by John Hart
Why did I cover for my father? Because he asked me to, I guess. Because, for the first time, he needed me. Because her death was an accident, and because I believed him when he said that nothing good could come of the truth. Because he was my father and because I was his son. Maybe because I blamed myself. Who the hell knows?
So the police asked their questions and I spoke the horrible words; thus Ezra’s truth became my own. But the rift between Jean and me was irreparable; it grew into a chasm and she retreated into her life on the other side. I saw her at the funeral, where the last shovel of dirt went onto our relationship as much as it did onto mother’s casket. She had Alex, and for her that was enough.
By midnight on the night of my mother’s death, the police had gone. We followed the darkened ambulance because we didn’t know what else to do. At the back door of the hospital, she left us, carried by strangers into that pale, still building, taken to some cold room where the dead wait in silence. We stood in a light November rain, we three, speechless under a streetlamp and the weight of our own private thoughts. The truth of her death lay upon us, and our eyes refused to meet. But I studied my father when I could, caught the play of water down his face, the clench of muscles under whiskers that gleamed white under the light. And when the words finally came, they came from Ezra, as I knew they must. “Let’s go home,” he said, and we understood. There was nothing else to say.
At the house, the lights were on, and we sat in the living room while Ezra poured drinks. Jean refused to touch hers, but mine disappeared like magic and Ezra poured another. Jean’s hands clenched and unclenched, wrestled on her lap, and I saw bright half-moons where nails bit into her palms. She rocked minutely, wound tight, and at times I heard her keen. I reached for her, but she jerked away. I wanted to tell her that I was not Ezra, not that it would have mattered. I see that now.
No one spoke and the minutes drew out, the only sound that of ice on glass and the heavy tread of Ezra’s pacing.
We all jumped when the phone rang. Ezra answered it; he listened, hung up, and looked at us, his children. Then he left the house without a word. We were stunned, floored, and Jean left right behind him, a look on her face that I’ve never forgotten. At the door, she turned, her words like razors in my soul. “I know he killed her. And damn you for protecting him.”
It was the last time I saw Ezra alive. For ten long minutes, I stayed in that house of horrors, that house of broken dolls; then I, too, left. I drove to Jean’s, but her car was gone and no one answered when I knocked. The door was locked. I waited for an hour, but she didn’t return. I went home and, in the best voice I could manage, informed my wife of the night’s events. Then I had another drink. Eventually, I put her to bed, then sneaked out. I spent the rest of the night at Stolen Farm, weeping on Vanessa’s shoulder like a goddamn child. At dawn, I crept into bed, where I put my back to my wife and watched gray light swell from beneath the blinds. I kept myself utterly still and held on to Ezra’s truth as if for my very life. At the time, I thought it was worth something, but time can be a murderous bitch.
I felt pain and looked down at my hands, clenched so tightly on the kitchen sink that they were bloodless. I released them and they burned, but the pain was relative. I forced the images of that night back into the past, where I’d tried so hard to keep them. I was home. Bone was in the backyard. Ezra was dead.
I heard an engine outside and walked to the laundry-room window. A car was moving slowly up the driveway, and recognizing it, I thought of fate and of inevitability.
My life had become a Greek tragedy, but I’d done what I thought I had to do—to keep the family whole, to save what was left. I could not have known that Ezra would be killed, that Jean would despise me; but there is an undeniable sharpness to fact. Mother was dead. So was Ezra. Nothing would change that, not my own guilt, not a lifetime of pain. Done is done, end of fucking story. So I asked myself, as I had so many times, What price redemption, and where to find it?
I had no answer to that, and I feared that when the time came, I would lack the strength to pay the price. So standing there in that hollow house, I promised myself one thing, that when all this was past and I stood looking back, I would not face the same regret.
I prayed for strength.
Then I walked outside, where I found Detective Mills waiting in the driveway.
CHAPTER 12
You’d better not have car keys in your hands,” Mills said as I stepped onto hard concrete and squinted at the light reflected off her windshield. I held my hands out, palms up, to show they were empty.
“Relax,” I told her. “I’m not going anywhere.” She was wearing loose brown pants, low-heeled boots, and sunglasses. As always, the butt of her pistol showed from beneath her jacket. It was an automatic. The grip was checkered wood; I’d never noticed that before. I tried to remember if Mills had ever shot anyone. Regardless, I had no doubt that she could pull the trigger.
“As God is my witness, I don’t know what to do with you, Work. If it weren’t for Douglas, we’d be doing this at the station house. I have zero patience for your wounded-bird act. It’s bullshit. You’re going to tell me what you know and you’re going to do it now. Do I make myself clear?”
Strain and fatigue were painted on her face thicker than the makeup she tried to conceal it with. I shook out a cigarette and leaned against her car. I didn’t know what she was making of all this, but I had an idea. “You know why defense lawyers lose cases?” I asked her.
“Because they’re on the wrong side.”
“Because they have stupid clients. I see it all the time. They say things to the police that they can’t take back, things that might be misconstrued, especially when there’s pressure to break the case.” I lit the cigarette, looked down the hill at a passing ambulance, its lights off. “It has always amazed me. It’s as if they think that their cooperation will convince the cops to look at somebody else. It’s naïve.”
