The Best Revenge Read online

  “At least let me come in while you check the house.”

  “Ira? What are you going to do? You would faint if it turned out that there was someone in there. I’m better off doing it by myself. I’ll be fine. Call me tomorrow, okay?”

  After a moment, he answered, “Whatever you want.”

  She watched Ira drive away before she continued her search. She walked on until she was at least a hundred feet past her own driveway and spotted two more cigarette butts, one in the dirt, the other floating on top of some dried grass like a golf ball perched on a tee. Both were the same brand and both had filters. These two butts—one burnt all the way down to the filter, the other almost—weren’t disintegrating from exposure to the elements. These were fresh. She stuck her right hand inside one plastic bag and used her protected fingers to lift the butts from the lane and drop them in a second bag.

  Methodically, she walked a wide perimeter around where she was guessing that the Toyota truck had been parked. She crisscrossed the space in between the perimeter lines, her eyes on the lookout for any clue as to who might have been in the truck. But she ended her search after finding nothing but the two cigarette butts and some tire prints in the dust.

  Flashlight in hand, she walked around the outside of her house, examining every opening for signs of forced entry. She flashed the beam on the entire length of the electrical line as it snaked from the post on the lane to her house. She did the same with the phone line and even examined the natural gas pipe that led into and out of her gas meter. She didn’t see a thing that would indicate that whoever had been in that truck had approached her house or tampered with anything.

  Kelda retraced her steps down the lane and retrieved her car. She parked it in the usual place beneath the twin elms.

  Her legs were on fire by the time she slid the key into her back door and entered her house. The alarm sounded as it always did. Her Sig still at the ready, she shut the alarm down and searched the interior of her home as though she was certain that it had been invaded.

  Ten minutes later she felt confident that there was no one there. And that no one had been there.

  She stripped off her clothes, pulled on some short cotton pajamas, flicked on the swamp cooler and the ceiling fan, and shut all the window coverings before she grabbed two bath towels and six bags of frozen peas. She was only halfway done arranging the peas and towels on her bed when the phone rang. Caller ID said “Private.”

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Kelda? It’s Tom Clone.”

  “Yes?” Her shoulders slumped.

  “Is this a bad time?”

  She mouthed a profanity, but said, “What’s up, Tom?” She tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder while she completed the placement of the peas and the careful folding of the towels on her bed.

  “I think somebody broke into my grandfather’s house.”

  “What?”

  “There’s been some weird stuff going on since I got here. The past day or so especially. I’m thinking somebody’s been in the house.”

  “Why don’t you call the Boulder Police? I’m sure they’ll be happy to help you out. Just dial 911.”

  “I don’t really want to get involved with the police. I hope you can understand why.”

  The subtext of Tom’s call was suddenly clear to Kelda. Involuntarily, her mind formed a picture of Ira. It developed slowly in her head, like an old Polaroid bubbling to life.

  “I can’t help you, Tom. I’m a federal agent. What you’re describing is not an FBI problem, it’s a local one.”

  “I’m not asking for your official help, Kelda. I’m just, I don’t know, I guess I’m kind of paranoid. Wondered if you’d look around, unofficially. Let me know if you think I’m being crazy. I don’t know who else to call.”

  Wistfully, she stared at the towels. Imagined the peas releasing their chill into her legs.

  Ira.

  She shook her head and sighed. “It’ll take me at least twenty minutes to get there.”

  “I really appreciate it.”

  “See you soon,” she said. With the same reluctance that an alcoholic feels when recorking a bottle, she returned the six bags of peas to the freezer, leaving the bath towels in place on the bed.

  Agony twanged in her legs as though the devil himself were playing the cello on her tendons. Before she pulled on some jeans and a soft gray T-shirt, she swallowed a couple of Percocet and wondered how the hell she’d make it through the night, let alone through her week.

