I spent the better part
of an hour finding, and retrieving, the duffle bags. Just as I was about to
dive in and begin tossing shovelfuls of the loose dirt over my shoulder, I
realized that a disturbed garden would look suspicious if, and when, Schott and
Berger came back to Kerry’s house. I sneaked back to my shed and found an old
golf club, one I didn’t mind ruining (my game has been in the pits lately,
anyway) and used a hacksaw to cut the head off the three-wood.
I used the makeshift
rod to poke around in the dirt, hoping I’d be able to find the money before I
started digging in order to minimize the visual damage.
Smart, huh? The
Pendragons have a long history of being creative, inventive types. Some would
say that Gutenberg stole the printing press idea from one of my ancestors.
They would be right. History has a way of neglecting facts. Edison versus
Tesla comes to mind.
It took longer than
expected and I hate to admit it, because I don’t want to tarnish her reputation
any further, but the thought crossed my mind that Kerry had been lying.
Finally, I hit pay
dirt.
Pun intended. That was
too easy.
I bent down and
carefully dug up each tomato and green bean plant and set them to the side,
then removed the duffle bags from their grave. Buried by Kerry, when Kerry
herself would soon be buried. This minor coincidence or connection, whatever
you want to call it, hit too close to home. I had trouble breathing.
I think I’m going to
skip ahead here. You don’t need to hear about how heavy each bag was (about
twenty-two pounds, if you must know, all in hundred-dollar bills) or about how
the garden looked perfectly coiffed and untouched by the time I was finished.
I buried two trash bags
stuffed with crumpled newspaper to replace the bulk of the duffle bags. I took
a pink dahlia from her flowerbed and buried it underneath the southeast
corner. Strange, I know, but it was more of an “I’ll see you later” than a
goodbye. I said a prayer, too. God and I are on speaking terms (not like
that—I don’t hold myself in such high regard) but it’s more of a one-way
conversation and, more often than not, I question whether he’s actually up
there listening. I’m conflicted. Yet, I’m sure he heard me, regarding Kerry.
I’d rather believe he did than he didn’t.
And besides, I
pleaded. It’s such a rare event, I knew he’d be more inclined to pay
attention.
I stashed the money in
my basement, under three bags of clothes I’d been meaning to take to charity.
Two million dollars,
right? Readily accessible. Would you take any of it? Maybe sneak a hundred
into your wallet? Who would know? Who would care? If I had my way, Harry
DeShazo would never, ever see the money again, so what would it matter if a
hundred bucks went missing, especially considering I planned to either burn it
or make DeShazo choke on it?
I thought about it. I
could’ve used it. I’d never seen that kind of money before. Hell, only once
in my life had I held more than five hundred bucks in my hands.
Bachelor party. Don’t
ask.
I left every bit of
Kerry’s stolen cash zipped and hidden.
Her death had already
ripped my soul into two fragments and taken one half with her to the
afterlife. I wasn’t about to tarnish the remaining half by pinching her blood
money.
At about a quarter past
four a.m., totally exhausted, I passed out on the couch. I woke up six hours
later, cramped, brokenhearted, with Sparkle dozing on my chest.
A new day without her.
A day she should’ve seen.
I fed Sparkle. I fed
myself.
He ate like it was his
last meal on Earth.
I ate like each bite of
oatmeal was made of sand.
Showered, shaved, and
dressed, it never occurred to me that I was late for work until I checked my
messages. I didn’t bother calling Thrifty back. Somehow my punctual, spotless
record didn’t matter anymore. Not without my beacon to guide me.
I also had a message
from Thomas, checking in, asking if I was ready to get started.
I didn’t call him back,
either. Instead, I trudged upstairs, lost.
So many directions to
take but with one clear path: vengeance.
As I sat down at my
desk, I glanced out the upstairs window and looked fondly into her backyard.
It wasn’t creepy—I was having a moment—but I thought about all the times I’d
seen her back there, on the phone, sunbathing, drinking tea, reading a book.
The hours I’d spent watching her, absentmindedly, as I researched all the ways
I might fight Shayna in court in hopes of winning back my rights to be a father
to Smoke and Shade.
I’d never have one of
those days again. I’d never have a chance to make new memories of her.
Again, I have to ask
you, are those the words of a wretch? Just think it over a bit and then get
back to me. It’s important for me to know that while I may have my
failings—simple ones that I’ll readily admit to—I need to know that you don’t
fully believe I’m a despicable person like Shayna claims. I’m sure I’ve proven
time and again that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. If you met her,
you’d see.
As trite as it sounds,
I sighed. Like, really
sighed
. Just a great, heaving gust of air that
emptied my lungs, taking a lot of pent up emotion with it. I had failed. It
was time to acknowledge the fact and move forward with my redemption.
On my laptop, I opened
a web browser and typed “Harry DeShazo”
and
“
asshole” into the
search bar, then deleted “asshole.” While that may have been what I actually
wanted to search for, I needed a broader range of results.
I got thousands of
them.
The first ten told me
everything necessary. Quotes from newspaper articles, both before and after he
was acquitted of securities fraud, an unsecured Facebook profile, a number of
stock-trading tutorials on YouTube, ancestry records that may or may not have
been the same guy, and yes, even a record of a Harry DeShazo placing nineteenth
out of two hundred and forty-seven in his male age group for the Mean Green
Shamrock St. Patty’s Day 10K.
Here’s what I learned,
starting with the articles:
He was fifty-seven
years old, married, with no children, and as Kerry had said, a former employee
of Goldman Sachs. He had been accused and acquitted of securities fraud in
1997 and allowed to stay on at Goldman.
