Dennis must’ve passed Mrs. Flaherty the phone; the next voice I heard was hers.
“You were right, Tom,” she whispered. “After we talked, I actually went to church. First time in forever. I lit a candle. I prayed Dennis was still alive and would come walking through the door. He did.”
“How long was he in the hospital?”
“Who cares? It’s a miracle, don’t you see? I have my son back.”
“Yeah, it’s a miracle.” I took a second to motion a hovering Nate away from my desk. “Can I call you back, Mrs. Flaherty? I may have some other questions.”
“Of course, Tom. You can call me anytime you’d like. Thank you.”
“For what? I didn’t do anything. Your son wasn’t dead. Someone stole his wallet or found it. Whoever was driving that car. Dennis would’ve come walking back into your house whether I’d called you or not.”
“Oh really?” she said. “I know better.”
EIGHTEEN
I resisted the temptation to enlighten anyone.
I kept the inquisitive-looking Nate the Skate out of the loop.
I walked outside after borrowing a smoke from Norma, who chided me for revisiting a forsworn habit. Just one, I told her, for old times’ sake.
I lit up under the overhang that sheltered Foo Yang Chinese takeout from the broiling sun as Mr. Yang’s 13-year-old daughter stared at me listlessly through the dust-coated window.
The jolt of nicotine gave me an immediate buzz.
The accident.
Two people had collided on that road.
Dennis Flaherty and Ed Crannell.
Only they weren’t Dennis Flaherty and Ed Crannell.
There was no record of an Ed Crannell. Dennis Flaherty was demonstrably alive.
Let’s play editor.
Pretend the story-the story so far-has been placed on this editor’s desk. You know which editor too, the one wearing bifocals and a world-weary expression he’s justifiably earned. This particular story’s been offered up for approval by a journalist who’s seen better days, okay, whose reputation is less than crap, who’s literally disgraced his profession.
Let’s watch the editor wearily pull out his tooth-marked pencil as I tell him that Dennis Flaherty was never in that car.
Okay, he says, so that doctor was right. The dead man was black. He stole Dennis’s wallet, found it, bought it from some street hustler. Anyhow, he ended up with it. So what?
You’re forgetting about the other car. Nobody’s heard of Ed Crannell.
So the man lied about his identity. Ed Crannell lied about who he was. People lie about their identity all the time. Maybe he was driving with a suspended license. Maybe he had a record. Maybe he owes back alimony in the state of California. Or maybe he is Ed Crannell, just not a pharmaceutical salesman. And he doesn’t live in Cleveland. Maybe all he did was lie about that. It happens.
There were no skid marks.
Haven’t you been listening? Ed Crannell lied. You’re familiar with lying, aren’t you, Tom? The accident was his fault. He was changing radio stations, chatting on his cell. He was admiring the scenery, daydreaming, glazing over. Next thing he knew, he’d caused an accident. He was the only survivor, so he concocted a story-the other car drifted into his lane, the other driver noticed him too late, jammed on the brakes. No one jammed on the brakes. He made it up.
The editor is clearly smirking at me. Worse. He has that tired, defeated look you offer in the face of a habitual liar. Don’t insult my intelligence, the look says. Enough.
It’s not just the accident, I offer tentatively.
He sighs, shakes his weary head.
It’s not just the accident, I repeat myself. It’s Belinda.
Belinda, the editor says. Oh boy.
She said her dead son came back to say hello. I know, she was 100 years old. She was maybe dotty. Only there was that note from Benjy. Happy hundred birthday. Mr. Birdwell said no one had visited Belinda, but Benjy had. What other Benjamin would’ve come and written her that note?
Her son died, the editor says. You understand what died means, right, Tom?
Mrs. Flaherty’s son died, too. Only he’s alive.
Have you even checked to see if there’s another Benjy in the home? It’s New York all over again, isn’t it? The editor has clearly had it with me. He’s pointing to the door; he wants me gone. There’s no connection. You’re offering me two things with no connection to each other.
And then I say it. I don’t know why I didn’t say it before. I do now. I take my worn pencil and place it against the place mat in the Acropolis Diner. I draw a shaky line from Belinda’s dead son to the incinerated driver-to him.
My father smiles, reaches across the table to tousle my hair.
Good boy.
I know what you’re thinking, Dr. Payne.
My dad. My editor.
I’m not listening.
NINETEEN
I suppose I’ll have to call Iowa and ask them to exhume the corpse.”
Sheriff Swenson sounded as if he were going over his shopping list. I’ll have to pick up some milk and margarine, grab some frozen french fries and six cans of Bumble Bee tuna, and, oh yeah, call Iowa and ask them to dig up the body from whatever cemetery they’d buried the fake Dennis in. That is, if they’re interested, which he himself clearly wasn’t.
I was back in the sterile air-conditioned confines of the Littleton sheriff’s office. Not like an urban police station at all, more like an insurance office in your typical neighborhood mall. Everything neat, tidy, and prefabricated.
No crime had been committed. That was pretty much Swenson’s point of view. No crime had been committed, at least as far he could tell. Maybe stealing Dennis Flaherty’s wallet was a crime, but that would be out of his jurisdiction, wouldn’t it? Maybe the accident hadn’t happened the way Crannell related it, but it was still an accident. Not a crime. And if Crannell had lied about his identity, okay, score one for him. It didn’t warrant a task force.
“What are you so interested in?” he asked me, not as if he wanted an answer, more as if he was dismissing me so he could get back to more important police matters like issuing parking citations.
I didn’t enlighten him about the note I’d discovered in Belinda’s picture frame.
“Two people are in an accident and neither one turns out to be whom they were supposed to be. That doesn’t bother you?”
“Not really.”
Maybe it didn’t bother him because it was me who was asking him about it.
“Isn’t there a car dealership opening you can go write about?” he said.
Yeah, that was probably it.
“I saw the plumber,” I said.
Sheriff Swenson untangled his legs, which were propped up on his desk in a physical attitude of I’m in charge here. There’s something belittling about staring at the soles of someone’s boots-the whole point, I guess.
“Did you now?” he said. “Where?”
“At Muhammed Alley. The other night.”
“Uh-huh. You sure about this?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“Now that I am interested in. Why didn’t you call me?”
“He got away.”
“Got away? What’s that mean? Did you chase him or something?”
“No. He was just there, and then he wasn’t. When he saw me notice him, he took off.”
“He took off. Great. And he looked pretty much like the description you gave us last time?”