Obsession (29 page)

I said, “What else did Patty tell you about Lester?”

“Nothing, he wasn’t a topic of frequent conversation. Patty concentrated on caring for Father. And did a damn fine job of it. Iona was incensed when I took her from Lester. In her twisted view, Patty was obligated to stay with Lester forever and I was obligated to pay for it. By the time he’d flunked his third rehab, Iona and I were talking through lawyers. When we settled, she got less than she wanted and more than I wanted to give.”

Big smile. “Marriage is all about compromise, right?”

I said, “She got the building on Cherokee. And Lester.”

“That alone,” said Bedard, “was worth the cost of the damn divorce.” He yawned. “I haven’t slept in two days. Will you be kind enough to see yourselves out?”

“Kyle will show us out,” said Milo.

“Let the boy be.”

“He’s the one who drove by Tanya’s.”

“I told you. He’s got a crush on the girl.”

“That doesn’t explain driving by Mary Whitbread’s.”

Bedard struggled to his feet, swayed, grabbed a side table for support. “I suppose it doesn’t. I’m going to have a nightcap and then I’ll be in dreamland. I’m sure you’ll find Kyle in the library. Good night, gents. Tell my son I love him.”

Kyle Bedard sat on the library floor, ringed by piles of loose paper. Laptop at his fingertips, cell phone in hand.

He put the phone away. “Did Dad regale you with his sexual triumphs?”

I said, “He said to tell you he loves you.”

“He gets that way when he drinks.”

“Affectionate?”

“Mawkish.”

“He drink often?”

“More than often.”

Milo settled on a Chippendale chair too puny for his bulk. I got down beside Kyle and pointed to his phone. “Able to reach her?”

He started to say, “Who?” Cut it off before the vowel sound. “She’s okay.”

“Back home?”

“She just got in.”

“Late-night study group,” I said.

He flinched. “What do you need from me?”

I said, “It’s okay to care about her.”

He said, “I don’t hear a question in there.”

“How about this: What bothers you about Peterson Whitbread?”

“I haven’t seen him in—since I was a kid.”

“I don’t hear an answer in there.”

His left index finger tickled the keyboard of his laptop. The Einstein screensaver dissolved to an engraved portrait of a long-haired, mustachioed man. Frank Zappa look-alike.

I said, “Descartes. Smart guy but wrong about a few things.”

“Such as?”

“The split between emotion and reason.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“It means you can have your feelings and still be smart. We know your father took you along when he visited Mary Whitbread. You hung out with Peterson Whitbread. He did something that bothered you. Enough for you to ask to stop going. Now you’re worried Peterson had something to do with your uncle Lester’s murder. But what really scares you is he could’ve been involved in what bothered Patty Bigelow.”

Tap tap tap. Descartes gave way to Aristotle.

I said, “Your father’s convinced you’re a genius. Maybe you are. In the current context, being smart means quelling the instinct to mindlessly buck authority.”

Rapid eyeblink. “Why would I know anything about what bothered Patty Bigelow?”

“Because Tanya told you everything. Even though she’d been asked not to.”

“I wouldn’t hurt her.
Ever
.”

Milo grunted.

“You don’t believe me?”

“We might, son, if you cut the bullshit and answered our questions.”

“I don’t
know
anything. It’s all
supposition
.”

“Kind of like scientific research,” said Milo. “We can live with that.”

Kyle reached for a Styrofoam cup, looked inside, frowned, tossed it. Spying an unopened can of Fresca, he popped the top, watched liquid foam through the aperture and drip onto his papers.

We waited as he drank.

He said, “You’re convinced that what happened all those years ago is relevant?”

I said, “You’re not?”

Dipping a finger into the soda spill, he shaped an amoeba on the rug, played with the blob until it saturated the wool. “It started when I was nine. Dad and Mom were still married and we had a house a few blocks away from Grandfather’s on Muirfield, had just bought the place in Atherton. When Dad took me with him on his
dates—
it wasn’t just with Mary—I felt like a traitor to Mom. But I didn’t want to get him in trouble because he was the one who…shit, why am I meandering…right to the point: Yes, I asked to stop going because of Pete. He’s a sociopath, or whatever you call it nowadays. At first he made me feel he wanted to hang out. He was four years older. That made me feel uncharacteristically cool.”

