The Butcher's Son (25 page)

“Go ahead.” I sat down on the edge of the sofa.

“I was called in on a forensics ID of a skull found by a couple kids on the riverbank about ten miles south of Neelyville. Dental records confirmed the identification, down to the chipped front tooth. It’s Patrick Rourke.”

Chapter 18

“It can’t be,” I heard somebody using my voice
say. “Patrick doesn’t have a chipped front too…”

Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus! The beating the chief had given
eight-year old Patrick while Kevin looked on and did
nothing.

“The department notified the family earlier this evening. They—”

“Thank you, Don,” I heard myself say, and I hung up without even saying goodbye.

And then I cried.

*

When I finally pulled myself together, I called Bob
Allen, waking him up.

“Bob,” I said, not apologizing for the lateness of the call, “we’ve got to talk. Now.”

My tone of voice must have startled him, because all he said was “I’ll be right down.”

*

I did not go to work Thursday morning, nor did I
call in. I planned to hand C.C. my resignation Monday.

Bob called an emergency meeting of the owners of the six burned-out bars and officers of the Bar Guild for noon on Thursday at his apartment. I told them everything, in detail, and then outlined the plan Bob and I had sat up until dawn working on. Had I been in less of a state of semi-stupor, the fact that there was very little dissension from the group would have both relieved and pleased me.

With the group still in the room, I called the chief’s office to arrange an immediate appointment. I was informed the chief was in seclusion at home with his family, and that appointments had to be made through proper channels and might or might not be approved depending on the nature of the proposed meeting, the chief’s busy schedule, etc.. I then called the chief’s home; I still had his unlisted number from our Sunday Supplement contact. To my total surprise, Kevin answered the phone.

“Rourke residence.” He sounded very calm, very professional.

“Kev…it’s Dick. I…I was just calling to see how you’re doing.”

“Thanks so much, Dick. It’s very kind of you.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “Don’t believe what you read in the papers, Dick. It’s all a mistake. Patrick is alive.”

Once again, I felt a tremendous wave of sadness.

“I know he is, Kev. I just wanted to see how you were doing. Take care of yourself, and we’ll talk later, okay?”

“Okay. And thanks again for calling. It’s nice to know someone cares.”

Shit! If I hadn’t been in a room full of guys who couldn’t be expected to understand, I’d have started crying again.

If I couldn’t get to the chief directly, I’d try the next best thing. I called Charles McNearny’s office and told his secretary it was urgent that I talk with him. There was a moment’s pause, and then McNearny came on the line, sounding puzzled.

“Dick,” he said in his hale-fellow-well-met voice, “what a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you?”

“Please excuse me if I sound a bit melodramatic, Mr. McNearny, but it is urgent—and I stress the word
ur
gent
—that I have a private meeting with the chief today.”

There was a long pause, then: “I’m afraid that wouldn’t be possible, Dick. The chief is with his family today. I don’t know whether you’ve heard the—”

“I’ve heard, and that’s exactly
why
I must speak with the chief. I have information that he cannot ignore.”

Another pause, and then a very suspicious: “That wouldn’t be some sort of threat, would it, Dick?”

“Not a threat, Mr. McNearny, but a fact. And there is far more at stake here than the chief’s political ambitions.”

“Can you tell me what this is all about? I can pass it on to the chief.”

“What I have to say to the chief you do not want to hear. Trust me.”

“Well, Dick, as the chief’s primary adviser, I’m afraid I would have to be present at any meeting with the chief…provided I can arrange one.”

“If you insist. How soon can you get back to me?”

“Today?”

“Today. You have my number. I’ll be waiting for your call.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” McNearny said, and hung up.

Since everyone had been in the room when I made the call, I only had to tell them McNearny’s response. I suggested that since McNearny would want to be present for any meeting, Bob should come with me as a representative of the Bar Guild. They agreed that both he and I should represent them. They all wanted to be there, of course, but understood the impracticality of having too many people present.

