Hush (23 page)

"The Chicago Police Department is asking
citizens for help in finding the perpetrator of the two mother and
son slayings that have recently occurred in the Chicago metro area.
Although the killer's identity is yet unknown, he is believed to
have a rose tattoo on his forearm."

The camera cut away and the newscaster's
image was replaced by that of a rose tattoo with the word mother
floating across it.

"If you know anyone with this type of tattoo,
or know anyone who has had a similar tattoo in the past, please
contact the Chicago Police Department As an added note, the police
request that you do not approach this person yourself. Instead,
please call the number on the screen."

Adrenaline roared through his veins. A lead.
After all these years, they had a lead. It was exciting.
Exhilarating. He dropped to his knees and covered his mouth with
both hands, trapping the sound of his laughter.

His heart was thumping erratically.

His thoughts were tangled.

How had they known about the tattoo?

How did anybody know?

Think. Think.

The only person who could possibly have
connected it to the Madonna Murderer was Claudia Reynolds, the
whore who'd lived long enough to talk to the police. But if she'd
seen his tattoo, why hadn't her knowledge of it come out sixteen
years ago?

No. It had to be something that had recently
come to light.

Think, think.

Ivy Dunlap.

He didn't know why her name sprang into his
head, but it did. Why was she involved in the case?

The answer was there somewhere. He just had
to find it. He just had to figure it out. And he would. He was
clever. He was smart.

He scrambled to his feet and opened the
locker, quickly removing the combination lock. Then he carefully
lifted a shoe box from the top shelf. Sitting back on his bed, he
removed the lid. Inside was a blue baby blanket. He pulled out the
blanket, then unwrapped the item inside, holding it up to the
light.

He didn't know why he'd gotten the tattoo in
the first place. He guessed it had been his last attempt to please
the cow upstairs. But it hadn't pleased her. Not at all. She'd
taken one look at him, grunted, and said she hoped he hadn't paid
money for it.

It had actually felt good to cut it out, to
remove it from his body. Afterwards, when the blood was pouring
down his arm, dripping off his fingertips, he'd thought about
chopping up the tattoo. Maybe putting it in spaghetti sauce and
serving it to the bitch. But that hadn't seemed right. So he'd
dropped it into a jar of formaldehyde. He didn't know what he was
going to do with it, but he was sure something would come
along.

Max pulled into his driveway, hoping to find
Ethan at home the way he was supposed to be. He didn't like
thinking of his son in terms of what he might do next, but when
Ethan had already pulled so many stunts it was hard not to dwell on
the negative.

Using the remote, he opened the garage door,
slipped inside, and parked, shutting the door behind him and
cutting the engine.

It had been a week since the tattoo story and
photo had run in newspapers and on TV. So far, nothing. Max was
even beginning to doubt the authenticity of the tattoo. Not that he
thought Ivy was lying, but maybe she was so desperate to come up
with a clue that her subconscious had produced one. How had she
seen a tattoo and not the killer's face? And why would his face be
hidden if he'd planned to kill her?

The manager at Ivy's old apartment hadn't
been able to come up with the name of the person who'd wanted to
rent room 283, and while the investigation into the drug thefts had
garnered them a few arrests, nothing pointed to anything other than
kids wanting to get high on a very dangerous substance.

Yesterday a small group had begun to picket
Police Headquarters, carrying signs that said: PROTECT OUR
CHILDREN. PROTECT OUR MOTHERS. No big surprise that they made the
front page of the Herald. Abraham had been delighted as hell about
that.

Everyone in the task force was exhausted, so
Max had told them to go home early and get a good night's
sleep.

A good night's sleep. He couldn't remember
what that was like. He hadn't had a good night's sleep in
years.

The door between the garage and kitchen was
unlocked.

One of the rules was to always lock the
doors. Max tossed his keys down on the kitchen table. Maybe they
should order a pizza. He got a beer out of the refrigerator,
unscrewed the cap, and took a long drink.

No music.

He just realized there was no music playing.
Whenever Ethan was home alone, he cranked up his stereo so high
that the bass rattled the windows. Max put the beer on the table,
then hurried down the hall to Ethan's room. He pounded on the
closed door. When there was no answer, he opened it.

