Winter and Night (36 page)

I lit a cigarette, considered her question. "No."

"Okay," she said. "But anyway, we told him. Did he tell us anything?"

"I'm not sure. What did you get?"

"Well," she said, "he admitted to something that could be construed as tampering with a witness. That could be bad for him, for his reputation, even if it wasn't actually illegal."

"You mean, it could be true that that's all he's hiding?"

"Could be."

"But you don't buy it."

"No."

"For a reason, or just because you hate him?"

"That's a reason. Can I ask you something?"

"What?"

"Did he remind you of Mr. Hamlin?"

"Stacie said that, too. That that's what Warrenstown loves about Hamlin: He's just like Coach Ryder."

"Where do you suppose he learned that?"

"That coaching style? I hate to add to your disillusionment with organized athletics, but it's a fairly common one."

"Bill, they use the same words. Candy-asses. Pervs. Mommy's boys. Everyone else in the world says momma's boys, except these two guys."

I glanced at her as we left the school, walked together down the stone steps. "Well, I suppose Hamlin could have coached under Ryder," I said. "Or played under him, when he was a kid."

"Ryder's been at Warrenstown for thirty-five years, and Hamlin's not much older than that. That would mean Hamlin's either from here, or he worked here for a while."

"That could be."

"Why didn't anyone tell us that?"

We reached her Taurus, shadowed now that the sun was low. The wide lot was almost empty, just half a dozen cars spotted around the asphalt, none close to any of the others. I thought of Stacie Phillips, unlocking her car, her mind on the work she'd just done, or her plans for the evening, or anything but a man in a hockey mask grabbing her, kicking her, shouting over and over a question she didn't understand.

"And?" Lydia said, standing by her car, keys in hand. "Now what?"

The wind turned sharply, cut back across us, pulling Lydia's hair across her forehead, snaking under my open jacket. I zipped up, leaned against the car, stuck my hands in my pockets. I watched leaves skim the surface of the lot, watched the wind move through the branches they'd fallen from.

"Where to now?" Lydia asked.

"Shit," I said. "I don't know." I didn't want to get into the car, didn't want to head somewhere else, down another nowhere road to ask more futile questions, didn't want to keep going, playing a game where I didn't know the rules, didn't know where I stood, didn't even know what outcome I wanted.

Cops in two states were looking for Gary now, as they looked for Paul, and when they found them they'd find how all this tied together. Or not. But I had nothing they didn't have, except suspicions they didn't want to hear. And maybe they were right. If I'd been a cop, I'd be putting everything I had into finding Paul Niebuhr. Even the death of Tory Wesley would have to wait, never mind a case twenty-three years old, until the threat to a school full of kids was stopped.

"Come on." Lydia's voice, though soft, was clear over the wind. "I'll buy you a drink."

I turned my head to look at her. "I thought you said my case, my expense account."

"It's a one-time offer. Because you look so pitiful."

"That works? Looking pitiful?"

"In your case, it may be the only thing that works."

I pulled the door open, got in the car. I was prepared to take her up on it, even if it meant admitting to pitifulness. She started the car, but we weren't out of the lot when my cell phone rang.

"Goddammit," I said under my breath. I took the phone out, opened it. "Smith."

"You fucking son of a bitch!" Scott's voice practically scorched my ear. "You sent the cops here! Bastard, I'm coming for you—"

"Don't bother," I said. "We'll come to you."

I thumbed the phone off, put it away. "The drink will have to wait," I told Lydia. "But I'll need it more later. Make a left up here."

"Where are we going?"

"To drop in on my relations."

Twenty-Three

Lydia and I drove over to the development on the edge of town. The pale gray house sat peaceably in the twilight, brass lantern shining softly over the front door, windows glowing gold. Scott's Lumina sat behind Helen's Blazer in the driveway, as though guarding it from harm. Lydia parked the Taurus on the street.

"This won't be fun," I said to her.

"For you." She got out of the car, stood waiting on the sidewalk. I looked at her but didn't answer as we headed up the chrysanthemum-lined path.

