The Evil That Men Do Read online

  Lauren came out of the kitchen with the steak sandwich and placed it, a bottle of ketchup, and a glass of iced tea in front of Donne. He took a sip of the tea.

  “The FBI said it’s not terrorists. And it seems very interesting that someone ‘deranged’ picked your restaurant to blow up. At three in the morning. When no one could get hurt.”

  “Deranged people are called deranged for a reason.”

  Donne took a bite of the steak sandwich. Better off taking his time and letting Carter sweat. He appeared shaken up and angry. That wasn’t like the Carter he knew. Then again, his restaurant had just been bombed. That had to be hard to take.

  Donne said, “It just seems like a huge coincidence that your restaurant blows up and two of my relatives are murdered.”

  “Susan told me they were dead. Nothing else. She was too upset. What happened?”

  Donne told him the story, and Carter noticed the bruise on Donne’s head from the gun. As Donne finished the story, Carter buried his head in his hands.

  “Can you leave, please?” he asked. “I’d like to finish my sand—”

  “Get out!”

  Donne put the sandwich down, fixing the silverware into the perfect place setting. He took a twenty out of his wallet and left it on the table. Carter said nothing during the process. Donne stood up and left the restaurant.

  Outside the rain had stopped, and he walked to his car slowly. There was no hurry. He wanted to mull over what had just happened.

  It could be that Carter was just having a bad day. At the same time, Donne’s instinct was telling him otherwise. Carter knew something. He knew why people were dying. And though they hadn’t spoken much, Donne remembered that Carter had been the rock for his sister at tough times. When Donne had gone into rehab. When Jeanne died.

  Suddenly, it all came flooding back. Right there in the middle of Church Street, Donne almost passed out. He realized he hadn’t thought of Jeanne in days.

  They’d been separated for a few months, Donne and Jeanne.

  Who she slept with in that time was her business. But his old partner? Finding that out only months ago had been like going through her death all over again. The short time they had when they got back together was tainted.

  And then she got in the car that night.

  What it must have been like, watching the headlights careening across the double yellow line toward her car. The drunk driver who left the scene of the crime never to be heard from again, empty bottles of scotch on the floor of the car the only clue to his state of mind. She died, and he couldn’t be there to save her. He’d changed his life for her. And in an instant she was gone.

  He got to his car and took a few deep breaths. He needed a drink. Badly.

  ***

  Delshawn Butler’s cell phone rang before he even got out of the park. He looked at the caller ID and picked it up.

  “You want the guy you ran into outside the house, you can have him. Beat the shit out of him,” Hackett said.

  Butler sucked his teeth and gave it some thought. “Yeah, where he at?”

  “He’s leaving Carter’s restaurant.” Hackett described the car the guy had been driving. The same one he saw outside of that East Rutherford house.

  “How do you know it’s him?”

  “I just do.”

  Butler listened, hung up, and went to find his ride. He had some shit to deal with now.

  He found the car pulling onto Valley Road just a few minutes later.

  1938

  Joe Tenant opened the door to his kitchen. It was next to the driveway, and his family never used it, but he was too tired to walk back around to the front door like a “civilized man,” as his wife would say.

  Caroline was scrubbing the dishes in the sink and the kitchen smelled of bacon and maple syrup. She looked up from her work when he closed the door.

  “You’re late this morning. I had to walk Isabelle to school all by myself.”

  He started to apologize, to just say something, but the words wouldn’t come. The lump in his throat was thick, and for a moment he was happy Isabelle was at school already. He wasn’t going to be able to hold back the tears.

  He collapsed into Caroline’s arms, pulled her close to him, and kissed her neck. He didn’t shake when he cried, the tears just rolled down his cheeks and onto the strap of his wife’s apron.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  He didn’t respond. Instead, he kissed her deeply and she responded, pressing her body against his, letting his tongue explore her mouth. She ran her hands through his hair. He lifted her up and carried her to the bedroom.

