Dead Last (26 page)

“Names would be helpful.”

“I don’t know their names. They’re nurses, two nice nurses, though they barely speak a word of English between them. They thought you were cute, so I told them that you and my daughter were getting reacquainted at a bar downtown, and after you got a few drinks in you,
cuidado, mamacitas,
lock up your chicas.”

She ate a few bites of her sandwich and set it down.

Thorn tasted his and waited for Garvey’s exuberant mood to settle. She was an excitable woman, brimming with energy, an impish light in her eyes. He wasn’t sure he could take anything she said with complete confidence. So far he’d not yet heard her slip into anything that resembled a tranquil tone.

Maybe it was Garvey’s theatrical instincts that leapt a generation and fueled a love for drama in her grandsons. It sure hadn’t come from Thorn. And April seemed as understated and shy of the spotlight as anyone he knew.

“Dee Dee, Sawyer, Gus, and Flynn. There’s your list of suspects.”

“Suspects?”

“All four of them wanted to know all about who you were. They saw how April was acting around you, then after you and the tattoo woman went off, they came over one by one and wanted to hear what I knew. So I told each of them the same thing; You two were old friends and you and the lady sheriff were investigating something dark and mysterious, and you were meeting April at Poblanos later on in the afternoon.

“And all four of them have been up in that garage apartment any number of times. Sawyer and Dee Dee go up there to tango. Flynn stays over some nights when he wants some home cooking. Gus, he just wanders around wherever he pleases. How’m I doing? Am I being helpful?”

“Very helpful, yes.”

“Can you deputize me now?”

“I don’t have the power to deputize.”

“Posh,” Garvey said. “Don’t sell yourself short, big boy. I bet you could deputize just about any woman you wanted.”

April cleared her throat. Standing in the kitchen doorway with a serious look.

“When you’ve finished lunch, Thorn, I’d like to speak with you.”

He excused himself and followed April into the front room opposite the study. The parlor was full of golden light filtering through gauzy curtains that stirred in a midday breeze. Nothing in the room matched, a comfortable hodgepodge. Mission-style wooden dinner chairs. Two plush velvet chairs, a throw rug woven in a variety of earth tones. A china cabinet full of photos and carved knickknacks. On one wall hung a portrait of a beautiful woman of twenty or so in a black dress, smiling mysteriously off to the right as if someone in the portrait room had caught her fancy. It was Garvey as a young lady, the mischief already taking root in her features.

In a corner of the room was a flat-screen TV standing on an ornately carved table. The usual electronic accessories arrayed on the table beside it.

Thorn chose a wingback chair next to the coffee table.

April stood uncertainly in the doorway assembling her thoughts.

“I’ll move out,” Thorn said. “Find somewhere else to stay.”

“That’s not necessary.”

She eased into an ancient leather chair beside a front window. The angle of sunlight split her face in half, putting one side in shadow, the other lit so harshly he could see the blue web of veins at her temple and a dusting of dark sideburn hair.

Thorn settled back in the chair. He could walk away from this. Get in Buddha’s car and find a motel room. Work with Sheffield till they’d reeled in the Zentai Killer. Stay as long as that required and have nothing more to do with the Moss family.

“I asked the boys to come over and meet you. Flynn should be here in a half hour or so. Sawyer’s out with Gus and Dee Dee on their yacht, cruising around the bay. He said he’d be over later, after supper.”

“You told them about me.”

“I told them a few things. Their father had appeared. A little about your background, how you live.”

“And what do you want me to do, April?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to hide.”

“So go. There’s time. It’s your call. If this feels wrong, just leave.”

He sat and stared at the blank TV set.

“But if you do decide you want to wait and meet them, I think you should take a look at something first.”

Thorn glanced at the parlor doorway. Ten steps. Five more to the front door. A quick sprint to the car.

“Look at what?”

“Are you staying?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m here, I’m staying.”

“I don’t want to prejudice you in any way. They’re wonderful young men, both of them, and Jeff too. But given the situation, why you’re here, the violence last night, I didn’t want to hide this from you. I don’t know if it’s relevant, but I thought you should know, then decide if Agent Sheffield should see it too.”

