The Last Family

15

Laura Masterson liked the adolescent german shepherd, Wolf. She had let Reid present the animal to Reb for his birthday. Even though he was hardly more than a puppy, he made her feel more secure, lying there on the floor of the ballroom while she painted. He lay with his face between his overlarge paws, watching her work as though he could judge the results. Big brown eyes and pointed ears that stood, when he listened, like raised wings.

Laura had started the day by getting Reb ready for school. It would be easier to herd ferrets through a chicken ranch than to get Reb to do anything. He had the annoying habit of becoming sidetracked. You could leave the room with him pulling on his pants and return thirty minutes later to find him drawing with his pants still half-on. Plus, he hadn’t looked well lately; in fact, he looked frail. She hoped it was just another phase, like bed-wetting. He ate so little. The doctor had said that he would eat what his body needed, so she wasn’t going to worry yet. No, he’d said, it is not an eating disorder, it’s a growth spurt readying itself for a go.

She thought about Paul as she painted. She remembered how handsome he had been and how she had fallen in love with him and decided she was going to marry him before they had spoken their first words. It was in a psychology class at Tulane. He had taken a seat two rows from her. He had traded looks with her-they had engaged in a game of eyeball cat and mouse for two weeks. She would turn to sneak a peek at him, and he would turn away as soon as she did, so that their eyes rarely met. It had been painfully obvious that he was shy and so was she. Finally he had stopped in the hallway to pick up the books she had dropped in front of his feet.

“You dropped these,” he had said as he’d handed them back to her. She had handed him a paper and said, “I believe this is yours.” Then she had turned and walked away, knowing he was watching her. She had been praying that he couldn’t see how red her face was.

The note that she had agonized over for days had said: “So, are you going to ask me out, or am I going to have to swallow my pride and ask you out? Laura Hillary, 382-6677.”

He had called that night and asked her father if he could speak to her.

“Laura?” he’d said, as if he had never heard of the girl he’d raised. “So who is this-Paul Masterson? You calling from Mount Olympus with all the other gods?”

“Daddy!” she’d yelled. She’d laughed but was embarrassed.

Then the old man had handed her the telephone. “Paul?” she’d said. “Excuse my father. He’s insane but utterly harmless, as far as we can tell.”

“So. I was just calling to see if you want to maybe go to a movie Saturday night?”

“A movie?”

“Yeah. Or dinner, if you’d rather.”

“A movie would be good. Which one?”

“You could pick it,” he’d said. “I like everything.”

“There’s a German film at the Prytania.”

“A German film. I don’t speak German.”

“It’s subtitled in English.”

“I was making a joke,” he’d said.

She’d laughed. “I see. Or we could see something in English.”

“The German thing sounds fine. We’ll see what you want. I’ll pick a restaurant.”

“Well, I’m not much for foreign films,” she’d said. “I was just trying to impress you, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. If we are going to have a relationship, I think we should start by being honest.”

“A relationship. That would be good.”

“So I’ll make a deal with you. Always level with me. Don’t tell white lies to make me feel better, because I hate that. If you have a date with someone else, just say so, and if it isn’t going to work, I mean, if the chemistry is wrong, tell me, and let’s not get all deep into something that one of us will be hurt over.”

“Okay,” he’d said. “I’ll do it if you will. No games.”

And there hadn’t been any games. They had married when the term had ended. After the first date they had been inseparable. He had kissed her on the second date, and they had made love on the fourth in her bed while her parents were out of town. It had been the first time for both of them, and neither could imagine wanting anything but each other. They had honeymooned in the cabin he owned in Clark’s Reward, Montana. They had planned to have children as soon as they could afford it and then decided that they would never be in that position and had Erin anyway. Then they had made Reb and planned to have at least one more. But before they could, Paul had been shot.

The bullet that had passed through Paul’s eye had killed them both. The doctors had assured her that the problem could be repaired. But he had changed. He just wasn’t the same person after he was shot. His career was over because he’d willed it over. One more successful bust, and he would have been appointed the deputy director of the DEA. But the shooting sucked his ambition.

His injury had given him epilepsy and blinded him in the right eye by destroying the socket. The operations had been painful, and he’d suffered unimaginably. Another operation and he would have looked close to normal, down to a smooth patch of skin where the horseshoe-shaped scar was. But he had refused, though as far as she could see, he’d had no reason to. The worst was behind him.