  ***

  Before he fell asleep, Joe asked Caroline to wake him when she was going to pick up Isabelle. She did at quarter to three. He dressed and walked with her along Hoover toward the tall brick school. It was one of the best features of their house, being only a block from school. Behind them, he noticed a dark Chevy, its motor idling.

  Isabelle was the second to last student out, like she always was. Something about walking in alphabetical order in a line struck Tenant the wrong way. It was like Isabelle was always going to come in last, that the school bred it in her, all because her last name started with T. She was going to have to work just a little bit harder.

  When Isabelle saw Tenant, she screamed, “Daddy!” and embraced him. He lifted her off her feet and held her tight. Thankfully, tears did not come. He put her down and the family walked home together.

  The Chevy still idled across from their house. Two men sat inside it, making no effort to hide. The one in the passenger seat gave Tenant a little wave while Tenant tried to stare them down.

  “Nice kid,” the guy in the car said.

  “Take her inside,” Tenant said to Caroline.

  “What are you going to do?” She had seen the car too. “Just go.”

  She did as she was told, and Joe went up the driveway and opened the trunk of his car. He took out the crowbar he kept inside. Gripping it in his right hand, he crossed the street. He noticed the Chevy’s engine was now shut down.

  They didn’t know what was going to happen until it was too late. Tenant raised the crowbar over his head and brought it down hard on the windshield. The glass crumpled and shattered against the blow. He raised it again and brought it down upon the hood this time. He heard the engine roar to life.

  “Stay the fuck away from my family! I did what you said!” he yelled, bringing the crowbar down twice more.

  The car started to roll and pull away from the curb. Tenant stepped out of its path and threw the crowbar at the bumper. It clattered against the ground. The Chevy was gone.

  ***

  Two hours later, as Tenant dressed for work, he heard the telephone ring. He took it.

  “That was a nice stunt today. Did your wife see it?”

  He gripped the phone tight. He didn’t recognize the voice, but it was definitely Irish.

  “We only wanted to make sure you listened to our threat from the morning. You were in no danger at that moment. However, if you go to the police, if you try another stunt like you pulled this afternoon, you and your family’s safety will be in danger.” The voice trailed off.

  Tenant wasn’t going to put up with this.

  “I told you to stay away from my family,” he said. “Or what you saw from me today was just the beginning.”

  “Then I feel pity for your wife, because she’s married to a dead man. I hope you understand.”

  The line went dead.

  Chapter 11

  Jackson Donne found a dive bar on Valley Road in Montclair. Getting back to New Brunswick and the Tavern would have taken too long, so instead he stopped there. The place was named Tierney’s and was incredibly Irish inside, at least by New Jersey standards. Notre Dame flags, shamrocks, and a “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” sign from the nineties were stapled to the wall. The wooden walls were old and rotting, and other than the bar and barstools, there was only a jukebox.

  When Donne
ordered his beer, the bartender asked him how his day was going. Donne grunted back a response and hoped it was clear there wouldn’t be any more talking. Just good old-fashioned drinking.

  He heard the door to the bar swing open. Whoever came in must have stood there surveying the bar for a minute, because Donne didn’t hear any footsteps at first. When he did, they were short and light, as if the feet were barely touching the floor. The guy sat right next to him. Donne didn’t even look.

  No reason to make eye contact. That might start a conversation.

  Half an hour later, Donne was three beers deep and just starting to get a buzz on. The memories of Jeanne were fading. His nerves were calming; one more beer and he’d be comfortable enough to go home.

  The guy sitting next to him was only on his first beer.

  “Yo, motherfucker, what you say?” He tapped Donne hard on the shoulder.

  Donne half-turned toward him and said, “Nothing. I’m just drinking a beer.”

  “Hey, I said I heard you say something. Now I want to know what it was.” He pushed Donne this time.

