Nightshade

by John Saul

Her words jolting him to a stop, Gerry Conroe turned to look at his daughter. Go with him? But she was just a little girl!

  “I’m almost sixteen,” she said, seeing his thoughts etched on his face. “I’m not a baby anymore.”

  “For God’s sake, Kelly — why would you want to go out there?” As she hesitated, he knew exactly what she was going to say, and didn’t need to hear her explanation before he made up his mind. He was already shaking his head when she spoke.

  “I want to see Matt. If they really think he — ”

  Gerry held up a hand to silence her. “No,” he said. “You’re only fifteen years old. You don’t need to see — ” His throat tightened and he couldn’t bring himself to finish what he’d been about to say. It was going to be hard enough for him to see Bill Hapgood’s lifeless body himself, and he knew it was an image he would never forget. There was no reason for Kelly to have to bear the memory of that image. “No,” he said again, his voice much softer now. He cast about for some words that would neither offend Kelly nor upset her more than she already was. “Look,” he finally went on, reaching out and pulling her into his arms, “it’s going to be crazy out there. There’ll be police, and medics, and God only knows how many other people. I wouldn’t even go myself, except Bill’s my best friend, and I have to be there.”

  “But Matt’s my boyfriend — ” Kelly began.

  Gerry stiffened, then let his arms drop to his sides. “No,” he said one last time. His voice took on a tone that warned Kelly against pressing him further. “And I really don’t want to argue.” But even as he spoke, the hurt in her eyes made him relent slightly. “Let’s just wait until we know what happened, okay?”

  As he drove away from the office, though, Gerry found himself wishing that Kelly had not been dating Matt at all, and in the back of his mind he could hear his own father explaining how to judge his friends. “The apple never falls far from the tree, Gerald,” Jerome Conroe had taught him when he was no more than six or seven. “Know the father, and you will know the son. That’s why you must always know who your friend’s families are.”

  But no one except Joan Hapgood knew who Matthew Moore’s father really was. So maybe Bill had been wrong.

  Maybe Matthew Moore hadn’t been the son he’d always wanted.

  Maybe none of them — not even Bill Hapgood — really knew Matthew Moore at all.

  * * *

  “MATT?”

  His name sounded muffled, as if it were coming from somewhere far off in the distance — or perhaps even from underwater — and it wasn’t until he heard it a second time that he slowly looked up to see his mother standing close to him, her eyes anxious, her face pale. She reached out to touch his cheek, but her fingers were like ice and he reflexively pulled away from the chill of her touch.

  Joan winced at the rejection of what she’d intended as a gentle caress, but told herself it meant nothing — that he was still in shock from what had happened. “It’s going to be all right,” she told him softly. “Everything’s going to be all right. I’ll take care of you.”

  Again Matt barely heard the words. From the moment when he’d looked down from the top of the bluff and seen his stepfather’s body lying in the thicket of brush next to the stream, something had changed. It was as if in that instant a barrier of some kind had fallen between him and the rest of the world.

  Everything was different.

  He’d seen it first in Eric Holmes’s eyes. They’d all stared down at the broken body in the brush, a terrible silence falling over them. Then, after what seemed an eternity, Eric had spoken. “Jeez, Matt,” he’d breathed. “What happened? What’d you do?”

  Matt’s gaze had slowly shifted from his stepfather to Eric, and that’s when he’d seen it. There was something in Eric’s eyes that told him in an instant that everything had changed. Seemingly out of nowhere, a memory rose in his mind. He and Eric were in biology class, dissecting a frog. As he had cut through the skin of the frog’s belly, laying it back in neat flaps, he’d glanced up at Eric. The expression on Eric’s face — and the look in his eyes — as Eric watched him lay open the frog’s abdomen were exactly the same as the look he’d given Matt as he asked what Matt had done.

  Revulsion, only slightly tempered with curiosity.

  On the bluff above the river, he’d seen Eric turning away from him, just as he turned away from the frog in the lab that day.

