Paternity Case

by Gregory Ashe

  —Somers—

  —outside for a while. Get some air. Clear his head.

  Except he couldn’t. Cora stood in his path. She was tall, but not as tall as Hazard. Not even as tall as Somers. And she looked like she weighed less than a wet cat. But she might as well have been the Statue of Liberty planted in Hazard’s way. He couldn’t get around her.

  “We didn’t really get a chance to talk last night,” Cora said. She shifted position, sliding both hands into her armpits, as though trying to keep warm. “I wanted to—”

  Hazard was already shaking his head. “You don’t need to.”

  He tried to slip around her, but Cora shifted, less than an inch, a fraction of an inch, but enough that the way was blocked. “I do. I wanted to thank you. For saving John-Henry’s life, I mean.”

  “He saved mine too.”

  Cora shook her head, as though he’d said the wrong thing. She was chewing her lip, and she looked like she hadn’t chewed her lip ever, maybe not in her whole life, until she was face to face with Hazard. “I know things haven’t been good between me and John-Henry.” The words exploded out of her. “I don’t know what people told you. I don’t know what he told you.”

  Hazard glanced around the bedroom. Glass doors opened onto a juliet balcony. He could jump into the snow. He’d break a leg, maybe both legs, but he’d get out of here. And if the doors were locked? He could throw himself through the glass. He’d survive. Maybe.

  “Nobody’s perfect,” Cora said, her words faltering as she spoke into the chasm of silence that had opened up in the room. “I get that. I do.” There was blood on her lip now. Blood on her white teeth. “You probably hate me. Does John-Henry hate me? No. Don’t answer that. I shouldn’t have—I don’t know.” She took a breath, her hands burrowing deeper under her arms, and then she laughed. “I’m doing a terrible job, aren’t I? Here’s the truth. I want you to be a friend. A family friend. And now I’m sure you think I’m crazy, but there it is.”

  Hazard wasn’t thinking about the juliet balcony. He wasn’t thinking about the glass doors, or counting the stitches he’d probably need, or wondering if Nico would break up with him over a pair of broken legs. He was hearing that word, over and over again. It was ballooning inside him, swelling so that it took up all the space and air.

  Family friend.

  Family.

  Somers’s family. Not his mother and father. His family. His wife. His daughter.

  Jesus. His wife. This woman was his wife.

  Hazard had known, of course, but somehow it was real now, so real and so big.

  “Anyway, enough of that,” Cora said with another laugh. “What are you doing up here anyway? Investigating your chief suspect?”

  Hazard barely heard the question. His wife. Somers had a wife, and it was Cora Malsho, who had been—what? Homecoming queen? Prom queen? Head cheerleader? She was right here, she was real, she was—

  —never going away—

  —waiting, Hazard realized, for him to say something.

  But he had taken too long, and now shock and realization sparkled in her face, glittering and then gone. “You are. You really think she did it.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “You do.” Cora tugged at the corduroy shirt, ran a hand through her short, dark hair, and swiveled left then right, as though re-examining the room. “Well? What did you find?”

  “I can’t talk about this with you.” Hazard shook his head. “I mean there’s nothing to talk about.”

  Cora stepped past him, ignoring his feeble denials. She circled the canopied bed, adjusting the pillows, pulling back the quilt, sliding her hand between the mattress and the springs.

  “What are you doing?”

  She straightened the bedding and marched to the dresser, working open the drawer that Hazard had been examining when she came into the room. When she saw the disarray that Hazard had left, she sighed and shook her head and began straightening Grace Elaine’s underwear.

  “I’m going to get Somers.”

  “Do you know what Grace Elaine said when John-Henry and I got engaged?”

  Hazard paused at the door. He didn’t want to hear. He didn’t want to know their past. He didn’t want to acknowledge that there was a past, that—

  —Somers’s wife—

  —Cora had a history with Somers that had no room for him. But something in her voice stopped him: a mixture of pain and amusement, like bitters in the best cocktails.

