No One Needs to Know (24 page)

“I know the old man a lot better than you do,” Dean said quietly. He didn’t want to tell Adam what he knew—and what had happened that had soured him on their father. He couldn’t help thinking again about that meeting with Cheryl Wheeler on Thursday afternoon.

He sighed. “Adam, you have no idea how much I’m protecting him—along with our good name.”

His brother finished tying his shoelaces, and looked up at him. “You’re right. I don’t know what the hell he ever did to deserve your contempt or indifference or whatever. I just know he was a great father to me.” Adam reached for his cell phone on the end table by the sofa. “Maybe when you
deign
to visit Dad next month—
if your schedule permits
—you can talk it out with him, and actually have a meaningful conversation. . .”

Adam looked as if he were about to phone someone on his mobile device, but then he glanced up. “You know what Dad told me last week? He was having one of his more lucid days, and he said he knows how much you hate visiting him. So he pretends to be out of it. He said he sings ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ to himself, pretending you’re not there in the room with him—just so you’ll leave, so you’ll hurry up and go.”

Dean slowly shook his head. But he realized what Adam was talking about. His father’s semi-catatonic rendition of “Bye Bye Blackbird” had always prompted him to make a quick exit. He couldn’t fathom that on some of those occasions—maybe even all of them—his father had been faking it.

“So, who really knows the old man better, huh?” Adam asked. He started punching numbers on his cell phone.

“Who are you calling?” Dean asked.

“Orange Cab,” Adam said, with the phone to his ear. He was obviously on hold, because he was still glaring at Dean. “I’m going out and getting shit-faced while I figure out a new living arrangement—preferably someplace where the landlord won’t be reminding me every chance he gets about what a huge favor he’s doing me. I’m not taking my car, because I don’t want to be driving drunk later . . .” He turned away. “Yes, Orange Cab, I need a pickup in the Washington Park area . . .”

With a sigh, Dean turned and lumbered out the door. As he started up the concrete stairwell, he thought about his brother calling a cab in anticipation of getting drunk later.

It was about as responsible as Adam would ever get.

Climbing into bed shortly after midnight, Dean didn’t realize that on this day—almost to the hour—forty-four years ago, Elaina Styles, Dirk Jordan, and their child’s nanny were murdered.

Tonight, he and Joyce had gone out to eat at Luc, a French restaurant just up the street. He probably shouldn’t have had the third glass of wine. He’d nodded off in front of the TV with the remote in his hand. Joyce had tried to wake him, but had finally given up and gone to bed without him. He’d woken up around 11:45, switched off the TV, the lights, and the overhead fan, and then he’d lumbered upstairs. He’d stripped down to his undershorts, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed.

Now he was wide awake, damn it.

Dean heard a car motor, and then the front gate opening. He tossed back the covers and hurried to the window. He saw an orange taxi on the street, and his drunken younger brother weaving up the driveway. Adam disappeared around the corner of the house, and a few moments later, Dean heard the apartment door open and then slam shut.

“What’s going on?” Joyce asked sleepily. She half sat up in their bed.

“Adam’s home,” he grumbled. “Sorry he woke you. Talk about inconsiderate . . .”

“He didn’t wake me. You did—when you jumped out of bed.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, crawling back under the covers.

“You’re too hard on him,” Joyce said, reclining again. She turned her back to him and tugged the sheets up to her neck. “He’s a sweet guy and he loves you. Promise me you two will have a boys’ night out tomorrow, talk things over, and smoke a peace pipe.”

Dean blindly reached over and patted her hip. “We’ll see,” was all he said. He didn’t want to make any promises. He wasn’t too hard on Adam. His brother had it easy. His brother was doing what he wanted to do, and living in a dream world. He had no idea about their father’s reprehensible past. Dean was doing him a big favor by keeping it secret.

How exactly Cheryl Wheeler had found out about it was beyond him. But one thing made sense now. The explosion of her food truck was probably no accident. If she went around asking people what she’d been asking him Thursday afternoon, she was as good as dead.

Dean was pretty certain no one had seen them together. She hadn’t tried to call him again, thank God. So maybe he’d seen the last of her.

