No Safe House

Twenty-eight

“Hey,” Vince said as Jane Scavullo let herself in. He’d heard her coming up the stairs and was expecting her.

“Hi,” she said tiredly. She stood by the door.

“Come in,” he said.

“I’m fine here.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, come in and sit down.”

Jane advanced into the room and sat in the chair Terry had been in moments earlier.

“So what’d she say? She see anything?” Vince asked. “No, wait. Hold that thought. I gotta empty this thing before I blow up.” He went into the bathroom, closed the door.

Jane closed her eyes for a moment, laid her hands down on the table to rest them. Her father emerged a couple of minutes later, wiping his hands on his shirt to dry them, and took a seat opposite the young woman.

“So?”

“She wasn’t much help.”

“Shit. She must have noticed something.”

Jane recounted her conversation with Grace as close to word for word as she could.

“So we know nothing about this guy,” Vince said. “Not one goddamn thing.” Jane said nothing. “That’s just great. Did she say whether they were there for anything other than the car?”

Jane shook her head. “Like what?”

“Did she or didn’t she?”

“She didn’t. Stuart broke in to get the Porsche keys. If he was there for anything else, Grace doesn’t seem to know about it.”

“So they didn’t go upstairs?”

“I told you what she said.”

“Whoever else was in there didn’t have to bust in,” Vince said.

“You asking me?”

“I’m thinking out loud. Stuart broke a window, the dumb shit. But the alarm system was already off. So it could have been someone who had a key, who knew how to disarm the security system.”

“Maybe the owners have someone who checks the house for them. So they have a key, know the code.” She said it as if it was obvious.

Vince thought about that. “But if it was someone there with their blessing, why was he creeping around with the lights off?”

Jane shrugged. “I don’t know, Vince. It’s late.” She cocked her head to one side, eyeing him critically. “You’re so worried about them getting into that house and how somebody else got into the house and what they were looking for, blah blah blah, but are you even this much concerned about Stuart?” She held her thumb and index finger a fraction of an inch apart.

“Of course I am.”

“Does Eldon even know yet?”

“No.”

“When you going to tell him?”

Vince strummed his fingers on the table. “When the time is right. I got a few questions for him first.”

“You’re kidding me,” Jane said. “Before you tell him about his kid, you’re going to grill him?”

“Yeah. Like how’d Stuart know to pick that house? Eldon must have got sloppy and let him see the list.”

“What list? Why are you so freaked-out about that house anyway?”

“Never mind. The fact Stuart was there goes right back to Eldon. He fucked up. Something about this is just not right.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe Eldon was there. In the house. He was late for our meet tonight.”

Jane put her fingertips to her forehead, looked downward. “Vince, really, are you saying Eldon shot his own kid?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know what happened. Maybe Eldon was there, and didn’t tell his kid, and they surprised each other.”

“This is crazy talk,” Jane said.

“Maybe Eldon was ripping me off,” Vince said, more to himself than to Jane.

“How the hell could Eldon have been ripping you off? He wasn’t in your house. He was in somebody else’s house. So Eldon could shoot his own kid, then show up for this meet you had? That’s what you’re saying? Does Eldon strike you as someone who could pull that off?”

“I’m gonna find out. I guarantee it.”

Jane pushed back her chair and stood. “Well, good luck with that.” She turned and headed for the door.

“Wait,” Vince said to her back. She stopped without turning around. “I just want to... I want to thank you for the heads-up. Grace calling you and then you letting me know, I want you to know, you did the right thing.”

“What else was I going to do?” she said, facing him now.

“I know, but still. I get that you’re pissed, being dragged into this. I don’t like you getting mixed up in my business, but this was different. I figured Grace’d tell you more than she’d tell me.”

“You don’t want me involved in your business?” Jane countered. “Since when? You think somehow I haven’t always been involved? Come on. You were living with my mother. Then you guys got married. I was living under your roof. So maybe you didn’t have me ripping off a shipment of iPads, but you think I wasn’t involved? Every time my mom got a phone call, her heart was in her mouth, worried you were dead or in jail. Someone came knockin’ at the door, I figured maybe it was the cops, or someone standing there with a gun, looking to blow your brains out. So don’t be all sorry about my having to take Grace’s call, because that was nothing compared to the kind of stuff I lived with for years.”