Lowering his eyes. “It was also a distraction for what was going on in Mary’s bedroom.”

He passed the soda can from hand to hand. “At first we did normal things—shot hoops, tossed a football, watched TV. He was small for his age, not that much bigger than me, but he seemed a lot more experienced.”

“About?”

“Just a general attitude, he was cocky. But he never talked down to me or treated me like the social outcast I was. So I liked hanging with him. Then he eased into the other stuff. Started showing me naked girls he’d cut out of
Penthouse
and
Hustler
, he had piles under his bed. When I didn’t freak out, he began taking me into the garage where he kept his hard-core stuff. Not simple porn, this was over-the-top. Women gagged and tied up, bestiality, things I still find repellent. At that point, I
was
freaked out. Why I didn’t tell Dad, I don’t know. But I didn’t and Pete moved on to the next step. A toolbox he kept hidden behind some luggage. Inside were movie stills.”

Placing the soda can on the floor, he looked at Milo, then me. “Pictures from movies his
mother
had made. Piles of them. He wasn’t embarrassed, just the opposite. Put them right in my face and made gross comments. ‘Look how she takes it all in.’ ‘That’s what she’s doing to your dad, right now.’ I
still
didn’t want to let on that it bothered me.”

I said, “He was an older kid spending time with you.”

“I have no sibs, in school I wasn’t exactly Mr. Popular. I guess the pictures were also…arousing. Though what that means at nine, who knows?”

“It had to be confusing.”

“I used to go home feeling as if I’d been in a trance. Dad never noticed, after being with Mary he was always in a
great
mood. The next time we’d go she’d offer me milk and cookies, and I’d flash to her pictures, start feeling dizzy, sure I was giving something away. But no one noticed and the minute Pete and I were alone, out came the box and he’d start in again. Talking about his mother as if she were a piece of meat. What made it especially weird is she made it a point to be friendly to me. Big hug, milk and cookies, the works.”

“Maternal.”

“Like a TV mom—she
looked
like a TV mom. I’d see that and then minutes later I’d be watching her do three guys, then Pete licking his lips and rubbing himself. Looking back, it’s obvious he enjoyed shocking me. But I kept following him out to the garage.” Blinking. “One day he touched me while he showed me a picture. I jerked away and he laughed, said he was just kidding, he was no fag. Then he opened his own fly and started masturbating.”

He scratched his head hard. “I’ve never told anyone. Maybe if I’d spoken up, Pete could’ve gotten some help.”

I said, “From what I’ve heard about his mother, she couldn’t have been counted on.”

“I know, I know…Dad’s choice in women…but still…”

“It wasn’t your job to fix things, Kyle.”

“No?” He laughed. “So why are we talking about it now? Don’t bother answering, I get it…I guess my point is that whatever Pete’s done, he never had a chance.”

Milo said, “There are always choices.”

“Are there? I can’t even figure out my own calculations, let alone human nature.”

I said, “Welcome to real life. What finally made you ask not to return?”

“Something else happened…oh, Jesus—fine, fine…It was a Sunday, a long weekend—Presidents’ Day, something like that. As usual, Mom was off skiing and Dad and I were home. Off to Mary’s we went, but this time Dad and Mary went to have brunch by themselves. I was nervous about being left alone with Pete but Dad wasn’t paying attention. Pete picked up on my anxiety right away, said, ‘Hey, man, sorry if I grossed you out but I’ve got something totally cool to show you. Something different.’”

His shoulders dropped. “I was relieved. He seemed so
jaunty
.”

“You were never scared he’d hurt you?”

“I was scared the way you are when you’re playing hide-and-seek and you know someone could be just around the corner. But no, apart from that one time, he never touched me and he was always friendly. I
was
upset about not spending time alone with Dad. Doing normal father-son things—don’t tell him any of this, he’s tried to the best of his capabilities. His dad mistreated him but he never did that to me.” Deep breath.

I said, “So Pete was jaunty.”