  From that moment, Matt sensed everyone watching him, and there was no friendliness in their eyes.

  Now they were watching him as if he were some kind of specimen, some individual of another species, no longer part of what had been his world only a few hours ago. He’d been squeezed out of it in an instant.

  But why?

  He hadn’t done anything!

  Or had he?

  He hadn’t answered Eric’s question when they were standing on the bluff, and even now he had no real answer. Rather, there were just more questions, questions and images, tumbling through his mind in a jumble of confusion.

  The deer.

  He’d been aiming at the deer! And his stepfather hadn’t been there —

  Had he?

  Of course not! He’d have seen him!

  But even as he tried to reassure himself, he kept seeing another image, just the faintest flash of a memory, of something else in the gun sight, something he’d barely been aware of as the strange aroma filled his nostrils, spreading like a mist over his mind, sending him —

  Where?

  Even now, long after Eric’s voice had brought him out of the strange reverie he’d fallen into, he had no real idea of what had happened. It wasn’t as if he’d been sick, even though he hadn’t slept very well last night. So what had happened? Had he just passed out? Had it been some kind of fumes he’d smelled, that knocked him out for a while? But if he’d passed out, how come he hadn’t fallen?

  So he couldn’t have passed out.

  The questions kept churning in his mind.

  He had no memory even of following Eric and his father down the bluff, though he knew he must have. And he’d been only vaguely aware of everything that had happened since, of Dan Pullman arriving, and the ambulance, and then more deputies. He vaguely recalled one of the deputies asking him what had happened, and putting him in the backseat of one of the cars, but he’d been no more able to tell the deputy anything than he’d been able to tell Eric.

  “I don’t know,” was all he’d said. And now, as he looked up at his mother, he could only repeat the same question the deputy had asked him.

  “What happened, Mom?” he said softly. “What happened to Dad?”

  Before his mother could answer, Dan Pullman appeared next to her, and as Matt’s gaze shifted to the police chief, he saw the same look in Pullman’s eyes that he’d seen in Eric’s.

  “I think you know what happened to your dad,” Pullman said softly. “Do you want to tell us about it?”

  “I — ” Matt began, then fell back into silence.

  Immediately understanding the implication of Pullman’s words — and seeing the pain they brought to her son’s face — Joan’s anguished eyes fixed on the police chief. “How can you even think that?” she breathed, her voice trembling as she struggled with her roiling emotions. “Matt loved his father! He’d never do anything to hurt — ”

  Pullman raised both his hands as if to fend off her outburst. “I never said that, Joan. Whatever happened, I’m sure it was an accident. And Matt was there. Who else can tell us — ”

  Joan shook her head as if to throw off the words as a dog sheds water from its coat. “Not now,” she said. She reached out and took Matt’s hand in her own, and this time, at least, he didn’t try to pull away from her. “How can you expect him to say anything now?” she asked. “How can you expect either of us to — ”

  “It’s all right, Joan,” Dan cut in. “Nobody has to say anything right now.” He glanced around, then signaled to Tony Petrocelli, in whose squad car Matt was sitting. “Can yo
u drive them home, Tony?”

  Knowing from long experience that his boss wasn’t asking a question, Petrocelli nodded. “Right away.”

  As his deputy moved around to the driver’s door and Joan Hapgood joined her son in the backseat, Dan Pullman spoke. “It’s going to be all right, Joan,” he said, trying to reassure the woman whose husband’s body was at that moment being loaded into the ambulance to be transported to the coroner. “I’m sure it was an accident.” He shook his head, sighing. “I’ll come by later, okay?” When Joan didn’t respond, he reached through the open window and laid his hand on her shoulder.

  Just as her son had pulled away from her own touch a few moments ago, Joan now recoiled from the police chief’s gesture. “I know what you think,” she said, looking directly into Pullman’s eyes. “You think Matt shot Bill. But I’ll never believe that. He couldn’t have. He just couldn’t have.”

