Switchback Chapter One

 

Adam Carter twisted his wedding ring around on his finger as he stood in Richmond’s Holy Cross cemetery at the foot of two graves. The one on his left belonged to his wife Stephanie, the one on his right to his eight-year-old son Theo. It was an accident, everyone had said, a drug bust gone wrong, a car chase, a red light ignored. But accidents had a habit of leaving behind a trail of “What ifs”. What if this had happened? What if that had happened? What if the drug dealer hadn’t gone down that particular road to get away? What if Stephanie’s green light had been red? What if she’d been a minute late when she picked Theo up from school, or a minute early? What if? Just six letters, two small words, with massive implications. Carter’s watch said it was eight-thirty; it seemed the day had slipped closer to night without him realising.

          When he turned to leave he saw someone else a half dozen or so graves farther down. He was male, white, about five-seven, his build medium, his age mid-forties. He wore a grey overcoat and black trousers with black shoes, and held a brown leather briefcase in his right hand, a business man. He wasn't there when Carter first arrived an hour ago, and the grave he stood and stared at didn’t have a headstone. It was a new grave, a recent death, another soul to bring a fresh mourner to shed tears on the cemetery’s hallowed green lawns.

           The man looked up and peered under the branches of a tree just beyond the grave he’d come to visit. And then, as though remembering an appointment he was all of a sudden late for, shoved his free hand in his coat pocket, turned, and made-off. Carter watched him leave then looked to see why. He saw six or seven black teenagers fooling around on skateboards. No wonder the white guy was in a hurry. Black kids in a cemetery just before dark? A white guy on his own? He shook his head, looked down at the two graves.   

          ‘I gotta go now, Honey,’ he said to his left. ‘Theo,’ he said to his right. ‘You make sure you look after your mom for me, ya hear? And maybe I’ll see you both real soon.’

          Although it was a humid mid-August evening, Carter still felt an unusual chill ripple up his back, he didn’t know if it was the shade of the trees or because death was scattered all around. Either way, he took his jacket from over his arm and shrugged into it before he made his own way out of the cemetery. He showed his ID to the skateboarders and told them to have a little more respect for the dead and go skate somewhere more suitable. But it wasn’t until he told them to stop scaring the white folk that they smiled and moved on.

 

He drove his black Taurus down East Broad Street and took a left onto North Third before taking the second right onto the parking lot of Frankie’s Diner. He pulled up at the side of a red Dodge pick-up and climbed out. The pick-up was the only other vehicle on the lot and had dents on every panel and dried mud spatters as far up as the windows. It had West Virginia plates and a rear bumper sticker that read, “If it flies it dies, if it hops it drops” and below that, “Cedar Creek Hunting Club”. In the back of the pick-up a piece of tarp covered whatever innocent creature the owner had hunted and killed that day. He thought about pulling the tarp up to look, but decided he’d been around enough death for one day.

          He entered Frankie’s diner to see three guys shooting pool left of his peripheral vision but paid them little attention as he made his way to his usual table. No one else was in the place except Frankie’s wife who came over to pour coffee for Carter.

          ‘Hi, Carter,’ she said, her English accent heavily laced with Italian. ‘Did you catch all de bad guys for me?’

          He smiled. ‘Did the best I could, Maria, and if I did any better I’d be out of work before the end of the week.’

          ‘Dat’s okay,’ she said. ‘You can work here, de pay is not so good but you can meet all de nice people, just like you.’

          ‘I bet you say that to−’

          ‘Hey, Lady,’ shouted one of the nice people from the pick-up. ‘Get your fanny over here and serve us some more coffee. Damn near dry as a toad in a sandstorm here.’

          Carter turned to see the three men around the pool table, all wearing the same boots, the same denims, the same checked shirts, and the same shooting vests. One was short and dumpy, the other two tall and stocky, one of them bald as an egg, the other wearing a “Salem Red Sox” cap. Dumpy had his ass perched on the edge of a dining table and wasn’t holding a pool cue. All three stared at Carter as he shifted in his seat ready to rise.

          Maria touched his arm. ‘I can handle dem,’ she said.  

          Frankie’s is the only diner in Richmond that serves coffee just the way Carter likes it, it would be a damn shame to trash the place on account of these three losers.

He relaxed, looked at Maria. ‘Are you sure?’

          ‘Don’t worry; I will be closing soon, anyway. So I think one more coffee and den dey will leave.’

          ‘Where’s Frankie?’

          ‘He go home, little Frank, he not so well. He got, how you say, de tommy bog?’

          ‘Tummy bug.’

          ‘Si, tommy bog.’

          ‘Jesus, Lady, would ya come on already?’

          Carter got to his feet where his six-foot-four, two-hundred and fifty pound frame, dwarfed Maria. ‘Hey, fellas’ he said. ‘You show the lady here a little more respect, unless you want me to come down there and teach you how.’

          Neither of the three responded, other than to look at each other and then the floor.

          ‘I think I best go,’ Maria said.

          Carter nodded, sat, and turned away to sip his coffee as he watched Maria’s reflection in the diner’s window. Baldy and Red Sox had resumed their game and Dumpy had remained perched on the table’s edge as Maria refilled their coffees. She said something about closing time to them then walked behind the counter to start wrapping the place up.

          Carter took another sip and checked his watch, nine-oh-five, he had plenty of time. Senator Caine's nephew doesn’t leave the printers until his shift ends at nine-thirty, and then he has a twenty minute journey home which included his usual trip to KFC, where Carter had planned to intercept him. He had a few questions he needed Henry Caine to find answers to, but wasn’t going anywhere until Curly, Larry, and Mo, had left the diner first.

 

Two more games and twenty minutes later the trio left and Maria cleared and wiped down their table before she got her coat and went over to Carter. He didn’t notice her as he stared past his own reflection in the window, twisting his wedding ring around his finger again, and again wondering why, on that sunny July afternoon five years ago, had it all gone so terribly wrong.

          ‘Thank you, Carter.’ He heard some distant voice say.

          He blinked, turned and forced a smile. ‘Just doing my job, Ma’am.’

          Maria smiled back.

          Carter said, ‘It’s late, how are you getting home?’

          ‘Frankie and I usually go home together, but tonight I catch de last bus in ten minutes.’ She looked at the door, then over by the pool table. ‘And those guys who just left, I think they take three of my pool sticks.’

          Carter looked at the five-cue rack on the wall by the pool table to see three of the slots empty. He pointed. ‘Do you keep all your cleaning equipment in that cupboard?’

          She turned, nodded. ‘Si.’

          ‘Will I find any duct tape in there?’

          ‘Duck tape?’

          ‘Yeah, grey sticky tape.’

          Again she nodded. ‘Si, on de top shelf.’

          Carter made his way behind the serving counter and through a door marked private. He was in there for three or four minutes before he came out again, empty handed. He removed his Glock from his shoulder holster and his ID from his jacket pocket and passed them to Maria.

          ‘Look after these for me,’ he said. ‘And lock the door after me.’

          ‘But it’s not fair, there are three of dem and dey have sticks.’

          Carter shrugged. ‘Life is never fair, Maria,’ he said. ‘But if it makes you feel better, I’ll ask them if they want to go fetch some more friends to help them.’

          She frowned. ‘But…’

          ‘Back in a couple of minutes,’ he said.