The Red Scream (2 page)

She sat down and was about to cross her legs when she paused, feeling a flush of heat radiate from her neck into her face. On an end table next to his chair lay a copy of her book,
Sweating Blood.
It was open at about the middle, the gaudy orange and red cover facing up. Somehow, she had never considered the possibility of this man reading it. And for just a moment, here in his house, the cover struck her as so tasteless, so sensational and tawdry, that she felt a hot blush prickling her cheeks—a reaction she could not remember ever having in her many years of being a crime writer who often violated the rules of good taste.

From the minute her publisher had first showed her the cover art, she had loved it because it was so attention-grabbing. The painting depicted a lonely stretch of highway with a woman’s body lying in a ditch alongside; from the body blood flowed and surrounded the entire cover, front and back, with a shiny vivid red. She had recognized immediately that it would sell books. It was commercial, yes, sensational even. But that was the nature of true crime books and she wasn’t going to apologize for it.

Certainly, when she was writing it, she had wrestled with the problem inherent in writing a book for entertainment which was based on other people’s private disasters. And here was a man who’d been personally devastated by the violence she’d carefully researched and portrayed; from the place the book was open, she figured he must have already read that vividly detailed scene of his first wife’s murder and the cold description of the act Louie Bronk had given in his confession to the police and again when she’d interviewed him in prison. Eleven years had passed since the murder, true, and McFarland had heard it all rehashed at the trial, but seeing it in print, dramatized, was a different matter; it had to be damned painful for him to read.

She forced her eyes away from the book and finally finished crossing her legs.

Charlie McFarland had been watching her. He steepled his thick callused fingers over his belly, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “Do you have daughters, Molly?”

She was glad he’d switched to first names. “Yes, Charlie. I have one daughter. She’s twenty-four.”

He nodded and opened his eyes as if that made it all right for him to go on. “Then you know that you’d do damn near anything for a daughter. Alison’s twenty-two now. She’s a real fan of yours, reads everything you write. Maybe you already know that since you’ve been in touch with her.” He gave her a hard look as if he was expecting an answer.

Molly remained silent; she wanted to see where he was heading.

He reached out and placed a hand on the open book next to him. “The girl reads too much of this sort of thing if you ask me—always has. I can’t believe it’s good for her, especially when you consider her history.” The thick, tanned skin of his brow furrowed. “Now I wasn’t planning on even giving this a glance—no point to it—but she bought a copy the day it appeared in the bookstores and stayed up all night reading it. Then she gave it to me. Said reading it might help me lay it all to rest.”

He kept his hand on the open book and drummed his fingers on it. “You’re real good at what you do and I admire that. It’s clear you do your homework; you’re thorough, but”—he began to shake his head slowly from side to side as he spoke—“I just can’t imagine why anyone would want to do this. All that time you spent with him—” He screwed up his mouth in distaste. “To get so close to him, to try to get inside—” He shook his head furiously now. “Even his poems. No, I can’t see it, but maybe that’s because I got hit so close to home. I wish I could just forget it, but it keeps coming back.”

Molly thought about her own experience with violent death hitting close to home. She sighed and said, “I don’t think forgetting is an option, Charlie. And I think Alison has a point. Sometimes looking at it closely and trying to understand can … well, this may just be rationalization for what I do, but I think that exposing it to the cold light of day can de-fang it some.”

When she looked up, he was studying her face with increased interest. “In the book you describe me as a small but growing Austin builder. What do you know about me now?”

God, she thought, wasn’t that typical of us all—out of a four-hundred-page book he picked out the one sentence that was about him. “You started McFarland Construction with two bulldozers and a wetback stone mason,” she said, “and built it up to a hundred-million-dollar-a-year
business. And you’re one of the few builder-developers who’s not only survived the real estate crash intact, but prospered during it. Recently you got the contract for a new office building downtown and you’ve got several environmentally controversial new developments under way.”