  As she walked out the door, she was careful to reset the alarm. She used the thirty-second delay to grab two bags of peas and a couple of kitchen towels. On the drive to Boulder she’d do what she could to freeze away the pain.

  CHAPTER 15

  The trip back to Boulder didn’t take Kelda long. She’d given herself a headache trying to track the headlights that appeared behind her. She didn’t think she’d been followed, but she really wasn’t sure.

  As Kelda parked her Buick by the curb near the end of High Street, the clock on the dashboard clock read 9:06.

  Tom Clone was waiting on the front porch of his grandfather’s house.

  She hooked her purse over her shoulder and began to walk across the narrow lawn. She paused a moment to watch heat lightning illuminate the dark skies of the southeastern horizon like the last gasp of giant sparklers. The sky was clear to the west, which everyone but recent transplants knew meant that this would be another summer night without rain. One of the DJs she’d been listening to on the drive over said that there had apparently been a pretty good hailstorm up north around Greeley, but nothing near Boulder County.

  “Thanks for coming, Kelda,” Tom said. He stood, took a couple of steps forward, and extended a hand to her.

  She stopped five feet from him, at the foot of a couple of flagstone steps. “Hi. So how’s life outside?”

  As he moved into the light, she could see that his hair was wet and concluded that he’d just stepped out of the shower. She made a conscious decision not to take it personally; she didn’t want to think he’d showered just for her visit.

  “Better than life inside.” He touched his clothes—a pair of cargo shorts and a T-shirt—and swept an arm up toward the sky. “I can’t get enough of all this. Do you know I’d forgotten what the night sky looked like? Or how a summer peach smelled. Or what beer tastes like. I’m serious; I’d forgotten what beer tastes like. But the high point so far was that ride home with you. I won’t forget that for a while. I can still remember the way you looked and smelled when I walked out of that prison.”

  At his words, Kelda felt a chill in the base of her spine.

  “That’s nice,” she said. “Listen, it’s late. I have to get back home; I have a full day tomorrow. Why don’t you go ahead and show me what it is that you’re so worried about?”

  “My manners,” he said, ignoring her question. “Can I offer you something? A beer? My grandfather drinks Bud. There’s plenty of that. Some orange juice, too, I think. Maybe something else.”

  “Nothing, thank you. Let’s just get started.”

  “Of course, whatever you would like. Come on out around back. I’ll show you what’s going on.” He led her around the west side of the house and through the gate of a chain-link fence. “I’m not accustomed to a world where I can open and close gates whenever I want to,” he said. “But I think I’m going to like it.”

  Although the lights of downtown sparkled right below them, the back corner of the house was dark, dark enough that she couldn’t see her feet. Kelda’s mind wasn’t far from the burgundy Toyota, and the darkness made her feel especially wary. “Will I need my flashlight back here?” she asked. “I have one in the car.”

  “No,” he replied. “Wait.”

  She adjusted her shoulder bag and checked the slit that allowed her access to her handgun.

  He reached up the wall and slid his fingers into a light fixture. The bulb suddenly flashed on and a harsh yellow light bathed b
oth of them. “That’s exactly how I found it tonight. With the bulb loose. Exact same thing on the other side of the house. Last night these lights were on. Grandpa grilled pork chops and sweet corn for us out here. The lights were both on. I remember.”

  “What else?”

  “This way.” The rear of the house had a cracked concrete patio and some lawn furniture that had somehow managed to get coated with rust despite Colorado’s minuscule humidity. Tom crossed the patio and stood in front of a window that was a double-hung design, maybe two feet by three feet. “This goes to Grandpa’s laundry room, just a little alcove off the kitchen. The screen’s been cut. Look.”

  She stood next to him and could smell his scent. She thought that he might actually be wearing cologne. She shuddered.

  The screen had been sliced so that it could be peeled away from one corner. The cut was too straight to have been accidental. She guessed a razor knife. “Is the window locked from inside?” she asked.

