Midnight Before Christmas

16

“Look, lady, if you’re not his wife or kid or close relative, you’re not getting in to see him.”

“But it’s very important.”

“There are cops on duty.”

“I’ve spoken to them. They said if I could get your okay, they’d let me in.”

“But you don’t have my okay.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here.”

Megan pressed her hand against her brow. She hated bureaucracy. There was nothing worse. She had always thought that courthouse protocol was the most abysmal, but she was beginning to alter her opinion in favor of hospitals.

For fifteen minutes now, she’d been trying to get in to see Carl Cantrell, but she’d come smack-dab up against the Iron Maiden of nurse-receptionists. Normally she tried to stay as far away from child-napping poisoners as possible, especially when they were on the other side of a case. But she had business reasons for wanting to get in there. It wouldn’t take long. It would be over in minutes. If she could just get Nurse Ratched here to give her the thumbs up.

“Look,” Megan implored, “this is critical. A woman’s life may be in danger. And that of her son.”

“Because you can’t get in to see a patient? I don’t think so, honey.”

Megan drew herself up. “I want to take this up with your superior.”

“Good luck finding my superior. Or my inferior, either. Lady, do you not understand that this is Christmas Eve?”

“I don’t see what-”

“Most people are at home with their families. We’re on a skeleton staff here, barely enough people to keep the place running.”

“Nonetheless-”

“I’ve been on duty since four A.M., and won’t get to go home until midnight. I’ve had no relief, no coffee breaks. No chance to lie down and take a nap. I haven’t even had a chance to brush my teeth. My breath smells like death warmed over-”

“Lucky I happened by.” Megan opened her shoulder bag and rummaged around until she found the bottle of mouthwash she’d gotten from the woman at the courthouse. “Duck into the bathroom and have yourself a gargle.”

“You carry jumbo-size mouthwash in your purse?” Her eyes narrowed. “What are you, some kind of bag lady?”

“It was a Christmas present.”

“Some friends you got.”

“It was-you know-a joke. From an office party.”

“Oh, right.” Her stern exterior softened a bit. “I got one of those, too.” She reached down to the shelf beneath her station, then plopped a hardcover book onto the counter, “This was mine.”

Megan read the dust jacket. How to Catch and Keep the Mate of Your Dreams. “Well, that was very … thoughtful.”

“Yeah, right. A friendly commentary on my winning personality.” She grasped the big green bottle. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll take the mouthwash. You keep the book.”

“Deal,” Megan said, looking up expectantly. “And …”

“I suppose it’ll be all right if you go in there. But don’t stay too long. I don’t wanna get in trouble.”

“Understood. I’ll be brief.”

The nurse raised the mouthwash bottle and made a little salute. “Merry Christmas.”

Megan smiled back. “Ho, ho, ho.”

After the receptionist gave them the high sign, the two cops on duty outside the hospital room waved Megan through.

He was sitting upright in bed, eyes open wide. Megan was startled. She halted, staring at him. Somehow, in her mind’s eye she had imagined he would be sleeping or drugged or hooked up to a million tubes or otherwise incapacitated. Instead, he looked little different from when she had seen him in the restaurant, except that his right arm was bandaged and in a sling. Nonetheless, he looked as if he might leap out at her at any moment.

Megan felt her mouth go dry. In her days as a priest, she had been forced to spend time with all kinds of unsavory characters. But she couldn’t think of an instance when she’d been this close to a killer. This close to someone who had cold-bloodedly tried to murder his own son.

“You were at The Snow Pea,” Carl said, breaking the silence.

“That’s right. I was.”

“Who are you, anyway?” His lips curled a bit. “One of Bonnie’s friends, I suppose.”

“That’s, um, right.” Megan cleared her throat. “Actually, I’m her attorney.”

“You’re not the chump who got her divorced.”

“No, I’m … new.”

“Wonderful. And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

Megan wished she had a glass of water. Her throat was so parched she could barely speak. “I’m glad to hear you’re going to be all right. They told me the bullet didn’t do any permanent damage. That the previous wound to your arm did more damage than the bullet.”

“Your concern is touching, but if you’re here on some obnoxious errand for Bonnie, I’d just as soon you got it over with.”

