Dead Ringer: Chapter Fourteen
Read Chapter Thirteen here.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I hauled myself out of bed to take an early morning walk and clear my head. The storm that ripped through had left the streets and yards strewn with debris — downed branches and torn leaves and tattered Crepe Myrtle blossoms — and dumped so much water that rivulets still streamed in the gutters.
I strolled along, trying to decide whether I should call Chad Miller at the police station or go talk to him face to face. Either way, I needed to let him know I’d found Rachel. In the end, I thought a phone call would suffice.
I had my breakfast out on my little deck, black coffee and bran flakes with strawberries and milk, while sitting on a black plastic trash bag to keep my butt dry. The air smelled clean and rain-washed, and I felt an odd peace, even though at the same time I was troubled about Rachel Roper’s situation.
I took a shower before sitting down to call Chad. When I told him I’d found her, he asked where she was. I said I’d been to see her at WindDancer.
“How did you find her?” he asked.
It’s bad to lie to law enforcement. Odds are, eventually any untruth is going to end up biting you in the ass. Still, I couldn’t exactly tell him, could I?
“Yes, officer, my colleague and I broke into someone’s house one night and pulled some phone numbers from the list of incoming calls on their answering machine, and then I called around until I got a hit.”
The thing is, I hadn’t really thought through what I would say to him, I just felt obligated to let him know he should cancel the missing persons report.
So I told him, “I went on a hunch.”
“Oh?” he said, and I hated how wide-open he made it sound, like he was leaving a trap for me to trip and fall into.
“It makes sense,” I said. “With what I suspect is her instability and all.”
He didn’t respond, so I kept going. “Anyway, she’s safe, that was my main concern. Her older brother is with her.”
“I see,” he said. “And what is his name again?”
“Weston Roper.” I heard the scratch of pen on paper. “I wanted to let you know,” I said, trying to sound like a good little scout and not someone who went around committing Class 1 misdemeanors without so much as a by-your-leave.
“Appreciate it.”
“Okay, well, have a good day,” I said.
“And this number is still the best way to reach you in case I have any follow-up questions?” He read my home phone number back to me.
“Yes.” Why would he have follow-up questions?
“And I can reach you at St. Regis Pastoral Care?”
“Correct,” I said, and we rang off.
Had I given him my cell phone number, too? I couldn’t remember, but I hated the thought of being that accessible to him.
Shit, shit, shit.
St. Regis was hopping when I got there. I’d barely unloaded my tote bag and settled at my desk to tackle some paperwork when Mavis called out, “ER just phoned, they sent a guy up to 4th floor, came in with a heart attack, first one, pretty upset.”
I walked out to her desk. “Family?”
“Wife is on her way.”
“Did they give a room number?”
“404,” she said.
A little known secret is that in fourth floor waiting lives a vending machine that dispenses free coffee that’s smoky and dark and delicious. My mouth watered at the thought of it.
“Mavis, would you like me to bring you back a cup of coffee? I’m going to get one for myself after I see the heart guy.”
She looked at me like I’d asked her to get up on her desk and do the Can-Can.
“I…don’t think so, no.” She went back to typing, but as I walked down the hall to my office, she said in a small voice, “Thank you, though.”
Good God. Look at us, I thought. Making nice.
I suspected the man I was going to meet would most likely fit the following profile: he’d be between 45-60 and married, maybe for the second time, with at least two children. I’d bet on an attorney, physician or surgeon, banker or self-employed businessman. He probably had an alcoholic parent. He was likely to drink or smoke or both and was an incurable workaholic.
I noted the name on the door. “Hi, Mr. Reingold, I’m Chaplain Blair.” Jonathan Reingold leaned back against two pillows, his hair falling in a thick blonde-gray shock over his left eye and his hands clutching the crisp hospital sheets. He barely turned toward me, his attention riveted to the beeping monitors as he watched his heart trace patterns across the screen, and probably for the first time in his adult life realizing he was smaller than the problem.
I’d guessed pretty close. He was a forty-nine-year-old builder-developer whose wife had been telling him for the last year-and-a-half to get a checkup, but he’d ignored her, he said, too much to do. His college-aged daughter from his first marriage thought his coloring had become a little funny lately, but he’d ignored her, too. This morning a deal had gone bad in the middle of negotiations, and as Jonathan’s rage had overtaken him, his heart muscle had seized up and here he was in Room 404, trying to come to grips with the fact that he was not invincible.
I’d brought a few pamphlets with me, specific to the situation. I pulled out one that was written for those who’ve had a heart attack, how to adjust, cope with your own feelings of helplessness and fear, how to deal with surgery and adjust to limitations, and how to address your spiritual questions and needs. He told me his wife had been after him for years to please come with her to church, for her and the children. I jotted down some names and addresses of churches in the area.
“Maybe, if I get out of the hospital and get the okay, we can go this Sunday,” he said, glancing back at the monitor again, with its lines moving up and down and numbers changing every second. “Do you know what any of that stuff means?” he asked, nodding at the screen.
I shook my head. “I absolutely do not,” I said. “Would you like me to find someone you can ask?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure I want to know,” he said in almost a little boy voice.
