Unspeakable (43 page)

With one eyebrow raised, the nurse looked toward the door. Ian followed her gaze. Lingering in the hallway, outside his room, a stocky, baby-faced Latino orderly craned his thick neck to see what was going on.

“Are you here to clean up the water?” she asked him.

Gaping at her, the orderly shook his head. “I was wondering what the fuss was about.”

The nurse sighed. “There's a puddle of water on the other side of his bed. Could you clean it up, please?” She gave the security man a look, and they both stepped out to the corridor. They spoke in hushed voices while the orderly ducked into the bathroom. He came out again with several paper towels.

“. . . medication he's taking can cause some paranoia . . .”
Ian heard the nurse whisper.

“I really don't have time for this,”
the guard muttered.

“. . . give him a sedative,”
the woman said. Ian could only make out a few words here and there.
“I'll get the orderly.... We'll have to restrain him. . . .”
Then she raised her voice.
“Ricky, when you finish up in there, would you come out here? I need your help with something else. . . .”

Ian glanced down at the orderly, crouched near the floor, wiping up the spilt water with the wad of paper towels. “Excuse me,” Ian whispered. His body felt like so much deadweight as he tried to turn toward him. “Please, don't let them knock me out. . . .”

The orderly gave him a dubious look, and slowly shook his head. Straightening up, he dumped the paper towels into the plastic pitcher, and carried it into the bathroom. Then he stepped out to the corridor.

The nurse poked her head back in the doorway. “Now, try to calm down, Mr. Haggerty,” she said in a condescending tone. She switched off the overhead light, and the room was dim again—with just a small light on in the far corner. “We won't let anything bad happen to you. In fact, Ricky here will guard the door while I get something to help you relax. . . .”

“For God's sake, no,” Ian cried. “Please, listen to me. . . . I'm not crazy. . . .”

He glanced over at the phone on his nightstand. He figured they probably wouldn't let him call anyone.

“Miss?”
he heard the nurse say. Then her voice dropped to a whisper.
“Miss, you can't be here. Visiting hours are over. . . .”

“It's okay. My father's down in the lobby talking to a Mr. Schlund. . . .”

He glanced over toward the doorway, and just saw shadows—and the back of the stocky orderly. “They'll be moving Ian to another room on a different floor,” he heard Olivia say. “We'll have a bodyguard for him. They'll be calling you about it soon, I'm sure. If you'll excuse me, I'd really like to go in and see him. . . .”

Olivia stepped into the dimly lit room. She wore jeans, a sweater, and a navy pea coat. Her auburn hair was down around her shoulders. She was a beautiful sight. She came to his bedside and took hold of his hand. “We're moving you out of here,” she whispered. “My dad's arranging everything. Hank's just down the hall. He rode up with me in the elevator. He's getting one of your buddies from your old department to keep you company tonight.”

“I can't believe you're here,” he murmured. “How—how did you know I was in trouble?”

“What do you mean? What happened?” She squeezed his hand.

“It doesn't matter now,” he said weakly. “I'll tell you tomorrow. Just don't let Hank leave your side, okay?”

“I won't. But for now, I'm sticking close to you until your friend arrives. Then we'll get you into a different room.” She touched his cheek. “Tomorrow, when they let you out of here, you're coming to stay with us, and I'll watch over you for a change. How does that sound?”

Ian wasn't sure if the drugs in his system were playing tricks on him. But it felt like he was dreaming. He just nodded, closed his eyes, and smiled.

 

 

On his way to the ferry terminal, Andy Stampler realized it was the anniversary of Wade's death tomorrow. Navigating through traffic downtown, he remembered back to that night exactly fifty years ago when Wade had called him from a pay phone. His friend said the police had taken him in for questioning. “The stupid cops don't have anything on either one of us—just a hunch about me. That family from Denver last week—you know, the King's View Hotel?—well, they had some friends who picked me out of a scrapbook of mug shots. They saw me talking with the daughter outside the Science Pavilion. So—suddenly, the cops are trying to connect me to the El Mar murders from back in July. It doesn't make sense. They're all over the map, and haven't got a clue. Anyway, we're in this together, Andy. Don't worry. I didn't rat you out. They have no idea about you. . . .”

