She said, “I’m a big-time fugitive, Cody.”
Right away I started getting hard again, but she acted like she didn’t notice.
I told her I had a girlfriend but it wasn’t serious. “She’s a teacher, too. AP English, same as you. Only it’s a charter school.”
Ms. Chase smiled and gave me a long kiss. I had a joint so we smoked it. The car smelled like McDonald’s fries because that’s all she ate the whole way from Sarasota. She said she didn’t waste time in sit-down restaurants—she wanted to get to Oklahoma as fast as possible and track me down.
Her hair looked different because she got platinum highlights so nobody would recognize her from the Wanted poster, which I’d never seen but then I hardly ever get to the post office.
“There’s a big wild world out there, Cody. Are you ready to take the ride?”
“See, they just promoted me to assistant manager.”
“Congratulations.”
“But the boss, he’s a major dickbrain.”
She said, “Life is but the blink of an eye. This is what you’ll learn.”
I apologized for how the trial went down, what I said about her on the witness stand. Ms. Chase said she understood and forgave me totally. I was under major pressure at the time—it was my parents who made me testify and turn over all the stuff I wrote about our love affair. My mom read every page of the diary but she didn’t get most of it, thank God. She literally asked me what a “back-door job” was. I made up something about sneaking into a club.
Ms. Chase wanted to know if I’d ever got married, and my answer was almost but not quite. She told me her husband’s a retired doctor with gobs of money. He knew she was running from the law but he proposed to her anyway, which I totally understand. She said he’s much older than her and also he’s kind of a perv. He likes to beat off while he’s got a belt or electric cord around his neck, which I’ve heard of but sure never tried.
“Who are you reading these days?” she asked.
I told her I’ve sort of gotten away from books and more into Xbox.
“Oh, Cody,” she said, and I took it as a cut.
She told me it was time to start thinking big, so I pointed at my all-world woody and asked, “You mean big like this?” She laughed and gave it a squeeze, which got my hopes flying, but then she started talking about inner journeys and the hand of fate.
I kept trying to pull off her skinny jeans but she wouldn’t go for it. She did unbutton her top, which was pretty sweet. There were more freckles than I remembered but who cares.
“Don’t you have any big dreams?” she asked, but offhand I couldn’t come up with any.
“Well, you should, Cody. You’re a sharp young man, an A student back in the day.”
It’s not easy to have a seriously deep conversation when you’ve got a purple hard-on that could cut a diamond. I told Ms. Chase there was a new Chipotle’s opening up on North Utica and I was thinking about putting in for day manager.
“No,” she said. “You’re coming with me.”
And that’s what I did.
Yancy handed the transcript back to Montenegro, who said the sheriff’s office was holding the iPad on which the diary was stored. One of the road deputies had confiscated it from the rental car.
“I knew that fuckwit was keeping a journal,” Yancy said. “Should I go see Bonnie?”
The lawyer said he didn’t care. “Bonnie’s not her name, dude.”
“Well, ‘Plover’ is unacceptable. I can’t bring myself to say it.”
“And you had no knowledge of her true identity while you were balling her?”
“The last time we were together is the first time she told me.”
“And of course you felt no obligation to notify the police—or your long-suffering counsel.” Montenegro rubbed both hands on his shaven orb. He was more expansive than usual but no less jaundiced. “I probably could get her six months and probation for the arson, if she wasn’t already on the lam for a sex felony. Oklahoma hasn’t decided whether to extradite, but I spoke to an Agent Weiderman—”
“Yes, we’ve met,” Yancy said.
“Not a bad guy. We discussed the problems with the Tulsa case, now that Mr. Parish intends to become a published author. This new diary of escapades won’t be helpful to the prosecution.”
“Listen, should I go see her or not?”
“You’re not as pissed as I thought you’d be.”
“I am highly pissed. Supremely pissed.”
“She’s determined to plead insanity,” Montenegro said. “Says she torched the house only because she was deranged by her passion for you. Another celestial mystery, but there you fucking have it.”
