Page 33 of Keep

I would have liked to tell her no, that it wasn’t possible. A few days ago I would have been able to do so without hesitation. Now I wasn’t sure. And the conflict was eating me up inside.

How do you deal with the possibility that someone you loved and trusted your whole life might have done terrible things?

I didn’t know the answer to that anymore than I knew how to answer Cami’s question so I kissed my wife and said, “I’ll wrap up your bacon so you can eat it on the road.”

When Cami was gone I tried to call Andy but it went straight to voicemail. After ordering daisies to be delivered to Cami’s cousin in celebration of her homecoming, I pulled up another contact on my phone.

Chase Gentry would probably be home unless he was teaching summer school. We hadn’t spoken since my wedding, unless you count the brief condolences he offered at Hale’s funeral. Chase had been my friend and mentor long before I met Cami. He was the kind of teacher that kids remembered when they became adults and got to thinking about the people who’d helped steer them toward the right path. I’d seen him with his own boys many times and admired the relationship they had, the kind I wished I’d had with my own father.

I stared at his name for a moment then slowly put the phone back in my pocket. I was sure I owed him a call, if for no other reason than to break the ice and reassure him that I didn’t bear any grudge against Derek. I truly didn’t want Chase’s son to go to prison. That wouldn’t bring Hale back. And I was concerned that young Thomas had stopped coming to the field. But the fact remained that I had a few things of my own to sort out before I could do any good elsewhere.

First and foremost, I had to figure out who the hell my brother had been.

With that in mind I snatched my keys, locked up and drove straight to Hale’s apartment. Cami had called the landlord already and was told the apartment was paid up through the end of the month so I’d put off the task of figuring out what to do with Hale’s belongings.

Typically Hale preferred to visit me at my place so I’d only been to his south Phoenix apartment once though he’d lived there for over a year. The building was within sight of the interstate, a small brick complex with faded turquoise accents. It looked like it hadn’t been updated in forty years. The office was little more than a closet with an unoccupied desk strewn with potato chip crumbs and a tarnished silver bell. A television echoed from somewhere, one of the Star Wars movies from the sound of it. I rang the bell and waited for someone to materialize.

After a series of slow shuffles accompanied by grunts and a single fart blast, a squat figure in the shape of a man appeared and limped over to the desk. A few strands of greasy hair were combed across his pink scalp and his features resembled a half melted clay doll but when he spoke his voice was clear and cheerful.

“Yes sir, can I help you?”

“I hope so. You might have spoken to my wife a few days ago. I’m Dalton Tremaine. My brother was-“

“Hale,” he finished with a sad nod, the cheer gone from his voice. “So you’re Hale’s brother. The baseball player, right?”

“Used to be.”

The man clucked to himself. “I was damn sorry to hear about what happened. Hale was a character. Always made me laugh whenever he stopped by. After I got my knee replaced six months back I couldn’t get around so good. Hale would come by with groceries twice a week and I never even asked him to. He just did it because he was that kind of guy.” He extended a hand. “I’m Phil by the way.”

I shook his hand and didn’t even mind the sweaty palm. “Good to meet you.”

Phil opened the top drawer of the messy desk and it sounded like he was sorting through a pile of nails. They weren’t nails though. They were keys. He found the one he wanted and held it up.

“I suppose you want to get inside his place?”

“I would, if that’s all right.”

“I don’t see why not. You were the only family he ever talked about and I’m guessing the cops already found or didn’t find whatever they were looking for.”

“The cops? They searched Hale’s apartment already?”

“Yeah, I wasn’t here. My cousin’s kid works the desk part time and he’s about as sharp as cotton. Day before yesterday he mentions he found some dude trying to work the lock on Hale’s place. Man says he’s an undercover cop and my cousin’s damn kid goes and gets him the key. So I ask him, did you see a badge or a warrant or anything and he just looked at me like I was talking Russian and shrugged.”

He tossed me the key. “You feel free to go take a look. They fucked everything up pretty good. Furniture’s pretty well ruined but that would have stayed with the building anyway. Take your time and let me know if I can help you carry anything out.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Number two oh eight, right?”

Phil nodded and lowered himself into the desk chair, which looked inadequate for the task. “You got it.”

I thanked Phil again and headed for the stairs up to Hale’s apartment while thinking about what the man had said. I was bothered, partly by the idea that someone who may or may not have been a cop had already searched my brother’s apartment, but mostly because of the way Phil had described Hale. How could a man extend such kindness to his disabled landlord one day and participate in condemning young women to a life of miserable violence the next? It was enough to chill the blood, the concept that anyone might be so duplicitous.

No, it couldn’t be true. And somewhere there had to be proof. I just had to find it.

Indeed Hale’s place had been ransacked. He didn’t have a habit of acquiring and keeping possessions in the first place, preferring a nomadic existence for much of his adult life. But his clothes had been dumped out of the drawers, the bed sheets pulled off, the brown sofa cushions ripped open. All in all, it looked like a few wolverines had been set loose inside to have a tempter tantrum. There were a few papers on the floor beside the bedroom dresser and I crouched down to examine them. There was nothing noteworthy, some bank statement pages that didn’t include critical information, a menu from a local Mexican restaurant and a Circle K receipt for a bottle of tequila.

A sudden chill traveled up my spine. It was probably just a side effect of being here, like a piece of my soul sensed Hale looking over my shoulder.

Something under the dresser caught my eye and I pulled the object out. It wouldn’t have captured the interest of anyone who’d been here searching for money or drugs or incriminating evidence. It was just an old picture cased on one of those cheap metallic frames that are sold in drugstores for ninety nine cents.

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