The Midnight Road (10 page)

A pair of cops came around while Flynn was working on the Dodge. He’d started replacing parts and he liked working out in the cold. It reminded him of when Danny used to show him around an engine. Flynn, maybe ten years old, would climb up on the front grille and peer down into the machinery and try to make himself one with it. The thrum of the Charger would work into his chest until he felt like his heart might stop the moment the engine quit. Sometimes he’d get in the driver’s seat and his brother would shout for him to turn the wheel, or step on the gas, and he’d sit with a great sense of himself, as if he could will himself larger until he took his position on the road. Flynn would feel like a best friend as well as a baby brother, justified by trust. He still felt that way.

The cops didn’t bother introducing themselves. They were terse but polite. They wouldn’t explain anything except to say that Detective Raidin wanted to speak with him. Flynn went inside and washed his hands and hid the .38 in his closet while the cops waited in the living room.

He piled in back of the cruiser behind the cage and his stomach started to tighten as they headed in the opposite direction from the precinct. At least a dozen noir scenarios ran through his head, all of them ending with dirty cops laughing with blood on their fists and him lying in a ditch. Sometimes he regretted having so many movies so far inside his head.

The cops took him down to the south shore toward Bluepoint. They started arguing over directions and got turned around a couple of times. Flynn knew the area pretty well and wanted to ask if he could help, but figured he’d wait it out and see what happened.

Because they got so lost, Flynn didn’t start to recognize the neighborhood until they were almost to Grace Brooks’s house. The tightness grew worse and climbed up his chest. Out in the street were three cruisers, forensic vans and the M.E. The cops parked, let him out and walked him shoulder to shoulder inside.

On the living room floor, wearing a black mourning dress, covered in dried vomit, was Grace’s body. She hadn’t been dead long. He got a very strong sense that somebody had been just a little too late to save her.

The forensics guys were taking photos and bagging carpet and fibers and bits of her puke. Her stepfather, Harry Arnold, was dressed in a black suit, sobbing violently at the dining room table. They were asking him questions and he was answering in a voice full of blubber. Flynn didn’t even have to turn around to know Raidin was behind him, gauging his reaction.

Flynn got as close to Grace as he could, looking for blood. He didn’t see any. He didn’t spot a note anywhere. He stared at her face and thought she looked even prettier than the last time he’d seen her.

Her clothing was a mess. Her hair disheveled in a sexy, postcoital disarray. She wore no makeup. She did not appear to be at peace. Her brow was ridged. She seemed to be frowning. She looked angry with herself. The vomit blotted her chin and neck in a powdered, delicate pattern.

Flynn spun. Raidin said nothing, merely watched him. Flynn was tired of the tap dancing and said, “Grace Brooks. She was a case of mine.”

“When?”

Another question he already knew the answer to. “Four years ago.”

“Seen her since?”

Flynn did the math. “Twenty months ago. She was eighteen, and planned on heading out to L.A., she said. We had lunch and she talked about her plans.”

“What were they?”

“What else? She wanted into the movies. But she was smart, didn’t go on about trying to be a major star. She just cared about acting and wanted to be on a soap opera. She said it was a good training ground. She had the dream and the drive. I thought she had a chance.”

“Any letters or phone calls since then?”

“No. And don’t ask me if I’m sure.”

Flynn was piecing some of it together, but the sight of Grace on the floor, mobbed by so many men, kept distracting him. He had to fight the urge to pull a crocheted blanket from the corner of the sofa and drape it over her.

“Was there any note?” Flynn asked.

“No.”

“Was she shot?”

“No. Pills.”

“What kind of pills?”

“Percocet, Vicodin and Valium. Appears to be a suicide.”

“What’s she doing on the floor?”

“There’s traces of vomit on her bed. She threw up but not enough. Looks like she got to her feet and made her way downstairs, passed out in the center of the room. There’s a cell phone on the coffee table. It’s possible she changed her mind, tried to call for help, but couldn’t get to the phone.”

