Winter and Night (28 page)

"In the end that's what happened. It was a little more complicated, because I was underage, and in those days this kind of thing was swept under the rug as much as possible. But I wouldn't give it up and eventually they arrested my father and charged him with assault.

"See, I was thinking that if my father went to jail, maybe Helen would come home.

"And maybe then it could be like it was those first few months in Brooklyn, when he wasn't there."

I finished the bourbon, wondering when this stuff had stopped working for me. I stood at the window, silent so long that Lydia must have wondered if I was going to go on. But she said nothing, legs folded under her, empty mug on the table now.

"It backfired," I said. "They held off the trial until I could testify. Dave had spent a lot of time talking it out with me, making sure I wanted to do this, and when he was sure, he and his cop buddies rounded up witnesses, my teachers and coaches and other kids at school, the paramedics who'd been on the ambulance, the doctors. Helen's teachers, too, from times I hadn't been home or hadn't been what my father wanted.

"It could have gone either way, especially if my father had seemed sorry, had said he was crazy with worry over Helen, something like that. He didn't. He wouldn't let his lawyer do any of that; he just told the court I was an arrogant son of a bitch, a delinquent and I'd always been one. He asked just what the hell he was supposed to do, a father with a son like me?

"The prosecutor put his witnesses on the stand, one by one, and last he called me. I didn't look at my father. Or at my mother. She sat behind him and held his hand. I told my story, answered the DA's questions and my father's lawyer's questions. I didn't remember afterwards anything anyone had asked me. Dave told me I'd done well."

I put the glass and the bottle down, shoved my hands into my pockets. "He got three years."

I don't know how long the silence was then, but finally Lydia spoke. "What do you mean then," she asked softly, "that it backfired?"

"Helen," I said. "Helen never came home. She knew what was happening. She was keeping in touch with some of her friends and they told her. One night, near the end of the trial, she called me. I was living at Dave's by then; I moved in with him right out of the hospital. Helen said I had to stop, I couldn't send my own father to jail. I told her he'd almost killed me and if he'd found her that night he might have killed her. She said still, it wasn't right. I said I had to do it and I wanted her to come home. She hung up. She was crying."

I stopped, watched the darkness outside. Cars drove down the street, someone walked up the block. They meant nothing to me. That was it. That was as far as I could go. I thought, good, now Lydia knows, now she knows it all. Now she'll leave, get the hell out of here, leave me the hell alone. I stood where I was and waited for that.

That wasn't what happened. What happened was she got up off the couch and came and stood beside me, just stood there, two ghost people looking into the night. A couple of guys full of beer and laughter came out of the door below, Shorty's door, and headed for the subway. A steel gate rumbled closed over a storefront somewhere around the block, somewhere we couldn't see.

We stood there for a long time. It wasn't that I felt rooted, it wasn't that I couldn't move, it was that there was no place I wanted to go and nothing I could think of to do. People and cars appeared and disappeared in the limits of my window as though we were seeing the backstage comings and goings in a theater while the play, the action that made sense, went on somewhere else.

"It wasn't fair," Lydia said softly, after a while. Her voice was like music from far away.

"What wasn't?"

"For you to have to make that choice at that age. It wasn't fair."

I turned from the window, walked through the room, dropped heavily onto the couch. I reached for my cigarettes. If she'd said, you did what you had to do, if she'd said, I'd have done the same, what you did was right, then she'd have been just like everyone else. Then I could have told her, yeah, well, thanks, I appreciate it, now I'd like to be alone for a while, I'll call you in the morning. If she'd offered a reassuring hug, a supportive squeeze of the hand, I'd have known I'd been right all these years, not to tell her.

She said nothing else and she didn't come near me. She went into the kitchen, put on more water. I looked up, surprised, when I heard the coffee grinder. She found the press, did the whole thing, brought me a mug of coffee and more tea for herself. I was on the couch now, so she sat in the chair she liked.

"Gary's fifteen," she said. "He's in a tough spot and he needs help."

Steam rose from her tea, from my coffee as we held them. I had the sudden insane idea that our images, thin and inconstant as the steam, still stood in the window, in the night, looking in.

