Triptych

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

John sat on a stool at the counter of the Empire Diner. He had walked in the door ravenously hungry, but for some reason when his food came, he could only bring himself to take a few bites. Nerves had his stomach in a death grip as he waited for his life to begin.

He had spent most of the night with Kathy and Joyce, trying to come up with a plan of action. Kathy wanted to go to the police, but if there was one thing the Shelley children could agree upon, it was that you could not trust the police. Michael would never talk. He was too smart to leave himself open. John’s credit report might raise some questions, but the answers could very well come back and bite John in the ass. In the end, they had decided that Joyce would use her contacts at the county records department to try to find out where Aunt Lydia was living. Uncle Barry had only been married to her for a few years before he died, and they hadn’t been able to find anything under the Carson family name. There had to be a trail somewhere. Once they found it, the Shelley children would confront Lydia about her role in framing John. She had obviously confessed her sins once before. They would not give her a moment’s peace until she confessed them again-this time on the record. As far as John’s own confession went, he had not told his sister and her lover everything that had happened. He’d been as honest as possible up to a point. He had not told them about Michael’s next-door neighbor. The thought of what he had done, the depths to which he had sunk, made him sick. All this time, John had believed Michael was the animal, but in that one moment when the opportunity had presented itself, John had been just as sadistic, just as vengeful as his cousin. Was this what Emily had fought for? Was this why his mother had spent hour upon hour writing in her notebooks, so that her little Johnny could get out of jail and mutilate a fifteen-year-old girl? For the first time in his life, John was glad his mother was gone, glad that he would never have to look into her beautiful eyes and know that she was looking at someone who was capable of such atrocities.

“Top you off?” the waitress asked, but she was already filling John’s mug with coffee.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

The door opened and he glanced up into the mirror behind the counter to see Robin standing with her hands on her hips, looking around for a table. The restaurant was fairly busy, so she didn’t notice him staring.

John fought the urge to turn around. He wanted to call her over, point to the empty stool beside him and listen to her talk. Too much was going on now, though. He had blood on his hands, guilt in his heart. He looked back down at his mug, staring into the murky liquid, wishing it could show him his future. Would there ever be a woman in his life? Would he ever find someone who knew what had happened to him, what he had done, and not run away screaming?

“Hey, you.” Robin slipped onto the stool beside him. She was dressed differently. Her hair was in a ponytail and she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt instead of her usual hooker garb.

“Hey,” John returned. “Off the clock?”

“Yeah,” she said, turning over her coffee cup and signaling for the waitress.

Something else was different about her, but John couldn’t pinpoint exactly what that was. It had nothing to do with the way she was dressed or the fact that she wasn’t wearing a pound of makeup. If he knew her better, he might say that she was nervous.

She said, “You ever think that you just hate your job? That maybe you should just run away from home and never look back?”

He smiled. He had considered running away from home the whole time he was at Coastal. “You okay?”

She nodded, then gave him a sly smile. “Are you stalking me? First the hospital and now this.”

He looked around. “You own this place or something?”

“This is my regular breakfast hangout.”

“Sorry,” he apologized. “Just looked like a good place to sit awhile.” He’d had money in his pocket for the first time in forever and he’d wanted to treat himself.

She said, “I lied to you.”

“About what?”

“My first kiss,” she said. “It wasn’t my little brother’s best friend.”

He tried to make a joke of it, even though his feelings were hurt. “Please tell me it wasn’t your little brother.”

She smiled, poured some cream into her coffee. “My parents were speed freaks,” she said. “At least my mom and whoever it was she was banging were.” Robin picked up her spoon and stirred the coffee. “The state took me away from her when I was a kid.”

John didn’t know what to say. He settled on, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I was in and out of foster care for a while. Met a lot of foster dads who were real happy to have a little girl living under their roof.”

John was silent, watching her stir her coffee. She had the smallest hands. Why was it that women’s hands were so much more attractive than men’s?

“What about you?” she asked. “Did you come from a broken home, too?”

