‘Don’t worry.’
She took a deep breath, held it while she rearranged the folds of her skirt.
‘Leighton blamed Jeffrey for Francisco’s death. She said if he hadn’t been such a racist snob—those were her exact words—Francisco wouldn’t have been so desperate to impress him. She said the only reason he joined the Marine Corp was because of Jeffrey. They had so many filthy arguments.’
She glanced nervously at the door to the sitting room.
‘Would you feel more relaxed outside?’
She nodded and they both stood up. She opened the door as if she’d just found the door to her cell in the serial killer’s basement had been unlocked the whole time. Outside, she relaxed visibly.
‘Leighton always picked her arguments when Jeffrey had a drink inside him.’
Something in Evan’s face gave him away. She smiled. It wasn’t a polite one this time. There were even some teeth on show.
‘I know what you’re thinking. It would be difficult not to.’
Evan denied it.
‘Don’t be too hard on him. The whole situation got to all of us, him included, however much he’d like to pretend it didn’t.’
She cocked her ear towards the door, then relaxed again.
‘I think Leighton was suffering from Postnatal Depression. Maybe I’m just making excuses. It doesn’t really matter. But with that and Jeffrey’s drinking they both said the most dreadful things. I’m sure neither of them meant it once they’d calmed down.’
She wrapped her arms around her body, hugged herself.
‘You know what the really sad thing is? Jeffrey secretly admired Francisco for joining the Marine Corp. He was a jarhead. Such a silly name. He was one of the first to be sent to the Gulf War. And one of the first to ...’
She looked at him, her eyes full of what might have been, what should have been, asking him, what is wrong with this world we live in?
‘But he’d never admit it.’
She shook her head.
‘Not if his life depended on it.’
‘His Country Club membership?’
She surprised him, laughed and wagged her finger at him. It didn’t last long. She glanced at the door again.
‘That’s why he won’t talk about it. Deep down he feels guilty. He knows Leighton was right. If he’d been more welcoming—less hostile would have been a start—Francisco would never have joined the Marine Corp, would never ...’
She cleared her throat. No kleenex appeared from her sleeve, not in a house like this.
‘He’s ashamed too. I’ve never heard two people scream at each other like that. The things he said about Francisco. I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out for you.’
She looked directly at Evan. The implication was clear—someone like him would know exactly the sort of dreadful words she meant.
‘Of course fate’s always got one last trick to play on you—’
‘You didn’t get the chance to make things right.’
‘I can see you know a thing or two about regret.’
He thought about asking her if she’d like to buy the book.
‘We had no idea the effect this was having on Leighton. No idea what she was up to behind our backs. The investigator told us—’
Evan felt as if the stone portico above them had just collapsed on his head.
‘Are you alright?’
He nodded. A shiver ran up his spine. He felt beady black eyes on the back of his head, heard the flapping of black wings.
‘Sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself. When the police failed to apprehend anyone—’
She suddenly laughed, a guilty sound that made him think of a small child laughing at a rude word.
‘I shouldn’t encourage him. Jeffrey said they couldn’t find their asses with both hands tied behind their backs.’
Evan smiled with her.
‘A private investigator approached us.’
Evan’s palms were suddenly clammy. This couldn’t be happening.
‘He approached you?’
‘Yes. He said he’d read about it in the paper. Said he’d like to help. He was a very strange man.’
Elwood Crow
‘How on earth did you know that?’
Evan recoiled, his forehead creasing. Had he spoken the name aloud?
‘It’s why I’m here. He was the one gave me your names.’
He knew where this was going now, felt all the threads drawing together. He also felt manipulated. Crow could have told him all this.
‘Mr Crow told us Leighton was trying to find Francisco’s family. We knew there was something unusual about his background. She was trying to get to the bottom of it.’
‘But why?’
She swallowed. It looked to him like it was quite an effort. She dropped her eyes for a moment then brought then straight back up again, no avoiding the unpalatable truth.
‘I’ve always assumed it was something Jeffrey said, what she said, I mean. What she said because of what Jeffrey said.’
She stopped, compressed her lips, her nostrils flaring. She tried again.
‘I don’t remember what exactly Jeffrey said but her reply was, I’m not bringing up my child in a house with a racist pig like you.’
A pink flush tinged her cheeks, her eyes moist.
‘She didn’t actually use the word pig, she used another word that I refuse to repeat.’
Her mouth had turned down just at the memory of it.
‘You think she wanted to find them to go live with them?’
She shook her head, all too much to think about.
‘Who knows? The baby was as much his parent’s grandchild as ours. Don’t those people all live together in one house?’
Deborah Yates had let herself down. Maybe she wasn’t such a bad match for her husband after all.
The irony of it made Evan want to scream.
