Disturbance (6 page)

Two of the patrol cars headed down toward the house, and minutes later, a couple of uniformed officers went into my backyard. A police helicopter began hovering overhead.

I didn’t believe for a moment that the killer was lounging around the neighborhood, let alone inside my house. But I kept thinking of Nick Parrish’s love of concealed traps and decided to let Vince and Reed and the uniforms clear the house. They did this quickly, and the patrol cars and the uniforms drove off. Reed stayed behind and asked me more questions about the time of night I first heard the water running, and other details, but it was hard to see how my answers could be of help. He thanked me, though, and hurried off to join Vince. Before long, the helicopter left as well. Fortunately, when the media helicopters arrived, they were focused on the activity near Marilyn Foster’s car.

Ben texted Ethan that he had been asked to help the coroner’s office but would join us as soon as he could.

I paced again. Ethan, who had taken out his laptop and started to write the story, suddenly halted, looked up at me, and said, “The universe is expanding.”

“What?”

“I just thought I’d let you know. Saw that on a science program. A show about Einstein and Hubble and a bunch of those guys. The Big Bang theory. There was this British scientist named Hoyle, and in the program—believe it or not, on this show, they actually used the phrase ‘according to Hoyle.’”

From this I understood he was making a determined effort to amuse me. He proceeded to give a recap that had a few black holes of missing information in it, but his retelling kept me distracted and probably more entertained than the original show would have. When he finally ran down, he said, “I just try to keep that in mind, you know. When things get shitty with work and all. There are bigger things than the
Las Piernas News Express.
Than assholes who try to bother you with garden hoses. And bigger than even—” He broke off and shook his head. “Well, no, I don’t want to make it sound as if I don’t
care about those women, or as if I don’t understand why you’re scared.”

“Bigger even than Nick Parrish and his minions,” I said. “You’re right, Ethan. Letting myself become obsessed with him plays it just the way he wants it. I’ve got to keep perspective, not give him the attention he wants.”

That resolve would have been easier to maintain if Parrish and his friends had stayed a galaxy away.

I
n later years, Quinn Moore wondered if his mother would have told him the truth about his birth father if she had not been on drugs.

They were perfectly legal drugs, taken for pain. She was dying. Though he was fairly sure that dying in and of itself would not have been enough of an incentive to tell him the story. She began by saying that Harold Moore, the man who had divorced her when Quinn was ten, was not his father. In her confusion, she had forgotten that he already knew Harold Moore was his adoptive and not his birth father. Had her mind not been wandering between past and present, she might have recalled that the matter of his adoption was public by the time he was eighteen.

She wasn’t aware that Quinn had actually learned he was adopted two years before that. He had learned it, of all places, at a shopping mall. By chance he had encountered Harold Moore there, while Moore was out shopping with his timid second wife. Quinn, given twenty bucks by his mother’s latest boyfriend—who was very far from the worst of the men she had brought into his life—and told to stay out of the house for a while, had been deciding between going to see a movie and
visiting an arcade when he saw the approach of the couple and the look of surprised recognition on Harold’s face.

His memories of Harold were mostly of coldness and cruelty, but he gave a half wave and said, “Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, Dad?” Harold said. He turned to his wife and announced to her that Quinn was not his son, that he had been tricked into adopting him, and that Quinn was a bastard.

“I’ve never heard better news in my life,” Quinn said.

Harold turned away, red-faced, then spun back around and sucker-punched him, knocking Quinn flat. Unfortunately for Harold, he did so within plain sight of a pair of mall security guards. He was arrested for assault. Although the D.A. ultimately decided not to pursue charges, during the brief time he was in custody, Harold’s second wife took advantage of this opportunity and left him.

Quinn did not tell his mother the truth about his bruised face or what Harold had said to him. He told her he had been mugged. He had been bruised before, and suffered far worse than a blow to the face, but something about that public punch and disowning awoke a long-simmering rage in Quinn Moore.