“For Christ’s sake, Monty, she’s not insane.”
“How would you know? I mean, of all people.” The lawyer yawned. “See what you set in motion, Andrew, by sleeping with this unreliable person. The dominoes continue to fall—on my desk, unfortunately.”
“Have you talked to Bonnie’s husband?”
“The board-certified physician you assaulted at Mallory Square? Seems like eons ago. No, I haven’t spoken to Dr. Witt because he’s presently in ICU at Sarasota Memorial Hospital exhibiting the cognitive capacity of an artichoke. He was found nude from the waist down, hanging from a peewee basketball hoop at the local Kiwanis park. This was four-thirty a.m., some rookie cop called it in as a suicide attempt, which it wasn’t. The bottle of virgin olive oil being a key clue. Also, the cashmere choke collar.”
“Is he going to die?” Yancy asked.
“The family says the doctor’s chances for recovery are about the same as the chances of him paying for his estranged wife’s legal defense, which is to say remote. Go see her if you want but, here, read this first.”
It was more lovesick rubbish from Cody Parish.
Dear Diary,
Ms. Chase is gone! She left the Best Western to take a walk, and came back in a rental car. I begged her to stay but I could only watch helplessly as she packed her bag.
“Don’t you love me anymore?” I cried.
She touched my cheek and said, “Darling, where’s my shampoo and conditioner?”
“Darling”? Seriously?
My whole world was crashing down. How could she take my heart in her hands and choke it like a baby bunny rabbit?
The last time we made love I knew something wasn’t right because she didn’t make a sound. Also, she didn’t move her butt very much, which isn’t like her. I asked what’s wrong, princess, and she said nothing’s wrong, everything’s beautiful.
But that night in bed I had a horrible feeling she was thinking about someone else. It had to be Andrew, the man she was with before she came back to Tulsa and took me away. He’s got some hot new girlfriend now and I think Ms. Chase is jealous. Supposedly the girlfriend is a doctor, like Ms. Chase’s husband, and maybe that screwed with her head, too.
Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe she just went batshit crazy which can happen when the monthly hormones take over. I’ve seen it before, and watch out!
All I know is I’ve lost my true soul mate. Yes, she was an outlaw and a schizo but I loved her anyway—and I would have stayed glued by her side until the law hunted us down. Every day on the road with Ms. Chase was wild lust and adventure, and I don’t regret one single moment.
If she showed up on my doorstep tomorrow I’d take her back in a heartbeat, and no man alive would blame me. I’d go through the fires of Hell and follow her anywhere, except back to Tulsa because I am seriously done with the Olive Garden.
Like the book says, you can’t go homeward angel. And by God I’m not.
Yancy drove out to the detention center on Stock Island, a place where as a detective he’d interviewed numerous inmates though never a former lover. He was friends with the duty officer, so he and Bonnie had a room to themselves. She was excited to see him and disappointed by his chilly reponse.
“Andrew, why are you looking at me like that? It’s just a f
ire. Nobody died.”
“You’re right. It’s not like you burned down an orphanage.”
“Please, there’s no cause for sarcasm.”
Her county jumpsuit was the same blaze orange as Nick Stripling’s poncho. She wore the braided pigtails but the jailers had taken away her lip gloss.
“You think they’re recording us?” she said, looking around for a video camera.
Yancy said no. The phone calls usually got taped but he wasn’t sure about visitations.
“Cody wants to come see me, too, but Mr. Montenegro says absolutely not.”
“Why did you do this, Bonnie? So much drama.”
“Oh please. It was all for you. Don’t pretend like you don’t get it, or I’ll really be upset.”
“But I truly don’t get it.”
“You were right about Cody,” she said. “He was keeping a secret journal of everything we did, just like before. His notion is to do a book and get rich. He thinks he can write, which I suppose is my fault for building him up so much in class. But isn’t that what teachers are supposed to do? I didn’t know he would peak in eleventh grade! At first I was livid about the new diary, but then Mr. Montenegro said it’s good for my case in Oklahoma because they’d have to charge him with aiding a fugitive, which would be messy for the prosecutors.”