“As you wish.” Megan edged forward, just close enough that she could touch the edge of the bed, then pulled two thrice-folded documents out of her purse. “This is a copy of the restraining order that was issued today by Judge Harris. It orders you to stay away from your wife, your son, and their home.”

“Ain’t that swell. Anything else?”

“Yes.” She tossed the other document on his bed. “This is to serve notice on you that a hearing has been set for the fifteenth day of January next year, at which time the judge will decide whether to make the order permanent. You can read the details in the notice. I must tell you, though, that if you decide not to attend the hearing, in all probability the order will be granted by default.”

“Thanks so much.” He stared down at the papers on the bed, but didn’t touch either of them.

Megan was puzzled. He seemed bitter, yes, but he was not hostile or belligerent. There was nothing threatening or evil about him. She realized that in the perhaps one minute she’d been in the room with him, her fear had melted away and been replaced by a different sentiment altogether.

She was feeling sorry for him.

“Carl, how-how did this mess get started?”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning … I don’t know. The threats. The fighting. All this unhappiness.”

Carl looked away. “Why do you want to know? Is this some trick to improve Bonnie’s case against me?”

“No. It’s nothing to do with that. I just …” Her voice faded. “I don’t know. I was just curious. And I thought you might like to talk to someone.”

“Even if I did, it wouldn’t be you. You don’t strike me as the listening type.”

“Really?” Megan couldn’t explain why, but for some reason she wanted to understand this man. Something about the whole situation was beginning to trouble her. “I used to spend most of my time listening. People seemed to think I was pretty good at it.”

“Why on earth would you want to listen to people? Were you getting paid by the hour?”

“This was before I was a lawyer. I was a priest.”

“A-” He turned his head and did a double take. “A priest? But you’re-”

“Yes?”

Carl’s voice dropped a notch. “You’re a woman.”

“Thanks!”

“I mean, I didn’t know there were female priests. ’Cept maybe in China or something.”

Megan bit back her grin. “You’ve been away from church too long, Carl. The Episcopal church has ordained female priests for a good many years now. I wasn’t even one of the first.”

“Wow. Sorry, my parents were Southern Baptists. I didn’t know.” He looked up at her again. “And does that mean-”

Megan had seen the look before; she knew where the conversation was going. “Episcopal priests are allowed to marry.”

“Really?” For the moment, at least, he seemed to have forgotten his own problems. “So when’d you give up being a priest?”

Megan’s eyes darkened. “April 19, 1995.” She smoothed a wrinkle in her skirt. “Oh, I didn’t stop that very day. But that’s when it was all over for me. That’s when I lost my faith.”

“That’s the day the Murrah building was bombed, isn’t it?”

Megan nodded grimly. “My mother was in the building, working in the Social Security office. She was trapped in the wreckage for hours, bleeding, in pain. Listening to the agonized cries of her friends. She survived, but then again, not really.” Her head dropped. “She was never the same.”

“And you stopped being a priest after that?”

“It’s hard to explain. I mean, it sounds so trite in a way. I certainly wasn’t a stranger to tragedy. I saw it every day as a priest. I saw it happen to other people, that is. But never to me.” She brushed her hair back, looked away. “Mother recovered her strength, but not her spirit.”

“Where were you when the bomb exploded?”

“At St. Paul’s. That’s where I worked. The cathedral is a block away from the Murrah building, but it was still ruined. All that beautiful stained glass-shattered. A shining testament to faith destroyed. In the blink of an eye.” She rubbed her face furiously. “And all because some poorly educated zealots-some supposed Christians with an axe to grind-decided they had the right to ruin hundreds of lives.” She bit down on her lower lip. “Well, if something like that could happen … it was very difficult for me to believe there really was a God. Or if there was a God, and he would allow that to happen… well, then I didn’t want to be one of his priests.”

Carl stared at the floor. “My mom died. Almost ten years now.” He lifted his head. “You still miss her?”

Megan’s eyes met his. “Every day.”

“That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? That’s why you lost faith. Your mother is gone, but you haven’t really let her go yet. And you haven’t forgiven God for what happened to her.” His tone changed. “So you went to law school?”

“Why not? I still wanted to help people. But for real this time, not in a mushy-squishy spiritual way. I wanted to get down in the trenches and fight. Help the wronged find justice. Stop deadbeat dads. Protect women from abusive-um, well, you know.”

Carl frowned. “Yeah, I know.”