Quinn’s mother chose to believe the story of the mugging, which was easy for someone with a long-standing habit of pretending not to see the truth. She told herself that the mugging was why he took up strength training and self-defense. She was disapproving but not surprised when she learned he had bought a gun.

She probably didn’t know that he never practiced enough to fire it with real accuracy. She also failed to realize that he had developed a penchant for reading about poisons and household accidents and other ways a person might die before his time.

He searched in vain through her papers and belongings for a reference to someone named Quinn, deciding that he must have been named for his real father.

About two years after the mall incident, Harold Moore tried to reunite with his first wife, Quinn’s mother. By then Quinn was no longer living at home—he was attending Las Piernas University. He had started out as an art student, as his mother had once been, but had changed his major to business.

When his mother told him of Harold’s renewed courtship, Quinn could see that she was flattered by Harold’s attention. The man had made a fortune in commercial real estate, and a prenup and excellent attorneys had ensured that the runaway second wife had received only a minuscule portion of Harold’s wealth.

Harold believed Quinn’s mother was the only person who had cared about him when he was poor and struggling, or so he said. Quinn thought that this was probably true. Harold also told her that was the reason he wanted her back in his life. Quinn didn’t care whether or not that was true.

Quinn had supposed that his mother would be disappointed when Harold did not keep the date they made one Friday night, but while she may have been a little hurt by it, she didn’t seem to be crushed, or to think it was out of character. Quinn was angry with her for even accepting the date, but he didn’t show her that anger. Women were stupid creatures, after all. Whores at heart. She certainly never knew how to say no to a man.

When Harold didn’t show up for work the next Monday, inquiries ultimately led police to check on his home. Harold’s car was in the garage.

As police entered Harold’s house, they found his car keys, wallet, and cell phone on the kitchen counter. He was not in any of the rooms of the home, or in the backyard. They began to look for indications of whether he had left his home voluntarily. Moore’s toothbrush, razor, and other personal care items were in the bathroom. His empty suitcase was in a spare closet. Yet there were no signs of a struggle or forced entry.

These and other indicators made police question his few friends and family members, including his ex-wife and adopted son. None of these people were able to provide any information that resulted in solid leads.

Further investigation showed that Harold had last used the phone and one of his credit cards on the previous Thursday, the last day anyone had seen him.

Harold Moore had vanished.

The story ran for a day or two in the local news, then all public concern about him seemed to vanish as well.

Police quickly learned that Harold Moore reserved what little charm he possessed for business relationships. Most who dealt with him in real estate transactions knew him only for his ability to negotiate deals and for his knowledge of the local market—and a kind of ruthlessness. He was a workaholic who spared no time for friends.

From his attorneys and the few others who had more than a slight acquaintance with him, detectives heard again and again that he often worried that anyone who wanted to get close to him was only after his money. Most of the neighbors they spoke to described him as difficult and secretive. He was one of those people who seemed to make a hobby of estrangement.

As time went on, legal processes were brought to bear. The probate court created a conservatorship to care for his business and property. After five years, the same court declared that Harold Moore was presumed dead. His will, which his attorneys had been urging him to update long before his disappearance, left his estate to his first wife and his adopted son.

By then, though, Quinn’s mother had been dead for four years. The entire estate of Harold Moore came to his stepson. At the age of twenty-three, Quinn Moore was a wealthy young man.

During her final days, not long before she lost the ability to
speak coherently, Quinn’s mother seemed especially restless. She was in a strange state, he thought, so anxious that even the painkillers hadn’t completely taken the edge off. They simply removed the barriers of secrecy she hid behind.

She said to Quinn, “Remember Meredith, from the airport?”

Quinn easily recalled his mother’s co-worker from the days when she worked as a waitress in the airport coffee shop. Meredith loved to ignite drama, loved to pry into other people’s business and spread gossip or cause conflict, while she remained at a safe distance from the outcome.