  “We were at dinner. John-Henry and I had come back from Mizzou for the weekend. He had proposed on Saturday night. And the next night, Sunday night, we stayed and went to dinner with his parents so that John-Henry could make the announcement. So that it was official. That’s how it is with this family, you know. Everything is about announcements and procedures and spectacle and propriety. Everything is—” Her hands stopped rummaging, palms turning up, fingers curling in, as though trying to protect herself. “Everything is so damn staged. Like the announcement. Grace Elaine knew we were engaged. Glenn knew we were engaged. John-Henry had talked to them about it, and they didn’t approve, and so they were going to pretend that it hadn’t happened until we shoved their noses in it.”

  Slowly, one by one, her fingers extended, and she shook her head and went back to sorting the underwear.

  Hazard waited. The edge of the story trailed between them like a frayed thread.

  “Well?” he finally asked.

  “We were sitting there at Tyrone’s, you know, that steakhouse that’s out Route 17, and—you’ve been there?”

  Hazard shook his head. He’d heard of it, of course. Everyone within fifty miles of Tyrone’s had heard of it, but he’d never been because his parents couldn’t afford it, because it was a planet in a completely different galaxy.

  “It’s rustic, that’s their word. There are animal heads all along the walls, and the timbers are exposed. You don’t notice the timbers, though, not really, because of all those heads. At the back, right in the middle, there’s a doe. I didn’t even think you were supposed to shoot a doe, but there she is, tacked up on the wall. I asked what they used for her eyes once, and they told me they used lead. Most taxidermists use glass, whole stores of glass eyes if you can imagine that. But not that doe. They used lead. And it’s—” Cora shivered. “I was sitting there. I had the edge of the tablecloth in my hands. I remember being excited, but it’s like someone else’s memory. Now, looking back, I know I was stupid. I can see all the signs. But I remember feeling excited. John-Henry told them. You know how he is.”

  Charming, Hazard wanted to say. Warm. Genuine. Open. Beautiful. That last word was half buried, planted in the same uneasy grave as all his other, truest thoughts about Somers. But yes. Yes, he knew exactly how Somers would have told his parents. He knew what Somers’s face would have looked like. He knew how his mouth would have curved, the crinkle of pleasure around his eyes, yes, Hazard knew, and his heart thumped so hard he thought it might explode.

  “And?”

  “And Glenn did what he always does when something unpleasant happens: he shot his mouth off. He told John-Henry he was ruining his life, throwing it away, he was too young, he had to think about law school—” Cora barked a mocking laugh. “John-Henry still hadn’t told him about that, of course. Glenn went on and on. Loud. Everybody on Route 17 probably heard him, and they were probably glad when they hit the turn-off for 54. It hurt, but as it went on, I started to feel numb, you know, like jumping into cold water. It’s bad, but it’s not the end of the world. I was looking up, looking at that doe, at those lead eyes, thinking it’s not so bad, it could always be worse, that could be me up there.” Her hands twisted into claws again, tenting a pair of rose-colored panties, threatening to rip the fabric. “And when Glenn had finished, when he’d gone back to his burgundy and his ribeye, when it was Grace Elaine’s turn, she looked at John-Henry, and she said, ‘I think I won’t have the creme brulee this time. It
was so dry.’ That was it. And it’s been like that for, God, eight years. Something like that. Every once in a while she’ll speak to me, but most of the time it’s like I’m a ghost, and the best way to deal with me is to ignore me and hope I’ll go away.” Cora turned her head, and the winter sunlight spilled into her eyes, turning them into smears of dull light, like dark metal that refused to catch, like lead.

  Hazard said nothing. He could hear his own heartbeat, massive, an enormous stomping sound, like his angry footsteps earlier. He could hear it, and he’d be damned, he’d be damned to hell if Cora couldn’t hear it too. It was that loud. It had moved beyond sound and into space, shaking his body with each beat. He could see it all. He could see Somers taking her hand. Somers leading her home. Somers telling her it didn’t matter. Somers defying his parents. Somers making it work. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Hazard thought. It’d be easier if someone would just rip out his heart all at once then let it go on beating like this.