"He's fucking up," I said. "He needs someone to find him and stop him."

Lydia nodded. "All right," she said. "Then we will."

Eighteen

Not much more was said in my apartment that night. Lydia left soon after. I wandered around for a while, cleaned up, went through the mail. The place was still cold; I'd have to get that window fixed soon. I thought about music, but I couldn't come up with anything I really wanted to hear, and practicing, after all I'd had to drink, was out of the question. For all the effects I could feel of the bourbon and the beer I might as well have been pouring it down a hole, but I knew it would be in my fingers just the same, making them even more slow and stupid than usual, and I wasn't ready to face that. Finally I went to bed. The bourbon kept me from dreaming, and that was good; the coffee didn't keep me awake, but it also didn't do anything to stop the hangover that rocked me when I got up in the morning.

Head pounding, I downed three aspirin, showered, made strong coffee in the press Lydia had used the night before. Partway through my second cup the phone on the desk began to ring, making me wonder what the hell the point of coffee was if a damn little bell ten feet away could still feel like jagged glass between my eyes.

"Smith," I said, half hoping it was a telemarketer so I could curse a blue streak and slam the thing down the way it deserved.

"Sullivan. You okay? You sound lousy."

I grunted. "Hung over. You?"

"Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed out here in the clean country air. City living's unhealthy, Smith."

"Living in general. What can I do for you?"

"Me, for you."

"Even better."

"The old case. I pulled the files. Some interesting things. But about the suicide being anything else? Forget it. Kid shot himself in front of witnesses. In the park."

"In the center of town?"

"Right. Four people saw him, more heard the shot. He yelled so they'd turn and look, then pulled the trigger."

"Jesus."

"Left a note."

"Contents?"

"Classified."

"Damn."

I heard the small smile as he said, "Paraphrase: I know you're coming to get me. You'll be sorry. You bastards can all go to hell."

"Hmmm. It doesn't say, 'I raped that girl'?"

"He shot himself."

"Okay. Assuming you didn't mean the note, what did you mean, interesting things?"

"Two things. Macpherson had a half-assed alibi, a kid who tried to say he'd seen him at the party late, hours after the girl left. He dropped that after a dozen other kids confirmed Macpherson'd left right after she did. Said he was just trying to help out his buddy. Shit, Smith, that was my chief."

"Letourneau?"

"I told you they played varsity together."

"Yeah," I said, "okay, don't bite me. You also told me Letourneau isn't particularly fond of Macpherson."

"Now."

"All right."

"Explains why he wouldn't want it dug up, though. Whether Macpherson did it or not, the chief was lying for him. Not something you'd want everyone in town to know."

"It would tend to undermine his credibility," I agreed.

"Also," Sullivan said, "I can see why he wants me to take it easy on the boys. Probably wishes someone'd taken it easy on him."

"Yeah, well, be careful what you wish for. What's the other interesting thing?"

"They also thought they had a witness. Another kid. Said at first he thought he'd seen the girl and Macpherson arguing on the street right after she left the party. He was never sure. In the end he said it probably wasn't them."

"What about it?"

"Scott Russell. Your brother-in-law."

I took the phone to the stove, poured more coffee. "Oh," I said.

"Oh," he echoed.

I drank, walked to the desk for my cigarettes. "The alibi," I said. "Jared Beltran— that was the suicide, right? —he had an alibi. A friend who was supposedly with him. Who was that?"

"Kid named Nick Dalton. Nicky the Nerd, they used to call him."

"He around?"

"I don't know where he is now. I can look."

I thought of Luigi Vélez, thought, So can I.

"The girl." I shouldered the phone, lit a cigarette. "Who was the girl?"

"She was underage. Rape victim."

"Twenty-three years ago."

"Yeah," he said. "I can't give you her name."

"Sullivan—"

"Can't. What's the difference? If the suicide was suicide, there goes your theory."

"I don't know where it goes. I just know Macpherson's pissed off, Letourneau is pissed off, my brother-in-law's pissed off. And someone beat up Stacie Phillips over what she and Tory Wesley both knew, only Stacie doesn't know anything and Tory Wesley's dead."

