Father's Day (27 page)

The corridor was like a tunnel of cinder block and fluorescent light. The patients’ dormitories were an addition to the original mansion, more modern, more sterile. From the outside, their white stucco was in contrast to the fieldstone, which was as gray as bark from on old tree. The bowels of the building rustled beneath the floorboards, a furnace coming to life and heat coming through open vents in the floor. Lou wondered what was buried in the basement of that old place, what ghosts might be hidden down there waiting to haunt the guests at Fenwick House. There was an exit door at the end of the hall and
rather than retrace their steps, they went out, walked around to the front door and went in like a couple of visitors, ready for the grand tour.

The front entrance was massive, an ornamental arch of finely carved wood above a set of double doors. The doorknob was equally large almost too large for a man to grasp with one hand, a circle of smooth, weathered bronze, as if it were decorative only, not there to be used, just looked at and admired, like a woman’s breast. The knocker in the center of the door was the same greenish gold bronze, stiff and unworkable, beaten with a century of cold, wind-driven rain. Lou turned the handle and immediately felt the rush of warm air from inside. He put on a bright and cheery smile and proceeded into a large vestibule, with a fire going in the hearth and Jennifer Finnelli behind the desk.

She looked more like a hostess in a low-rent lounge than an overpaid switchboard operator. Lou did his best to look confused, stroking the stubble on his chin as Sarah and Jennifer began a staring contest that threatened to turn into a fistfight if Lou didn’t intervene. Jennifer had a phone pressed into her shoulder and was playing with strands of gold dripping from her ears. More gold was hanging around her neck and wrists.

Her platinum blond hair looked freshly cut and curved in wisps around her face as if she’d shaken her head and it had just fallen into place. She might have been twenty-one, but she was dressed to look older, in a black skirt and white collared shirt, She seemed bored sitting behind the desk as if she’d ordered the most expensive item on the menu and was watching it get cold. Lou hoped she’d remember their little conversation and play along. He couldn’t tell, just by looking, whose side she was on.

She forced an almost imperceptible smile, glanced at a
diamond-studded wristwatch, and chewed the gum in her mouth, baring her canines like the type that literally bites the hand that feeds her.

“I wondered when you were going to show up,” she said. “I didn’t know you’d be bringing her with you.”

“What do you mean by that?” Sarah shot back, throwing daggers with her eyes.

“Ask your boyfriend. You pay him to figure things out. Maybe he’s already got it all figured out. Go ahead. Ask him.”

“Where is she, Jennifer?”

“She’s upstairs, with the doctor. You’d better hurry, though. It’s about time for her medication. She’s not looking so good.”

“Do you have a car here?”

“What are you getting me into, Lou Klein?”

“I just need to borrow it. You’ll get it back.”

“You ask a lot of favors. You’re lucky you’re cute.” She dangled a few keys on a gold chain in front of him. “It’s a silver Lexus in the back lot. It belongs to Vince, anyway. Everthing belongs to Vince.”

“Thanks.”

Lou, pointed to a set of stairs covered in blue carpet with a broad painted banister. Sarah nodded and followed him. They slowly climbed the stairs. A light was on in the hallway above. The door at the end of the hallway was open only a couple of inches, a trickle of light streaming through. There was no sound. Lou pushed the door open, stood in the entrance, and saw the figure on the floor, the tangled body, arms folded over a bloody, unrecognizable face.

It was Dr. Gilbert Dodgeson. He lay at the foot of a long rectangular table surrounded by high, ladder-back chairs upholstered in rich, seasoned leather. Two rows of recessed spotlights on the ceiling lit the table like a stage. The windows were all open and a sudden draft of cold wind sent a chill up Lou’s
spine. Lou pushed Dodgeson’s arms aside and saw the wounds on the doctor’s face and chest, the deep punctures where the knife had gone in and where the blood had run out onto the carpet. There must have been thirty stab wounds. Dodgeson’s shirt was gray but where it was stained with blood, across his chest and down his arms, it had turned black. His mouth was open, and bright red blood seeped across his cheek like water from a drain clogged with hair and skin.

Sarah followed Lou into the room and glimpsed the body from the doorway. She turned away in horror but she’d already seen the ravaged corpse, inanimate as a piece of furniture. She ran out into the hallway, her hands over her face. Lou wondered how long she’d carry with her the gruesome image of the dead man before she swept it from her memory the way she’d brush a knot from her hair.