I thanked them all for their support and excused myself to return to my apartment and await McNearny’s call.

*

Kevin Rourke had set the fires that wiped out seven businesses and caused the deaths of twenty-nine innocent men, including Ramón, but there was not a jury in the civilized world that would convict him. Even if it would, what possible punishment could it mete out to equal the hell of his life?

No, the person ultimately responsible for everything that had happened was Police Chief Terrence Rourke, and it was he who should pay. Even Bob had agreed, and helped me convince the Bar Guild that more good could be gained from extracting some degree of justice from the chief than from prosecuting Kevin.

And as to Kevin, why did I have such strong feelings for him, and why couldn’t I put those feelings into words? Sadness? Compassion? Sympathy? Empathy? I’ve never been able to bear seeing anything or anyone suffer, and Kevin was the most truly pathetic human being I had ever encountered. That he was so totally lost and alone was bad enough, but that he believed I was his friend…

And in some indescribable way, I think I was. How could I not be? Patrick was not around to protect him. Maybe I could.

I had not been in the apartment more than ten minutes when the phone rang. It was Charles McNearny, although he didn’t bother to identify himself.

He merely said, “Seven o’clock. My office.”

I didn’t feel like going back up to Bob’s apartment, so I called and gave him the word, asking him to pass it on to any of the Guild members still there.

*

I didn’t have my customary before-dinner drink.
I
didn’t have dinner, either. While I wanted a stiff drink—or five—badly, I wanted more to be sure I had my full faculties when talking with the chief. As for dinner, food was the last thing on my mind.

I kept thinking of Kevin and Patrick and wondering why in hell I hadn’t caught on to it all a lot earlier. God knows there were enough clues. Kevin’s “prayers and meditations” coincided with Judy’s onstage appearances. It would be easy enough to slip back and forth between the shelter and the back entrance to Bacchus’s Lair. And the music Patrick and I’d heard—and yes, I still thought of Patrick as a separate person—had to have come from the tape recorder I’d seen on the piano in Kevin’s office.

But what had triggered Kevin in the first place?

He’d probably just been hanging on to his sanity by a thread for years—most definitely since Patrick’s death—and the pressures had just kept building. The timing of everything—the opening of Bacchus’s Lair, and the first of the bar fires—was undoubtedly linked to the chief’s decision to run for governor. What was it Patrick had said? That he couldn’t let his father do to the state what he had done to him and Kevin?

Where had Kevin’s elaborate tale about Patrick’s disappearance come from—the chief’s plan to send him off, the bank account in New York? I honestly think Kevin believed it. It was the only way he could avoid facing the unbearable reality that the only person he had ever truly loved, or who had truly loved him—was half of himself—was dead.

It would not have been difficult for Kevin, who had ready access to the chief’s office—or could have seen them if the chief brought them home at any point—to take Tamasini’s arson records.

The explosion at the fundraiser I was less sure of. I knew there were real problems with the oven, but it might have been Patrick’s way of sending a message to his father. The explosion could have been much worse, but Sue-Lynn and Sean were in the dining room—in the very front of the room.

I’d never know on that one.

The sex at the SAPC meeting—was it Kevin, or Patrick? I suspected it may have been something of a crossover. Kevin had acted as though he were totally unaware of it the next morning, and he may not have been, but it could just as easily have been his giving in to his own gayness.

No matter how hard I tried not to think of it, my mind kept going back to Kevin’s terrible loneliness, loss, and ambivalence toward his brother. I’d often heard and read of how the bond between identical twins could never be fully understood by those who are not in that position. Under the most ideal of conditions, that bond would be intense. Given Patrick and Kevin’s family, it was incomprehensible. Patrick had the guts Kevin never had, but for Kevin to sacrifice his own desires for the sake of his domineering parents took a sort of guts, too. And what must Patrick’s disappearance have done to Kevin?

And lastly, Patrick. I truly, truly did not want to think of Patrick and how he had really died. If Kevin knew, which I doubted, he could never say. If the chief had, indeed, had a hand in it—also unthinkable—he certainly would never admit to it.