  “Kind of. There’s one of those hook catches on it, but I was able to get it to give by sliding a putty knife in between the two sashes from out here. It would be easy to get inside if you wanted to.”

  Kelda stared at the window for half a minute more before she asked, “Anything else? Anything missing inside?”

  “Not that my grandfather noticed. He’s in bed now. He really wanted to stay up to meet you, but he gets too tired. He said he wanted to shake your hand and give you a kiss and say thanks.”

  Kelda smiled politely. “That’s nice. Tell him thank you for me, but that it’s not necessary. So it’s just the loosened lightbulbs and the cut screen? That’s it?” She tried not to sound dismissive, but she was pretty sure that what her words had ended up saying to Tom wasYou brought me all the way to Boulder for this ?

  “Yes, I guess that’s it. I thought it was important. It looked like somebody had tried to get in and couldn’t, or . . . maybe somebody had done the preparations so that they could get in tonight, or sometime soon.”

  “And why would someone want to get in, Tom?”

  A sharpcraaack snapped behind them, followed by the sound of running through the bushes at the back of the property.

  Tom spun to the noise even faster than Kelda did. After staring into the night for a couple of seconds, he said, “The stupid raccoons are back.” When he turned back to face Kelda, she had her handgun pointed into the darkness.

  “Damn,” he said. “You’re quick with that thing. Where the hell did that come from?” With his eyes he checked her outfit for a holster and didn’t find one. “Did you get that out of your bag that fast?”

  “Raccoons?” she replied.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off the gun. “Do you always draw your gun this much? I’m with you twice and both times you’re like Wyatt Earp or John Dillinger with that thing.”

  “Raccoons?” she repeated.

  “Yeah. Grandpa said that he’s only seen them come all the way up here two or three times in all the years he’s lived here, but with the dry spring they’ve been wandering farther and farther from the creek looking for food. They’re scavengers. They knock over trash cans and eat garbage.”

  She slipped the Sig back into her bag. “Is there a reason why someone would want to get into your grandfather’s house? Does he have valuables? Collectibles? Antiques? Anything like that?”

  Tom considered the question for a moment. She felt that he was taking advantage of the opportunity to stare at her. “He likes marbles. There’s a whole section of wall in his den that’s covered with marbles.”

  “But that’s it? Just marbles?”

  “Pretty much. I don’t think whoever is doing this is after my grandfather’s money.”

  She raised an eyebrow. She meant for her face to ask,Then what the hell are they after?

  “There are people who don’t like that I’m out of prison. Who don’t like that I’m off death row. We’ve gotten phone calls. My attorney has received threats against me and him.”

  Again, Kelda thought about the burgundy Toyota that had followed her home.

  “I’m sure that’s true, that there are people who don’t agree with the decision to let you out of prison,” she said.

  “I think I have to consider the possibility that there may be someone who might try to break in here to get at me.”

  After a moment she said, “That can’t feel too good.”

  “It feels like prison all over again. I’m out. I’m free, but I still have to watch my back.”

  “Well, I’d say you probably do have something to worry about then. I agree with your impression that someone’s been tampering with the house in a way that is consistent with planning an intrusion. I’ll repeat what I said to you on the phone: This is something to take up with the local police. I would guess that Tony Loving would be able to arrange some extra attention for the house in terms of patrols.”

  “Kelda? Look. Like I said, not everybody is happy about me getting out of prison. I’m including the local cops on that list. For right now, I’d rather fly below their radar, you know?”

  She didn’t want to debate police attitudes with Tom Clone. “Does the house have an alarm system?”

  “No.”

  “You might consider it.”

  “My grandfather doesn’t have that kind of money. He’s worried about having enough to pay his property taxes. And I don’t have a job yet.”

  “Then you might want to nail or pin the windows shut. That’s the only way to really secure those old double-hungs.” Kelda knew about double-hung windows. Her little house in Lafayette had them, too. “How are the locks on the doors?”