“Jesus Christ.” Flynn felt a rushing wave of grief rising up trying to swamp him. He wanted to go with it but had to keep clear a little while longer. “So it’s not connected to—”

“To you? To Angela Soto? What do you think?”

Raidin looked at him. The homicide dick was still feeling him out. This whole show was for his benefit to see how Flynn behaved. How he replied, rebutted, responded. To find out what might shake loose. Flynn didn’t blame him.

“Tell me about her,” Raidin said.

Flynn did. He explained how Grace’s mother was pathologically jealous of her daughter. She was physically and mentally abusive of her, started doing little things like shredding all of Grace’s clothes, slapping her around, calling neighborhood teen boys and telling them to stay away from her slut of a daughter. Did other funky stuff like chasing her up the street with a butcher knife. Took a girl with no self-esteem and burned her to the ground.

Grace OD’ed at school once and a gym teacher saved her. Flynn stepped in four years ago and had the mother put away at Pilgrim State for a period of observation. She went in to avoid charges. The shrinks confirmed she was a paranoid schiz and held on to her. Harry Arnold said he couldn’t handle the stress of caring for Grace and a sick wife. So Grace was shipped out to an aunt.

The mother was away six months, came back and her bad triggers were pulled again almost immediately. She went back into Pilgrim. Flynn had checked in on Grace until she’d turned eighteen. She was starting to get some work in magazine ads and even a couple of commercials. She planned on trying her hand at soap operas. She said the soaps were the best training an actor could have. Flynn knew she had the looks but thought she was still too fragile for cities like L.A. or New York. He tried to talk her out of it over lunch, but she seemed so intent he didn’t want to slap her down like her mother always did.

Now she was on the floor, wearing black. Harry, in black. The mother nowhere in sight. Flynn figured she was dead and today had been her funeral. He wondered if Grace had carried so much misplaced guilt that she’d come around to see the world through her mother’s eyes and found it too sick and too sad. He had a tough time buying it, but he hadn’t seen her for almost two years. L.A. could’ve followed suit and caved her in.

“The mother?” Flynn asked.

“She died three days ago. Committed suicide.”

“In Pilgrim?”

“No, she was here in the house. Pills in the bedroom. The same ones the daughter used. The viewing was this morning. There’s another one due for tonight. They came home, the father went out to get a pack of cigarettes, drove to the store, had a crying jag in the parking lot for a half hour. By the time he got himself together and came back, she was dead.”

Flynn looked over at Harry Arnold and snapped the pieces together as fast as he could. “Check her for rape.”

“It sounds like you’re giving me orders.”

“Yeah, it does sound like that,” Flynn said. “Have the M.E. check her for recent sexual activity.” He looked over at Grace, without makeup on, recently showered. “There might not be much to find. I think she cleaned herself up afterward.”

Raidin let the sharpness back into his attitude, got the knifelike edge back. “Simply because she had intercourse in the past forty-eight hours doesn’t mean rape. The M.E. does know his job.”

“Make sure he doesn’t slip up. Harry Arnold over there, he’s not her father. He’s the stepfather, married in eight or nine years ago. Always a lot of friction in the family. The mother was psychotically jealous of her daughter, but I don’t think it was Grace who set her off. It was Harry sniffing around Grace.”

“Did the girl tell you that?”

“No,” Flynn said. “She may not have recognized it. She was just a kid.”

“Then you have no real evidence. She was sixteen, you say?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not much of a kid. You’re just obsessing on bad daddies.”

Flynn shook his head. “He sent her away after the mother was committed. I think he was fighting the urge. But it finally got ahold of him.” Flynn stared over at Harry, sitting there with his face screwed up, still sobbing, but no tears on his cheeks. “He caused it. Shake him up, he’ll spit it out in a minute. He wants to.”

“You’re not given to much doubt or reservation, are you? You have the dubious quality of making things sound true simply because you say them.”