  Dan watched the car until it disappeared from view, then went back to his examination of the scene of the accident, taking careful notes as both Marty Holmes and Paul Arneson recounted the argument between Matt and his stepfather that morning.

  Then, when Gerry Conroe arrived, he heard about the scene that had transpired at the Hapgoods’ last night.

  “Go up on the bluff and start searching,” he finally told his deputies. “I want the casings of every bullet Matt fired. And I want the bullets too. But first find the casings. Then at least we’ll know how many bullets we’re looking for.”

  “What about the buck?” one of the deputies asked. “Seems like we shouldn’t just let it rot.”

  Pullman hesitated. He couldn’t imagine why either Joan or Matt would ever want to see the buck again, but on the other hand, Matt had shot the deer on their property, and the last thing he needed was anyone accusing him of disposing of it without permission. “There’s a shed behind the Hapgoods’ carriage house — that’s where Bill always hung his game. Guess you might as well put it there. Someone call Petrocelli and have him tell Mrs. Hapgood where it’ll be. If they want to get rid of it, they can do it themselves.”

  As the deputies set to work, Dan Pullman turned to Gerry Conroe. Like almost everyone in Granite Falls, they had both been born there, had known each other all their lives. “Well?” Pullman asked. “What do you think? Was it an accident?”

  Conroe hesitated only a second before shaking his head. “I’d like to say it was,” he replied. “But I can’t. I just can’t.”

  CHAPTER 8

  NUMBNESS FELL OVER Joan as Tony Petrocelli drove her and Matt back to the house. When the deputy pulled the squad car to a halt in the circular drive at the foot of the wide steps leading up to the front door, she neither said anything nor made any move to open the door. Instead she gazed through the car window at the sprawling brick house she’d lived in for the last ten years.

  It looked completely different now.

  But what had changed?

  Not the facade, for the columns supporting the porch roof were just as they’d always been. Nor was it the windows, with their dark green shutters hooked open, or the porch or the eaves. Every detail of the house looked the same, and as her eyes wandered over it, she almost convinced herself that she’d been wrong, that nothing had changed at all.

  “Mrs. Hapgood?” Petrocelli glanced worriedly in the rearview mirror. Joan Hapgood appeared somehow puzzled, as if she wasn’t quite sure where she was. “Is everything — ” He stopped himself. He’d been about to say “okay,” but how could anything be okay for her right now? Petrocelli licked his lower lip nervously, and began again: “Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Hapgood?” For a moment it seemed she hadn’t heard him, but then she slowly came back to life.

  “No,” she said, “I — Well, thank you for bringing us home.” The words were little more than a breath of air, and the wan smile she managed appeared to cost her most of what little composure she had been able to muster.

  As Matt got out of the backseat and moved around the car to his mother, Petrocelli wondered what he should do. Go in with them? Just wait there until they were in the house? Or head right back to the scene? He tried to figure out what Dan Pullman would do in this situation, but then decided that if it were his own wife who’d died, he wouldn’t want anyone around except maybe a couple of really close friends. “If you need anything . . .” he began, then his voice trailed off. “I guess I better be going, unless you want something else.”

  Neither Joan nor Matt replied, and finally Petrocelli drove on around the circle of the driveway heading back the way he’d come. It was at times like this that he wished he’d gone into partnership with his brother on the pizza parlor. When he glanced back and saw that neither of them had moved, he wondered if maybe he should go back. But what would he say? Feeling utterly inadequate, Tony Petrocelli kept driving.

  And Joan Hapgood kept gazing at the house.

  Though nothing about it had changed, nothing was the same either, and as she looked at it, she began to understand. It’s not mine anymore. But why? She’d lived in it for ten years, and never had any feeling about it except that it was where she and Bill and Matt lived.

  It was home.

  In fact, she realized, it had felt more like home than any other place she’d ever been. Certainly the house on Burlington Avenue should have felt like home, but for as long as she could remember, that house had always been associated with her mother’s constant belittlement of everything she did. Nor had any of the places in New York felt like home either, even before she’d found herself unable to support herself and Matt, and been forced to bring him back to her mother’s house. Then, nearly five years later, she’d married Bill and moved here and finally felt as if she truly was at home.

