Читать книгу Whatever it takes - Paul Cleave - Страница 15

Ten

Saint John’s isn’t the only church in town, but it is the original — at least in spirit. When the town was built, the church was in the center, a hundred yards from the original sawmill, the founders of the town figuring if it was good enough for the Roman Empire to have all roads leading to Rome, then it was good enough to have all roads in Acacia Pines leading to Saint John’s. Which it was, up until it burned down a hundred years ago. Perhaps that was something else the Roman Empire taught the founders.

The church was rebuilt half a mile away. The rebuild allowed for a bigger cemetery, one that would need to expand as the town expanded, and as the town grew bigger in various directions, the church became more and more off-center.

The new church is white weatherboard and in need of painting, one end of the building low and flat, the other peaking three stories high like a rocket ship, with a cross on the top. The gardens surrounding it are beautiful but overgrown, stretching out into the adjoining cemetery. The church can seat two hundred people, though I’m not sure how many go on a Sunday to feel closer to God. I’ve only ever been for weddings and funerals.

The parking lot between the church and the road is empty. We drive through it and around the church to the residence out back, a rustic-looking home with a low roof and wide eaves that also needs painting. I remember Father Frank Davidson being meticulous. When he wasn’t preaching, he was painting, or mowing, or trimming. The last time I came here was to tell him his sister had been killed. Maggie parks the car and we step out into the sun. The heat of the gravel comes through my shoes. Out here summers always feel like they’re going to burn the town to ash. I’d forgotten days could be like this.

The residence has two bedrooms and a kitchen and a lounge and not a lot else. That I remember. There’s an apple tree next to it with branches so heavy with fruit they’re at breaking point. There’s a wooden porch out front that at this time of the day is half shaded by the eaves. We climb the steps and Maggie doesn’t knock. We step inside and the smell tells me everything I need to know. It tells me why she thinks Alyssa never ran away, but it also tells me that Alyssa had good reason to.

The décor is out of date and unlikely to ever swing back into fashion. The carpet is worn to the point I’m not sure it can still legally be called carpet. The first bedroom is Alyssa’s. The bed has been made, but everything else looks slightly askew. The next bedroom has Frank in it. He’s lying on the bed in a pair of shorts and a thin white top. There’s a fan on and the windows are open but it doesn’t help with the heat, doesn’t help with the smell. A tube runs from under Father Frank’s nose to an oxygen machine that’s plugged into the wall.

There are sores on Frank’s skin and blisters in various states of erupting. There’s bruising on his arms and legs, a side effect of the medication. His eyes have sunk into his skull. He’s lost most of his hair, most of his color, most of his life. It’s like looking at a poorly made showroom mannequin. There’s a clock on the wall, and I can hear it ticking. If I were dying, I’d want that clock in a different room. Or out of the house. The oxygen machine hisses and the fan whirrs. The mystery of his missing niece is keeping him alive. Perhaps that’s why she’s run away. Father Frank has declined permanent care, just as strongly as he declined to spend his final days in a hospice. A nurse, Maggie’s sister Victoria, comes in every morning to check on him, and a doctor every evening.

I don’t know where Father Frank is, but this isn’t him. This is only half of him. Whatever is eating him has worked away at the muscle and is now working away at the bone. I think back to the last time I saw him, at the hospital the night I found Alyssa. He told me what I had done was the kind of thing that would weigh heavily on good men. He said I would come to question my actions. He was right. When I left Acacia Pines, I left knowing I would never be a cop again. I couldn’t risk being in a situation where I lost myself the way I had lost myself that night.

His eyes flicker open. He smiles, and for the briefest of moments the disease is beaten back and the man he used to be is out on display. “You came,” he says. His voice has a whistling effect to it, like there’s a hole in his throat.

There’s a chair by the bed. I take it. Maggie stays standing in the doorway. My clothes are sticking to me.

“It’s good to see you, Frank,” I say.

He laughs, and the laugh turns into a cackle, turns into a cough, then ends with a spasm. Something rattles in his lungs. He reaches for a small bowl and coughs phlegm into it. I hand him a glass of water. He sips slowly, and hangs on to it.

“Two pieces of advice,” he says. “Number one. Don’t get old. Number two. Don’t get cancer.”

“How long?” I ask.