“He drove Grace to it. She was a beautiful girl. He watched her grow from a gangly preteen into an attractive young woman. The mother was a battle-ax who just got worse as time went by. After she was dead, he couldn’t control himself anymore. They came back here after the viewing. He’s alone in the world, Grace’s back from L.A. It’s in his head, how it’s not illegal anymore, she’s not his daughter, he’s free. He put the moves on her, probably raped her.”

“There are no signs of that. No struggle, no ripped clothing.”

“She was probably showering. He couldn’t take the idea of her naked behind the door. Raped her at her mother’s own funeral. Probably blamed her for it, saying she drove him to it. That she’d ruined the family. That she’d caused her mother’s death. It was her weak point.”

“You know all of that after being here only ten minutes.”

“It’s what I do for a living. He said he went for cigarettes. Did he actually buy any? Get a receipt? Anybody see him in the store?”

“We’re checking.”

“You’re always checking on some goddamn thing or other. You know he did it. Brace him and he’ll crack. He wants to crack.”

“How do you know that?”

Flynn scowled and said, “Can’t you smell it?”

He was surprised Raidin wasn’t already rousting Harry, hammering at him. It was a misstep on his part, Flynn figured. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just a chance to kill two birds with one stone. Setting Flynn up to set up Harry Arnold. He searched Raidin’s eyes and got back nothing. No, it wasn’t a mistake. This guy was slick. This guy was using the whole scene as leverage on Flynn. Raidin wanted him to pull something funky, act up, cause a scene. The more he saw, the better he could gauge Flynn.

Flynn wanted to move and he didn’t want to move. He wanted to talk to Harry Arnold. He wanted to get Raidin off his back. He shot a glance at Grace on the floor and he thought of how happy she’d looked in the diner the last time he saw her, telling him about L.A.

“Okay, if you won’t shake him, I will.” Flynn started across the room.

Raidin reached out to grab Flynn’s wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong, backed with wiry muscle and stolid intent. He latched on tight. It wasn’t a cop thing. This was short-guy syndrome. It had to do with being the toughest kid in the room. Raidin didn’t like Flynn’s attitude, but he especially didn’t dig the fact that he had so little effect on him. That he couldn’t intimidate Flynn or force him back a step. It was about as schoolyard as it got. Flynn was taller but suffered the same. The longer he stood in this house, the more conscious he was of the feeling that he belonged here and everyone else didn’t.

Flynn snapped free and walked over to Harry Arnold. He’d always suspected the guy was a borderline pedo. The man had lost a wife and a stepdaughter in the last three days. Death clung to him heavily, and so did his guilt. Harry would break down and admit he’d raped Grace a couple of weeks down the line. Flynn didn’t feel like waiting.

He sat down across from Arnold at the dining room table and said, “Hello, Harry. Condolences.”

Harry Arnold raised his chin. His bottom lip hung slack and his eyes were hooded. Flynn got the feeling that Harry couldn’t quite see him, so he leaned over the table and flicked Harry on the forehead.

One of the cops made a move to grab Flynn. But Raidin was making heavy eye contact with his men. He wanted to see how this played out. The atmosphere shifted from crime scene to potential action. This was as much a test of Flynn as it was of Harry. It was rope. One of them was bound to swing soon. Maybe both of them. Flynn never questioned for an instant that he was right. He didn’t know much, but he knew predators.

Harry Arnold’s eyes were opening wider.

“There we go,” Flynn said. “How you doing?”

Harry recognized him. He glanced around to see what was happening, wondering why Flynn was there, why the cops let him get away with flicking a bereaved father’s head. Something uncoiled in Flynn’s chest, warming him. He smiled. Depending on the situation, his smile could be charming or disarming or he could look a touch deranged. It came in handy. Harry quit making sobby noises. His eyes cleared and filled with suspicion and fear. He sniffed one last time and said, “You. Why are you here?”

“I’d like to ask you a question.”