Ethan was in bed.

Ethan wasn't alone.

A girl shrieked and pulled the covers over
her jet- black hair.

The needle on the record player had long ago
reached the end of the album and it filled the room with a metered,
tick, tick, tick.

"What are you doing here?" Ethan
demanded.

"I live here, remember?"

Even though it was still light outside, the
room was dark. A red lava lamp bubbled in the corner, along with
burning incense that failed to mask the smell of pot.

Max's thoughts scurried along, wondering how
best to handle the situation. Things were easier when Dr. Spock
could be consulted, but after a kid reached age twelve, you were on
your own. You wouldn't find pot smoking or sex next to diaper
rash.

But Ethan was a good kid, a smart kid, and
Max couldn't help but take part of the blame for the problems they
were having. He wasn't around enough. At a time when Ethan thought
he was an adult who didn't need to answer to anybody, Max was
working too many tough cases that often required late hours.

His mind went down a familiar path: He should
quit Homicide. He should get another job. What? Police training? He
would qualify for that. Private detective? That might give him time
off between jobs, but he'd still put in long days when working a
case.

"I'm going to go take a shower," he said.
"And when I'm done, we're going to talk." Max stepped back and
closed the door.

Ethan's rigid body relaxed. "Son of a
bitch."

From beneath the covers came a stoned giggle.
Heather stuck out her head. "I thought you said your dad wouldn't
be home until the middle of the night. Do you think he recognized
me? Will he tell my parents?"

"Last time he saw you, you had blond hair.
Anyway, even if he did recognize you, he probably wouldn't say
anything."

"Your dad is so cool."

"You won't think he's cool in about ten
minutes.

Hurry and get your shirt on and get the hell
out of here."

Ethan hated to think of her leaving, hated to
think of facing Max's wrath by himself, but it wasn't any of
Heather's business. This was private stuff. Family stuff.
Getting-grounded-until-he-was-eighteen stuff.

With total lack of modesty, Heather stood and
put on her bra and shirt.

She'd been hanging around a lot lately, and
earlier that day she'd confessed that she liked him and wondered if
he wanted to get stoned and make out—an offer that had both
thrilled and scared him. At some point during the last hour, she'd
voluntarily removed her bra and shirt. He was wondering if she
expected him to go all the way, wondered if he wanted to go all the
way, when his dad had shown up.

Ethan figured that for Heather sex was a
newly discovered obsession, like someone else hearing the Pixies
for the first time, then going out and getting their hands on every
one of their CDs. Which was a hard thing to do, Ethan knew, because
there had been so many EPs and b-sides released, not to mention all
the bootlegs.

"Well, bye," Heather said.

He just realized how fucked up he was. His
mind had gone off on some Pixies tangent when he should have been
thinking about how to best face his dad. He thought regretfully
about how good her skin had felt pressed to his, how great she'd
smelled. "Yeah, bye."

"Hope you don't get in too much trouble."

Ethan thought he heard the shower shut off.
He motioned for her to leave, flapping his hand in the direction of
the door. "Go! Go!"

After she left, he put on his shirt and
opened a window, hoping his dad hadn't been able to detect anything
other than incense. Then he grabbed the Visine and put several
drops in each eye, the excess running down his face. Why the hell
had Max come home early tonight? It wasn't like he spent every
night rolling around in his bed with Heather Green.

Thinking about his old man barging in on
them, he giggled, then pressed a hand to his mouth. Stop it. He had
to think. Defense is the best offense. Defense is the best offense.
. . .

Max wasn't even sure Ethan would still be
around when he finished his shower. But surprisingly, he was. Max
found him sitting at the kitchen table. Barefoot. Wearing baggy
cargo pants and a black Stereolab T- shirt. His arms were crossed,
and he was the one who looked pissed.

"I hope to hell you were using a condom," Max
said.

Ethan didn't answer.

"Were you?"

Ethan squirmed a little. "I would have ... if
we'd gotten to that point."