  She and Bill and Matt.

  But now Bill was dead, and now it didn’t seem like her house anymore.

  Now her mother was waiting for her, not Bill.

  As if in response to her thoughts, the door opened and Emily Moore came out onto the porch. She stood at the top of the steps, her eyes fixing on her daughter. “Where have you been?” the old woman demanded. “I’m hungry! I want my breakfast!”

  The words — so totally unexpected — stunned Joan for a moment, and her eyes clouded with tears. How could her mother be so callous? Then she remembered — in her rush to get to Bill, she’d completely forgotten her mother. She didn’t know what had happened.

  “Maybe I should have asked Cynthia for my breakfast,” Emily said. “She would have fixed it for me!”

  “Cynthia?” Joan echoed. “Mother, you know — ”

  “She was here,” Emily cut in. “She was here this morning! But now I can’t find her either!” Turning away, she started back toward the front door.

  “Gram?” Matt called. The old lady turned to peer down at her grandson. “It’s Dad,” Matt said, his voice quivering as he struggled to say the words. “He — He’s dead, Gram. There was an accident, and he — he got shot!”

  Emily Moore pursed her lips and appeared to struggle to process what her grandson had just told her. Finally, though, she shook her head. “Accidents don’t happen,” she declared. “There’s always a reason.” She turned away and disappeared back into the house, closing the door behind her.

  Joan slipped her hand into her son’s. “She didn’t mean that, Matt,” she said softly. “Most of the time she doesn’t even know what she’s saying.”

  Matt’s fingers tightened on her hand, but before he could say anything, they both turned at the sound of a car coming up the drive.

  Seconds later Nancy Conroe pulled her Saab to a stop, then jumped out and put her arms around both Joan and Matt.

  “I just heard,” she said. “I don’t know what to say — it’s just so — so awful!” With her best friend’s arm around her, the fragile fragments of Joan’s composure collapsed, and she began sobbing helplessly. “It’s all right,” Nancy Conroe crooned, gently smoothing Joan’s hair as if she were a child. Then, hearing her own words, she pulled Joa
n close. “Oh, God, what am I saying? It’s not going to be all right, is it? But we’ll get through it. Somehow, we’ll all get through it. Now let’s get you both into the house.”

  With one arm still around Joan, she put the other around Matt, steering them both up the steps and into the house. “Let’s get some coffee on, and then I’ll — ” Nancy abruptly fell silent, unsure about what she should do. But when Joan said nothing, and Nancy could bear the silence no longer, she said, “I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

  Again there was a silence, then Joan began speaking, and Nancy could hear in her voice that the full reality of what had happened was closing in on her. “We need to call people,” Joan said. “All the people that were coming to Matt’s party tonight . . .”

  “Of course. Where’s the list? Oh, never mind — I know who’s coming as well as you do, don’t I?” She set up the coffee maker, then picked up the phone that sat on the breakfast bar behind the big six-burner cook top.

  “And our lawyer,” Joan added, almost as an afterthought. “You’d better call Trip Wainwright too.”

  * * *

  THE AFTERNOON PASSED in a haze. every now and then a familiar face emerged and Joan would listen to the same words spoken again and again:

  “It’s just so terrible — unbelievable!”

  “I can’t believe Bill’s gone! How will any of us get along without him?”

  “Such a tragedy — how could something like this happen?”

  “God works in mysterious ways, but we must trust in Him.”

  “If there’s anything I can do, Joan, anything at all . . .”

  But there was nothing anyone could do, and they seemed to know it. Almost as quickly as they uttered the expected platitudes, they left, and by five o’clock the trickle had dwindled away to Arthur Pettis, who wrung his Uriah Heepish hands for the last time and took his leave with promises that she needn’t worry about anything — “insurancewise, your husband was absolutely scrupulous about making sure his loved ones were covered.” She somehow knew that for today at least, there would be no more visitors.