“It’s a pretty scary thing that’s happened, isn’t it?”
He nodded. We sat in silence for a while.
Then he asked, “Could you say a prayer?”
“Of course. Do you mind if I take your hand?”
“Please. Thank you.” He shut his eyes. I could see how hard he was clenching his teeth, holding in all the fear and maybe the outrage, that something like this could happen to him.
I hesitate to pray for specific outcomes. Somehow that feels like a setup to those who are seriously ill. But I always pray in some fashion for peace and healing, and for the healers to be on top of their game. Just as I finished, Mrs. Reingold came rushing in, her face ashen, her voice strained.
“Jonathan!” she called, and I moved out of the way as she hurried to the side of his bed and laid her head on his chest. “Oh, Jonathan,” she said, and began to sob.
“Baby, I’m okay,” he said. “Doc said they think it was mild.” The brave face. “And guess what? The preacher here has talked me into going to church with you! How about that?”
She turned to look at me as if it was the first time she’d noticed there was anyone else in the room.
I gave her a small wave and turned to Jonathan. “Please don’t hesitate to call if you need anything,” I said, and backed out through the doorway.
Most likely within ten days he’d be back on the job, his wife and kids would still feel abandoned, and he’d still hit the fast food lines when he got a split second for a lunch or dinner break. He’d join his wife in her life for a few weeks, make an effort, as he’d put it, and go to church, help put the kids to bed, maybe have time for some lovemaking. I suspected it wouldn’t last, and I filed his name in my memory bank, thinking I’d probably be seeing him here again. I went to get that coffee.
When I got back to the office, my cell phone was ringing.
“What did you find out?” Mark asked.
I told him about Weston and Lamar Gustafson and repeated my conversation with Rachel.
“And you know Lamar from clergy get-togethers?”
“Correct. And he makes my skin crawl. I can’t explain it, but there is something off about him.”
“And he’s a pastor?”
“Eh…loosely termed, I guess. He’s ordained, he says. He passes himself off as quasi-Buddhist Eastern Religion mash-up.”
“What does that mean?
“He says stuff people like to hear,” I said. “About positive thoughts and crystals and how God wants you to have money. I think he says that last to make excuses for the Mercedes he drives. Anyway, I guess he’s the chaplain at WindDancer now, which totally fits.”
“That’s odd, though, isn’t it? That kind of person in that line of work?”
“Oh, God, no,” I said. “Ministry is a great place for creeps to hide. No one wants to call them out because “we’re not supposed to judge and we’re supposed for forgive” and all that other stuff that is really just about avoiding conflict.”
“Interesting,” Mark said. “Thank God I’m an atheist.” We both laughed.
“Well, I did a little digging of my own,” he said. “Weston Roper is a very rich man.”
“No shit,” I said.
“No, I mean very rich. Started out with family money and made a whole lot more. Has a manufacturing operation that makes detonators and has some pretty big government contracts, is my guess.”
“You mean like bombs?” I suddenly got an image of Weston Roper as a cartoon villain holding a round black ball with a smoldering fuse sticking out of it.
“Munitions,” he said. “Technical stuff, computer components and whatnot.”
“So….I mean, I hate that he contributes to the ills of the world that way, but it doesn’t really tell us anything, does it?”
“Not really,” Mark said. He was quiet a moment, then said, “He’s never been married.”
“More power to him.”
“No, I mean, don’t you find that a little unusual? A guy like that with all that money?”
“I guess.”
“I mean…do you think there could be anything strange going on between Weston and Rachel?”
That hit me square in the face, especially as I remembered being in the middle of the moment when Rachel had called him Wessie and he called her Pumpkin.
“You mean…like they’re involved?”
“Or something,” said Mark.
“Oh, my God,” I said. “You’re thinking he could be the father!” I felt a little sick even speaking the words, but there it was, needing to be said.
“You said he made it seem like she was making the whole thing up. I can’t imagine it would be good if it came to light that he’d impregnated his half-sister when she was fifteen.”
“That would be called rape,” I said, and shuddered, remembering Weston’s firm hand on my arm as he hurried me out of WindDancer.
“There would be a lot at stake for him, is all I’m saying,” he said. “A possibility to be considered.”
“Well, if you’re right, then Rachel is really not safe out there.” I thought about how whatever was in her IV bag was keeping her so well-sedated that she was losing her memory of what had been happening. I wondered about reaching out to Chad Miller again, but dismissed the idea for now.
“I just have a really bad feeling about all of this,” I said. “And I think I should pay another visit. And I think you should come, too.”
“Agreed.”
“Pick you up around nine tomorrow morning?”
“Sounds good.”
An hour later I was going through some old grant files when I kept getting this nagging feeling there was something I was supposed to do, something I’d forgotten. Finally, I stopped and put down the sheaf of papers and looked at my desk calendar, but saw nothing other than my scheduled hours for the day.
It was when I slipped off my blue hospital jacket that I noticed the note I’d made on the hem, reminding me about the birthday party Jenny Malone hadn’t gotten to have, because she’d gotten a new heart instead. Then I remembered the festivities had been rescheduled to Tuesday.
Which was today! I could still make it if I ran. Which I did.