"Do you expect me to believe that's the first
time this has happened?" Now was when he was supposed to use a line
like, I wasn't born yesterday. Max was about to start in on Ethan's
pot smoking when Ethan stopped him cold.

"I want to know about my mom. My real mom.
And my real dad."

Max stalled. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I found out Cecilia wasn't my real
mom." Ethan got a stricken look on his face, and when he continued
talking, his lips and voice shook. But he kept going, getting all
the words out. "I found out she adopted me. Is that true?"

So many times Max had envisioned telling
Ethan about his past, his mother, but the right time had never
seemed to come along. First he was too young. Then, suddenly he was
too old; the he that wasn't really a he had gone on too long.

But somehow he'd found out.

Ethan fiddled with the Velcro of his pants'
pocket. "There's this place on the Internet where they find your
real parents."

Max felt an overwhelming sense of loss.
Ethan. He loved his son. Loved him every bit as much or more than
his biological father ever could. Didn't he? Be-cause how could
one's heart feel any fuller? But Max also knew that they'd been
moving toward this point for thirteen years. With Max trying to
hang on and Ethan trying to get loose.

When Ethan was little, one of his favorite
books was The Runaway Bunny. He especially liked the part about the
mother bunny finding her baby wherever he went, no matter how lost
he was, or how far away he wandered.

Barefoot, wearing a white T-shirt and gray
jogging pants, Max pulled out a chair and sat down.

"Why'd you adopt me?" Ethan asked, staring at
him with bravery and a trembling lip.

"I adopted you because I wanted you."

"I don't believe you. You adopted me because
Cecilia begged you to, didn't you?"

Max's heart seemed to stop beating. Who had
Ethan been talking to? Who had told him such a cruel truth? Was
this what had been driving Ethan? Thinking that Max didn't want
him? Didn't love him?

"I always knew you hadn't known my mother
very long. And when I got older, I started wondering why you
adopted me in the first place. Then Simon down the street told me
that his mother told him it was because Cecilia had begged you to,
that she wanted to find me a father before she died. Is that true?
I can tell by your face that it is."

Simon's mother, Isabelle, baby-sat Ethan
after they moved to the suburbs. It had been the perfect setup,
since she was so close and also watched several other neighborhood
kids. Isabelle didn't have a lot of excitement in her life, and she
stirred up trouble wherever she could. She'd been guilty of
planting the seed of many squabbles between adults as well as
juveniles.

"When I met your mother, she was dying and
didn't have anywhere to go," Max said quietly. "I only knew her a
short time, but she was one of the bravest women I've ever known
and I fell in love with her in an almost spiritual way. She was
honest with me and told me right out that she was looking for
someone to take care of you. She went shopping for a father, and I
never quite understood why, but she picked me. When she told me of
her plan, I ran like hell, but then I went back. She was almost out
of money and she was dying with nowhere to go, so I brought you
both home with me."

"Who's my real mother? Where's my real
mother?"

"Cecilia had a friend who became pregnant.
Cecilia couldn't have children of her own, so she adopted you."

"Do you know anything about my real
parents?"

Real, real, real. Max wished he'd quit saying
that. "Cecilia said your mother was a college student when she had
you—that's all I know. She never mentioned the father."

Max could see by his eyes that he was losing
him. Ethan was imagining a talented mother, a brilliant father. How
could he get through to him? How could he make him see how much he
meant to him? How could he possibly make him believe it?

"My whole life has been a lie."

"It hasn't. There isn't anything false about
it. I'm your father. You're my son."

"Cecilia wasn't my real mother. How do you
think that makes me feel, finding that out? And how do you think it
makes me feel, finding out I'm just another one of your charity
cases? Some orphan you dragged in and had to take care of? I don't
have any brothers or sisters, I don't have a mother, and now I find
out I don't really have a father either. When I was little, and you
used to carry me around on your shoulder— who were you carrying?
Your son? Or the kid a dying woman made you take? When I was little
and you bought me a cop costume and took me trick-or- treating—who
did you take? Your son? Or a welfare case? And when you taught me
to skate—who were you teaching? Your son? Or the kid you felt duty-
bound to take in? Can't you see what I mean? My whole fucking life
has been a lie!"