“But it keeps people like you in business.”
“There is that.”
“Are you going to talk to me or not?” Mills demanded.
“I’m talking to you now.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass. Not today. I don’t have the patience for it.”
“I’ve read the papers and I’ve been in this business a long time. I know the pressure you’re under.” Mills looked away, as if to deny what I was saying. “If I were smart, I would keep my mouth shut.”
“You don’t want to be on my bad side, Work. I can promise you that.”
“That’s what Douglas told me.”
Emotion tugged at the corner of Mills’s mouth. “Douglas was out of line.”
“He just told me to cooperate.” Mills crossed her arms. “Are we going to be straight with each other?” I asked. “No crap?”
“No problem,” she said.
“I’ll be as honest with you as you are with me. Fair?” She nodded. “Am I a suspect?” I asked her.
“No.” She didn’t hesitate, and I knew she was lying. I almost laughed, she was so transparent, but it would have been an ugly laugh, an “I can’t believe this shit is happening” laugh.
“Do you have any suspects?”
“Yes.”
“Anybody I know?”
“Everybody,” she said, parroting the district attorney. I thought of Jean and prayed that she had not gotten that far in her interview with Clarence Hambly.
“Have you looked into his business dealings? Ex-clients?”
“I can’t talk about the investigation.”
“I know you talked to Hambly,” I told her, watching closely for a reaction, getting none, just the same unbending mouth and eyes I couldn’t see. “I know that you know about the will. Seems to me there are fifteen million reasons why you should be looking at me for the murder.”
“That Hambly. He’s a pompous windbag. He should learn to keep his mouth shut.” Watching her, I finally understood why she hated lawyers so much. She couldn’t intimidate
them, and it killed her.
“So,” I prodded. “I’m not a suspect?”
“Douglas says to lay off you. He says there’s no way you killed your father, not for money. I can’t find any other motive.”
“But you’ve looked.”
“I’ve looked.”
“And you’re going along with that?”
“As long as you’re straight with me, I’ll give Douglas his say. For now. But in the end, it’s my investigation. Jerk me off and I’ll come down on you so hard, your friends will bleed. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” I told her. “What else did you learn from Hambly?” I tried not to show how desperate I was for this information.
Mills shrugged again. “That your father was stinking rich and that if you didn’t kill him, you’re one lucky bastard.”
“It’s just money,” I said.
“That’s good,” she told me. “Just money.”
“Are we going to do this?” I asked.
“Yeah. Fine. About time.”
“Then let’s drive,” I said. “Barbara will probably be home soon and I don’t need her involved in this.”
“Oh, I’ll talk to Barbara,” Mills said pointedly, making it clear that she was still the cop.
“But later, okay? Come on. You drive.”
She took off her jacket and tossed it in the backseat. Her car smelled of the same overripe peach perfume I remembered from the hospital. She had the usual cop radios and a shotgun locked to the dash. Voices chattered on the radio and she turned it down as she backed down my driveway. I studied her from the corner of my eye, took in the cuffs, mace, and spare clip on her belt, the way her shirt gapped open, showing a pale lace bra that didn’t go with the rest of her. Muscles stood out in her jaw, and I suspected that she would much rather have me in custody than be squiring me around town on the city’s nickel. I thought about what a good cop she was, reminded myself to be careful of what I said. She was looking for an excuse.
Once on the street, she turned right, past the park. We drove to Main Street in silence; then she pointed the car out of town, toward the long, impossibly narrow roads so typical of the county. “So talk,” she said. “And don’t leave anything out. I want to know everything that happened on the night your father disappeared. Don’t edit. Don’t choose. Give me everything.”
So we drove, and I tried to speak with great care.
“Why were you there, at his house?”
“My mother’s idea. Dinner. Trying to make peace, I guess.”
Mills turned fractionally, cut her eyes away from the road. “Peace between . . . ?”
“Jean and my father.”
“What were they fighting about?” she asked.
“Fighting is too strong a word. There was just a distance there. One of those father-daughter things.”
“Specifically what?”
I wanted to lie, to protect Jean completely, but I feared that Mills would find the truth elsewhere. A lie now would only make it seem more important. That was the problem with talking to cops. You never knew what they knew. In the end, that’s how they nailed you.
“I think it was about Alex.”
“Your sister’s girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Your father didn’t approve?”
“No, but it was an old argument. We’d been there before.”
“Your sister was not mentioned in your father’s will.”
“She was never in the will,” I said, lying. “My father had old-fashioned views about women.”
“And why did your mother intervene?”
“She just got worried. It was a loud argument.”
Mills kept her eyes on the road. “Did your father beat Jean?” she asked.
“No.”
She looked at me. “Did he beat your mother?”
“No.”
“Who was it again that called?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you were there when the call came in.”
“I didn’t answer it.”
“Tell me exactly what your father said.”
I thought back. “‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ That’s what he said. He answered the phone. He listened. Then he said he’d be there in ten minutes.”