“I should be dead already, but I’m sure as hell not dying without . . .” he says, and he closes his eyes and turns his head away as something — a bolt of pain or nausea — fires through his body. He holds on, grits his teeth and turns back to me. “I’m not dying without answers.” He smiles at me, and it’s the saddest smile I’ve ever seen. “It’s . . . it’s a funny thing to describe, Noah, it really is. I can feel it coming, this death of mine, I can feel it coming and yet I’ve been taught my whole life not to fear it — don’t fear it, Frankie, don’t fear it — and I’ve told others not to fear it too. But I must confess that I’m scared, Noah. I’m scared of dying without knowing what’s happened to my daughter.”

His daughter. I wonder when the switch happened, when she went from being his niece to becoming his daughter. I like the way it sounds. I look at the window and see it can’t get any wider. I look at the fan and see it can’t spin any faster. I look at Father Frank and see he can’t hold on much longer.

He coughs into his hand. There are flecks of blood on it. The original Frank that peeked out from under the cancer with that smile has slipped back under the surface. “She wouldn’t have left me, not at the end. I need for you to understand that. To believe that.”

“Isn’t it possible it all became too much for her? I know you don’t want to think so, but—”

He puts his hand up for me to stop talking. “Drew, that’s what he thinks. It’s what others think.”

“But not you.”

He reaches out and grabs my hand. His grip is strong. “Sometimes people know things. How many times on the force did you rely on instinct? How many times did you trust your gut? This isn’t any different. I’ve raised her most of her life, Noah. The last time she called me Uncle Frank was the same night you got her back for me. Since then she’s called me Dad. She’s gone from being my niece to being my daughter, and I know my daughter. I know her better than you know her, better than the sheriff knows her, better than anybody in this town knows her.” He closes his eyes. He grimaces. Something in his body — or perhaps everything in his body — is hurting. He keeps his eyes closed as he talks, a thin line of tears coming from them. “I get that kids keep secrets. I know they have boyfriends and girlfriends and they smoke and they shoplift and they sneak out at night and fool around. I know teenagers have secret lives and they hold back from us, but she wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.” He says it again. “She wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.”

I let that sink in. He sips some more water. Droplets spill down his chin. He wipes at it, his fingers rasping across his unshaven skin. He looks tired, like he could close his eyes and never open them again. It’s time to ask what needs asking. “Has she ever spoken of leaving?”

He says nothing for a bit. His head sinks into the pillow and he stares at the ceiling. He lets go of my hand. “Yes,” he says. “After I’ve gone, there’s nothing here for her. Her friends are moving on, she’s got no more family. She’s applying for universities. I know that makes it sound like maybe she couldn’t wait, but she was waiting. The thing is, Noah, I should have died months ago. She was there for me then thinking every day could be the last, so whatever notion you’re building up that she left because she got scared — well, you go ahead and scrap it.” He rolls onto his side to face me. It’s an effort for him. “Trust me, Noah. Something happened. I’m not . . . I’m not saying somebody kidnapped her, but something happened. She wouldn’t have left like that.” He reaches out and takes my hand again, and uses what strength the cancer hasn’t finished eking away to squeeze it tighter than he squeezed it before. He tries to sit up further, but can’t manage it. “You have to believe me. You have to find my daughter.”

“I’ll find her,” I tell him. “I promise.”

He takes me at my word, and he relaxes and lets go of my hand and settles back into the position he was in when we first arrived.

“She used to have nightmares,” he says. “About The Bad Man.”

“Maggie told me,” I say.

“She used to say back then you’d always save her.”

“Let me get my bearings,” I tell him, “and I’ll come back in a few hours. I’ll want to look through Alyssa’s room and go through her things, get the names of her friends from you. And I’ll talk to Drew, see what he says.”

“Anything you need.” Then he looks at me and goes to say something else, but doesn’t.

“What is it?” I ask him.

“It’s nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t . . . I can’t have you doing what you did last time,” he says. “I can’t have that on my conscience, but . . . but at the same time I need you to do what it takes.”

“And if what it takes is more than your soul is willing to bear?”

He doesn’t answer right away. This is a question he’s been grappling with ever since he decided I was the man who could help. “I don’t know,” he says. “Forgiveness is a big thing in my faith, Noah.”

“I’m going to find her,” I say. “I hope I won’t have to break any bones along the way, but if I have to, then I’m okay with you forgiving me.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“You’d rather forgive whoever did something to her?”

“I’m not saying that either.”

“So what are you saying?”

He exhales loudly, and it worries me because it sounds like it could be his last one ever, but then he sucks in a breath that rattles in his chest. “I’m saying . . . I’m saying do what it takes, I’ll do my best to square things up for the both of us when I’m on the other side.”