At a nod from me Lydia pressed the doorbell, and the soft chimes I'd heard for the first time two days before, the bell at my sister's house, echoed from inside. For a moment, the twilit scene was peaceful, calm, just the graying sky and the carefully spaced houses, me standing next to Lydia in the glow of the lantern. Then the door flew back as though afraid, a brighter light sliced out onto the step, and Scott stood before us, his face red and twisted with rage.

"You cocksucker!" The still air exploded with his voice. "You son of a bitch! That's some fucking pair—!" The Doberman raced into the vestibule, drowned out his shouts with barking. She lowered her shoulders, planted her feet. She looked ready to rip the throat out of whatever was threatening her home.

So did Scott.

"We need to talk, Scott," I said, my voice raised over his, over the barking.

The dog yelped more furiously, picking up on Scott's tone, his stance. Behind her, Jennifer and Paula appeared, coming to see what the noise was about. The dog growled and snapped. Scott looked at the girls, his face dark with the heat of his anger. He put a restraining hand on the dog's collar. "No," he said. "Stay." He stepped outside, closing the door on the dog, and on his daughters. We stood together in the twilight, Lydia and Scott and I, the dog's barking muffled now. No other sound came into the silence between us and nothing moved except the tops of the bare trees behind the house as the wind blew through.

I said nothing, waited. Scott finally spoke. "You motherfucker." He locked his eyes on mine, spoke very deliberately, very slowly. "I ought to let that dog tear your heart out."

"Scott, can we—?"

"No, we fucking can't, asshole! You tore one family apart for Helen, now you can't wait to do it again, can you? Jesus Christ, why couldn't you leave us alone? Who fucking asked you?"

Gary did, I thought, but my blood was pounding in my ears and my fists were tight and that wasn't what I wanted to say to him. There were a dozen other answers surging through my mind, ways to show my brother-in-law that my anger burned as hot as his, my contempt ran as icy cold. I opened my mouth to speak, took a step forward. I waited to feel Lydia's hand on my arm, her cool reasonableness; I was ready to shake it off, to step to where Scott was, to let the heat of my anger ignite his. No one would get hurt in the firestorm that would come of that except Scott and me, and that would be all right.

But Lydia didn't touch me. Lydia didn't move. And I looked at Scott, saw he was ready too, and I thought, this is over. Scott and I will always be like this, never change. No one will ever win. This will never end, and so it's ended. It's over.

I stepped back, opened my hands. "This isn't why I came." I wasn't sure that was true, but I had had another reason, too. I stood without moving, looked into Scott's eyes. Suddenly, for a second, the door and the stoop and the trees vanished. I was on an asphalt half-court in a Brooklyn playground, facing my opponent, both of us waiting. The explosive rage of my youth, that anger that never left me, was compressed into a small, tight, fiery place deep inside, where I could draw on it for the extra step, the burst of speed, the stretch in a jump; and as long as I could keep it there, not flowing through, around, over me, I could see clearly, keep a cold eye on my opponent, understand completely my situation. Only in a game or at the piano could I do this, when I was young. Now, there were other times, too. I breathed deeply, spoke to Scott.

"I know the police were here and I'm sorry," I said, "but I had nothing to do with it."

Suspicion came into his eyes, not, I thought, at my words— he had long established in his mind my guilt, my cravenness— but at the tone I used, the stance I took, my surprising unwillingness to settle what we'd started the night before, what we'd started years ago.

"That asshole Sullivan." He ground the words out. "He came to my house with a fucking search warrant because you—"

"No, because your friend Letourneau sent him. They're looking for a boy who could be planning to shoot up the school. Paul Niebuhr. Gary's a friend of his."

"And they're looking for Gary because you fucking said—"

"No, they're looking for Gary because he's a friend of Paul Niebuhr's."

"You—"

"Scott, goddammit, listen. Whatever reason Gary had for leaving home, it came before he called me. It's connected to things going on in Warrenstown, and things that went on here. I didn't cause that, Scott, and I'm not looking to screw anybody over. Not even you. Not even you. I want to find your son."

He stared at me, and I don't know what answer he was planning to make. If our positions had been reversed, if I'd been standing where he was as the twilight passed into night, the best I'd have been able to manage would have been, "Go to hell." At my most controlled, I would have been able to turn, walk back into my warm, bright house, leave him alone and shut out in the dark.