After the accident he wouldn’t talk to a psychiatrist. He would stay alone in his room for weeks at a time. He had bathed irregularly, didn’t speak, and avoided his children. Erin had been terrified of him, as much because of his fits of rage as because of the disfigurement. He would go off like a pipe bomb at the slightest problem, throwing things through walls or smashing the television set with a crutch. It had been frightening for all of them. Then there had been the night when things had come to a head in the bedroom, and they had had a terrible fight. She had said some things she shouldn’t have said.

The following day Laura had returned home to discover that Paul had packed a few things and was gone. He didn’t even leave a note. She had followed him to Montana, but he wouldn’t talk to her. She had sat on the cabin’s porch begging and pleading and then yelling at him for hours. But he had refused to acknowledge her presence. He didn’t even look out the window. “Well, then, screw you!”

She had gone home to Arlington, packed, and moved back to New Orleans. No matter how busy she stayed, her heart ached and ached.

Laura looked down at Wolf. He was sound asleep on his side, his feet jerking-dreaming of chasing or being pursued. She looked at her watch. It was two-thirty. She had been painting since seven that morning. She turned off the radio, which was tuned to a classical station, and the dog rolled to his feet and yawned.

“The silence wake you up, Wolf?”

He padded over to her and nudged her leg for a rub. She scratched behind his ears, and his rear leg started scratching at his side but the claws were hitting the floor.

“Oh, no, Wolf, you’ll ruin the floor,” she said.

She went to the front door and out on the porch to see if the mail had arrived, but it hadn’t. She looked down the street but saw no suspicious vehicles.

Reid was in New York at a sales meeting. All morning Wolf had kept Laura in sight. When she had gone to check the mail, he had accompanied her, and while she had studied the street, he had sniffed the air and marked the bushes and beds in front of the porch with his scent.

Thirty minutes before Reb’s classes were dismissed, Laura piled Wolf into the car and headed to his school. She parked on the street two blocks away and watched the line of buses. Just before the children poured out, she saw a red Volvo pull up across the street from the bus yard and stop.

She wished she had thought to bring her binoculars. After ten minutes the bell rang, and a few minutes later the children lined up outside for the buses. When the buses pulled out, Laura watched the car. As Reb’s bus passed the car, it made a U-turn and shadowed the bus. Laura followed the car and, being careful to keep a few vehicles between them, dialed a number on her mobile phone, calling Allen White, the policeman she had spoken to the evening before.

“Allen, it’s Laura. The car, a red Volvo sedan, is following the bus.”

“Just trail behind. Don’t let them see you. I’ll be waiting,” Allen’s voice coached.

When the bus stopped to let Reb out, the red car pulled over against the curb almost directly in front of Alice Walters’s house. It stopped under the canopy of a live oak that covered the sidewalk. Laura angled in behind a VW van, stopping a half block behind the car. She stepped out and pulled a smiling Wolf to the grass. He stayed close enough to her side that there was slack in the leash. After watching Reb inside the gate she walked toward the Volvo. A lone figure turned the far corner and was jogging toward the red sedan.

NOPD detective Allen White was dressed in a gray sweat suit, and as he drew even with the automobile, he slowed, then bent in a motion that made it look as though he were going to tie his shoe. He knelt, pulled a pistol from an ankle holster, and aimed his gun at the head of the driver. Laura moved toward the car with Wolf beside her, his ears erect. She could hear what Allen was saying.

“Okay, pal, just keep the hands on the wheel where I can see them.”

Wolf turned and barked, and Laura was aware of armed men running down Alice’s drive, toward the car, with their pistols aimed at the detective. Allen White turned his head for a split second toward the driveway, and the Volvo’s driver disarmed him and was out of the car in a second. The air was filled with the sound of running feet and loud voices.

“Freeze, DEA!” someone yelled.

“Lose the piece!”

“Gun on the ground! Now!” an armed man yelled. “Do it now!”

After the shock started wearing off, Laura realized that there was something very familiar about the man who was walking down the driveway from the back of Alice’s house.

“He’s a policeman, Thorne,” Laura yelled. “Pull them back.”

“Hello, Laura,” Thorne said, smiling at her. He waved a hand, and the men stepped back from the prone detective.