  “They’re shitty. Only one out of three even has a dead bolt.”

  “That’s your first priority, Tom. Better locks on those doors.”

  “So I should go ahead and build myself a little prison? That’s what you’re suggesting?”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Her legs were on fire. She wanted to leave Boulder and drive home to more frozen peas. “I changed my mind. I will take some of that orange juice, if you don’t mind,” she said as she lowered herself to sit on one of the old patio chairs. Sitting didn’t eliminate her pain, but it changed it. Sometimes, when relief wasn’t possible, the novelty of a fresh perspective on her discomfort was all she could hope for.

  She didn’t tell Tom that she needed the juice to wash down another Percocet. Or two.

  “You okay?” he asked when he returned with the juice.

  She cursed to herself. She didn’t like it when people noticed her pain.

  From someone else, the question might have sounded sympathetic, but for some reason, from Tom Clone, Kelda was left doubting the depth of his compassion. She was wondering if his sensitivity to her pain was something like the radar a bull elephant has for an injured foe or that a shark has for blood.

  She tried to keep the wariness out of her voice as she asked, “What do you mean? I’m fine.” She took the glass from his hand and held it to her lips. She’d swallowed a pill dry while he was gone, and it felt as if it was caught in her throat. She allowed the cool drink to flush it down.

  “Do you know the last thing I did every night when I was inside?” Tom asked.

  She suspected the question was rhetorical. She glanced at him over the rim of her glass, relieved that they were no longer talking about her pain.

  “I tied my cell door shut. When I could steal one, a shoelace worked well. But mostly I used little ropes that I braided out of threads from my blankets or my clothes. But every night, I had to tie the cell door shut or I couldn’t sleep.” He stared at her eyes and nodded slowly. “That’s right, believe it. I locked myself into my very own cell every night.”

  She wondered where he was going with his story.

  “I’m confined in a fucking maximum-security penitentiary and my last act each night is the exact same one that almost every suburban homeowner does. I locked my doors to keep out the bad guys. Except in my case the bad guys weren’t nic
kel-and-dime burglars; they were killers and rapists. The people who wanted into my cell at night were mad dogs.”

  She watched him, but didn’t reply.

  “You’re having trouble being sympathetic, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Um, no.”

  “My point is that I’m accustomed to going to bed scared. I did it every night I was inside. Every single night for thirteen years. And I don’t want to do it anymore. I just don’t want to.”

  “That’s why this is so hard?” She gestured toward the back of the house. “The lightbulbs and the cut screen? Because it means you’re still going to bed scared?”

  “Yeah. I feel like I’m hoarding shoelaces again. Weaving ropes. Tying my cell door shut.”

  “Was that the worst part inside? The fear?” Kelda surprised herself with the question, surprised herself how sincerely she wanted to know the answer.

  “The worst part?” He pointed to the sky. “That’s like asking which part of the night is the blackest. Black is black.”

  Almost involuntarily a tear formed in the corner of her eye. She turned away from him.

  “What did I say? Did I upset you?”

  She turned back. “No. I’m sorry. What you said reminded me of something.” Kelda was thinking about Jones. Thinking about Jones talking about her fears.

  “You’re very pretty.”

  She shook her head in a narrow arc to try to make the compliment go away. She wouldn’t admit it to him, but he still felt like an inmate to her, his flattery like a profanity shouted between the bars.

  He took a step away from her before he spoke again. “I hated the sound the cell doors made when they were shut. I never got used to it. And I hated the footsteps in the halls. The echoes. Everything inside echoed. Everything. And meals? It was just slop in a trough.

  “But it was all black. There was no worst part. No darkest part. All of it was black. I was on death row for a murder I didn’t commit. How could there be a worst part?”

  This was when she was supposed to say, “I’m so sorry.” She didn’t. She struggled to keep her fingertips away from the long muscles in her legs. She thought,We all have our prisons.