Maybe he'd have done that, or maybe he'd have tried again to spark the explosion we both wanted. But the door behind him opened. Yellow light spilled onto the stoop once more, and my sister stood in it, one step outside her home. "What are you doing?" She looked from her husband to her brother, her high voice quavering. "What are you doing?"

Scott, eyes still on me, stepped back, pulled shut the door behind her. Now there were four of us under the glow of the porch lamp, darkness everywhere beyond except where a streetlight pooled to light the way, or where windows shone in other people's homes.

The silence was long, no one moving. Then Scott looked at Lydia. "Who's this?" he said, his voice so low the wind almost masked it.

"My partner," I said. "Lydia Chin."

"You were there last night," Scott said to her. She nodded. Scott considered her another moment, turned his gaze to me again. Helen and Lydia waited, spectators; Scott, jaw tight, waited, too, for my move.

"When I saw Gary in New York," I said, "he wouldn't tell me what he was doing, but Scott, he said you'd approve. 'My dad would be cool with this, if he knew.' You tell me you're close with him. You take him hunting, you go to his games. What can that mean? What is he doing that he thinks you'd approve of?"

The wind was gathering strength now, and the night was complete. In the trees, the moon had come up, but the wind had brought clouds; all I could see was a ragged bright patch in the dark.

"I used to beat that kid's ass," Scott said, "I used to make sure he felt it, when he lied. He fucked up, he came clean, he got off a lot easier than if he lied about it. I thought I could make a man out of him, a stand-up guy. But if he said that, he's lying now, because there's not a fucking thing I can think of that would make it okay, what he's putting his mother through."

Helen bit her lip. Her eyes started to fill, tears glistening in the porch light. From deep within, the fire swept through me, and the words burst into my mind: I'll kill him. My face burned and my heart pounded when I saw her tears, and I thought, Someday I'll kill him. I stepped toward Scott, felt my fists clench, my blood race. Then Lydia did touch my hand. She just brushed it with her fingers, but her skin was cool and smooth, and when I felt her touch, the hot mist in my own eyes cleared. I saw who it was I was looking at, and I saw, in my mind, who it was I wanted, and they were not the same. I forced myself to stop, stand, forced the fire to retreat again.

"A couple more questions," I said, my words gravelly but under control. "Then we're gone."

"Why?" Scott's voice was as cold as the wind in the trees. "Why the hell should I answer any questions from you?"

"Because you were here," I said. "Because I think this thing comes out of what happened here years ago."

"Bullshit."

"Maybe. But the cops are already working on the present. What can you lose, answering me?"

He didn't speak, but he stayed. That was enough.

"Beth Victor, Jared Beltran," I said.

"It's bullshit," he said again.

"What I need to know," I said, speaking quietly, meeting Scott's eyes, "and I'm asking you because you were here, Scott, because I don't know anyone else who was a kid here in those days and I don't have time to find someone— about Jared Beltran stalking Beth Victor. Had you ever heard that before the rape?"

I expected something from Helen, a flick of her eyes toward Scott, a frown of confusion, a flush of embarrassment at the topic. She stood, instead, calm and still beside her husband, and I realized he must have told her. I wondered how much he'd said, whether she understood his role, but I wasn't here for that.

Scott's look, and the silence, were very long. Finally, he said, "No."

"It wasn't true, was it?"

A long pause; then, "I don't know."

"Who was the teacher the tip came from?"

"I don't know."

I nodded. "What happened to Nick Dalton?"

"Nicky? Fuck Nicky, who the hell cares what happened to him?"

"Do you know where he is now?"

"Now?" A smile burned across Scott's face. "Fuck that asshole, maybe he's here now. Maybe it's him."

"What does that mean?"

"Nicky. Nicky the fucking Nerd. He always said he'd come back, he'd make us all sorry. Fuck that asshole, maybe this is all about him. That what you think, Smith? You think Nicky's behind all this, Nicky kidnapped my son, Nicky killed that girl, Nicky came back to get us all? Well, good luck. Keep looking. You just keep on looking for Nicky and stay out of my fucking life!"

Scott reached back, pushed open the door to his house. He held out a hand to my sister. She took it, turned away from me, and went inside with him.