  “You probably think I’m telling you this to make you feel sorry for me,” Cora said. With what looked like great effort, she uncurled her fingers and unfurled the pair of panties on the top of the dresser. “That’s not why, though. Not entirely. I’m telling you this because I want you to know why I’m going to help you.”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to help you. You think Grace Elaine might have had something to do with what happened last night.” She paused. Then the sun shifted, and the pools of opaque light dropped away from her eyes, and she looked straight at Hazard. “I don’t know if I would have ever admitted it to myself, not if I hadn’t spoken to you, but I’ve wondered for a long time what Grace Elaine would do—or wouldn’t do—if it came to that. Kill? I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. But that says something, don’t you think? Most people, you should be able to say no. But I can’t, not for Grace Elaine.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s been having an affair. That’s not really anything new; she’s had them on and off for years. Glenn, too. But things have been different lately. I don’t know if it has anything to do with John-Henry and I separating, but Glenn has started being . . . open about his relationships. Too open.”

  Hazard thought back to the night before, to the seventeen-year-old girl pressed up against Glennworth Somerset’s paunch.

  “New underwear,” Cora said, patting the pair of panties. “New clothes. New diets. And a new fragrance.” She sniffed once, as though for emphasis, and again Hazard noted the sweetened aroma of gardenias. “That’s not what she wears for Glenn. She must have been going to meet her—well, the other man.”

  “She said she was going to a charity luncheon.”

  Cora’s lips quirked in a smile. “Do you always believe what your suspects tell you?”

  Heat rushed into Hazard’s face. “Do you know who she’s seeing?”

  “Yes. Everyone knows. At least, everyone except Glenn. And, I suppose, John-Henry. Although it’s very hard to be sure. John-Henry—he hides things, sometimes. He’s not a liar. That’s not what I mean. But when he doesn’t want to deal with things, he locks them away. I’m not even sure he knows he’s doing it.”

  The locker room. The steam curling up from Somers’s shoulders—more slender then, but already starting to broaden. And the shallow line between his pectorals. The scattering of blond hairs at his navel. The tips of his fingers brushing Hazard’s collarbone, and the sudden, certain knowledge that Hazard’s whole world had turned to fire, that nothing would ever come close to that feeling again, except maybe the kiss, the brush of Somers’s dry lips. And then the door had opened, and Somers had vanished. And what had happened after that? Nothing. No, worse than nothing. Somers had pushed Hazard down the stairs. That’s what fags get. And then silence. Silence for fifteen years.

  He locks things away, Hazard thought. Boy, hell, does he.

  “Who is it?”

  “Jeremiah Walker.”

  “They were talking together at the party last night. I thought maybe—” Hazard stopped, shrugged. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d thought. But he’d sensed, even then, Grace Elaine’s fury towards her husband.

  “Emery,” Cora said, folding the underwear and tucking it back into the drawer, as though she had proven her point and there was no longer need for the evidence. Her hands worked against each other restlessly, almost frantically. “There’s something I need to ask you. About you and John-Henry.”

  Before she could continue, before the sky could finish crashing down, Somers came into the room. He paused after his second step, like a man who senses a lightning strike and can’t tell where to run. “What’s going on?” he asked, his gaze moving from one to the other.

  Silence.

  “Cora, is everything ok? Why are you here?”

  More silence. Silence everywhere except Hazard’s thundering heart.

  “Hazard?”

  And there it was, Hazard thought, and with one last, painful hammer, his heart settled back to its normal pace. That was it. Hazard. Not Ree. Not when Cora was around, at least. That settled it.

  “We were talking,” Hazard said.

  “I wanted to check on your mother,” Cora said. She smiled, and God, Hazard thought, she really was beautiful. She crossed the room and, with an almost adolescent nervousness, kissed Somers’s cheek. “And on you.”

  Somers squeezed her arm, and he was smiling, but he said, “And somehow you both ended up in my parents’ bedroom?”