“Stay on topic, Kyle.” Knuckling his brow. “Back to the garage. The ‘different thing’ was another box, full of audiotapes. He said they were bootlegs that he’d learned to splice together to make his own music…He showed me the razors he used to do it, pretty sloppy job. Then he played his homemade cassettes on a boom box. Dreadful, mostly static and white noise and bits of lyric that made no sense. But it was a lot better than looking at his pictures and I told him ‘Cool.’ That made him happy and we shot some hoops, went into the house, had a snack. Cap’N Crunch. Pete drank some wine and tried to get me to try it but I refused. He didn’t push it, he never pushed anything. I trailed him to the garage again like a good little puppy, and he went straight to a refrigerator they kept back there. I’d always seen it bolted with a chain but now the chain was off. It looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned for a while. The only thing inside was a large see-through plastic bag. Inside were what looked like chunks of raw meat. It smelled horrible, despite being sealed. I held my nose, started to gag. He laughed, spread a tarp on the floor—one of those bright blue things gardeners use—and dumped out the contents of the bag.”

His face had gone white. His hand shot to his belly. “Even now, it’s unbelievable…sometimes I still wonder if I dreamed it.” Moments passed. He sucked in breath.

He said, “What he dumped out was animal matter, all right. But not beef or pork.”

Another inhalation.

“Body parts. Guts, limbs, fur, bones, teeth. Heads, too. Squirrels and rats and I think I saw a cat. I just lost it, out came the Cap’N Crunch. Pete thought that was hilarious. Got up and grabbed a fork from a barbecue set they kept out there and used it to push gobs of the stuff around on the tarp. As if he were stir-frying. All the while, he’s laughing. ‘Time for dinner—no, it’s breakfast—no it’s brunch, hey dude, we can have our
own
brunch.’ Then all of a sudden, he speared a forkful and jammed it right up against my face. I jumped up, still barfing. I tried to get out of the garage but couldn’t. The door was shut, one of those metal rolling dealies, I had no idea how to open it. Pete kept waving the goop, offering it to me, making gross jokes. It reeked beyond
belief
.”

“Disgusting,” said Milo. Meaning it.

Kyle placed his palms on the rug, braced himself, as if ready to levitate. “I’m screaming and barfing, begging him to let me out. He keeps advancing on me, then he stops, leans against the fridge. Opens his fly and whips it out and takes a gob and puts it
there
. And touches himself. It didn’t take him long. He was turned on.”

He excused himself to go to the bathroom, came back with damp hair and raw eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

I said, “How’d you get out of the garage?”

“He finished, let me out, ignored me for the rest of the day.”

“How much contact did you have with him after that?”

“None. I never saw him again.”

“Family obligations never got in the way?”

“What are you talking about.”

“You don’t know?” I said. Wondering if he really didn’t.

“Know what?”

“Lester Jordan—”

“Is his father, yeah, yeah, technically he’s my cousin, but not functionally. There was absolutely no contact. And I didn’t find out about the relationship until years later. Hell, with all of
Dad’s
running around, I could have cousins all over the world.”

“When and how did you find out Lester was Pete’s father?”

“I was already living in Atherton, it was a couple of years later. I came down to spend time with Dad and he wanted to go see one of his girlfriends. This time I asserted myself and said if he didn’t care about spending one-on-one time with me, I’d go to a museum. He got really apologetic, started beating himself up about being a shitty dad. So of course, I consoled him, told him he was a great dad. Somewhere in the midst of that, the subject of Lester and Pete came up. I believe he’d gone off on a speech about bloodlines, how any good genes I’d gotten were from his side because Mom’s side was a bunch of losers. After the divorce, both of them were doing that to me—bad-mouthing each other.”

I said, “He used Lester as an arguing point.”

“Exactly. Then he dropped in the nugget about Lester being Pete’s father. Made an apple-not-falling-far kind of comment.”

“Sounds like he knew Pete had problems.”

“I guess so.”

“But he didn’t ask if Pete had ever mistreated you.”

“No,” he said. “Dad’s curiosity only extends so far.”

I said, “How’d you find out about Pete’s learning disabilities?”

His eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

I said, “You told Tanya you had a cousin who’d been put on medication to little avail. Or were you referring to someone else?”

“I…no, that was him. I guess I did call him that. But not because I really consider us kin. Tanya and I were having a theoretical discussion. I didn’t think I was going to be
parsed
.”