According to one
article, he’d used his own money (not his clients’) and bet correctly when the
housing bubble burst, making over a hundred million dollars. He’d reinvested
most of it, donated a measly thousand bucks to the Humane Society, a fact he
seemed immensely proud of, and then had been subsequently accused of pilfering
bailout funds. No charges were filed.
After that, he’d been
gently nudged out of Goldman, started his own firm, and then closed it six
months later. I couldn’t find a reason why, but from what I’d unearthed, I
wouldn’t put it past him to have Ponzi-schemed his client base and disappeared.
Of course, there was no
mention of his connection to Kerry Parker or January Nicole Oliver. Did you
expect there would be? I didn’t, either. If what she said in her diary was
true, and I had no reason to disbelieve her, then she was one of many
playthings that Harry DeShazo liked to keep on the side.
An afterthought.
At least until she’d
stolen his pocket change. She hadn’t said when she gave him a dose of his own
medicine, but it had to have been sometime before she had moved in next door.
I moved on to his
YouTube videos and got my first decent image of the wretch.
(Takes one to know one,
huh?)
He was tanned with a
depth of brown that I envied. Good-looking, but not handsome. There’s a difference.
Reasonably trim, I’d say, probably from running, with a full head of dark, dyed
hair. Fancy suit, fancy tie, and, get this, a pinky ring. How generic can you
get? I spent about thirty minutes watching his videos, listening to him
blather on about the intricacies of the stock market and how he promised to
turn anyone watching into a billion-trillion-gazillionaire if they would
consider investing with him.
Actually, “consider” is
the wrong word. He practically threatened destitution if you didn’t give him
everything you had stashed under your mattress or in a coffee can out back.
Plebeians, all of us, because we are totally inept at managing our own
savings. Instead, hand it over in a greasy paper bag and let someone steal it
from you. You’d be doing the same thing by attempting to do it on your own,
according to DeShazo.
I’d seen enough. I
flipped over to his Facebook profile. It hadn’t been updated in months. Maybe
he’d been too busy hunting Kerry to tell his four hundred and two friends that
he’d just had the
BEST MOCHA LATTE EVER!
His last post had been a photo
from the top of a snowy mountain. He was bundled up in this sort of bulbous
black and green jacket, holding a set of poles and skis, standing next to a
middle-aged, attractive, big-nosed woman that might have been his wife. Well,
I suppose it
had
to be his wife, because I doubt he’d have been
audacious enough to post pictures, on Facebook, of himself with one of his many
mistresses.
In the upper right
corner of the photo, it was dated “1/1/2012,” which would’ve been around the
time Kerry moved in. The caption underneath read, “Mt. Bachelor – with Denise
DeShazo.”
They were smiling.
They looked happy. I wondered if she knew how much of an asshole he was. I
wondered if she
did
know and was just as big of an asshole for allowing
him to get away with everything. Maybe Kerry had been mistaken and
Denise
DeShazo
wanted her dead, instead of Harry. So many possibilities.
Whatever the case, I
felt bile singeing the back of my throat. Let me tell you this:
evil
lurked behind those way-too-white teeth.
I went through the rest
of his pictures.
“Seashell Sands, Virgin
Islands – with Denise DeShazo.”
“Hog’s Breath Saloon,
Key West – with Denise DeShazo.”
An internet search
revealed that Mt. Bachelor was just outside of Bend, Oregon. And you’re
familiar with the Virgin Islands and Key West, no doubt.
Honestly, I could go on
and on about DeShazo, but he’s not worth your time, or mine. Besides, after
two hours of digging up dirt on the man (jerk? dickweed? beast?) I was
already sick of him. As if I hadn’t been before. His online profile, the
readily available information, gave me enough background to realize that Kerry
had been telling the truth, and he deserved whatever fate I could lay upon him.
I got up from my desk,
walked over to the window, and was in the process of dialing Thomas’s number
when a flash of white in her backyard caught my eye.
A man, intruding.
White polo shirt, light brown khakis. At first I thought it might have been
Schott or Berger, back for another round of investigating, or maybe her father
coming to retrieve some of her things, but no. He moved from the deck, to the
shed, over to the garden where he stood with his arms crossed. He bent down,
grabbed a handful of dirt, then flung it into the yard. When he stood up, he
put his hands on his hips and shook his head.
I couldn’t take it
anymore. Strangers
were not
allowed to encroach on my territory.
Take that how you
will. “My
territory” sounds like some pitiful attempt at ownership of
everything that belonged to The After Kerry. Or maybe jealousy. It’s not.
What I mean is, I still had work to do, and as complicated as the situation
was, I didn’t need another tangent screwing with my duty to make things right
for her.
I flung my window open
and leaned out headfirst. “Hey!”
He looked up and shaded
his eyes. “Hey, yourself.”
“Who are you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah, it does.
What’re you doing down there?”
“What’re you doing up
there?”
“Looking at somebody
that shouldn’t be where he is.”
“I shouldn’t? Why’s
that?”
“Because I said so.”
“You the neighborhood
police or something?”
“I might be.”
“I doubt that.”
“You got about ten
seconds to tell me who you are, or I’m calling the police.”
“I’m a friend.”
“Right. My turn.
I
doubt that
.”
“I don’t want any
trouble, Steve. I’m just here to pay my respects.”
“How do you know my
name?”
“You wanna come down
here? This is stupid, this yelling back and forth.”
“Don’t move. Stay
right there.”
For the second time in two
days, I sprinted out of my house, across the front porch, and hurdled the
railing and honeysuckle bush.
By the time I squeezed
around the hedgerow and ran into her backyard…can you guess what happened?