  “Your mother’s having an affair with Jeremiah Walker,” Hazard said, wishing he didn’t feel a surge of satisfaction at the way the words hit Somers. “That’s motive, Somers. Two of our suspects, in fact, now have a serious reason to want your dad dead.”

  Somers had gone pale, the golden hue draining from his skin everywhere except the red in his cheeks, but he shook his head and held up a small electronic device. “No,” he said, shaking his head again, more firmly. “No, I found it.”

  “What?”

  “Why Sherman Newton tried to kill my father.”

  SOMERS STOOD THERE, THE ELECTRONIC RECORDER extended towards Hazard, but the sense of victory was draining out of him. The last few minutes had held a series of—

  —unpleasant—

  —unexpected realizations: Hazard and Cora had been alone, upstairs, talking for God only knew how long; Hazard had been searching his parents’ bedroom; and Hazard had just claimed that Somers’s mother was having an affair.

  And something was wrong in that room. It wasn’t the room itself; Somers’s parents had lived in that room for most of their married life, and while the furniture changed regularly, the essential feeling of the room itself had stayed the same. No, the weirdness in the air came from Hazard. Or Cora. Or both. The hair on the back of Somers’s neck stood up like he was about to bite down on a battery. Probably a D-cell. What had they been talking about?

  Me, a darkly satisfied part of him thought. They’d been talking about John-Henry Somerset. And at the same time that the thought stroked his ego, it also left him distinctly terrified.

  What—

  —did Cora know—

  —had they said?

  “You think my mother’s having an affair?” Somers finally said.

  “It would explain a lot.”

  “Yeah? What would it explain?”

  “Why she didn’t go near your father last night, but she spent half the evening with Jeremiah Walker.”

  “She didn’t go near my father because he’s an asshole on general principle, and twice as much when he’s had something to drink. She and Jeremiah are friends. They’ve been friends for years.”

  “They’re more than friends.”

  Somers managed a dry laugh. “No offense, Hazard, but you’re not really the expert on this.”

  As soon as the words had left Somers’s mouth, he knew they’d been a mistake. They’d come from a place of fear, vulnerability, and hurt. They’d been meant to hur
t. He wanted to catch them, reel them back, swallow them. But it was too late. Could Cora see it? Could she tell that the fresh tightness in Hazard’s jaw, the sudden flatness of his scarecrow eyes, the slight flexion of his shoulders, that they weren’t signs of anger—not just anger, anyway? Maybe, Somers thought. Maybe she could. Cora saw too much sometimes.

  How much? How much could she see, exactly? That was a dangerous question, and he brushed it away.

  “I’m not an expert on what, Somers?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Sure you did.”

  “Ree—Hazard, look, I didn’t mean anything. I’m pissed off. I shot my mouth off. It was a stupid thing to say.”

  “What was a stupid thing to say? That I don’t know anything about straight relationships? That I wouldn’t recognize straight people flirting because I’m just the town faggot?”

  “Jesus,” Somers said. His shoulders had curled under the weight of Hazard’s assault. He needed to sit down. He needed a drink. He needed to learn how to keep his mouth shut. “You know me. You know that’s not what I meant.”

  Behind those straw-colored eyes, Hazard was a million miles away. Maybe two million. He glanced at Cora, as though the two of them had a secret, and he said, “Why don’t you explain? You’re credible, I suppose. You are straight, after all.”

  “You’re being really shitty about this.”

  Cora glanced at Hazard and then at Somers. Somers knew that look. He knew the way she tucked her lower lip under her teeth, the way her back stiffened, the way a flush dappled her neck. Then he blinked. Was she wearing his old shirt?

  “You don’t need to talk to him like that,” she said to Hazard. Her voice was very quiet, but quiet like the air after a nuclear blast. With two steps, she crossed the space between Hazard and Somers and placed herself at Somers’s side. She didn’t touch him, and briefly, Somers wondered if they weren’t there yet, if she still couldn’t bring herself to touch him, and he wondered how long, how long until she could, and maybe the answer was never. “John-Henry, Emery’s right. I know it must hurt to hear it, but I think your mother is having an affair.”