It wasn’t me, but I don’t think Detective Carter believes me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I’m at the hospital, and he won’t let me go home.”
“Are you under arrest?
“I don’t think so. Detective Carter hasn’t said that, but he told me I couldn’t leave.”
“Has he read you your rights?”
“Like I have a right to remain silent? All of that?”
“Yeah. All of that.”
“Not yet.”
“What happened?”
“I came to visit Frank. I wanted to see for myself that he was okay. It’s not that I’m sorry I shot him. He didn’t give me a choice. But I am sorry in another way, even if he did kill Marie. Does that make any sense?”
It was the same thing she’d told me earlier in the day. She’d keep asking herself and anyone else who would listen the same questions until it did make sense or she could live with the possibility that it never would.
“It makes perfect sense to me because I’ve been there.”
“You’ve shot people?”
“A few.”
She hesitated. “Any of them die?”
“Some.”
“And you’re okay with that?” she asked.
“I am. What about Grandma Lilly? She’s the one who made sure you knew how to use that gun. What does she have to say on the subject?”
“Her mother, my great-grandmother, was shot to death. Grandma was fifteen. She saw the whole thing and says she never got over it.”
“It’s not about getting over it. It’s about what you do with the experience. Your Grandma didn’t want you to end up like her mother. If she hadn’t taught you that lesson, you could have ended up like Marie.”
“Maybe, or maybe Frank would have just run off and left us all there and I wouldn’t have shot him and he wouldn’t be dead.”
“But that’s not what happened. I’m more interested in what happened tonight.”
“When I got to Frank’s floor, a nurse told me I couldn’t see him, so I asked to talk to that nurse I told you about who’s a friend of my mother and she said no way and got real pissy and we got into it and the next thing I know we’re both screaming at each other, she’s calling security, and the cop guarding Frank’s room comes running over. When security finally showed up, the cop went back to Frank’s room. Next thing I know, he comes running out yelling to call a doctor because Frank’s been shot.”
I understood why Carter wouldn’t let her leave. Intentionally or not, she’d created a disturbance that left Frank Crenshaw unprotected long enough for his killer to finish what she had started.
“Have you told Carter anything? Answered any questions?”
“He asked me what I was doing at the hospital, and I told him I just wanted to see how Frank was doing and then me and the nurse got into it and she called security. That’s when he gave me a look like
I don’t think so
and put me in an office and told one of the cops to make sure I stayed there. I didn’t know what to do, so I called you.”
“Okay. Don’t answer any more questions. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“I don’t get it. I didn’t do anything wrong. I just wanted to see Frank.”
“No good deed goes unpunished.”
I hung up and looked at Joy. She’d put her book in her lap and was staring at me, expectant, biting her tongue.
“How’d she get our number?”
“I gave her a business card today. It’s got the office number and my home and cell. I have to go,” I said, telling her what had happened.
“No, you don’t. She needs a lawyer, not a retired FBI agent.”
“She needs someone who knows how to handle something like this.”
“You’re not the only one who does.”
“I’m the only one she knows who does.”
“It’s late. You’re tired. You shook most of the evening until you fell asleep in your chair ten minutes ago. You’re in no shape to drive, and what good will you do her if you show up shaking so bad that you can’t stand up?”
She was right about the driving and could turn out to be right about the shaking. I was pretty good at scheduling my life to manage my symptoms but lousy at scheduling the lives of other people. Roni hadn’t asked me to save her, just help her. I could shake and do that. It was simple multitasking. Like walking and chewing gum.
“I’ll call Lucy.”
She sighed and stood. “No, you won’t. I’ll take you.”
“Why? You don’t even want me to go.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t know why you have to go, but you’re wrong if you think going will make up for Kevin and Wendy.”
“I know that. Nothing will. But I can’t stop trying.”
“I know that too. That’s why I’m taking you.”