“Of course,” he said. “What makes you think of her?”

“She came by yesterday. To visit.”

“Did she upset you?” he asked, happy to think he might have a reason to settle a score.

“No … no … I mean, not intentionally. She asked about you.”

I’ll just bet she did
, he thought. But he didn’t say anything. He could tell his mother was going to say more—he had only to wait for it.

“There’s a man I used to know. Used to fix airplanes out there. He’s been gone for a long time. A long time. I thought he was gone for good.”

Still he waited, mentally saying,
His name is Quinn …

But that wasn’t what she said.

“Meredith told me … he’s moved back here. His name is Nicholas Parrish. I wanted to warn you about him.”

“Warn me?”

“Yes.” She twisted the bedsheet in her hand. “Quinn—Quinn, he thinks he’s your father. But he’s not!”

“Why should he think that?” he asked, able to tell, as he always was, that she was lying. But what part of it was the lie?

“Stay away from him, Quinn. Please! Promise me.”

“Why?”

“He’s very dangerous. That’s why I was so happy when he left. He left before I found out I was pregnant with you, or God knows what he would have done. It doesn’t matter, because—Well, he’s wrong. I was so angry when Meredith told me she’d mentioned you to him. But … well, she doesn’t know. I’m hoping she’ll go back to him and tell him she was wrong. But either way, stay away from him, all right? Promise me.”

“Okay, I promise.” He was the better liar.

“I was always afraid Nick would come back. I married Harold because he was big, and I thought he could protect us.”

“Some protection. Harold beat us both.”

She looked away, then looked back at him. “He was mean, but he was mean enough to keep Nick away. Nick would have killed us. Nick is a killer.”

“A killer?” He almost laughed. “You should tell the police.”

“No good. Can’t prove it.”

“All right, but there must be more to the story than that. How do you know he’s a killer?”

She didn’t answer, but even through the haze of drugs, her fear was palpable.

She stayed silent, brooding, until the weariness that had hold of her in those last days of her life allowed her to drift off. When she awoke, she said, “I wonder if he did it.”

“Who did what?”

“Nick. I’ve always wondered if he killed Harold.”

Perhaps
, he thought,
she’s being devious. Trying to trick me into an admission.
What was the natural response? He wasn’t sure. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“What makes you so sure Harold is dead, let alone murdered?”

“Harold never would have left money and his car and his house behind.”

“True,” he said. “But … probably he just had an accident.”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

She was staring at him. Time to change the subject. “So if this Nick Parrish isn’t my father, who is?”

“He’s dead,” she said quickly.

“How sad. But who was he?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’ve forgotten his name. But he was good. A good man.”

She was lying, of course. She was such a shitty liar, he wondered why she even bothered. Even if he had doubted Nick Parrish was his father, he wouldn’t have believed this story of hers about an imaginary good man. Quinn knew she had never been attracted to a good man in her lifetime. But that wasn’t the real reason for his rejection of the fairy tale she was trying to sell him.

He knew himself. No one who was good had anything to do with the making of Quinn Moore.

Quinn drove out to the
airport that afternoon. At nineteen, he met his father—a man who would, within a few years, be infamous. The day after that meeting, Meredith failed to show up for work. Other than a mention in the annual article on local missing persons cases in the
Las Piernas News Express
, she was all but forgotten.

I
slept better that night than I had for several days. I suppose it could have been a matter of sheer exhaustion, but no one will ever convince me it was anything other than having Frank and the dogs back at home.

When Frank came through the door, I didn’t care about the “been camping” funkiness, the week’s growth of beard, or who was watching—he gave me a fierce hug and a kiss that under any other set of circumstances would have had me taking off my underwear. As it was, I managed not to let the dogs trip us, or to forget to say hello to Jack, who just grinned knowingly, set down the gear he was helping to carry in, and said, “I’ll be next door if you need me.”