She picked up the remote and switched on the TV, then clicked past the cable news channel the set was tuned to and brought up a blank screen.

“It was the summer before their freshman year in high school. They were fourteen. There’d been problems in the house. Behavioral things. Acting out. Lots of screaming fights, moodiness, sulking, whole days when neither of them made more than a grunt. Refused to get out of bed and go to school. Sometimes it was Sawyer, sometimes it was Flynn. At first I thought it was just the adolescent hormone thing. And some of it was that, of course. But this was worse. This was scary. Depression, anger, screaming at me and Mother, calling us terrible names. Both of them taking turns.

“Then something violent happened. Something a long way beyond adolescent acting out. A judge was involved, the court system. As a part of the deal, the boys were legally bound to have a psychological evaluation.

“They met with a therapist separately for several months. Then they had one session together. The therapist was a friend of a friend, so I thought he’d be sympathetic and feed me progress reports. But he refused to tell me anything at all, not even a hint. Just kept telling me that they were moving forward. It was frustrating as hell. I pestered him, and he kept putting me off.

“After three months, he handed me this tape, a ten-minute film from their final session together. He decided I needed to know. Maybe it wasn’t professionally ethical. He could have gotten in trouble with the judge. I don’t know. And I’m not sure I should’ve watched it at all. It’s colored my view of things, changed how I feel about my own flesh and blood. I stashed it away and I’ve never shown it to anyone, not even Mother. But since you’re here, under these circumstances, and since the boys are suspects, I thought you should watch this.”

Again Thorn measured the distance to the door and beyond. Thirty seconds and he’d be gone.

“They’re not suspects,” he said.

“Of course they are. Let’s don’t lie to each other, Thorn. Gus and Dee Dee and the boys, and even Jeff Matheson. They all had access to my files and to those scissors. I’m not stupid.”

The TV set was flickering, stalled in a zone of static and gray light.

“And what would their motive be?”

“Those satellite trucks,” she said. “Newspapers and TV commentators mentioning
Miami Ops
. This whole horrible thing has put them on the map. Their ratings are going to be through the roof.”

“You think one of them could have beaten another human being to death to improve their TV ratings?”

April aimed the remote at the array of electronics.

“You really don’t think one of your boys did this.”

“Of course I don’t. I just want everything on the table.”

She got the video running and stood up, watched a few moments, then a phone rang somewhere in the house. It rang several times, then from the maid’s room Garvey called that April was wanted.

She turned and marched from the parlor. Thorn sat and watched.

The therapist’s office was nothing special. Diplomas on the wall, the usual bookshelves, stocked in an orderly way. A desk as anonymous as the rest of the décor. The man sitting behind the desk was bearded and had a ponytail and wore a red-and-white checked shirt.

The boys sat side by side, Flynn slouching in his chair, Sawyer erect, chin up. Sawyer in a pink button-down shirt, Flynn wearing a white one of the same type. Their hair parted neatly, their jeans pressed, their loafers shiny. If it weren’t for the difference in their eyes, no way Thorn could tell them apart. But what he’d noted when he first saw their photographs had been true even ten years earlier. Flynn’s eyes were tightened into a squint as though a blinding light were shining on his face, while Sawyer seemed so resolutely serene he might have been drowsing off.

The therapist was holding a wooden pencil in his hand and was drumming the point against an ink blotter. The three of them seemed to be locked in a silent standoff. A question asked but not yet answered. A pause that seemed to grow more unbreakable as it grew in length. A minute of silence was followed by another minute just as silent. Neither of the boys fidgeted. The only thing moving in the room was the pencil.

Finally Sawyer leaned forward in his chair as if stretching the muscles in his lower back. He hugged himself, then sat back and blew out a breath.

“I did not know what was going on,” he said. “All right. I walked in and saw them, and didn’t understand what I was seeing. So I freaked. Nothing more complicated than that.”

The therapist pressed his palms together and rolled the pencil between them. Covering the hint of eagerness in his face with this nonchalant act.