“Because he’s supposed to be the victim,” Yancy said.
“Exactly, Andrew. The boy I supposedly corrupted.”
“Here’s the thing: They don’t need Cody’s testimony to convict you for bail jumping. Also, Bonnie, this arson? Major felony. Nobody gets a free pass if they torch a home.”
“Insane people do. Eighteen months of treatment, then we can be together again. I’ve done my research.”
“Insanely jealous isn’t the same as clinically insane.” Yancy impatiently drummed two fingers on the table. “Why am I even bothering with this conversation? You are somewhat nuts, I’ll give you that. But no judge in Florida would let you walk.”
“I miss you so much, darling. Did you hear about Cliff strangling himself?”
“Yes, it was an inconsiderate choice of venue. The Kiwanians do good work.”
“He probably took me out of his will when I ran off with Cody. Not that I care about the money.”
“You and the doctor are still legally married. He dies tomorrow, you’ll get half the estate.” Yancy winked at her. “Not that you care.”
“God, when did you get so mean?”
“Ever since I drove down my street and saw flames shooting into the sky.”
She reached across the table and pinched him hard. “Why are you being like this? It was your idea—don’t you dare say you don’t remember. I did this for you!”
Yancy said, “Okay, now you are officially in lunar orbit.”
“It was that night at your place when we were lying out on the deck. You put the blanket down—that wool blanket that smelled like a wet puppy—then we smoked a number and drank a bottle of cabernet.” Bonnie’s jaw was working and she was squeezing her hands together.
“We went out there to make love and watch the moon set over the Gulf, right? You said it was the most peaceful sight imaginable, a golden spring moon. But then it turned out that guy’s new house was in the way.”
Yancy lowered his forehead to the table. “You can’t be serious.”
“It was so tall it blocked out the whole arc of the moon,” she went on. “You got real sad and then super angry, and that’s when you turned to me and said—”
“I oughta burn that fucking house down.”
“See, you do remember!”
“Word for word,” Yancy muttered to the tabletop.
The worst day of Evan Shook’s existence began when he sent a text message to his wife that read: “See you in Miami tonight. Don’t forget to bring our little friend!”
Mrs. Evan Shook was perplexed because she had no plans to visit him in Florida, engrossed as she was with hosting a cocktail party (including finger food) for the Republican Women’s Club of Greater Syracuse. Nor did she understand her husband’s reference to “our little friend,” which was actually a jackrabbit vibrator belonging to his mistress, the intended recipient of the text.
Only when his wife called to accuse him of arranging illicit threesomes did Evan Shook realize his calamitous typing mistake. She said she’d been hearing lurid rumors of his cheating ways, and now she had proof! It so happened that one of the most feared divorce lawyers in the tri-state region would be attending that night’s fund-raiser, and Evan Shook’s wife said she planned to fuck him and then hire him.
Against such a blindsiding Evan Shook rustled up what he regarded as a passable defense: The text had been meant for Ford Lipscomb, the “little friend” being a cashier’s check to cover construction overruns on the Keys house. This yarn was rejected with savage derision. Evan Shook’s wife advised him to hang on to his shriveled little nuts because she and her new attorney were coming with a blowtorch.
“And a Brink’s truck,” she added, and hung up.
So it was understandable that Evan Shook was preoccupied as he headed to Big Pine for a meeting with a landscape architect retained by Mrs. Lipscomb, also en route. On the highway his Suburban was passed by two speeding fire engines that normally would have aroused his curiosity, but he remained fogged with gloom. No internal alarms went off as he turned onto Key Deer Boulevard and saw the smoke; he thought it was just some redneck burning tires.