I preferred to believe that Patrick had died as everyone assumed he had, that he had fallen into the river when the bluff broke away.

But I knew in my heart of hearts that I would be dreaming, for many years, of that bluff by the river, and what really happened there.

*

Neither Bob nor I spoke much on our drive to Mc
Nearny’s office. I was mainly concerned that I not, when actually confronting the chief, give in to my barely-under-control rage against him—against “The Butcher.” I told Bob to keep an eye on me, and to jump in if I started losing it.

We arrived at exactly two minutes to seven, and McNearny was waiting at the glass front door of the darkened building to let us in. Without a word, he led us to his office where the chief, in full uniform in an obvious move to intimidate us, sat in a leather chair beside McNearny’s desk. He did not get up when we entered the room. There were no handshakes.

McNearny motioned Bob and me to two chairs facing the desk then moved behind it to take his seat. When Bob and I were seated, he leaned back in his chair.

“Now, exactly what is this all about?”

I took a deep breath, and began.

“This,” I said, nodding in Bob’s direction, “is Bob Allen, owner of one of the seven gay bars burned in recent months.” I noticed a look of contempt flash across the chief’s face. I ignored it. “Bob’s lover, Ramón, was one of the twenty-nine men who died in the Dog Collar fire. Bob is also a member of the Bar Guild, and it is as spokesmen for that group that we are here.”

The chief’s look of contempt returned.

“This is hardly the time or place—”

“No, Chief Rourke, this is precisely the time and the place.” I glanced at McNearny. “What I am about to say is not a threat. Nor is it an invitation to a discussion. It is a simple statement of facts, and how you respond to it is up to you.

“The fact is that Kevin is responsible for all seven fires, including the fire at the Dog Collar and its resultant deaths.”

McNearny looked totally incredulous. Interestingly, the chief’s expression did not change by so much as a flickered eyelash.

“You can’t—” McNearny began, but I cut him off with a raised hand.

“I can,” I said. “I am ready to submit a report of everything I know to the arson squad tomorrow morning. Whatever concrete evidence we do not have, the arson squad can provide.”

McNearny looked at the chief, who continued to stare directly at me.

“Kevin started the fires, but the responsibility lies elsewhere,” I said, returning the chief’s stare. “In a way, Kevin is as much a victim of the circumstances that led to the fires as those who died in the Dog Collar. Bob, the other members of the Bar Guild, and I agree on that point.

“Having said that, I will now outline our recommendations—which I assume you will see as more than recommendations. First, the chief will withdraw from the governor’s race. He has ample valid reasons to do so, under the circumstances.”

McNearny started to speak, but it was the chief’s hand this time that stopped him.

“It is my understanding,” I continued, “that the chief will be eligible for early retirement at the end of next year. It is our recommendation that he take it.

“Second, Kevin is to receive immediate psychiatric care in a facility able to deal non-judgmentally with his condition, though speaking strictly from the position of one who has come to know and care for him, Kevin is shattered into so many pieces I doubt he can ever be put back together again.

“Third, the official unofficial policy of this police department in regards to the harassment of gay bars, gay establishments, and the gay community at large will cease. If we are in violation of the law, we expect to be held accountable for it, but we are not to be singled out and targeted. We simply expect to be treated like everyone else,”

I was silent for a moment, and the chief said, “And in return for which…?”

I addressed myself directly to him.

“In return for which a great many details of the chief’s personal life will remain personal. Kevin—and Patrick—have suffered more than enough. We have no wish to cause what remains of the family any further pain.”

I fell silent again. McNearny had been staring at the chief with a look of total incomprehension but had not tried to interrupt again.

Finally, the chief pursed his lips and said, “Anything else?”

“No. That pretty much does it.”

We all sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity, until the chief said, “You’ll have our response within forty-eight hours.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Kevin. Kevin first. Immediately.”

The chief nodded.