A pause lengthened between us. I let it roll on and on until I felt it was time to ask, “Were you really her father?”
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I don’t know. Probably not. It doesn’t make any difference.”
“It might have to her.”
“I kept in touch,” he said. “I visited her a couple times a year. Sent care packages. Cards on holidays, her birthday. It wasn’t much but it was something. I thought it was important.” He finished his drink and stared at himself in the mirror behind the bar for a minute. “Did she look in the root cellar?”
“No. At least I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know about that part of it.”
“That’s good.”
We kept drinking. The liquor was hitting me hard since I’d had no food for so long. I flashed on the idea that this might have been his intention all along, to catch me with my defenses down. Except he didn’t need me to have my defenses down. He had six men across the room who’d shotgun me to death if he gave the word.
“Where did she get the piece?” He wasn’t really asking me. “And what the hell was that about her parents under the bed?”
“She was a sick girl,” I said.
He pawed at his face and shook his head. “That image, it’s sticking with me. That she would dream that kind of stuff, man. She never told me anything like that. I can picture her trying to drop off, awake in the dark, thinking her parents were whispering under her bed. Jesus Christ, the poor kid. That fucking hospital. More than six years she was there, and this is the best they could do for her?”
The wind kicked up again. The bar rafters rasped and complained. The sound made me flinch. I finished another glass.
With my throat burning I said, “She needs me to find out who did it.”
As soon as it was out I knew I’d made a mistake. I spoke in the present tense. It was stupid. I sounded a little unhinged. The MC had more than enough crazy to go around; Dell didn’t need even more. But I couldn’t seem to stop. “I failed her. That’s going to hang with me unless I do something about it.”
“It’s not your burden.”
“I think it is.”
His heavy brow knit into a frown. “You’re not gonna find an answer. I’ve been trying for years and I haven’t found it. You think I haven’t looked into it? Just to clear my name?”
“Was that important to you?”
“It was to the brotherhood. I didn’t want any doubts. I couldn’t have my men thinking I would go rogue and kill our leader, even if it was for the good of the MC. It still crosses me up to this day. The original members, they forget what Ron and Katy were like at the time, the kind of trouble they hammered down on us. They just remember how much money he brought in and how good she could suck dick.”
He didn’t know about Emily being pregnant. He wouldn’t until the autopsy results came back. Then he’d understand why I was so adamant on trying to help her, and he’d be pissed at me for not telling him the whole truth. My gut clenched in expectation for a real beating, but that was for later.
“You’re not going to find an answer,” he repeated. “I don’t think there is one.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
The bottle was empty. Dell staggered to his feet, crossed behind the bar, and dug around on the shelf until he found a bottle of Glenfiddich. “You know the kind of life the brotherhood lives. Running guns, hijacking trucks, giving kickbacks to the cops, fighting the wops and the wetbacks and the Koreans and the skinheads. We have a lot of enemies. Ron brought most of that down on us before we managed to contain it. Katy, she had her own bad wiring. She screwed a lot of guys, right? There is no answer because it’s too small to see. It’s . . .” He had to steel himself to say the word properly.
“. . . inconsequential. Some greaser put out the call on them, or some cop who wanted more of a cut, or maybe some white-collar citizen blew his gasket.”
“Ron’s hamstrings were cut. Katy’s face was bashed to pieces. What average citizen is going to do that? Has the capacity for doing that?”
“Anyone,” Dell said, “is capable of anything, if they hate somebody enough. Ron was probably drunk, as usual, and couldn’t fight back. Katy zonked on crank. Anyone could have done it.” He lowered his voice. “Maybe one of the brothers had a beef. It’s been six years. You know how many of us are in the ground right along beside them now? More than a dozen. Whoever did it had their reasons, and we’ll never know what they were. There are questions we’ll never know the answer to.”
I thought he was right. I glanced at the photos of the brothers on the wall. A lot of them were on death row or dying of emphysema or cancer or failing livers or kidneys. Ron and Katy lived the MC life and died because of it. I knew I’d never find out who had murdered them. Not only had too much time passed, but the truth was that I really didn’t give a shit about them.
But I felt I owed Emily something. I had never said I would help her, and I should’ve. It might have made all the difference.
——
Dell let me take one of the MC’s drop cars home. It would have clean plates and a clean registration, but if they ever needed to abandon it for whatever reason, it couldn’t be traced back to the brotherhood. I drove to an all-night diner, wolfed down a couple of burgers and a jug of coffee, and stared out the plate-glass window up the highway in the direction of Sojourner.
The story of Emily’s escape and suicide hadn’t broken nationwide yet, but it would by morning. It would stir up all the bad news about Katy and Ron’s unsolved murder, and the cops would be buzzing like hornets while trying to dodge news crews. The hospital directors and chairpersons would be holed up in an all-night board meeting someplace. They’d be gearing up for reporters and potential lawsuits. They’d be plotting with attorneys for hours, shoring up their stories, preparing their pretexts. In another day or two nobody would be able to break through their line of defense. I had to go in now.
I drove over to Sojourner and parked off one of the back roads at the far side of the hospital, along a wide field bordered by the high safety fence. I walked along the fence until I came to a spot where the links had been cut low to the ground so it could be peeled up a few inches and someone could crawl through. No matter how many times they repaired it there’d always be a place like this somewhere along the perimeter. Orderlies brought in contraband this way. I was certain it was how Emily Wright had managed to escape the ward. I’d seen the scratches along her back from the loose fence wire.
I’d made a break from Sojourner this way myself many years ago. Standing here now, staring up at the building with its hundreds of cube windows, its harsh white lights burning across time and memory, knowing the kinds of things that went on in there, a sudden rush of rage surged through my chest. I crawled under the fencing and made my way to the employee exit.
I crept along the side of the building, just out of range of the bright security lights. I stood in the shadows and waited. Twenty minutes later an orderly stepped out the door, propped it open with a folding chair, leaned against the jamb, and lit a joint. You could see why they’d hired him. He was tall and massive, with thick arms and wrists covered in twisting black veins. I kept hoping he’d sit and relax, but he wouldn’t. He just smoked his J and stared out at the night looking mean.
Had he been the one? Had he been the one who had crept into bed with her one night and climbed on top of her while she stared over his shoulder and listened to her mother and father talking to her from the other end of hell?
I moved fast, came up on him from the left and hooked him twice under the heart. It was like punching welded steel plating. His breath exploded from his lungs and the sweet scent of marijuana blew into my face. He bounced off the jamb and recovered almost instantly. This wasn’t going to be easy. I worked his short ribs with rapid-fire jabs. He said, “The fuck . . . ?” and swept out one of those tremendous fists. I ducked and he tried again. I dodged and brought a roundhouse up from my knees directly onto the point of his chin. It rocked him. He threw his arms out like he was trying to keep balance on a high wire. It didn’t help. He fell over on his ass with a puzzled expression. He grunted a threat and tried to lumber to his feet. I kicked him once in the throat and twice in the face, and he was out.