Vince went to say something, but no words came out.

“I gotta go. It’s late.”

Vince took a step toward her. “Jane.”

An exasperated sigh. “What?”

“This is... this isn’t an easy time for me. You gotta know that.”

“Whatever you say,” she said.

“I know I’ve been kind of busy lately, that you and I, we haven’t spent as much time together, but hey, you know, you’ve got your life, and there’s all this other shit, with the doctor and—”

“Which doctor? What’s the latest?”

“Nothing. Forget about that. The point is, I’ve been changing my whole operation this last couple of years, trying to be more creative.”

“I thought you’d always been pretty creative,” she said. “Hijacking trucks, stealing SUVs, shipping them overseas. That’s pretty creative.”

Vince didn’t try to deny it. “But it’s all labor intensive. I’m not as young as I used to be. And I’ve had... cash flow problems. But I’m turning things around.”

“You think any of that has anything to do with why I’m pissed at you?” she snapped.

He said nothing. He just waited.

“Why didn’t you go visit her?”

“I did,” he said defensively.

“Oh, like twice?”

“That’s not true, Jane, and you know it. I was into the hospital to see your mother regularly.”

“But not that night. Where were you then?”

“I was on my way,” he said. “I was going to come over. I was.”

“Really? Something come up? You got delayed? I know where you were. Mike’s.” A Milford bar where Vince spent a lot of time. “If you’d tried to drive to the hospital in your condition, you’d have plowed right into the emergency ward.”

“So I was at Mike’s. Big deal.”

“And what were you doing there?”

“Having a few drinks,” he admitted. “I didn’t know it was gonna happen that night.”

“No, you didn’t, because you hadn’t gotten your ass in there for days to see how she was. If you had, you’d have seen how bad she was getting. You’d have known it was coming. I tried to tell you but you had your head up your ass and didn’t hear me.”

Vince mumbled something.

“What’s that?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t what?”

“I couldn’t see her like that. I just...” He stopped, took a breath as though he were winded. “I loved your mother very much. She was everything to me. Watching her suffer, watching her get worse every day, that was hard.”

“Hard for her, too,” Jane said.

“Why do you think I was at Mike’s drinking myself into a stupor? Because I couldn’t stand to lose her, that’s why.”

Jane’s eyes were piercing. “Feeling sorry for yourself. You know what I never would have guessed all these years? That you were a pussy.”

Vince glared at her. His cheeks flushed.

“Yeah, I said it. You didn’t have the guts to be there. I mean, it’s not like you haven’t been around death all your life, is it? You don’t mind causing it. You just don’t want to see what it looks like.”

“No one else talks that way to me and gets away with it, Jane.”

She opened her arms, a “bring it on” gesture. “Take your best shot.”

“Jesus, Jane,” he said, and shifted closer to the table, put out a hand to steady himself. “I don’t want to do this.” He dropped his head, shook it slowly. “I know I’ve disappointed you. I don’t blame you. I’m not the man you thought I was. I probably never was. I’ve lost your mother, and it looks like I’ve lost you now, too. I won’t disappoint you much longer.”

Jane started to respond, but something made her hang back.

“Besides,” he said flippantly, “it’s not like I’m really your father. You’re not my real daughter. So what’s the big deal, right?”

He tried to force a laugh, but it sent him into a coughing fit.

Jane hesitated. She was only a foot from the door, but it was hard to walk out on someone when he was in the middle of trying to catch his breath.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. His cell phone started ringing. “I gotta get that.”

“Sure.”

He got out the phone, put it to his ear. “Yeah, Gordie... good... yeah... Hang on.”

Vince said to Jane, “I got stuff I gotta take care of.”

“Sure,” she said. She turned, went out the screen door, and let it swing shut with a loud clap behind her.

Vince spoke into the phone. “Off the top of my head, I’m thinking it could be the dog walker. Braithwaite. The security pad was green. Someone used a key, knew the code. Keep doing the other checks, but I’m liking him for this. If other places got broken into, then it’s not him. But if it’s just the Cummings place, that’s different. We’ll pay him a visit tomorrow. He’s living across the hall from Archer’s wife. I’ll give you the address — you got something to write it down?”