"Macpherson and Letourneau might just not want the past brought up, bad memories and bad press for both of them. And from what I hear about your brother-in-law, he spends a lot of time pissed off." In a more conciliatory tone he said, "I'll go over and see Stacie Phillips later this morning."

"All right," I said, reminding myself that even the small amount he'd given me was crossing a line Sullivan didn't like to cross. "Thanks."

"Stay out of trouble," he said. "And," he added, "stay out of Warrenstown."

I drank coffee, smoked and thought. I called Stacie Phillips at the hospital.

"Hello?" Her voice sounded stronger.

"It's Bill Smith. How are you?"

"Now I'm starting to see how much this hurts. I'm really mad."

"That's good. It'll help you heal faster."

"I thought you didn't like sarcasm."

"I'm completely serious."

"Did you figure out what's going on yet?"

"No, but I'm working on it."

"Great. Well, take your time."

"Maybe I just don't like sarcasm in you. Listen, did your folks grow up in Warrenstown?"

"Not my mom," she said, sounding a little surprised at the question. "My dad did. Before he went to Corny U. with you."

"I'd like to talk to him."

"Well, he happens to be right here. They think they're going to let me go home today. They just kept me overnight to see if I had a concussion."

"Reporters never get concussions, their skulls are too thick. Can I talk to him for a minute?"

"My dad? You have to tell me why."

"About the old days at Corny U."

"No way."

"It's complicated."

"I'm the one holding the phone."

"That's extortion."

"And your point?…"

"When you get your Pulitzer," I said, "I want you to mention me."

"In what context?"

"As the guy you practiced on. Okay, look: I think what happened to you, and some of the other things that are going on, has to do with that stuff you faxed me about what happened in Warrenstown in prehistoric times. I want to ask your dad about it, see what he remembers."

"You do? Like what?"

"Uh-uh. Pass the phone."

"I—"

"Uh-uh."

"We'll talk," she said. Then, "Dad?" in muffled tones, "this is Bill Smith. The private investigator? He wants to talk to you."

A different voice, a man's: "Hello?"

"Mr. Phillips, Bill Smith. I'm a friend of Stacie's."

"She told me about you." He sounded suspicious. Well, I thought, why wouldn't he be?

"I know you're worried about Stacie," I said. "I'm trying to get to the bottom of what happened to her."

"The police are working on it."

"I know. Detective Sullivan will be there a little later, to talk to her."

"You're working with Jim Sullivan?"

He seemed to let up a fraction when he asked that, so I said, "We're sharing information. We have different theories."

"Well," he said, "what did you want me for?"

"You grew up in Warrenstown?"

"That's right."

"Did you play football?"

"Football? Yes."

"What position?"

"Defensive end. Why?"

"Just wondering. This is my real question: Were you there when the rape and suicide happened, twenty-three years ago?"

He paused, then answered. "I was a sophomore in college by then."

"But you knew about it?"

"Everyone knew about it."

"Do you remember the name of the girl?"

"The girl? Bethany Victor. Beth."

How easy it was, I thought, to get information from people who didn't know they were supposed to classify their memories.

"You knew her?"

"By sight only. She was a freshman when I was a senior."

"Do you know where she is now?"

"Now? I don't have the faintest idea."

"She doesn't still live in Warrenstown?"

"No. What does this have to do with Stacie?"

"I don't know, Mr. Phillips. But my theory is that it does."

"Does Jim Sullivan think so?"

"He's not as sure as I am."

I waited while he was silent. Finally he said, "All right. Is there anything else you wanted to know?"

"How about a kid called Nick Dalton?"

"Nicky the Nerd? Jesus, where'd you dig him up from?"

"He tried to alibi the kid who killed himself."

"Jared. That's right, I remember. Boy, they were a pair."

"A pair of what?"

"Creeps, I thought then. Now I'm a father, I look at kids differently."

"What would you say now?"

He took a minute. "Jared and Nicky, they weren't jocks. That's what it took to be somebody in Warrenstown then."