“Why in the hell was he tailing Reb, Thorne?” Laura demanded, pointing at Woody Poole.

The agents replaced their automatics in their holsters, and Allen stood. The agent from the car reached down and handed him back his Chief, butt first. “What the hell’s going on here?” the young detective asked as he replaced the pistol in the ankle holster and dropped the right leg of his sweat pants to cover it.

Thorne turned to Allen White. “Sorry. We’re running a protective surveillance on Laura and her children.”

“On me?” she asked. “What for, Thorne?”

“We’re all DEA.” Thorne pointed down the street at a car that had just parked behind Laura’s. An agent in casual clothes stepped from the car and moved to the group on the street. “He was following you, but you-”

“I lost you in traffic,” the man finished.

Laura stared at the agent without speaking to him. She turned to Allen White. “I’m so sorry, Allen, I had no idea.”

“Don’t mention it,” the detective said. “I’m glad it was good guys.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Laura quipped. “Good guys don’t spy on citizens who’re minding their own business. And calling it protective surveillance doesn’t make it so. I want some answers really fast, Thorne. If Paul put you up to spying on us…”

“I’ll explain everything later.” Thorne looked at the detective as he spoke.

“I’m down the street if you need me, Laura,” Allen said as he turned and walked away.

“I’ll make coffee,” Laura offered, but her eyes were flashing with anger. “And you can explain all this, Thorne Greer.”

The two local agents went back into Alice’s house. Laura tossed her car keys to Woody. “You with the reflexes… make yourself useful. Put my car in the garage and come in through the kitchen door, if you can find it.”

Woody turned his hard eyes on Laura, smiled for a split second, and nodded.

Thorne and Laura crossed the street behind Wolf. As they neared the gate, Wolf barked excitedly. Laura looked up to see Erin turn the corner and come running up with a backpack hanging from a shoulder. There was a can of Mace locked in her grip.

“Mama, there’s a man following me!”

Sean Merrin turned the corner. He seemed more embarrassed at being discovered than pained for the chemical he had captured in his eyes.

“Never mind, Sean,” Thorne said. “Looks like we’re all blown.”

“Erin, this is Thorne Greer. I don’t know the man you’ve just Maced.”

“Agent Merrin,” Thorne said. “Sean Merrin.”

“She turned a corner and I followed and she was waiting behind a tree.” Sean’s eyes were red, and he was sweating.

“I friggin’ Maced your short ass,” Erin said proudly.

Sean nodded sadly.

“You should wear a uniform if you’re gonna follow people around in this town.”

“They’re friends of your father’s,” Laura said.

“What are they doing scaring people? Shouldn’t they be busting drug dealers or something?”

“We’re headed in for coffee,” Laura said. “Agent Merrin, join us inside and we’ll run some water over your eyes.”

Erin pointed her finger at Sean. “And you owe me a can of this,” she said, handing him the empty can of Mace. “It was eight dollars at K and B.” Then she added, “I was hoping it’d work better, though.”

“Let’s let the men run through the house for a moment,” Thorne said. He spoke into his radio, and an agent appeared from Alice’s house with a small black case and disappeared into Laura’s front door.

After the agent had allowed them in from the porch, Laura made a pot of coffee while the three agents and two children watched from the counter. Sean held a wet cloth to his eyes, but he wasn’t damaged much beyond the humiliation.

“Reb, Erin,” she started, “this is Thorne Greer. He’s a DEA agent who…” She thought for a second. “Wait a minute, didn’t you retire? Weren’t you bodyguarding some actor?”

“Arnold Murphy for the last three years.”

“Really?” Erin said. “You know Arnie Murphy? Jesus H. Christ!”

“Erin!” Laura snapped.

“What does he need bodyguards for?” Reb wondered. “He’s tough as rubber snakes.”

Thorne smiled. “Not in real life. He’s as scared as anybody else. People are always wanting to see how tough he really is.” He looked at Laura. “The entire Green Team has been recommissioned.”

“Not… Paul, too?”

Thorne nodded.

“My daddy?” Erin said, disbelief cracking her voice. “He’s in the DEA again? Where is he?”

Reb leaned against the counter. “He couldn’t do that. He never leaves his place in Montana. He’s got brain problems and stuff.”

Thorne smiled at Reb. “Just this one time,” he said. “Temporary assignment.”