She had said the words sarcastically. John had met plenty of felons who claimed they were victims of circumstance, their dysfunctional families forcing them into a life of crime. The way they told their stories, you wouldn’t think they had a choice in the matter.

“No,” he told her. “I came from a perfectly normal home. Wonderful, cookie-baking, scout-leading mom. Kind of distant father, but he was home every night and he took an interest in what I was doing.” He thought about Joyce. She was probably on the phone right now working her magic. He didn’t know whether or not Aunt Lydia would do the right thing, but John thought he could live the rest of his life in peace just knowing that for the first time in twenty years, Joyce believed in him.

Robin tapped her spoon twice against the mug, then put it on the counter. “So, what happened to you, John? How’d you end up in jail?”

He shrugged. “”Wrong crowd.“

She laughed, but obviously didn’t think it was funny. “I guess you were innocent?”

She had asked this two days ago at the hospital, and he gave her the stock answer. “Everybody in prison is innocent.”

Robin was silent, staring at the mirror behind the counter.

“So,” he said, wanting to change the subject. “Who was your first kiss?”

“My first real kiss?” she asked. “The first guy I kissed who I really wanted to kiss?” She seemed to think about it. “I met him at the state home,” she finally said. “We were together for twenty-five years.”

John blew on his coffee, took a sip. “That’s a long time.”

“Yeah, well.” She picked up her spoon again. “I fucked around on him a lot.”

John choked on his coffee.

She smiled, but it was more for her own sake. “We broke up two years ago.”

“Why?”

“Because when you know somebody that long, when you grow up with somebody like that, you’re just too…” She searched for a word. “Raw,” she decided. “Too vulnerable. I know everything about him and he knows everything about me. You can’t really love somebody like that. I mean, sure, you can love them-he’s like a part of me, part of my heart. But you can never be with them the way you want to. Not love them like a lover.” She shrugged. “If I really cared about him, I’d leave him so that he could get on with his life.”

John wasn’t sure how to respond. “He’s crazy to let you go.”

“Well, there’s more to it than my side of the story,” she admitted. “I’m a real bitch, in case you hadn’t noticed. What about you?”

John gave a startled “Me?”

“You have a girlfriend?”

He laughed. “Are you kidding me? I went in when I was sixteen. The only woman I ever saw was my mother.”

“What about…” Her voice trailed off. “You were a kid, right? When you got to prison?”

John felt his jaw work. He nodded without looking at her, trying not to let his mind conjure up the image of Zebra, those black-and-white teeth, those hands clamping down on the back of his neck.

If she saw his acknowledgment, she didn’t comment. Instead, she blew on her coffee and finally took a sip, saying, “Damn, it’s cold.”

John signaled for the waitress.

“How y’all doing here?” the woman asked.

“Fine, thank you,” John told her, letting her fill his cup with more coffee. He wasn’t used to so much caffeine in the morning and his hands were sweating. Or maybe he was just nervous because Robin was here. She was talking to him like they knew each other. John couldn’t remember if there had ever been a time in his life when he’d had a conversation like this.

The waitress said, “Y’all let me know if you need anything.”

Robin waited for the woman to leave before asking, “So, John, what have you been doing since you got out?”

“Reconnecting with my family,” he answered. He couldn’t help but add, “I’ve been looking for my cousin. There’s some things we need to talk about.”

Robin looked over his shoulder at a man sitting alone in the corner booth. John checked the guy’s reflection in the mirror, wondering if he was one of her Johns. The man was wearing a three-piece suit. He was probably a lawyer or a doctor with a family at home.

“John?” He looked back at Robin. She surprised him by asking, “What kind of trouble are you in?”

“No kind of trouble.”

“You said somebody was blackmailing you.”

He nodded. “I did.”

“Who?”

John put his hands on either side of his cup. He wanted to answer her, to tell her everything that had happened, but Robin had enough in her life without him adding to the burden. What’s more, he didn’t have Joyce’s optimism about Aunt Lydia doing the right thing. Michael was still her son, even if he was a sadistic murderer. There was no telling what he was capable of doing. John wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something bad came down on Robin because of him.

