Grave Truth

Chapter 4-1

4

We took Roger’s car. He admitted he didn’t know when he’d last eaten, so I made him stop around the corner for a sandwich and we both grabbed some coffee. I offered to chauffeur, but the food and caffeine had kicked in enough by then for Roger to respond with stink-eye.

He is very protective of his car. Even drinking coffee inside it was pushing my luck.

Roger’s father was residing in a hospice facility toward Thomasville, on the Florida side of the Florida-Georgia state line. Traffic was sluggish in downtown Tallahassee, but the worst of the evening commuter traffic wouldn’t start for another half hour. Once we hit Thomasville Road, extra lanes dropped in and out like hungry pigeons at Lake Ella. These facilitated turning into an odd assortment of pale-brown brick office complexes, fast-food joints, and quick-oil-change parking lots nestled among ubiquitous green trees and shrubs.

The road settled into two lanes in each direction with a crepe myrtle-lined median down the middle. We passed through walls of indistinguishable green vegetation, anchored by larger, more established trees. Occasional breaks revealed houses or churches, and power lines traced delicate lines through the branches like deadly webbing.

Roger said, “So you know about Deidre, and you met Bridget—”

“Pixie Cut?” I asked, remembering an sss in boots and leggings who had once answered Roger’s door. Pixie Cut was a pretty restrained name, considering what other physical assets were first to jump out at you. So to speak.

Roger glanced at me. “Yes, Bridget had a pixie cut when you met her. You know I have a lot of sisters.”

“More sisters than ex-wives,” I noted.

The rigid line of Roger’s jaw made it clear my conversational interruptions were wearing on him. Damn caffeine. “Sorry,” I said. “Go on. I’ll shut up now.”

He clenched his hands on the steering wheel and released them before continuing. “I grew up in foster care, like your runaway. I had a few short-term placements before I got lucky and landed with Amos Weber and his wife Loretta. They adopted me, along with Deidre and Bridget and several other children.”

“I hope they had a big house,” I said.

Roger smiled and finally began to relax, his shoulders easing away from his chin as he spoke. “They did, but it was still packed to the gills. And everyone trying to get to the bathroom… Dad had an extra one put in, but it was still a zoo. Ten kids—”

“Ten kids?” I asked, in disbelief.

“More than that in total, but I don’t think we ever had more than ten at one time. We lived in a rural area on well water, and Dad always complained we’d run it dry, a house full of teenagers.”

Roger signaled before turning onto a long, paved driveway. The entrance was flanked by a couple of live oaks, Spanish moss swaying. An egret stood alongside a small, man-made water feature, and a white-columned, red-brick building was just visible in the distance.

“Dad never yelled at us,” Roger continued. “He’s a gentle man, a softy. Mom was the disciplinarian. She passed away about five years ago. Even then, I knew there was something bothering Dad, something he didn’t want to talk about but needed to.”

We passed the brick building and continued to a mostly empty parking area, asphalt interrupted by the occasional small tree or shrub on the verge of flowering. Roger chose a spot away from the other cars and cut the engine.

“Now that he’s so close, it’s haunting him. Like it’s his last chance to set it right.” He unbuckled his seat belt and stared as a squirrel swished its tail on a nearby tree.

“Do you know what it is?” I asked.

“No,” Roger admitted.

We crossed the parking lot to a building whose interior was as soothing as its landscaped exterior. The lighting was warm, as were the honey-toned hardwood floors and scattered rugs. An open area beyond reception had a fireplace (not lit at the moment) and comfortable furniture that could have come from someone’s home. A television flickered through a window in a room off to the right, but the closed door kept its sounds inside.

The reception area was defined by a large, oval, wood-topped counter that reminded me of the check-in for a fine hotel. A black woman, early thirties like me, wearing a long-sleeved blouse appropriate for air conditioning, sat behind it.

“Hello, Roger,” she said, as he signed us in.

“Hello, Dot. How is he?”

Her voice was kind—almost apologetic—as she said, “No change.”

Roger nodded his thanks. “We’ll find our own way back.”

I followed him to a tiled hallway, and we paused before a door about halfway down the corridor. Roger took a deep breath before knocking, then led me in.

The elderly man in the bed had a face so ashen, I considered calling for a nurse, until his eyes opened and moved between Roger and me. He wore navy pajamas in a style that reminded me of old movies, button-front with a chest pocket and piped edges. A tube ran from an IV stand alongside his bed to his left arm. Whatever was in his IV probably accounted for the veneer of puffiness that lay across his otherwise sunken frame.

Roger pushed a button to raise his father to an almost sitting position, then brought a cup of water with a straw to his lips. His father sipped and cleared his throat.

“Thank you, son,” he said, then looked past Roger to me. “You must be the infamous Sydney Brennan.”

He inclined his head slightly toward a chair next to his bed, and I sat down carefully, afraid the vibrations would somehow cause his frail body pain.

“Please, call me Sydney,” I said. “But I wouldn’t believe everything Roger tells you.”

He returned my smile and said, “If you think he’s creative with the truth now, you should have seen him as a child.”

“Destined to be a lawyer,” Roger said, as if he were finishing a familiar punchline.

The elder Mr. Weber nodded. “Why don’t you see if you can find Sydney something to drink?” Roger left without objection, and Mr. Weber continued, “Damned fine lawyer, too, but his head’s too big already. Of course, I guess you know that.”

“Agreed on both counts,” I said, folding my hands in my lap to stifle the inclination to take his.

“Good. He needs people around him that’ll keep him grounded.” Mr. Weber paused a moment to get his breath. “He says you helped him find Deidre.”

I hadn’t done much except track down an old friend of his sister’s at a strip club, but I nodded. “She’s been to see you?”

“Roger brought her by yesterday. You know, he didn’t have it easy growing up, even after he came to us. He was always trying to watch over the rest of the kids.” He grinned. “We called him our little sheepdog. He still does that. Makes him a little high-handed sometimes, thinking he knows what’s best for everyone else.”

I considered Roger’s three divorces. “I imagine his wives haven’t appreciated it.”

He chuckled. “No, they haven’t. But it comes from a good place.”

Mr. Weber closed his eyes against some unseen pain, and I suppressed the desire to offer him something, anything that might help. Instead I waited. Addressing the reason he’d asked Roger to bring me here would do more to ease his passing than any narcotic. Within a minute or two, he’d recovered enough to continue. He fixed his eyes on my face with the intensity of a man about to secure a promise, a dying man at that.

“Sydney, I have a terrible secret that I can’t let die with me. But I know Roger. This knowledge will consume and destroy him. That’s where you come in. We just met, and you don’t owe me anything, but will you help Roger do what he can?”

My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and he pressed, “Will you keep my son safe?”

A smarter woman would hedge, at least find out what this was all about. But being smart didn’t matter. Closure did.

The parabolic glow from a tabletop lamp against walls the color of mild honey held us in a warm cocoon, as if no one else existed in the world. I reached for Mr. Weber’s hand, careful of the IV. “I’ll do my best.”

He sighed and closed his eyes. “Thank you. Then you can get Roger.”

On my way to the door, I heard Mr. Weber mutter behind me, “God forgive me, but we’ll finally put them to rest.”