He nodded. “That’s all true, but your numbers are low.” He grinned at her. “My company grossed almost two hundred million this year.”

“Well, I was under-informed,” Molly said. “Congratulations. I’m impressed that anyone in the construction business is still standing.”

“Me too, me too. It hasn’t been easy.” He cleared his throat and looked away from her.

Now he was going to get down to it, Molly thought, whatever it was that had caused him to use his considerable influence to get Richard Dutton to ask the first favor he’d ever asked of her—“Molly,” he’d said, “do something for me: when Charlie McFarland calls you, and he will call, just pretend to be nice if you can manage it. Listen to the man.” Charlie had called the next day, and she had agreed to come see him at his house. Of course, even without Richard’s intervention, she would have agreed; the book was finished, but her interest in the Bronk case sure wasn’t. She still wanted to hear what this man had to say, even off the record.

McFarland was slumped down in his chair now, staring into the empty, blackened fireplace. Well, she had seen it before—people having trouble getting started. When you wrote about crime, you met people who had suffered grievous pain and they often had a hard time getting started.

She sat and waited for him, studying his face. Though she had watched him testify at the trial ten years before and had seen his picture in the business section of the newspaper often since then, she might not have recognized him on the street. She knew he was sixty-two, but he looked older. The powerful bone structure of his jaw and Roman nose was holding, but the flesh, being more transient, was sinking. Swollen pouches of skin under his eyes seemed to be dragging the lower lid down and pads of fat under his chin almost obscured his thick neck. Gravity was having its way with this man. Maybe grief had helped it along.

Finally he raised his head. “You must be sitting there thinking I’m
some crazed old coot with a loose cinch. The thing is, this is a real delicate matter; I have a favor to ask, but I don’t want to insult you.”

Molly found herself suddenly even more interested in what he had to say, interested enough to help him along. “Would it help if I promise not to be insulted no matter how outrageous it is? Give you advance absolution?”

“Yes, ma’am, it sure would help. But that’s not my only problem here; see, it’s something I haven’t talked about in so long it’s like I’ve forgotten how to do it.”

She hoped he wouldn’t back down now; she was beginning to feel the erection of those sensitive little hairlike receptors in her brain that alerted her to the proximity of a good story.

He leaned forward in his chair and rested his hands on his broad knees. “Here’s my problem.”

Molly settled back to listen.

“Alison is having a difficult time of it right now. She’s back at school now, at the University, after taking some time off. She’s real smart, Molly. Valedictorian of her high school class at Austin High, National Honor Society, National Merit finalist—you name it. For the past two years she’s been going to see this psychiatrist because she’s been having nightmares and … oh … anxieties. She’s come to the conclusion it all has to do with her mother’s death. She was just eleven then. Of course, you know all about that—her being there when it happened and testifying at the trial and all. Now I know she’s agreed to talk to you for the article you’re writing; she told me. Here’s where the favor comes in.”

His eyes flicked up to meet hers and then lowered. “I want to ask you not to talk to her. As her father, I truly believe it would be harmful to her right now. Too much pressure. And I don’t think any of this would help her brother either. He’s doing a medical residency in emergency medicine. The last thing he needs is a revival of all this horror to distract him.”

He put the heel of his right hand to his forehead and pressed as if he felt a headache coming on and could force it back. “There’s more. I want to ask you not to write anything more about my wife’s murder.” He reached out his left hand and rested it on her book as if blessing it. “Doesn’t this say it all? Let it be the final word.” He picked the book up with one hand and snapped it shut. “Enough.”

It wasn’t the first time someone had asked her not to write a story,
or even the first time that the welfare of a child had been invoked as the reason. But she sensed a difference here: Charlie McFarland wouldn’t stop at just asking.

“Charlie, I’ve been following the Bronk case for eleven years and I am going to see it through to the end. The final word will be when Louie Bronk is executed.”