“Why?” Reb asked. “How come?”

“Because there is a very, very mean person who is hurting people. Your father has agreed to help find him because we can’t do it without him.”

“The man who shot him?” Reb asked.

Laura straightened. “Reb, the men who shot your father were…” She was reluctant to say “were killed” because Thorne and Joe McLean were among the ones who had killed them. “Darling, Thorne was there. Tell him, Thorne. Tell him why that’s impossible.”

“Actually, Laura, he’s right. Reb, it’s not the men who shot your father, it’s the man who told them to.”

“See,” Erin said. “You don’t have any idea. You were tiny. You don’t even remember Daddy’s being in the hospital.”

Laura turned her back on the agent so her children wouldn’t see the panic in her eyes. We are in danger.

“Is my daddy coming here?” Reb asked, the excitement rising to his eyes.

“Is he?” Erin echoed. “Mother, is Daddy coming?” The excitement was contagious.

“We’ll see… I don’t know… Thorne?” Laura said. In light of what she had run into in Montana, the idea of Paul’s walking through the door of her house seemed no more likely than Wolf’s being invited to sing at the Met. “You kids have homework to do,” she said. “First, Erin, clean the leaves out of the pool.”

“I want to hear-” Erin started.

Laura’s voice cut her off, startling the agents. “The leaves, Erin! Reb, you help her. We can talk about all this later!” The kids didn’t argue. Laura was on the edge, and they knew better than to press.

Laura and Thorne watched them leave. She poured them another cup of coffee and led Thorne to her studio. He sat at the table that held Laura’s paints and brushes and stared at the paintings on the wall.

“Nice work,” Thorne said. “Is that Paul?”

“I’ve only got a few minutes.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the window frame. “Why don’t you cut the crap and tell me exactly what’s going on. Who’re we in danger from?”

Thorne began with the deaths of his divorced wife and their son. Then he told her about Joe’s family. By the time he told her about what had happened to the Lees, she was crying.

“Who? You said the man who set Paul up?” she asked.

“Martin Fletcher,” he said.

“Martin Fletcher! You people haven’t found him yet?”

“He’s back in the country.”

“Oh, dear God,” she said. “So did Paul send you?”

“Not initially. The local DEA has been watching the house for two weeks since the Lee hits. The infrared sensors and the laser listening post went up a week ago. Paul only came in a few days ago. He opened the doors in D.C. to allow us to… work the case.”

“ ‘Us’ as in you and…”

“Rainey and Joe.”

“The very people he has sinned against. That seems a little unusual, Thorne.”

He averted his eyes.

“And you’re watching us from Alice’s house?”

“She gave us permission. She’s extending her vacation a couple of days to accommodate us. We needed to be close. We thought you might be bugged.”

“Am I?”

“Not anymore.”

“How do you know?”

“My man got them all.”

“Bugs? Martin was in here? He was sneaking around in this house?” She covered her mouth for a few seconds, her eyes saucers of horror.

Thorne shifted his weight. “Martin knew all about our families’ personal schedules. He planned George Lee’s hit to the point of intercepting him on a scout trip in the Smokies. He knew where the boys were going to be and when; he was waiting on the trail in a uniform. If he had followed the car with George in it, he couldn’t have been ready with a uniform. He had to have scouted the trail. It was smooth… excuse the term. Somehow he got their confidence… the targets never knew what hit them. Course, none of them knew Martin. He had to have had bugs in the house to know what he had to have known.”

“Why didn’t you warn us?” Her eyes were cold, accusatory.

“It was for your own good.”

“Our own good? We’re bait!” Laura was suddenly angry. “You’re waving my family in front of that psychopath!”

“No. Well, actually, I suppose that’s one interpretation.”

“One interpretation? What’s another?”

“You weren’t in any danger. We’ve been monitoring the house. We’ve been listening to every…” He stopped, realizing what he had said.

“You have your own bugs in my house?” Laura was horrified. “You just swept to see if he did, too? You have a court order?”

“No. We use laser devices aimed at the windows. Like drumheads, windows.”

“This is America, Thorne. We have rights just like everyone else out there. So the government will let people exact revenge on killers and tap the lives of innocent people to further those aims, and it’s okay? Because Paul can pull a few strings?”