A green Sebring convertible went flying past in the opposite direction, and that’s when Evan Shook’s senses stirred: The woman at the wheel of the car was his next-door neighbor’s stalker. Suddenly the billowing plume held promise, and Evan Shook drove faster. He’d never made that pledged phone call to Agent John Wesley Weiderman, never reported his encounter with the pretty fugitive on Yancy’s backyard deck.
And he never would.
By the time he came around the corner of the block, Evan Shook was completely prepared to see a house on fire. He was not, however, expecting the house to be his own.
The first words from his lips were “Fuck me!” It was not an unapt metaphor for what had occurred, and he would repeat it often to no one in particular. The spec house was, in the parlance of professional firefighting, fully engulfed.
Impressive were the efforts to save it but everything except the slab was raw fuel, from the wooden baseboards to the wooden trusses. Evan Shook positioned himself upwind, leaning against one of the fire trucks and watching in a funereal stupor as the walls of his island investment buckled and turned to ash.
Mrs. Lipscomb showed up sobbing in the company of her landscaper, whose shared grief was triggered by the loss of a lucrative contract. Next to arrive on scene was Agent Weiderman, who provided the police with the name, description and automobile information of the suspected arsonist. Twenty minutes later Evan Shook was informed by a sweaty road sergeant that Plover Chase had been captured at a roadblock on Summerland Key. Four empty jerry cans smelling of gasoline were recovered from the trunk of her rental.
In the growing crowd Evan Shook recognized his insurance agent, who was scampering around snapping photographs. Although the site was covered for fire loss, Evan Shook couldn’t recall the numerical terms of the policy, specifically the payoff limits. He was morbidly aware of how much of his own money he’d sunk into the property, and additionally what he owed on the mortgage and construction loan. Even with the insurance check he could lose his ass. All that remained would be a pile of charred rubble and a bare lot, which Evan Shook undoubtedly would be forced to surrender in the divorce.
The future was nauseating to contemplate. Evan Shook wished he were a clueless bystander, not the victim, so he could enjoy the blaze for the crackling spectacle it was. At some point Agent Weiderman asked if Evan Shook could think of a reason why Plover Chase would torch his house instead of Andrew Yancy’s.
“No idea,” said Evan Shook. “Only thing I ever did to the lady was rent a hotel room for her
and her deadbeat boyfriend.”
“Strange. Wonder why she picked you.”
“There’s the one you should ask!” Evan Shook was pointing at Yancy, who’d just stepped out of his car. He looked genuinely astounded by the sight of the fire.
Evan Shook squirted past the much taller Agent Weiderman and rushed toward Yancy yelling, “This is all your motherfucking fault! Your lunatic girlfriend burned down my house!”
Yancy surprised his neighbor by pinning him somewhat forcefully to the hood of the Subaru. “In the first place,” Yancy said nose to nose, “she couldn’t possibly have done this because she’s in Miami. Secondly, she’s not a lunatic, but on her behalf I’ll accept your heartfelt apology.”
“Not the doctor girlfriend,” Evan Shook wheezed. “The fucked-up blonde. You know which one.”
Yancy righted Evan Shook and set him on the ground like a lawn jockey. Agent Weiderman wedged the men apart and led Yancy away to brief him on the improbable particulars of the crime. Evan Shook was so upset that when the phone vibrated in his pants, he pulled out the stun gun by mistake and nearly Tazed his own ear.
After successfully extracting his cell he heard the voice of Ford Lipscomb:
“Jayne told me what happened, Evan. It’s so terrible, truly awful.” He was calling from the Gulf Stream aboard the Misty Momma IV, which he’d chartered for the day.
“It’s heartbreaking for us,” he continued, “but poor you! Good God, man, you must be in shock.”
“Something like that,” said Evan Shook.
“Jayne’s completely devastated. I just spoke with her and she says the place is still burning—they couldn’t save anything.”
Evan Shook whimpered to himself. Three firefighters were chopping at a smoldering portico. “Is this about your deposit, Mr. Lipscomb?”
“No rush,” he said. “Tomorrow’s fine. Whenever the banks open.”
Twenty-seven