Wade proposed that Andy steal some money from his grandfather, and then they'd meet at the shack. They'd hop a train and ride the rails out of town together. He had some crazy idea about living in Las Vegas.

All at once, Andy didn't want anything more to do with him. But he didn't have the guts to say so. He made up a lie about his grandparents suspecting something and watching him very closely. Andy told Wade to call him once he'd settled down in a new city. “By then, the heat will be off me. I can get away from here with some cash and come meet you.”

He didn't mean a word of it.

That night he'd skulked down the pathway through the woods and emptied out the shack of everything they'd accrued together: the sleeping bags, the
Playboys
, everything. It took four trips, carrying all that junk down to the beach. Andy piled it up and made a bonfire.

As far as he was concerned, he and Wade had never been friends.

Late the following afternoon, Wade was hit by a train while fleeing police.

Andy saw the story on the news that night. Until the late edition
Seattle Times
came out the next day, he was sick with worry the police would come after him, too. Was there anything at Wade and his sister's place to link him to his dead friend? He'd only met Sheri Grinnell once, and she hadn't seemed the least bit interested in him. He was terrified she'd suddenly remember him and tell the police.

Andy considered it divine intervention when the
Times
reported that the lone suspect in the murder of a tourist family at the El Mar Hotel had recently been killed himself. The case was closed. They didn't bring up the other murders or the hotel fires. They swept it all under the rug.

Shortly after that, Andy asked to go away to Anderson Military Academy in California. He didn't want to be around Seattle, and a part of him felt entering a strict military school was an appropriate self-punishment for what he'd done. Of course, his grandfather was for it, all the better to toughen him up.

It actually did toughen him up, and he thrived there.

Two months later, in early December 1962, Andy got pulled out of a class for a consult with one of his grandfather's attorneys. He was a thin, hawkish-faced man with wavy brown hair and a blue pinstripe suit. He introduced himself as Mr. Goldsmith. Except for a tiny, constipated smile Goldsmith gave while meeting him in the academy quad—“I'll tell your grandfather you looked impressive in your military uniform,” he'd said—the guy snarled at him the entire time they walked around the campus together. Goldsmith explained that his grandfather had been approached by a certain Miss Sheri Grinnell. When Andy heard him utter that name, it felt like a sudden punch to his stomach. He couldn't breathe. He felt sick. It was all he could do to keep walking with his hands clasped together behind his back. He just stared down at the ground and nodded at what the man beside him was saying.

Sheri Grinnell had a tape, which had been mailed to her by her brother the day before the police had tried to arrest him for murder. She claimed that Andy had participated in these “thrill killings,” and her brother had said so on the tape. On Andy's grandfather's instructions, Goldsmith gave Sheri Grinnell ten thousand dollars in exchange for the tape, which was immediately destroyed. Sheri was warned that if she tried to extort any more money from Andy's family, someone else less scrupulous than Mr. Goldsmith would deal with her.

“Your grandfather and I are the only people who know,” the lawyer said. He and Andy stopped where they'd started their conversation—near the entrance to Andy's dorm. “Your grandfather has suggested that you spend your Christmas vacation skiing in Idaho. Maybe you can persuade some friends here to keep you company. You aren't welcome home. The reason why should be quite clear to you.”

Andy couldn't say anything. He just stared at the man.

The attorney nodded at him. “Have a good holiday,” he said. He turned and walked away to a nearby parking lot, where he climbed into a black Cadillac.

Andy remembered standing there and watching the car drive down the road to the checkpoint gate.

At the ferry terminal, he paid for his ticket and watched the crossing gate go up. He steered his BMW into the lane for the Bainbridge ferry. Shifting into park, he turned off the car. He could see the approaching ferry in the distance. Andy sat back and thought about what a son of a bitch his grandfather was.