If Frank Hanna’s father, George, had known the breeding of the young woman who went looking for him, he might have welcomed her with open arms. Instead, he heard the problem he thought he’d dealt with all those years ago was back. And he was a man who didn’t make the same mistake twice. Last time he sent Thompson to scare the girl off—and look how that turned out. If he’d told Thompson to deal with the problem permanently, it wouldn’t be happening all over again.
He wouldn’t—and didn’t—make the same mistake this time. Except that he did. Leighton’s baby had been thrown clear, had survived and grown to adulthood.
‘That was all Mr Crow found out,’ Deborah Yates said. ‘He had no more luck finding the culprit than the police.’
Evan looked up at the sky, closed his eyes, felt the breeze on his face.
If only you knew.
‘When your husband interrupted you earlier’—she glanced again at the door as he said it—‘you said it was very strange. What did you mean?’
‘About a week after Mr Crow told us he couldn’t find anything, the police contacted us again—’
‘They arrested someone?’
He didn’t know why he said it, he knew it wasn’t true.
‘No.’
She smiled then. It was a different one again. Not a polite one, not genuine amusement, something altogether different. Satisfaction that the God you pray to nightly has not forsaken you. Has instead answered your prayers—however un-Christian the thing you pray for might be.
‘The police don’t arrest dead men.’
He went along with her, raised his eyebrows.
‘They found the car that hit and killed Leighton. They matched damage on the bumper to the stroller. But that wasn’t what was strange.’
He waited, watched the satisfied smile widen.
‘The man who’d driven it was still in it, and he was dead.’
‘Did they say how he died?’
‘No, and we never asked. You don’t question the ways of the Lord.’
He reckoned Crow would’ve liked that.
Chapter 40
‘Almost there,’ he said and filled her in on the latest updates.
‘A doctor, eh? Hanna would be very proud it all turned out so well.’ She laughed. ‘And you’ve got to wait two days to find out if this person really does exist. That’s going to be the longest two days of your life.’
‘There’s just one thing you can do for me.’
He was keen to get her off the topic of two free days and how he might fill them.
‘What, while you’re at Hendricks’ place, you mean?’
Gotcha.
‘You might as well buy it, you’re so keen to go back there. You can afford to now.’
A long silence stretched out between them.
‘That was a joke, Evan.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, amused by the note of panic in her voice. ‘Although, the more I think about it—’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘You know what, Kate? I was you, I’d have asked to read the will, make sure I wasn’t making it up just to get you to do what I want.’
‘Live and learn. What do you want?’
He gave her the details of the fatal hit and run in 1993, asked her to pull the file and call him back. He spent the time mentally burning his way through all that money. One thing he couldn’t shake was Guillory’s crack about buying the Hendricks place.
‘This is a strange one,’ she said less than ten minutes later.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘They didn’t get anywhere to begin with. No witnesses, nothing.’
‘Then they got an anonymous tip?’
‘You looked this up already?’
‘No. Just a guess.’
She didn’t bother telling him what she thought about that. He heard her flicking through the pages of the file.
‘The caller told them where to find the car, told them to compare damage on the bumper to the stroller. It matched.’
‘Okay.’
‘This is where it gets strange. The owner of the car—’
‘Thompson.’
He heard the sound of a noisy breath exiting through her nose, knew it was because her mouth was clamped shut in a tight line.
‘Thompson was still in it. Dead.’
‘Heart attack?’
‘If you know all this already, why’d you waste my time?’
‘I don’t know all of it. I know it wasn’t a heart attack—’
‘The guy was garrotted. Looked as if he’d been killed in the car.’
‘Nice.’
A picture of Crow’s strong hands, the thick wrists, flashed across Evan’s mind—made for choking the life out of a person. He imagined the scene, Crow in the back seat of the car, straining backwards, those strong hands gripping the wooden handles, pulling with all his might, while Thompson bucked and thrashed in the front, the wire cutting into his flesh. He saw the windows misted by the breath choked out of his body, the smell of that final indignity filling the small space, imagined his dying thoughts, how had it come to this?
What he wanted to know was, how come everybody thought he and Crow were so alike? He looked at his own hands, every bit as strong as Crow’s, couldn’t imagine killing someone with them.
‘Whoever killed him left a note.’
He shifted in the car seat, leaned forward on the wheel. She was deliberately dragging it out.
‘That’s about it.’
He wasn’t going to bite.
‘Okay, you win. It said: You reap what you sow.’
It was the exact same phrase Narvaez told him Crow used. Did Crow see himself as an avenging angel, striking down evil wherever he found it?
‘Deep.’
‘Kind of suggests the guy was killed for revenge. For killing the girl. Like maybe it wasn’t an accident? Killing him in the car suggests the same thing.’
‘Could be.’
It wasn’t nearly casual enough. He didn’t put enough oh, I hadn’t considered that into his voice.
‘Call me mushroom.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t mind being kept in the dark and fed horseshit, really. You can tell me what this is all about later.’