The murder weapon, an ordinary steak knife with a black handle, lay under the table, the thin blade spotted with blood. Lou himself had been stabbed with just such a weapon once, apprehending a suspect in a knifepoint robbery on Kensington Avenue. He had the scar on his side to prove it, a circle of discolored flesh where the knife had gone in and that still twitched at night. There hadn’t been much pain. It was the blood he remembered most and that bleeding to death could be a very slow way to die.

“I see my sister has been a very bad girl.”

Tommy Ahearn had followed them undetected up the stairs and was standing behind them with a black automatic in one hand and holding Carol Ann Blackwell with the other. Her hair was down over her face and she was drenched in blood. Her pale thin arms, poking out of an oversized tee-shirt that hung down to her knees, were streaked with it. On the front of her shirt was an orange kitten tugging on a ball of yarn. It seemed to be smiling.

Carol Ann was barefoot and looked barely able to stand. Ahearn restrained her with little effort, his powerful fingers encircling her arm. It was hard to imagine her with the strength to stab a man twice her size thirty times in the chest.

Sarah froze.

“One more murder to cover up shouldn’t be a problem for you,” Lou told Ahearn.

Ahearn responded with a cold stainless-steel barrel whipped against Lou’s face, cutting him across the cheek. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it off on his shirtsleeve.

“If you’re going to shoot me, you better check with your boss first. How many more bodies do you think he wants swept under the rug? You can’t even control a stubborn adolescent.”

“I rap someone in the teeth, they usually keep their trap shut. Take out your gun and put it on the table. Real slow.”

Lou followed his instructions. Ahearn pointed with the gun toward the door. Lou and Sarah went ahead. Carol Ann followed, still in Ahearn’s grasp. They paraded down the steps. Jennifer was gone, her desk empty. The glass across the fireplace had been shut and the fire was dwindling, but it was still warm in the lobby.

Ahearn opened the entrance door and signaled them out with a nod of his head. A blast of cold air hit them in the face. They stood on the stone patio, the wind howling out of the north. Carol Ann’s lips were quickly turning blue, her teeth chattering, her whole body shaking. Sarah started to lag behind tottering on her high heels, and then slipping on a patch of ice.

Ahearn raised the gun and pointed it at Lou’s head. “I should have done this a long time ago.” Lou heard the shot. He wasn’t sure if he’d been hit. Then he saw Ahearn reach behind him in shock.

The gun fell from his hand. He dropped to his knees, slowly,
like an imploding skyscraper, a muffled groan escaping from his open mouth. He fell at Lou’s feet.

It was Sarah who had fired the single shot that had ripped through Ahearn’s back. She still held the gun, lowered now at her side. She’d taken it and slipped it under her coat without Tommy noticing, waiting until the last possible moment to use it.

Lou went and took the gun from her hand. He gripped her quavering shoulders and turned her away.

Neither of them noticed Carol Ann pick up Ahearn’s gun. She’d reached for it as soon as he fell. Now she stood up with the gun hanging limp in her hand, not pointed at anything. She looked down at it, weighing it, contemplating it briefly as if it was connected to her, part of her hand, like an extra appendage that couldn’t be removed except by amputation. She held it flat in her palm, drawing it close, cradling it almost as if it were a child. She took a few short backward steps, her legs unsteady beneath her as if she couldn’t trust them to support her much longer. She looked like an Acheulian priestess on some primeval altar, ready to throw herself into the fire.

“Put the gun down, Carol Ann.”

But the gun came slowly up until the barrel was pressed against the side of her head. Her movements were slow and exaggerated, as if she were in a trance. She tightened her grip. Her lips were slightly parted and the moonlight reflected off her small white teeth. Her eyes were closed and there were tears running down her pale, expressionless face. She was as still as a bronze statue, and as dark, her silhouette frozen in night sky. Her breathing was shallow. She didn’t seem to hear or care what Lou said. She stood at attention, perfectly still, like a soldier, the hand with the gun up in salute.

“Listen to me, Carol Ann. Put down the gun. It can’t end here, not like this.”