He heard the gate humming again.

He glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand: 1:43
A.M.
He must have drifted off. Dean quietly crawled out of bed and crept to the window. He wondered if Adam had gone out again. But when he looked outside, he saw the gate was closed. There was no sign of anyone on the moonlit lawn. He told himself the humming noise could have been anything. It wasn’t necessarily the gate. Sometimes a car passing by had that same mechanical purr.

Dean started back toward the bed, but stopped suddenly. He heard a clanking sound downstairs—like silverware. Adam had a key to the house. Had he let himself inside? Maybe he’d run out of booze, and was going after their supply now.

Dean could hear floorboards creaking.

He ducked into the closet and switched on the light. He grabbed a pair of sweatpants off a hook and put them on.

“What’s happening?” Joyce murmured, squinting at the closet light.

“Someone’s downstairs,” he whispered.

They always left the front entrance hall chandelier on when they went to bed. It made a dim light in the upstairs hallway. Dean moved toward the bedroom door.

There was a distant click.

He stopped again. His heart was racing.

Orchestral music began to swell, with chiming bells. It was the beginning of some oldies song. It sounded like “Cherish.” Someone was tinkering with the music system in his study. Dean was almost certain Adam was down there. What burglar would break into a house and put on music?

A man with a velvety voice started to sing on the recording:
“I’m just insane for Elaina . . .”
The music got louder.

“What’s going on?” Joyce asked. “Dean?”

Baffled, he stood there with his bare feet rooted to the carpet. Drunk or not drunk, why would his brother be doing this? It made no sense.

The song kept playing—Dirk Jordan singing about his wife, Elaina Styles.

Dean remembered someone telling him that the song had become even more of a hit after Dirk and Elaina were murdered.

Past the music, he heard the floorboards creaking again. The sound was closer now. He stared out at the hallway, and watched a shadow sweeping across the wall.

“Jesus, honey, call nine-one-one!” he said, swiveling around.

He saw Joyce in bed, in her pale blue nightgown, fumbling for the cell phone on the bedside table.

All at once, he felt something hit him hard against the back of his head.

Then he didn’t hear the music anymore.

Adam Holbrook woke up from his drunken slumber to the sound of music blaring in the room above him.

He squinted at the clock on his night table: 1:51
A.M.

His head was pounding. He tried to ignore the throbbing pain—along with that stupid music. What the hell was happening up there? Sometimes he could hear the TV if Dean had insomnia. Maybe his brother had one of the music channels on. It sounded like Solid Gold Oldies. Was Dean doing this to torture him? He had to be waking up Joyce, too.

It stayed cool in the basement apartment, even during the summer. But Adam staggered out of bed and switched on the oscillating fan in the corner of the room—just for white noise. Still, it was no competition for the loud music upstairs.

He ducked into the bathroom to pee. He wore only a pair of boxers with smiley faces on them, which someone had given to his brother as a joke. After he flushed the toilet, Adam slurped some water from the faucet. He hoped a little hydration might subdue what seemed like one awful hangover in the making. He knew he was still a little drunk.

Retreating back to bed, he pulled the sheet over his ears to help mute the music from upstairs. He tried to convince himself that he was listening to the radio. He started to doze off.

But then a loud thud woke him again. It was directly above him—in Dean and Joyce’s living room. He heard footsteps. It sounded like more than two people up there, at least three, and something was dragging across the floor. All the while that melody kept playing. Were Dean and Joyce having an argument? Muffled voices rose over the music, but he couldn’t tell what they were saying.

“Oh, my God, no!”

That, he heard. It was Joyce.

One of them was stomping their feet.

Adam ducked his head under the pillow again to block out the racket. They were having a major knock-down-drag-out up there. He’d heard them during a few skirmishes before—just not at this crazy hour or set to music, no less. And it almost sounded
physical,
which had never happened before.