“He didn’t say where?”
“No.”
“He didn’t tell you where he was going?”
“No.”
“Who had called?”
“No. Nothing. He just left.”
“How long was he on the phone?”
I thought about it. “Thirty seconds.”
“Thirty seconds is a long time.”
“It can be,” I said.
“So someone had a lot to say.”
“What about phone records?” I asked. “Lugs, PIN numbers, anything like that?”
“No luck,” Mills said before she caught herself discussing the case and quickly changed the subject. “There had to be something else. Did he take anything with him? Say anything? How did his face look? Was he angry, sad, thoughtful? What direction did he drive?”
I thought about it, really thought about it. That was something I’d never done. How had he looked? What was in his face? Something. Resolution, perhaps. Determination. Yes. And anger. But something else, too. Smugness, I thought. The bastard looked smug.
“He looked sad,” I told Mills. “His wife had just died and he looked sad.”
“What else?” Mills pushed. “Did he take anything? Did he stop between the phone and the door going out? Think.”
“He stopped for his keys,” I said. “Just for his keys.” And then I thought, My God—his keys. Ezra kept his keys on a hook board by the kitchen door. One set for his car, one set for his office. I saw it happen like it had been this morning. He moved past me, into the kitchen, his hand reached out—and he took both sets of keys. I saw it. He was planning to go to the office! But why? And had he made it before he was killed?
“There were no keys on his body,” Mills said.
“Any sign of his car yet?” I asked, eager to distract her. I didn’t want to talk about the keys. Not until I knew what it all meant. Why would Ezra go to the office? I thought about his missing gun, and I thought about his safe. It had to be opened.
“I can’t talk about that. Did you ever hear from him again?”
“No.”
“Phone calls? Letters?”
“Nothing.”
“Why didn’t you report him missing?” she asked.
“I did.”
“Six weeks later,” Mills reminded me. “A long time. That troubles me.”
“We assumed he was in mourning somewhere, getting away from it all. He’s a grown man.”
“Was a grown man.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that he didn’t even show up for the funeral, and still you didn’t report him missing. That’s just suspicious. No other word for it.”
How to explain that? My father was not at the funeral because he killed her. He knocked her down the stairs and broke her neck! I’d figured that the guilt was destroying him. That he knew better than to face Jean and me with empty words and crocodile tears. Because not even Ezra could eulogize about what a fine person he’d killed. I’d guessed he was dead drunk or at the bottom of a high bridge. To me, that made sense. A lot of sense.
“Grief makes people do funny things,” I said.
Mills gave me a very pointed look. “That’s what I keep telling myself,” she said. “If you know what I mean.”
I didn’t know what she meant, but her expression helped me guess. She still liked me for the crime. That was good for Jean, which made it good for me. But I couldn’t do prison. I’d die before I did life in a box. But it wouldn’t come to that; that’s what I told myself. There had to be a way.
“I guess that brings us to the big question,” Mills said. We were at the park. She turned onto the side street that ran past the lake and stopped the car. I could se
e my house and I got her message. You’re not home yet. That’s what she was telling me. Not by a long shot.
The engine ticked as it cooled. I felt her eyes on me. She wanted to look at me now, to focus. The car began to warm in the sun; the air grew stale, and I wanted a cigarette. I met her eyes as steadily as I could. “Where was I on the night in question?” I said.
“Convince me,” she replied.
Decision time. I had an alibi. Vanessa would back me up, no matter what. The truth of that coursed through me like cool water. Measured against trial, conviction, and prison, it was the most valuable thing in the world. It’s what every cornered criminal would kill to have. But did I want it? The answer was yes. I wanted it so badly, I could taste it. I wanted to turn Mills’s withering stare away from me. I wanted to sleep in my own bed and know that I would never be some convict’s bitch. I wanted to give her my alibi like a gift. Wrap it in pretty paper with a big bow.
But I couldn’t. Not until Jean was in the clear. Should I be absolved, they would look to her. Dig deeply enough and they’d find a reason to like her for the crime, be it our mother’s death, Ezra’s will, or a lifetime of overpowering abuse. For all I knew, she’d kill for Alex. And thinking back to that night, as I had so many times, I knew that she could have done it. It was all in her face, the rage at her mother’s death and the dismay of such utter betrayal. Ezra had left and she’d left right behind him. She could have followed him easily enough. And, like all of us, she’d known where he kept the gun. Motive, means, and opportunity—the holy trinity of criminal prosecution. Douglas would eat her alive if he knew. So I had to know she was safe before playing the alibi card. Yet I felt the weakness in me, fluttering deep and low. Strangely, the knowledge of it made me strong. I looked at Mills, whose face was all hard edges and sharp lines. In her glasses I saw my own features, distorted and unreal. It was too close to what I felt on the inside, so I grasped at that strength, and told one more lie.
“It’s like I told Douglas. Dad left. I went home. I was in bed with Barbara all night.”
Something moved on her face, a predatory glint, and she nodded as if she’d heard what she expected to hear. Or what she hoped to hear. She gave me a smile that made me nervous without knowing why.