  Donne turned fully toward him and took a look at him. He was thick, muscular, and black. In a bar like this, it would be a lie to say he wasn’t noticeable. Especially this early in the afternoon.

  “Look, I don’t know what you’re—” Donne recognized the man from his aunt’s home. It was the guy who had pistol-whipped him. “Oh, fuck,” he managed before taking a right cross to the head.

  He spun off his barstool and onto the ground, just before his beer glass hit the floor. It shattered, sending shards of glass and splashes of beer everywhere. He tried to push himself up, but caught a quick shot to the ribs with the guy’s foot.

  “Hey,” Donne heard someone yell. “Break it up!” Probably the bartender.

  Donne took another shot to the ribs and rolled onto his back. Looking up, he saw the guy lift a barstool over his head. He slammed it down on top of Donne, and Donne was barely able to lift an arm to block it. It shattered, and some of the wood scraped across Donne’s face.

  When Donne looked at the guy, everything moved in slow motion. He reached into the waistband of his pants, pulled out a large gun, and aimed it at Donne. He began to squeeze the trigger.

  Donne braced himself for the inevitable shot, but then heard a large clack and everything snapped back into reality.

  “I said, break it up.” The bartender was aiming a pump-action shotgun at Donne’s assailant.

  “Yo, man,” the asshole said, putting his gun away. “I’m getting the fuck out of here.”

  “Good idea,” the bartender said.

  The bastard jogged out the back door. The door slammed shut behind him, and for a moment there was silence. Then three gunshots, quickly followed by the squeal of tires.

  Donne pushed himself to his feet and felt the bar sway around him. He would have been better off with the fourth beer.

  “You okay?” the bartender asked. “Yeah,” he said.

  “What did you say to him?”

  “Not a word.”

  “You assholes can’t be doing that sort of thing,” he said. “I could lose my liquor license. There are only a few of those in Montclair, and they’re expensive as hell.”

  Donne grunted and walked toward the door. He had to concentrate to walk straight. The pain in his arm and across his face slowed his step. He opened the door slowly, in case the guy was waiting for him, and peeked out. His car had its back windshield shot out, and the back two tires had been blown to shreds.

  “Hey,” the bartender said. “You’re going to have to pay for these damages.”

  Donne pulled the door open fully and hobbled to his car. He had to rest when he reached it, put his hand on the trunk. His stomach tightened, and he had to fight to keep the beer down.

  He didn’t hear the bartender open the door.

  “The police are on their way,” the bartender yelled.

  “Good,” he said before the world tilted beneath him and black asphalt raced toward his face.

  Chapter 12

  Donne blinked, spit, and coughed water. His body throbbed, and he had two new cuts on his hands from when he fell to the asphalt.

  “Wake the fuck up,” the bartender said, holding a bucket that dripped a few drops of water. “This is the last thing I need. I can’t have you passed out in the parking lot.” He looked at the flashing lights parading up the street.

  Donne pushed himself into a sitting position. His wet clothes stuck to his skin and to the ground. With the stiffness in his beaten body, pushing himself up felt like it took forever. Two police cruisers pulled into the lot and stopped short in front of him. A major sign he should at least attempt to stand. Donne used his bumper, the shocks sagging under his weight, and got to his feet. Two officers got out of the cars.

  “What the hell happened here?” one of them asked.

  Donne told him. The bartender was talking to the other cop near the cruiser, his arms waving in the air, looking at him every once in a while. He was much more animated than Donne was.

  “We’re going to have to impound your car for evidence,” the first officer said after Donne was finished. “You might want to get to a hospital.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He didn’t seem convinced. “Then are you going to be able to find yourself a ride?”

  Donne nodded, thinking about calling Artie but knowing he wouldn’t be able to get away from work. He thought about calling Carter or Susan, but decided there was someone else he wanted to talk to. Someone who hadn’t believed his story earlier.

  ***

  Detective Mike Iapicca picked Donne up an hour later. He wasn’t happy about it. Donne didn’t think the detective thought he’d ever call him, and Iapicca was going to take any opportunity he had to talk to Donne.

