Homicide Related (21 page)

Six months before his last arrest, he moved out for good. He'd made his bed on a friend's couch and, so far as he knew, Lorraine had never asked anyone about him, had never tried to find out where he was. When he finally landed in big trouble and spent eighteen months locked up, she never visited, never called, nothing. No, it was his uncle who'd showed up instead—his uncle, who he'd never heard of before. He'd kept showing up, too, even when Dooley told him to fuck off, who the hell did he think he was, Jesus, some hard-assed retired cop who dry-cleaned shirts for a living now—who wanted anything to do with that? The whole time, he hadn't heard a word from Lorraine.

Until that Friday night.

He'd come home and circled around to the side of the house, meaning to go in through the kitchen to the living room where the DVD was sitting on top of the TV. That's when he'd heard her voice and had frozen up right there in the driveway.

“She was talking to my uncle,” Dooley told Randall. Except, really, it had sounded more like a fight than a conversation.

“Well, when
is
he going to be here?” Lorraine had said. For a moment there, it seemed to Dooley like she was actually interested in the answer, like she really cared, like—and maybe he was pushing it with this one—like she
wanted
to see him.

“What's it to you?” Dooley's uncle had said. He sounded angry. Harsh. At the time, Dooley hadn't known all the reasons, but it had always been clear to him that his uncle didn't hold Lorraine in high regard.

“Do you always have to be such an asshole, Gary?” She sounded like the same old Lorraine when she said that. Dooley wondered, did she look the same, or did she look worse? What if she saw him? What did she expect him to look like or to be like? What if she was disappointed? He thought about that for a moment and decided, fuck it. Who was she to be disappointed in him?

“Do us all a favor,” Dooley's uncle said to her. “Get out of here.”

“You can't tell me what to do,” Lorraine said. “He's my son.”

“And a great job you did raising him.” The sarcasm in his uncle's voice was so sharp it could have drawn blood.

“Yeah? And what about you?” Lorraine said. “You going to tell me you were all concerned about him? You never came around even once. And now you think you can tell me I can't see my own son?”

Boy, for a brother and sister, they sure knew how to go at it. Then Dooley had thought about what Lorraine had said. He thought,
Wait a minute.
But he didn't tell Randall that. He didn't tell him any of what he'd heard. All he said was: “She was talking to my uncle.”

“What were they talking about?”

“I don't know. I just heard her voice and I knew it was her, that's all.”

“Then what happened?”

“I took off. I went back to work. I didn't want to see her.”

It didn't put him in the best light, but there it was. And it happened to be true. Well, it happened to be true that he had eventually walked away. But he'd stuck around and listened for a few more minutes. “By the time I got home again after work, she was gone. And my uncle … he didn't say anything.”

“What do you mean?”

He didn't say,
Guess who was here, Ryan? Guess who
dropped in for a visit?

“I mean,” Dooley said, “he didn't tell me that she'd been there.”

“And you didn't ask?”

“I didn't want to know.”

Randall considered this in silence.

“Then what?” he said.

“Then nothing, until she showed up at my school and asked me to come and see her sometime.”

“And?”

“And that's it. I never went. I never spoke to her. Then she died. That's it.”

But he wished that wasn't it. He wished she were still alive. If she were, things would be a lot less complicated. Boy, trust Lorraine to mess everyone up.

But she'd looked good, probably because she'd been straight. He should have gone to see her. He should have heard what she had to say. Maybe if he had, things would be different.

Should have, would have, could have.

Regret words.

Words from the past.

Can't-change-anything words.

He looked across the table at Randall.

The detective reached for the file folder that was sitting on the table. He opened it. There was a photograph inside. He showed it to Dooley.

“Do you know this man, Ryan?”

Dooley stared at the small, piggish eyes, the slender nose, the thin lips.

“Do you know him, Ryan?”

“Yeah,” Dooley said. He never thought he'd see that face again. It made him sick to look at it.

“How do you know him?”

“He worked at a group home where I was for a while.”

“For five months, four years ago, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to him?”

Dooley had dreamed up dozens of things that could have happened to him, none of them pleasant.

“He quit,” he said.

“Do you know why?”

Dooley shrugged, trying not to care, trying to hide the nausea he felt. “No.” At least, he didn't know all the details. He'd never wanted to know. The important thing was that he had disappeared from Dooley's life.

“In fact,” Randall said, “he left because he said he was suffering from stress. He specifically mentioned you by name when he handed in his resignation. Why do you think he did that, Ryan?”

“I don't know. Maybe he thought I was a pain in the ass.”

“Were you?”

“What?”

“A pain in the ass?”

Dooley shrugged again. No doubt he was.

“Jeffrey Eccles was in that same group home, wasn't he? He left before you, didn't he?”

Dooley nodded. Where was this going?

“We thought that was interesting, you know, the two of you in the same group home. So we went and talked to them to see if they could give us any insight. When we heard about your old friend here”—he tapped the photograph—“ and why he left, we decided to talk to him, too.”

Dooley held his breath.

“Funny thing,” Randall said. “He didn't seem to remember you very well. But Jeffrey? Jeffrey made a big impression.”

Dooley waited. Jeffie had said he'd take care of it, and he had. The guy had left, hadn't he? Who cared what excuse he'd given—he'd gone. Dooley owed Jeffie big time for that. Jeffie had started to tell him about it one time, but Dooley had cut him off. Just thinking about the guy made him sick to his stomach.

“Apparently, Jeffrey made certain allegations,” Randall said. “And certain threats. He also extorted money. Did you know about that, Ryan?”