“I made great grades in law school, and next thing I knew, I was being courted by all these big law firms-Crowe Dunlevy, McAfee Taft. They seemed very supportive of what I wanted to do. So I took my best offer and joined a big corporate firm. How could I resist?”

“Except it didn’t turn out the way you expected.”

“No, it didn’t.” She fell silent.

“Maybe you ought to quit the firm. Set up your own shop.”

Megan sighed. “That would be wonderful. But it would require tons of start-up capital, which I don’t have. And even if I did …” Her eyes drifted. “I’m not sure I could bring it off.” She looked up abruptly. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It isn’t why I came.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said. He shifted around in the bedsheets, as if he wanted to move but had nowhere to go. “Bonnie tell you what happened to me?”

“No. I mean, she said you used to be a cop. And that you …um…”

“Liked to drink? Except I bet that’s not how she put it.”

Megan almost smiled. “Well, no. It isn’t.” She inched forward. She couldn’t explain why, but suddenly she was interested in hearing more of his story, knowing more about what brought him where he was today. “Tell me what happened.”

Carl shrugged, looked away. “It was a while back, just a few months before the bombing, actually. Me and my partner got into some trouble. A shoot-out, Gang warfare. Near downtown. Bullets were flying. We were on our own for almost half an hour before reinforcements arrived.”

“That must’ve been a nightmare.”

He shrugged again. “We pulled through. But one of the gang members didn’t. He got shot dead.”

Megan’s hand covered her mouth. “I remember reading about that.”

“At first the reporters were our buddies. Talked about how heroic we were. The thin blue line holding back the mongrel hordes.”

“But that didn’t last.”

“Two days after the shooting, the word broke. The kid that got killed-he was only thirteen.” Carl swore under his breath. “Big for his age. And he was packing. But that didn’t change the public reaction. We’d killed a thirteen-year-old kid. And two days later, ballistics dropped the final straw.” His face seemed to tighten. “The bullet that killed the kid came from my gun.”

Megan’s lips parted. “That must’ve been horrible.”

“Needless to say, the press were no longer my buddies. They demanded an investigation. How could this happen? Where did procedures break down? And pretty soon you’re hearing words like trigger-happy. And baby-killer.”

Megan laid her hand on the rail of his bed. “And that’s when you began to drink?”

“Aw, I’d always had a drink or two on occasion. But that’s when it turned ugly. That’s when it became like the only thing I wanted to do in life was have another drink.” He pounded his pillow. “Internal Affairs did an investigation, then cleared me. One hundred percent without blame. Acting in self-defense. But it didn’t matter. The paper didn’t carry that story, natch. The big bosses decided it would be best if I laid low, took a desk job. Which I was horrible at. Well-if I’d wanted a desk job, I’da become an accountant. I kept drinking and my work was crap and eventually they put me on extended leave. Without pay.”

“And you kept on drinking.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” His lips were thin and pursed. “I–I don’t know how to explain it. I just stopped believing in everything I had believed before, everything I thought was right. It’s like you were saying-I just lost faith. You know what I mean?”

Megan nodded. She certainly did. “Maybe if you had more faith in yourself, you wouldn’t need the bottle.”

“Maybe so. I kept thinking that Bonnie would come around. That she’d support me. Help a little, you know?”

“And she didn’t?”

“Hell no. I came home one night, found her rolling on the kitchen floor with this creep Frank. They were going at it hot and heavy.”

“Before you were divorced?”

“Months before. Before she’d even filed. And I’ll tell you something else.” He leaned closer. “Tommy was in the house. And awake. Now that’s sick, if you ask me.”

Megan tried to recall her first conversation with Bonnie that morning. Hadn’t she said that she didn’t start with Frank until after the divorce? “That must’ve been … very disheartening.”

“That’s one way to put it, yeah.”

“But Carl-even with all that happened-why the turmoil? Why the violence?”

“Violence? What violence?”

“Bonnie told me you pummeled Frank in the face this morning.”

“Do you know what he was saying? He was taunting me, telling me how he was doing … horrible things to my boy. Said he was going inside to do it again right then.”

“So you-”

“Yes! What else could I do? Stand still and let him torture my boy?”

“He couldn’t have meant it.”

“Then why would he say it?” Carl pressed his hand against his forehead. “It was crazy. Almost like he wanted me to hit him.”