“Our devices are strictly to monitor for any unusual activity or panic situations, lasers, cameras watching the perimeters. We aren’t taping except for the loop, which is two hours. Then it records over the last… it’s a… loop.” He realized that he was spinning his finger in a circle and stopped.

She seemed to calm. “How well can you hear what’s going on in here?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“I want to know to what extent… my family is being protected.”

“Well, when it’s quiet, we can pick up your brush strokes. We know Reid snores and there’s a bird that whistles and something that squeaks like a hamster running in a wheel that needs oiling.”

Laura blushed and put her hand to her mouth. “My God, Thorne! My bedroom?”

“The devices pick up the entire house.”

“But he was listening to us? What did you find?”

“Several functioning transmitters. Two in the kitchen area, one in the phone and another in the light fixture, one here in the studio and two in the bedroom, one in the telephone again. The telephone devices pick up whatever is going on in the rooms. We weren’t able to locate the receiver. Could be anywhere.”

“Why in the receiver and the base?” she asked.

“Redundancy, maybe. Different kinds of transmitters.”

“Martin Fletcher has been in my house?” Fear silenced her for a moment; then her anger came surging back. “Christ, I feel like I was raped once and then raped again by the cops when they showed up. I must be the most watched woman in America.”

“Well, you’re clean now,” he said. “He’ll know we found them when he checks the listening post.”

“Great,” she said. “So Paul’s out. Where is he now?”

“He’s heading this investigation. He’s on the ninth floor of the U.S. Courthouse building annex in Nashville. The DEA has offices with the federal prosecuting attorney. He’s using Rainey’s office.”

“I didn’t think anything short of dynamite could blast him out of his hole,” she said, aware of the bitterness that filled her words.

“He’s really changed,” Thorne said. “He’s not the same man. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. After what happened and all.”

“He didn’t want me to know, did he?”

Thorne looked down. “Laura, it’s…”

“Of course he didn’t.”

“He only agreed to come out when he knew you and those children were in danger. That was the only reason. He cares.”

“Oh, I know how much he cares. Enough to send people to protect us… but not enough to actually visit his children. Enough to use us to lure Martin.”

“That isn’t fair, Laura.”

“Do you know that he hasn’t laid eyes on Reb or Erin in all these years, except for the photos I send? I don’t care for myself. Really, I don’t. But he has hurt those children. He was never around when they were little. Always chasing a drug lord or flying raids in Bolivia or someplace. We never saw him. Then he ran out on us completely. He didn’t even try. So, fine. But I’m not going to let that son of a bitch tell me what to do. Don’t tell me he cares-don’t you ever tell me he cares about us. This is about him. All of you are using us. Fine, there’s nothing I can do. But I don’t have to like it. If it weren’t for the kids, I’d take my chances with Martin Fletcher. At least Martin Fletcher is honest. He says he wants to hurt us, but Paul says he wants to protect us. Only trouble is he’s the one who has hurt us.”

“That isn’t true.”

“What do you mean?”

“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but he’s… the local agents say that he asks them to check on you every so often and report to him.”

“When? When was the last time?”

“Reb had his school play last year-they took pictures of the thing and sent the prints to Paul.”

“Why?”

“I’d guess he wanted to make sure you’re all okay. Laura, when we first saw him in the mountains, he was like a wounded animal, defeated, frightened. But you should have seen him in Nashville. He was like the old Paul. In charge, surefooted-he seemed strong as a bull.”

“Thorne, I can’t tell you how sorry I am to hear about your family. I wish I had kept in closer touch. And Doris Lee and I were friends once. I’ve never been good about staying in touch with anyone, especially Paul’s friends. You know how it is. People take sides or feel disloyal somehow.”

She looked at Thorne and seemed to be figuring something out, weighing her words. “Promise me something?”

“If I can.”

“Tell him I want to see him face-to-face. I need to have some closure so I can get on with my life. If he doesn’t want to see the children, I’ll understand, even though they won’t. He has devastated Erin and Reb by hiding from them. It’s plain rejection to them. I told them it’s because of his face, the incident, and the brain damage, but now that they know he’s back, all that is changed. No. On second thought he has to see them. He has to let us say good-bye so we can go on. I can’t give Reid what he needs until I know Paul doesn’t want it. I owe him that.” After what I did.

“I’ll try. You know Paul.”

“Try hard.”