“But we’re going to have to take off. We have to go after Enid and Jeremy. They’re going after my wife and my daughter.”
“Do what you gotta do,” Vince whispered.
To Clayton, I said, “He said Jeremy came home, that Enid wouldn’t even let him in the house, made him turn around and head back right away.”
Clayton nodded slowly. “She wasn’t trying to spare him,” he said.
“What?”
“If she didn’t let him see what she’d done, it wasn’t to spare him from an ugly scene. It was because she didn’t want him to know.”
“Why?”
Clayton took a couple of breaths. “I need to sit down,” he said. I got up off the floor and eased him into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “Look in the cupboard over there,” he said, pointing. “There may be some Tylenols or something.”
I had to step over Vince’s legs and detour around the gradually expanding pool of blood on the kitchen floor to reach the cupboard. I found some extra-strength Tylenols in there, and in the cupboard next to it were glasses. I filled one with water and worked my way back across the kitchen without slipping.
The Tylenols had a childproof lid that was beyond Clayton. I opened the container, took out two tablets, and put them into his open hand.
“Four,” he said.
I was listening for an ambulance siren, wanting to hear it, but also wanting to get out of there before it arrived. I shook out two more tablets for Clayton, handed him the water. He had to take them one at a time. Getting the four pills down seemed to take him forever. When he was done, I said, “Why? Why wouldn’t she want him to know?”
“Because if Jeremy knew, he might get her to call it off. What they’re planning to do. With him here, shot, with you heading off to the hospital to see me, you knowing who he really is, he’d realize it’s all starting to come apart. If they’re off to do what I think they’re going to do, there isn’t much hope now of getting away with it.”
“But Enid has to know all that, too,” I said.
Clayton gave me a half-smile. “You don’t understand Enid. All she can see is that inheritance. She’ll be blinded to anything else, any problems that might deter her. She’s somewhat single-minded about these sorts of things.”
I glanced up at a wall clock, the face made to look like the cross section of an apple. It was 1:06 a.m.
“How much of a head start do you think they’ve got?” Clayton asked me.
“Whatever it is,” I said, “it’s too much.” I glanced over at the counter, saw a roll of Reynolds Wrap, a few brown crumbs scattered about. “She’s packed the carrot cake,” I said. “Something for the road.”
“Okay,” Clayton said, gathering his strength to stand. “Fucking cancer. It’s all through me. Life’s just nothing but pain and misery, and then you get to finish it off with a mess like this.”
Once he was on his feet, he said, “There’s one thing I have to take with me.”
“The Tylenols? Some other medicine?”
“Sure, grab the Tylenols. But something else. I don’t think I have the energy to go downstairs to get it.”
“Tell me what it is.”
“In the basement, you’ll find a workbench. There’s a red toolbox sitting on top of it.”
“Okay.”
“You open up the toolbox, there’s a tray in the top you can lift out. I want what’s taped to the bottom of the tray.”
The door to the basement was around the corner from the kitchen. As I reached for the light switch at the top of the stairs, I called over to Vince.
“How you holding out?”
“Fuck,” he said quietly.
I descended the wooden steps. It was musty and cool down there, and the place was a mess of storage boxes and Christmas decorations, bits and pieces of disused furniture, a couple of mousetraps tucked into a corner. Along the far wall was the workbench, the top of it littered with half-used tubes of caulking, scraps of sandpaper, tools not put away, and a dented and scratched red toolbox.
A bare bulb hung over the bench and I pulled the string dangling from it so I could better see what I was doing. I unlocked the two metal clasps on the toolbox, opened the lid. The tray was filled with rusty screws, broken jigsaw blades, screwdrivers. Turning the tray over would make a hell of a mess, not that anyone would notice. So I raised the tray up just above my head to see what was under it.
It was an envelope. A standard letter-sized envelope, dirtied and stained, held in place by some yellowed strips of Scotch tape. With my other hand I peeled the envelope off. It didn’t take much.
“You see it?” Clayton called down wheezily from the top of the stairs.
“Yeah,” I said. I set the freed envelope on the bench, put the tray back into the toolbox, and relocked it. I picked up the sealed envelope, turned it over in my hands. There was nothing written on it, but I could feel what I guessed was a single piece of paper folded inside.
“It’s okay,” Clayton said. “If you want to, you can look inside.”
I tore open the envelope at one end, blew into it, reached in with my thumb and forefinger, gently pulled out the piece of paper, opened it.
“It’s old,” Clayton said from the top of the stairs. “Be careful with it.”
I looked at it, read it. I felt as though my last breath was slipping away.
When I got to the top of the stairs, Clayton explained the circumstances surrounding what I’d found in the envelope, and told me what he wanted me to do with it.
“You promise?” he said.
“I promise,” I said, slipping the envelope into my sport coat.
I had one last conversation with Vince. “The ambulance has to be here anytime now,” I said. “Are you going to make it?”
Vince was a big man, a strong man, and I thought he had a better chance than most of hanging on. “Go save your wife and girl,” he said. “And if you find that bitch in the wheelchair, shove her into traffic.” He paused. “Gun in the truck. Should have had it on me. Stupid.”
I touched his forehead. “You’re going to make it.”
“Go,” he whispered.
To Clayton, I said, “That Honda in the driveway. It runs?”
“Sure,” Clayton said. “That’s my car. I haven’t driven much since I took sick.”
“I’m not sure we should take Vince’s truck,” I said. “The cops are going to be looking for it. People saw me drive away from the hospital. The cops’ll have a description, a license plate.”
He nodded, pointed to a small decorative dish on a buffet near the front door. “Should be a set of keys there,” he said.
“Give me a second,” I said.
I ran around to the back of the house and opened up the Dodge pickup. There were quite a few storage compartments in the cab. In the doors, between the seats, plus the glove box. I started looking through all of them. In the bottom of the center console unit, under a stack of maps, I found the gun.
I didn’t know a lot about guns, and I certainly didn’t feel confident tucking one into the waistband of my pants. I already had enough problems to deal with without adding a self-inflicted injury to the list. Using Clayton’s key, I unlocked the Honda, got into the driver’s seat, and put the gun in the glove compartment. I started up the car, drove it right up onto the lawn, getting the car as close to the front door as I could.
Clayton emerged from the house, took tentative steps toward me. I leapt out, ran around the car, got the passenger door open, and helped him get inside. I pulled out the seat belt, leaned over him and buckled it into place.
“Okay,” I said, getting back into the driver’s seat. “Let’s go.”
I drove right across the yard and onto the road, turned right onto Main, heading north. “Just made it,” Clayton said. An ambulance, followed closely by two police cars, lights flashing but sirens silent, sped south. Just past the