He wasn’t getting through. He knew it. He suddenly felt he
was the wrong person to do this, couldn’t do it, didn’t know the right words, couldn’t sound sincere no matter what he actually believed. His words sounded empty to him, spoken out of turn, falsehood all over them. As if he could really help anyone, he thought. He was sure Carol Ann heard how meaningless his words were, like a lot of hot air.

“You’re not alone here, Carol Ann. There are people that care about you, that need you.”

“Like who? Like my mother? She hates me, always has, since the day I was born, hates her own daughter. Do you believe that? Do you?”

“I believe you. But it’s not a reason to kill yourself.”

“I should have killed her. She used me, in her little schemes, took my father away from me. I hate her.”

“That’s one of the reasons I’m here. Sam was my friend. I want the truth to be told.”

“He was murdered. Everybody knows the truth about my father, they’re just afraid to do anything about it. I was the only one that cared. I did something about it.”

She moved the gun away from her head and put it in her mouth, her lips wrapped around the barrel. She held the gun backwards in her hand, her thumb on the trigger. The cold steel rattled between her teeth. She pulled back on the hammer until it locked into place.

“Carol Ann, listen to me. I’ve been there, the same place you are now, a gun in my mouth, nowhere to turn. All I wanted was to make the pain go away, the guilt and the regrets. I wanted to get away from everyone I loved, everyone I let down along the way. I blamed myself for all my failures, a failed marriage, a blown career, a wife that hated me, a daughter who was turned against me. I didn’t care any more. I stopped caring long before I put that gun to my head.”

He took a few steps closer, inching forward.

“I can’t say whether I would have done it or not. I wanted to but I was scared. My hand was sweaty and cramped from holding the gun but I couldn’t put it down. I knew if I did, it would be just one more thing I gave up on, one more thing I tried and failed. It was late and so damn quiet and I was drunk. I thought I was the only person awake in the whole world. It was a time in my life when nothing mattered anymore, not me, not my daughter, no one.”

He was close enough to see her face, her eyes, the color of her skin, her thumb against the trigger.

“My head was swimming with alcohol that night. My drinking was getting out of control. I’d isolated myself and was getting more and more paranoid. I’d been sitting on my couch alone all day drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes. I hadn’t moved for hours, except to pour another glass. I doubt I could have stood up if I wanted to. When the phone rang, I just sat there and looked at it, waited for it to stop, wished it would stop. The ringing was like an explosion in my brain. It didn’t stop though.”

Lou raised his hands, slowly, beseechingly, as if he were coaxing a bird back into its cage or a wild animal to eat from his hand.

“Earlier that night, with only about half the bottle gone, I wanted that phone to ring, hoped to God it would ring, and that the voice on the other end would be a woman’s voice, a girl’s voice. Those were the only two people who meant anything in the world to me. When it did ring, a tiny spark of hope rose in me. There was no denying it. But when I finally answered it, it wasn’t my wife or my daughter. It was Sam Blackwell, your father. He wanted my help, if you could believe that, advice about his daughter who was about the same age as mine, the daughter he loved very much and was afraid he was going to lose. Until that moment, I’d forgotten how close we’d been, how we depended on each other. I didn’t go back to the gun. I left it
lying on the table for days, before I unloaded it and put it away. I made a promise to him that night and you have to help me keep it.”

He was almost next to her now, close enough to reach out and snatch the gun out of her hands. The words had poured out of him, words that had been locked inside for a long time, words he’d never spoken before, to anyone, for fear of divulging his weakness, of appearing stupid and small. He heard his own voice coming out in wrenching gasps, his eyes riveted on the gun. In his fear, he somehow conjured an image of his own daughter, one step from the grave, and never having heard these words from her father’s mouth.

A single shot rang out, the tranquility of the woods around them disturbed for the second time that day. The report was sudden and sharp. It had seemed louder than any shot he’d ever heard before, as if the sound alone had the same power to penetrate flesh as flying lead. It echoed and filled the space like a sharp crack of thunder. She fell before the sound trailed off, fell back, her body limp, face up on the smooth slate. The back of her head was gone. Brain matter was strewn across the patio like breadcrumbs for the birds. The muzzle flash left black burns on her face, around her mouth. The recoil knocked out a front tooth. It was over and there was nothing left but a ringing in their ears and Carol Ann Blackwell’s lifeless body before them, her blood running like a river over the surface of gray stone. In the darkness, it looked like water, running into the ground.