  “Get the fuck in,” he said from his Chevy Impala.

  Donne limped around the car and sat in the passenger seat. “You look like shit,” Iapicca said.

  “The guy who killed my aunt and uncle yesterday just kicked the shit out of me.”

  “I see.” He took Valley Road away from Montclair. Donne was woozy and wondered if Iapicca would actually take him back to New Brunswick or to East Rutherford. “This black guy dressed in gang colors? He just happens to show up in a bar in Montclair that you’re drinking in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How much did you have to drink?”

  “Two beers.”

  “Everyone says one or two.”

  “I would have had three, but the punch to the face kept me from finishing it.”

  Traffic slowed near a shopping area. They got caught at a red light. People sat outside a Starbucks sipping coffee. A few others stared at mannequins in a GAP window. Donne felt the drowsiness in his eyes, and he leaned back in the passenger seat.

  “You think I’m going to let you sleep in my car? Jesus, you probably have a concussion and you can’t think straight.”

  Donne couldn’t help it. His eyelids drooped and he fell asleep.

  ***

  Bryan Hackett answered his cell phone. It was Delshawn. “I beat the shit outta that motherfucker.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Nah, fuckin’ bartender had a shotgun. So I shot the motherfucker’s tires and windows out.”

  “Good. How bad is he hurt?”

  “I hit him with a stool. He was bleeding all over the bar. I don’t know if he was knocked out or whatnot, but he was hurtin’.”

  Hackett rubbed his chin. Donne was only momentarily out of the picture, which meant he couldn’t slow any of this down. And while Carter might not be willing to pay up, Hackett was pretty sure he could break Carter’s wife. Hackett was glad Delshawn had listened and didn’t kill Donne. This was turning into a game. And the best games involved challenges. Donne would be a good challenge.

  He hung up the phone. This whole business venture might actually be fun.

  1938

  Joe Tenant sat with two police offic
ers. Cigarette smoke layered the air, and the sweet smell made Tenant wish he hadn’t quit. But when he’d gotten back in the boxing ring to spar with a friend a few months back, he realized he couldn’t breathe as well anymore. This was the first time he’d had a craving since then, even though the thickness of the smoke caused him to wheeze a bit.

  “So, since you found the body you’ve had a knife held to your throat, you’ve been followed in a car, and been threatened by phone?”

  Detective Lacey was heavyset. Too many snacks, too many drinks. Tenant could take him easily, a jab to the gut, right cross to the chin. And the guy’s condescending tone was causing Tenant to seriously consider doing just that.

  “That’s what I said.” Tenant balled his fists at his thighs. The detective wouldn’t be able to see that under the table.

  “And you just decided to contact us now. The last time you saw us, you didn’t say anything.”

  “I was worried before. About my family.”

  “Why aren’t you worried now?”

  “He threatened my family anyway. He said he was going to kill me.”

  Lacey nodded and wrote something on a piece of paper. “Can you describe the man?”

  “There were two of them. One I only saw from behind on the docks.”

  “What did the other one look like? The one in your car?”

  Tenant described the pale man he had seen on the docks the other night one more time. Said the one from the backseat had an Irish accent but he didn’t see his face. And then he talked about the crowbar incident.

  Lacey rubbed his face. Took a deep breath. “You smashed his car? Why?”

  “He threatened my family.”

  The detective referred to the paper. “I thought he threatened your family by phone.”

  “Following me in a car while I’m walking my daughter home from school is a threat.”

  Tenant’s nails were digging into his palms. This guy Lacey was the kind of guy who’d get his ass beat if he didn’t have a badge. And a gun.

  “Did you know the deceased?”

  “If I didn’t see the guy getting the shit kicked out of him, I would have thought it was just a body floating in the river. They show up from time to time. Sometimes someone decides to commit suicide. I’ve never been threatened over it before.”