A part of him wanted to go up there and put a stop to it. But he was just drunk enough to take a swing at his brother. He really liked Joyce. God only knew how she put up with Dean. His brother could be a pain in the ass sometimes, but he’d never hit Joyce—ever. Of course, Dean couldn’t afford to. He was always acting like it was a big sacrifice to pay for their father’s care at Evergreen Manor. But it was Joyce’s money. She was an heiress from one of those old Seattle families. They’d owned one of the TV stations. Her parents were dead, and she had no siblings. Joyce and Dean bought the house with her money. She was the one who had invited Adam to move into the apartment. He’d offered to pay rent. Joyce had said no. But Dean had thought it was a good idea.

Adam slipped the pillow back under his head. They’d gotten quiet now. All he could hear were footsteps—two sets this time. He figured he must be really drunk, because he could have sworn earlier that at least three people had been up there. As for the music, some crooner—maybe Sinatra or Tony Bennett or Bobby Darin—finished up the last song. Adam could hear murmuring now, serious and solemn in their tone. But strangely, it didn’t sound like either his brother or his sister-in-law. Was it the TV?

All of it made a weird kind of sense to him. They’d put on the music so he wouldn’t hear their bickering. Now Joyce had gone to bed and Dean had switched on the TV.

With the fan blowing on him—and offering that steady, assuring white noise—Adam started to drift off again. The voices and footsteps seemed to fade in and out.

The next thing he heard was a click.

With a start, he sat up in bed. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep. He didn’t even have time to look at the clock on his nightstand. He knew someone was at his door. There was the unmistakable sound of the key in the lock, and then the knob rattling.

Adam stumbled out of bed and made his way to the living room. There was just enough moonlight through the windows to see the doorknob twitching back and forth. He’d set the bolt lock earlier when he’d come back from the Comet Tavern on Capitol Hill. The flimsy bolt was hardly the ultimate in security. One fierce kick and the thin little mechanism screwed to the door would have broken off, and whoever wanted to get inside could indeed get inside.

Staring at the door, Adam braced one hand on the wall to keep himself from teetering over. He was convinced it was Dean trying to get inside the apartment. Though his brother had a set of keys, the bolt worked only from the inside. Dean had come down here in the past, after a fight with Joyce—so he could gripe.

Well, Adam didn’t feel like talking with Dean right now.

Joyce had come down here to kvetch, too, on a few occasions when she was mad at Dean. She knew she had an ally in him. What if it was her at the door?

Whoever it was, they weren’t giving up. The doorknob kept clicking and twisting back and forth. The bolt rattled.

Why the hell didn’t they just knock?

Adam moved closer and glanced out the peephole. It was black. Someone was covering it on the other side. His brother did that sometimes—just to be funny. But not at this hour and not right after a serious fight.

Adam backed away from the door. The knob stopped shaking.

He stood there paralyzed, listening. He heard someone retreating up the cement steps. He kept waiting for the sound of the kitchen door as it opened and closed. He kept waiting to hear footsteps above again.

Except for the hum of his oscillating fan, it was deathly quiet. All that music and noise, and now, nothing.

Adam grabbed his cell phone out of the bedroom. He called Dean and Joyce’s home line. He could hear a muted ringing in the kitchen above him. The machine clicked on:
“Hi, you’ve reached the Holbrooks,”
Joyce announced cheerfully in the recording.
“We can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message after the beep, one of us will get back to you. If you’re trying to reach Dean, his cell phone number is . . .”

Hanging on the line, Adam moved to the window. He couldn’t see anyone outside. He finally heard the beep on the other end of the phone line. “Hi, you guys, it’s me,” he said. “What’s going on up there? Was one of you just at my door? I’ll try your cells. Call me back right away. If I don’t hear from you, I think I’ll call the cops.”

He clicked off. He tried Dean’s and Joyce’s cell phones, leaving a message with both of them. Then he threw on his clothes. He found the house keys, and stashed them in the front pocket of his jeans—along with his cell phone. Before heading out the door, he grabbed the first thing he could think of to use to defend himself—a painter’s knife.

He unfastened the bolt on the unlocked door and stepped outside to the cement stairwell. The cool night air—and his heart pumping—sobered him up a little. He glanced down the driveway, and spotted something wrapped around a spoke on the front gate. It looked like a small tattered flag, flapping gently in the breeze. He was too far away to discern what it was.