His words struck a dissonant chord inside Megan’s brain. Almost like … “I hear you took a swing at two of Bonnie’s neighbors. This morning and this afternoon.”

“They were trying to keep me from my son. I was desperate to see him. Desperate! It was Christmas, and I couldn’t just leave him there with that pervert.”

“So you snatched him.”

“Of course I did. Wouldn’t you?” He shook his head. “Never dreamed it would be so easy.”

It was easy, Megan thought silently. After that incident in the morning, surely Bonnie could’ve foreseen …

“I’ll admit, I was thinking about taking Tommy on the road. Holing up somewhere till I could get some help for myself, hire some lawyers, get custody for real.”

“But, Carl, you tried to poison Tommy!”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Chinese food. It was poisoned.”

“What?”

“And Bonnie told me you’d tried it once before.”

Carl lurched forward abruptly and grabbed Megan’s arms. “You have to listen to me. I would never hurt Tommy. Not in any way. Much less kill him.”

“You put something on his food.”

“I put soy sauce on his food! So what? I was trying to get him to eat it. I just-I just wanted us to have a happy moment together. One time when everything went the way it should. You have to believe me-sure, I was thinking about taking him away from his mother and that sick piece of work Frank. But I would never hurt Tommy. I would never do that!”

Megan looked deeply into the man’s eyes. She almost hated to admit it to herself, but she did believe him. She really did.

“I know I’ve been acting crazy,” Carl said. “Been that way all day. I don’t know why. It’s-it’s something about the holiday. All this Christmas peace-on-earth-and-goodwill-toward-man stuff. Presents. Families getting together. Except me. I don’t have anyone.” His lips pressed together. “I used to love Christmas. Tommy and me-we both loved it. Back before the split. It was a truly special day.” He laughed. “I have this ratty old Santa suit; he loved it when I dressed up in that thing. He knew it was really me, but-somehow it didn’t matter, you know? We just-” His voice wavered; he stopped till he regained control. “We just had so much fun together.”

Megan looked down quietly. “I’m sorry, Carl.”

“All day I kept dreaming that eventually this nightmare would end. Bonnie would dump Frank, I’d get straightened out-we would be one happy family again. But it didn’t happen.” His jaw clenched. “I had to face facts. I’d been kidding myself since the day we were married. All along I’d been telling myself, Don’t be so suspicious. It’s you she loves. Really it is.” He shook his head. “But it wasn’t. It never was. It was the money.”

Megan blinked. “The money?”

“You got it. Makes the world go round, right?”

“She married you for a cop’s salary?”

Carl grinned. “Hardly. Naw, my dad was loaded. He was R. F. Cantrell, the construction magnate. You may have heard of him-built half of Oklahoma City. Left me three million bucks.”

“Three million? But then-why were you-”

“I don’t have it yet,” he explained. “It’s held in trust. Dad wanted to make sure the moolah didn’t prevent me from making something of myself. Hell of a joke, huh? Right now, I barely get enough to live on. But when I hit forty, two years from now, I get it all.”

Megan felt a gnawing sensation in the pit of her stomach. “Carl, if something happens to you, who gets the money?”

Carl shrugged. “I’m not really sure. My heirs, I guess.”

“Have you made a will?”

“A long time ago. Just after …” He paused. “After I got married.”

“And who inherits? Under your will.”

Carl’s voice became distinctly quieter. “Bonnie does. She gets everything.”

“And you didn’t change your will? After your divorce?”

“No. I never thought about it. And of course deep down, even though I’d never admit it, I always hoped we’d get back together again. I think she does, too, deep down. She told me so on the phone. I wasn’t hallucinating; she really said it. She told me how much …”

Carl went on, but Megan wasn’t listening anymore. A dark thought had lodged in her brain, and now that it had established itself, she was having a hard time pushing it aside. It seemed incredible. But what if…

Megan rose out of her chair.

“Where are you going?” Carl asked.

“Police station,” she murmured. “I want to do some checking.”

“On what?”

“I’ll tell you when I return.” She started toward the door, then stopped. “Just promise me this. Promise you won’t do anything foolish. Until I get back, just stay put and stay out of trouble, okay?”

“Well, I guess, but-”

“Please. I’ll be back as soon as possible. And maybe, just maybe”-she headed out the door-“maybe this time I’ll actually understand what’s going on.”