He'd vowed to be a far better grandparent to Collin.

But then he thought of Collin's belt, now tied around Clay Bischoff's ankles. He thought about Collin's clothes, now stained with blood and tucked in a plastic bag in the BMW's trunk. When Collin woke up in the morning, he would find those bloodstained clothes and think he'd killed someone. It would be a repeat of last week, when Collin had woken up thinking he'd set fire to his friend's house.

How else could he get Collin to cooperate and shut up about Wade Grinnell? If he thought he'd killed someone, he wouldn't want to go to the police or a psychologist or a hypnotist. If he was anything like his grandfather, he'd distance himself from the situation the best he could. He'd be all the more motivated to get away—to Europe or Australia.

It was a horrible thing to do to his own grandson. But Andy told himself it was for the boy's own good.

Still, he felt like a son of a bitch.

 

 

“Hello?”

“You're probably wondering why a Mr.
Bischoff
is calling you,” Andy said into the cell phone. He stood on the ferry deck with the night wind whipping at him. No one else was out there. Only about fifty cars had boarded the Bainbridge ferry.

“As a matter of fact, I was, sir.”

“So—any chance you'll be calling me from the cell phone of Ms. Barker soon?”

“I ran into a little problem. She and her father have a babysitter. But I can promise results by noon tomorrow.”

“Goddamn it,” Andy muttered.

“It couldn't be helped.”

He sighed. “What about our friend in the hospital?”

“I ran into a delay there, too. He switched rooms on me. But I can assure you by this time tomorrow, he'll still be in the hospital—but with accommodations in the basement.”

“See to that,” Andy grumbled. He clicked off.

He glanced at Clay Bischoff 's cell phone for a moment. Andy dropped the phone into the Sound, and watched the tiny splash in the dark water below. He thought about the man he'd just spoken to. Back when he'd been running a business, dealing with union problems and underhanded competitors, he'd kept some unsavory characters on a private payroll. He hadn't been above making secret deals with a few mob types when necessary. He'd always hired reliable people to do his dirty work.

But times had changed. He'd gone through an old connection to find this man, and so far, he wasn't impressed. Of course, he'd never thought he would have to hire anyone like him again.

When Collin had first come to live with Dee and him after Piper's murder, Andy had been concerned his grandson might have adopted some of Piper's problems. Little Collin had never given them a moment's worry the many times he'd stayed with them while his mother was in rehab or off somewhere with a new guy. But Andy had just lost his only child—and in all likelihood, because of her boyfriend's drug connections. So he'd taken precautions with his grandson. He'd bought Collin a new computer and a fancy new iPhone, both with watchdog applications installed so he could monitor the boy's texts, calls, emails, and the sites he visited. He'd had his grandson's best interests in mind.

To his relief, for the first two months, Collin's phone and computer activity had been blessedly dull and predictable. Andy had noted a couple of free, soft-core porn sites his grandson had visited with the frequency of any healthy teenager. His only cause for concern was the close friendship he'd developed with Ian Haggerty. The late-night chats between his sixteen-year-old grandson and a man twice his age had seemed unhealthy to Andy. Then again, perhaps that closeness had been just a bit too reminiscent of his own friendship with the slightly older Wade Grinnell. He'd experienced firsthand what that kind of hero worship could lead to. Andy hadn't cared how innocent Ian and Collin's friendship might have seemed; he'd put an end to it.

Collin hadn't given him any other cause for concern. Andy had been happy to see his grandson making friends at school. But then ten days ago, on a Sunday morning, he'd checked the content of a grainy cell phone video Collin's friend Fernando had sent.

He was horrified to see his grandson in a trance—speaking in Wade's voice. He couldn't help thinking his old partner in crime had somehow come back from the dead and invaded his beloved grandson's body. What other explanation was there? In front of his two friends, Collin-as-Wade dropped all sorts of hints about his criminal past.