“You didn’t know this about Flynn. So when you realized it, you reacted strongly.” The therapist continued to roll his pencil between his palms. He didn’t seem to be questioning Sawyer’s version of things, but to be restating his words for the record.

“You didn’t just freak,” Flynn said quietly. “You tried to kill him.”

Sawyer leaned back in his chair, rocked his head back, and studied the ceiling. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

“He’s alive, isn’t he?” Sawyer said, still staring upward. “I hit him, yeah. I hit him because I thought he was hurting you. It was disgusting. I pulled him off and I hit the fuck out of him.”

“You hit him,” the therapist said.

“You punched him and kept punching him. You broke his teeth, you broke his nose and his jaw. You would’ve killed him if I hadn’t stopped you.”

“We have different memories of the event.”

“You were trying to kill him. That’s not a memory. That’s a fact.”

“Whatever.”

“Was it Jeff Matheson you were mad at, Sawyer?”

Sawyer looked at his nails.

“I wasn’t mad at anyone. I was reacting to something that was wrong. I thought I was doing a good thing, I was rescuing my brother. Defending him against an attacker.”

“Bullshit.”

“You thought Flynn was in mortal danger?”

“Flynn was screaming like he was in pain, like he was being hurt.”

“You’re such a liar,” Flynn said. “Such a fucking liar.”

Sawyer turned his head slowly and examined his brother for a minute.

“You knew I was gay,” Flynn said. “You knew it for years.”

“No,” Sawyer said. “I did not.”

“Yes, you did. You damn well knew.”

“Did you ever tell me you were gay? Did you ever tell anybody?”

“I didn’t have to. You’re my goddamn twin, you knew.”

“You should’ve told me. We were always truthful with each other.”

The therapist scratched some words on his yellow legal pad. He tugged on his graying mustache and said nothing. The ball was rolling. The long months of pushing it up the hill were over; now all he had to do was stand back and watch gravity take its course.

“Did you ever say the words? ‘I am a homosexual. I love men.’ Did you ever say those words, Flynn? One time, even once, out loud?”

“You knew. You damn well knew.”

“And of all people. Matheson, that creep. Jesus Christ, Flynn. Jeff Matheson? I should have gone ahead and beaten him to death. That weasel. That shithead. Always hanging around, the way he looks at you.”

Flynn stood up. He looked calmly at the therapist.

“Have you got enough? Will that make the judge happy?”

“We have more time in the hour.”

“I’m done,” Flynn said. “I’ve said all I’m going to say. Ever. If he goes to jail, he goes to jail. I’ll bake him cookies.”

He walked out, shut the door. A light step, the easy stride of an athlete.

Sawyer was washing his hands together, looking toward the window.

“I should’ve killed the asshole.”

“If you had done that, your brother would still be who he is,” the therapist said. “Nothing you can do will change him into someone else. There’s nothing wrong with him. He doesn’t have a sickness. His sexual orientation isn’t wrong or immoral or any of that.”

“He betrayed me,” Sawyer said.

“I’m sorry,” the therapist said. “How did he betray you?”

“We had a bond, a connection. He violated that. He deserted me.”

“Every individual needs privacy at times,” the therapist says. “Flynn had a secret. I’m sure he would have told you in due time. Your love for him and his love for you is very solid. It’ll survive this strain.”

“I don’t care if it survives. He deserted me.”

“Those are only words, Sawyer. He didn’t desert you. He’s changed. He’s discovered a new part of himself. Now you need to adjust as well. All relationships grow and alter over time. It’s natural and healthy. It’s not always easy, but we must find a way to stay flexible and maintain the love and trust and faithfulness that underlie the bond.”

“Enough of this shit,” Sawyer said. “If Judge Parker wants anything else, then just tell him to fuck himself, lock me up, toss the key in the ocean. I’m not doing this anymore, not another minute. I’m out of here.”

He walked from the room with the same light and certain step as his brother and shut the door crisply.

The therapist sat for a moment twiddling his pencil, then let go of a long sigh and looked up at the video camera. The screen went dark.

ACT FOUR

AT SEA

TWENTY-ONE