King and Maxwell

CHAPTER 20

TYLER WINGO SAT ON HIS BED in his room and studied the piece of paper. He’d written down the message he’d received from his father before deleting it. Not that he could ever forget it. But he’d written it down because that made it seem more real than if it was just in his head.

His father’s message was both straightforward and puzzling.

I am sorry. Please forgive me.

Sorry for what, Dad? What do you want me to forgive you for? Dying? But you can’t be dead. You aren’t dead.

Tyler folded the paper twice and slipped it into the front pocket of his jeans. He lay back on his bed and gazed around his room. Every surface carried memories of his father, from the sports and music posters on the walls, to the baseball glove and football gathering dust on a shelf, to the framed photo of the two of them at a swim meet where his father had been a timer.

Tyler snaked a hand inside his T-shirt and pulled out the pair of official dog tags his father had had made for him. He rubbed the flat metal between his fingers and wondered where his dad might be right now. Did he have his dog tags? Was he safe? Was the email sent after he was supposedly dead really from him? Or was it somehow a big mistake? He knew his father had written it, because it had been in their special code.

He rolled over onto his stomach and stared at the raindrops on his window. It had been a gloomy day and now a cold overcast night and thus a perfect match for what he was feeling. He had always thought that he would know if his dad had been injured over there. He thought he would just feel it. But then again he thought he would be able to tell that about his mom. And he and his dad had found her on the floor of her bathroom with a bullet in her head and the gun beside her. Her suicide note had been neatly folded and on the counter next to the sink. Its contents had been terse.

I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. I’ll miss you.

He shook his head to rid himself of the image of this final message from her. But it was always there, just in the back of his mind, ready to poke out when he least expected it. It could drive the smile off his face in a split second or drown a laugh in his throat.

He rose and walked over to his desk, an old-style military metal model that his father had gotten when the Army had cleaned out some surplus inventory during the expansion of Fort Belvoir in Alexandria.

He sat down, slid open the top drawer, and pulled the photo out.

He traced the faces of his father, his mom, and him. They had been at the Army 5K[18] that he had run with his dad. They were happy, all smiles; the sun was shining and they were celebrating with ice cream cones after the run. Hugs, smiles, and ice cream barely five years ago. Then less than a year later everything had changed. No, everything had collapsed. His life became something else entirely. It was as though this room, this photo even, didn’t belong to him. As though it were telling the history of someone else, because Tyler really no longer recognized the person that used to be him.

First, his mom dying. And then his dad marrying a woman Tyler didn’t really even know. And now his dad was gone. In a way each of the people in that photo, his dad, his mom, and even him, was truly gone.

“Tyler?”

He didn’t move. He just sat there staring at the photo.

Jean slipped into the room and perched on the edge of his bed.

“Tyler?” she said again but barely above a whisper.

He still didn’t move.

“Can you at least look at me?”

He finally looked at her blankly.

She said, “You didn’t eat your dinner.”

“Wasn’t hungry.”

“You swim miles at practice. How can you not be starving?”

“Just not.”

He turned back to the photo.

“They told me about those people.”

He glanced at her sharply. “What people?”

“The man and woman who brought you home that night. I don’t remember their names.”

“Sean King and Michelle Maxwell.”

“Right. Anyway, they won’t be bothering you anymore.”

“They weren’t bothering me. I hired them.”

“To do what exactly?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“No, I’m not going to try you.”

“Your father is dead, Tyler. We can’t change that.”

“That’s right, we can’t.”

“So why hire those people?”

“Like I said, you wouldn’t understand.”

She stood. “Don’t you think I miss him too?”

“I don’t know, Jean. Do you?”

“How can you possibly say that? I loved him.”

“If you say so.”

“Why do you have to be this way to me?”

He spun around in his chair. “Because I don’t really know you. It’s like I’m living with a stranger.”

“I’ve been your stepmother for nearly a year.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t mean I know you. We’ve never spoken more than a few words to each other. I wasn’t invited to see you get married. I didn’t even know you two were getting married. Don’t you think that’s weird? I’m his only kid.”

“Your father wanted it that way.”

Tyler rose, his face flushed. “No,” he snapped. “My dad would not have wanted it that way. He would have wanted me to be a part of it.”

“He was afraid you’d be upset that he was remarrying.”

“And his solution was to just bring you home one day and tell me you’re my stepmom? How does that make sense?”

“Regardless, honey, we have to try to get along. We’re all that’s left for each other.”

Tyler looked like he might be sick. “We don’t have each other, Jean. We’ve never had each other. I’m an orphan now. I don’t have anybody.”

There was an awkward silence and then Jean said, “The Army is sending some care volunteers here tomorrow.”

“Care volunteers? What for?”

“To help us. They can run errands. Take you to school. Help with meals. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. A lot of things to cope with.”

“Well, you can take me off your coping list. I don’t need any help. And I can get myself to school.”