He told her, “I can’t get you caught up in all of this.”

Her hand went to his thigh. “What if I want to be involved?” John’s breath caught as she moved her hand higher. “I know you’re a good guy.”

His mouth opened so that he could breathe. “Maybe you shouldn’t…”

“I know you don’t have anybody to talk to,” she said, her hand firm on his leg. “I just want you to know that you can talk to me.”

He shook his head, whispering, “Robin…”

She rubbed her hand back and forth. “It’s been a long time, huh?”

Never, John thought. It’s been never.

“You wanna go somewhere and talk?”

“I don’t…” He couldn’t think. “I don’t have any money to-”

She moved closer to him. “I told you. I’m off the clock.”

If her hand went any higher, he was going to have to ask the waitress for a towel. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to find some strength.

He put his hand over hers. “I can’t.”

“You don’t want me?”

“There’s not a man alive who doesn’t want you,” he said, thinking there were no truer words ever spoken. “I care about you, Robin. I know that’s stupid. I know I don’t even know you. But I can’t get you involved in my problems, okay? There’s already been too many people hurt. If something happened to you, if you got hurt, too…” He shook his head. He couldn’t think about it. “When this is over,” he said. “When this is over, I’ll find you.”

Robin had taken her hand away. She held her cup up to her mouth and repeated the question. “Who’s blackmailing you, John?”

Her tone had changed. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint how, but it reminded him of the guards in prison, the way they asked a question knowing that you had to answer them or they’d throw you in the hole.

He said, “It’ll all be settled soon.”

“How’s that?”

“I’m just taking care of it,” he told her. “I can’t say anything else about it right now.”

“You’re not going to tell me anything?”

“Nope,” he told her.

“Are you sure, John?”

She was so serious. He gave her a questioning smile, said, “Let’s talk about something else.”

“I need you to talk to me,” she said. “I need to know what’s going on.”

“What’s this all about?”

“It’s about your life, John. Can’t you be up-front with me?”

The hairs on the back of his neck went up. “I don’t like where this is going.”

Robin put down her mug. She stood up, her expression turning hard. “I tried to help you. Remember that.”

“Come on,” he said, not knowing what he’d done wrong. “Robin-”

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see the man in the three-piece suit standing behind him.

John said, “What’s going on?”

The man looked at Robin, so John did, too.

“I’m sorry, John,” she said, and she really seemed to be, but he did not know why. She reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet. Stupidly, he thought she was going to pay the bill. He opened his mouth to tell her not to worry about it, but by then he caught the glint of gold as she flipped open her badge.

As if he couldn’t see for himself, she told him, “I’m a cop.”

“Robin-”

“It’s Angie, actually.” The man behind him tightened his hand on John’s shoulder. “Let’s do this outside.”

“No…” John could feel his body starting to shake, his muscles turning to liquid.

“Outside,” she ordered, her hand digging up under his arm, making him stand.

He walked like an invalid, leaning against her as the man opened the door. The Decatur cops had done the same thing to him when they had dragged him out of his bedroom. They had taken him down the stairs, into the front yard and cuffed him in front of the whole neighborhood. Somebody had screamed, and when he looked behind him, he realized it was his mother. Emily had fallen to her knees, Richard not even trying to hold her up, as she sobbed.

The sun in the parking lot outside the diner was brutal, and John blinked. He realized he was panting. Jail. They were taking him to jail. They’d take away his clothes, strip-search him, fingerprint him, throw him in a cell with a bunch of other men who were just waiting for John to show back up, waiting to show him exactly what they thought about a child-raping con who couldn’t make it on the outside.

“Will.” She was talking to the man behind John. “Don’t.”

John saw the silver cuffs the man held in his hand.

“Please…” John managed. He couldn’t breathe. His knees buckled. The last thing he saw was Robin moving forward to break his fall.