Dooley was pretty sure he managed to look sincere when he shook his head. But, Jesus, Jeffie had been
blackmailing
the guy? Dooley thought he'd been spinning a yarn about those pictures.

“The guy says the allegations were unfounded. Were they, Ryan?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Dooley said.

Randall stared at him for a moment. Dooley kept his mouth shut.

“An allegation like that, coupled with a piece of work like Jeffrey Eccles,” Randall said, “the guy said he didn't need the grief. He went into a different line of work, one that pays better and has a better clientele. You know what I'm saying, Ryan?”

Dooley believed this was what his English teacher would call a rhetorical question.

“Someone else made a complaint about Jeffrey a little over a year ago,” Randall said. “He claimed Jeffrey was trying to extort money from him. Funny thing, though. The man dropped the complaint. We talked to him, too, Ryan. He was pretty nervous, tried to tell us it was all a misunderstanding. But he finally admitted he'd bought some marijuana from Jeffrey and when he and Jeffrey got into a dispute about money owing, Jeffrey threatened to go to the man's employer—he was a teacher at a very exclusive private school. The guy would have been fired. He paid up.”

Dooley shook his head. What he didn't know about Jeffie.

“Extortion seemed to be a habit with Jeffrey,” Randall said. “Did you buy drugs from him, Ryan?”

The question came at him out of nowhere.

“No,” he said.

“Did you buy drugs from Jeffrey to give to your uncle?”

“No!” He didn't like the way this was going.

“Did Jeffrey put two and two together after your mother died? Did he try to blackmail you, Ryan?”

Jesus H. Christ.

“No.”

“Did he try to blackmail your uncle?”

What the fuck?

“Did you kill Jeffrey Eccles?”

“No.”

“Did your uncle kill him?”

“My uncle doesn't know Jeffie.”

“Are you sure about that, Ryan?”

“Yeah, I'm sure,” Dooley said. His uncle didn't know anyone from Dooley's past.

“Suppose I tell you you're wrong?” Randall said. “Your uncle used to be a cop. He knows a lot of scumbags.” He flipped over some more photographs. The top one showed Jeffie the way he had looked when they found him. His body and his face were all bloated and parts looked like they had been eaten away. He was lying face up, but his hands were behind his back, like they had been tied there. “Four days exposed to the elements,” Randall said.

Dooley felt like he was going to throw up. Randall picked up the top picture so that Dooley could see the one underneath. It was a close-up, this one not showing Jeffie's face, thank God, but his neck and his chest. There was a wound a little to left of center, up under his ribs.

“The pathologist says the knife went right through his heart. He probably died instantly,” Randall said. He tapped Jeffie's upper chest with one finger. Dooley looked and saw small circles cutting into Jeffie's skin. He couldn't help himself.

“What are those?” he said.

Randall stared at him and took another sip of coffee.

Dooley waited.

“Up until last week, I didn't know your uncle,” Randall said. “But I talked to a lot of people who do. People who knew him before he retired. People who worked with him. People who know him now. All kinds of people. Everybody says the same thing—the guy can be a real hard-ass, but he's fair and he's solid. And I hear he's one hell of a dry-cleaner.”

Dooley couldn't tell if Randall was kidding or not.

“He ever hit you, Ryan?”

“What?” What did that have to do with anything? “No!”

“You and your uncle never went at it, you know, when he yanked your leash too tight?”

“No.”

“He ever get into it with the neighbors? Ever lose it when he's driving—you know, road rage?”

“No.”

Randall tapped the photograph again. “Those marks on Jeffrey's chest, they're burns. From a cigarette. You smoke, Ryan?”

Dooley shook his head.

“Your uncle smoke?”

“Cigars sometimes.” But Randall probably already knew that.

“The pathologist says Jeffie was burned while he was still alive. You understand what I'm saying?”

Dooley understood. He was saying that Jeffie had been tortured. But why?

“Why would anyone do that?” he said.

“That is the jackpot question,” Randall said. “And here's another one. Why would a guy who's as solid as everyone says your uncle is torture a guy like Jeffie before stabbing him in the heart?”

“You think my uncle did that?” Dooley said.

“I know you and your mother didn't have an ideal relationship, Ryan.”

No kidding.

“If you had nothing to do with what happened to your mother”—he kept using that word—mother—a word that Dooley rarely used—“then you should help us out. Where was your uncle when you got home from your girlfriend's place on Tuesday night? Was he home or not?”

Dooley stood up.

“Sit down,” Randall said.

Dooley stayed standing.

“Sit
down,
Ryan.”

Someone knocked on the door to the interview room. The same person, another cop, stuck his head inside, and Randall went to the door. The first cop whispered something in Detective Randall's ear, and Detective Randall whispered something back. He closed the door and came and sat down again.

“Is there anything else you want to tell me about that night, Ryan?”

“No,” Dooley said.

“Okay,” Randall said. “Detective Myers will show you the way out.”

Randall's partner stepped forward. He opened the door and nodded impatiently for Dooley to get up and get out.

Dooley stood. Were they playing him? Were they going to wait until he got to the door and then slap some handcuffs on him and tell him he was under arrest for Jeffie's murder?

He watched Randall out of the corner of his eye as he edged to the door and slipped through it. Myers stayed right beside him, walking him through a large room toward another door. It looked like he was really on his way out. Dooley started to get an itchy bounce in his legs, a mixture of impatience and excitement. He was out of there. He was really out of there.

Then both his heart and his legs came to an abrupt stop.

Walking toward him, but on the other side of the room, guided by a uniformed police officer and headed, he knew, for an interview room, was Beth, followed by her mother. Beth looked over at him. Her expression was somber. Jesus, Dooley thought, now what?

Eleven