“Tyler, you can’t just shut everyone out.”

“I’m going to find out what really happened to my dad. And I’ve got people who will help me. I’m going to find the truth, Jean.” He added with a shout, “I will.”

He jumped up and rushed down the stairs.

She started to go after him but then stopped. She walked to his desk, gazed down at the photo of the three Wingos, and then slipped a phone from her jeans pocket.

She thumbed in a text message and sent it off. It was only four words, but they actually said quite a lot.

We have a problem.

Tyler grabbed a set of car keys off the hook next to the fridge, went out the side door, and climbed into his father’s pickup truck. Every scent was his dad’s. There was a gun rack in the back window and an American flag sticker on the lower right-hand corner of the windshield. A pair of miniature plastic army boots dangled on a chain hung from the rearview mirror.

The two floor mats read, I Am Army Strong.

Tyler started the truck, popped it into reverse, and backed out of the driveway. He glanced at the clock on the dash. Nearly eight p.m. He stopped at the curb and thumbed in a text. He waited. A few seconds later he got a reply. He hit the gas and sped down the road.

Five minutes later he pulled up in front of Kathy Burnett’s house. She was waiting for him on the sidewalk. She climbed into the truck and shut the door firmly behind her.

He looked at her. “What did you tell your parents?”

“That I was going to see Linda down the street. She’ll cover for me.”

He nodded and drove off.

“What did you want to talk about?” asked Kathy.

Tyler didn’t answer her right away. “Stuff,” he said at last.

“What kind of stuff? About your dad, you mean?”

He nodded.

“Tyler, what’s really going on?”

He glanced at her and slowed down. “What do you mean?”

“I’m talking about those two detectives you hired? Why did you need them?”

“Stuff about my dad, I told you.”

“But your dad was killed in combat. The Army told you that. I’m a military brat like you. We all understand that could happen. There’s no mystery about it.”

“Well, there might be some mystery here,” he replied.

“Like what?”

“I hired these detectives because I didn’t think the Army was telling me the truth about my dad.”

“I know you were upset about what they told you. But why in the world would you think they’d lie about that?”

“Because at first they told me he was shot. Then they said he was blown up and that there was nothing left of him and there was no need to go to Dover. I’m not really sure how the Army could have gotten that so wrong.”

“Well, maybe they did. Mistakes happen, even in the military. The stories my mom could tell you.”

“Yeah, well, they shouldn’t make mistakes about stuff like this,” Tyler replied, his voice sounding hoarse.

Kathy put a hand on his shoulder. “No, you’re right, they shouldn’t.”

“But then some more men from the Army came to see us. And also guys in suits who they said were with another agency, only I don’t know which one.”

“Why did they come to see you?”

“To tell me to fire King and Maxwell.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think they wanted them digging around into my dad’s case.” He looked over at Kathy. “Something is going on here that’s really weird.”

“Like what?”

He pulled the truck off to the side of the road and put it in park. He turned to her. “I got an email from my dad.”

“When?”

“After he died.”

Kathy stared at him, her face growing pale. “How could that be?”

“It was date-stamped. They told me when my dad was supposed to have been killed. The email was sent days after that.”

“Maybe somebody else sent it.”

“Couldn’t have. It was in the code only my dad and I would know how to read.”

Kathy looked out the window and shivered. “This is really creepy, Tyler.” She glanced back at him. “Do you… do you really think your dad might be alive?”

Tyler didn’t answer right away. He was afraid that if he said what he believed, it would not come true. “Yeah, I do.”

“But your dad was a sergeant in the reserves. Nothing against him but why would this be such a big deal for the Army? It wasn’t like he was a general.”

“I think my dad was a bigger deal than people knew.”

“What do you mean?”

“He left the Army right before his twenty years was up. Who does that? He blew his pension.”

“That lady detective said the same thing.”

“You met with Michelle?” he said, surprised.

“And Sean. Earlier today. They knew we were friends.”

“So that means they’re still working the case,” he said thoughtfully.

“The Army might not like that, Tyler.”

“I don’t give a crap what the Army doesn’t like. This is my dad we’re talking about. If he’s not dead, I want to know where he is. I want him to come back home. I’m not letting this drop.”

“I guess if it were my mom, I wouldn’t let it go either.”

“You can’t tell anybody about this.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

He stared at her intently and then turned the truck around and drove her back home.

When Tyler got back to his house, his stepmother wasn’t there and her car was gone. He went up to his bedroom and studied his cell phone. He started to make a call on it but then stopped. What if they had his phone under surveillance?

He ran back downstairs, climbed into the truck, and drove off again.

There was a payphone, one of the last in the area, at a 7-Eleven about two miles from his house. He dropped in the coins and dialed the number.

Michelle answered on the second ring.

Tyler said, “I want to hire you again.”

“You sure?” said Michelle.

“Very sure,” replied Tyler.

“Good, because we were never really off the case.”