Down the line he heard papers being turned over, something else that sounded like a pencil tapped on teeth. He’d gotten her hooked.
‘There is one more unusual thing. Could just be the guy that called it in having a joke. They asked him how come he knew where the car was, how come he knew to tell them to take a close look at the damage to the fender. Would have asked him his name too, but he didn’t do what most people do—’
‘Which is what?’
‘Hang up immediately. No, this guy says, calm as anything: A little birdie told me.’
Evan laughed, unable to stop himself.
Not so little and with a foul beak.
Chapter 41
‘THE POLICE ASKED ME if I searched my father’s house,’ Lisa Stanton said.
Hugh McIntyre opened the fridge, stuck his head inside so she couldn’t see his face. After the last few days it felt beautiful. He felt like climbing inside. They say you simply fall asleep and die peacefully in the cold. It was an appealing proposition.
‘Really. What did you say?’
‘I said no.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘They asked me if there was anyone else might have.’
‘I’d say it was ... what’s her name?’
‘Mrs Kitson?’
‘She was most likely tidying things away. You said the woman’s totally OCD.’
He moved a carton of milk and a chunk of cheese to the side, pretended to look for a beer behind them. There actually was one sitting right at the back, next to the OJ. This wasn’t the best time to drink it, under the circumstances.
‘And my key is missing.’
‘I’ll help you look for it,’ Mr Helpful said.
He said it a little too fast, like it was an answer he’d practiced in the mirror. He pulled his head out the fridge, hoping the cool air might have chilled it enough to keep his features under control.
‘Okay, thanks. Why don’t you start in your pocket?’
‘My pocket?’
‘Don’t be an ass your whole life, Hugh. What were you doing there?’
There wasn’t any point denying it. She had her fists on her hips, shoulders squared. Her stance made him think of a pit bull. The temperament was right too. It took him a few awkward seconds to warm up his best smile.
‘Looking for his will, what do you think?’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘Why would I? He was dying anyway.’
Her hand moved a couple inches along the counter towards the knife block. His palm throbbed just thinking about it.
‘Sorry. That was unkind.’
‘Did you push him down the stairs?’
He hesitated too long. She took it as an admission of guilt. She pushed herself away from the counter she’d been leaning against, looked around for something to kick.
‘Jesus Christ, Hugh.’
‘It was an accident. He shouldn’t have tried to hit me.’
‘So you pushed him down the stairs. You pushed a seventy-year-old man down the stairs. A seventy-year-old man with cancer.’
He took a deep breath and relaxed his shoulders, let his fists uncurl.
She was distraught. Her father just died. She doesn’t mean it.
But if she said seventy-year-old man one more time he was going to punch her.
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘No?’
She stuck her chin out, looked up at him.
‘No. He took a swing at me.’ He snorted, a scowl on his face. ‘It was like he wrote me a letter telling me the punch was on its way. I moved my head out of the way, like anyone would. He missed by a mile. He sort of hung in the air with his arm outstretched, lost his balance and fell down the stairs. It was his own fault.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
He showed her his palms. Well, one palm, one blood-soaked dressing.
‘I don’t know what else to say.’
‘You shouldn’t have been there in the first place.’
‘Okay, okay. It was a stupid thing to do—I’m having trouble thinking straight these days. I’m under a lot of pressure.’
‘Pressure? You don’t know what pressure is.’
‘And you do?’
Her mouth turned down. It made him wonder what he ever saw in her.
‘I know it when I see it. Kevin was under pressure—’
‘Thanks a lot. I suppose you’d like me to go hang myself.’
‘My father’s under pressure—’
‘Not any more he isn’t.’
The words were out before he knew it. Her face froze like she’d been the one with her head buried in the fridge. It wouldn’t be good for him when it thawed out.
‘I’m sorry.’
He put a hand on her arm. She batted it away.
‘I didn’t mean it to come out like that.’
She turned and walked away from him, her arms clamped tightly across her body.
‘I was only doing it for us.’
She stopped mid-stride, waited a couple of seconds, turned slowly back to face him.
‘Us? You don’t know what the word means. Me. That’s the word you were looking for.’
He laughed. It sounded more like he was choking.
‘You just don’t understand, do you? If anything happens to me’—he waved the hand with the blood-stained bandage in her face—‘there won’t be an us.’
She turned away again, mumbled something under her breath.
‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing.’
He gripped her upper arm and pulled her around.
‘What did—’
‘I said I don’t know if I want there to be an us.’
She wrenched her arm out of his grip.
‘Everything’s gone wrong since—’
‘Since what?’
‘You know.’
‘Say it.’
‘Since I ...’
‘Say it, Lisa. Since you ...’
‘Since I started screwing you behind Kevin’s back. Now Kevin’s dead, my father’s dead—’
‘And it’s all my fault, is it? I don’t know what you’re so worried about. You got Kevin’s money. Now you’ll get daddy’s money—’
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