He took in a long breath before speaking. “So this article you’re planning to write is in honor of”—his mouth tightened into a mean slit—“Mr. Bronk’s slated execution. My sources tell me this time it will go through since he’s exhausted the appeal process.”

“Yes,” she said. “I think your sources are correct. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has turned him down. The Supreme Court has run out of tolerance and the governor’s not about to intervene.”

“They also tell me that he’s asked for you to be one of his witnesses. At his execution.”

“Yes. I’m planning to attend.”

His black eyes flickered, alive with intelligence in his heavy, immobile face. “You ever seen an execution before, Molly?”

“No. Actually, I haven’t.”

“I thought that’s something a journalist who writes about crime would do routinely.”

“Well, it is, for some. But I—”

“I know,” he said, his mouth turning down at the corners, “you and all those liberals over at the magazine are opposed to it. You think it’s barbaric.”

Molly sighed; she really didn’t want to get into this discussion. “I am opposed to the state being in the killing business, yes.”

“But you must admit,” he said, “if we’re going to do it, lethal injection is an easy way to go.” He jabbed a finger at his thick forearm.

“Compared to, say, the electric chair, it is. More humane.”

“Humane? I’m surprised you can even use that word in connection with Mr. Bronk.” His voice rose for the first time to a challenging tone.

“It’s not in connection with him, Charlie; it’s in connection with us. The state does this in the name of its citizens. I don’t want killing done in my name, but if they are going to do it, better it should be done quickly and with as little suffering as possible.”

He shrugged. “Well, that sounds like nit-picking to me. I don’t give a shit whether they boil him in oil, or hang him, or shoot him, or cut his sick head off. It seems like every time I pick up the goddamned newspaper, I read about a new murder committed by some Louie Bronk clone who’s out on parole. We’re letting these guys out to prey on our families. Now, Molly, do you think that’s right?”

“No. I don’t. I think they ought to keep habitual murderers like Louie Bronk in for life.”

His voice boomed. “Life? According to the bozos on the parole board, life is about twelve goddamned years. Now that’s just terrible.”

Molly had to nod in agreement.

His chest was rising and falling as if he’d been running. He took several deep breaths. “Well, we aren’t going to get anywhere on this subject. What I’m worried about is Alison. I don’t believe she knows what’s best for her right now. I’m her father and I know that bringing up the whole sorry mess will be harmful to her.” He sought out her eyes with his. “Molly, I do wish you’d rethink it before you travel any further down that road.”

“Charlie, every time I write an article, someone objects to it. What makes you think I’d let you talk me out of this one?”

He rested his head back on the chair and closed his eyes again. “Because you have a daughter, too.” He paused to let it sink in. “Because there’s no shortage of crimes out there to write about.” He lifted his head and opened his eyes, meeting hers directly. “And because if you help me here, I can help you a great deal. A
great
deal.”

She felt a catch of surprise in her throat. Never before had anyone attempted to bribe her and she couldn’t imagine where this was heading if not to a bribe. “How could you help me?” she asked quietly.

“How much did you make last year, Molly?”

Molly smiled and shook her head. “Why should I tell you that?”

“Because I know anyway. You made forty-five thousand last year—thirty from the magazine and most of the rest from the advance on
Sweating Blood.
Your best year ever. Even so, you had to borrow at the end of the year to pay your taxes. You aren’t a very smart money manager, Molly, but then you’re an artist.”

“You seem very well informed about my finances.”

He raised a hand up in dismissal. “Hell, that’s easy. You know that.”

Yes, she did know that. She’d pried into other people’s finances herself—often—but to have it done to her made her damn mad. Her hypocrisy, she thought, seemed to know no limits.

He went on: “Now I’ve always been a supporter of the arts—the ballet, the symphony—I give to them all. I know you need to do the magazine pieces for the money and that makes it hard to take the time you need for book writing.”

He leaned forward and Molly saw by the grimace he made that it hurt him to do it. “Now what I have in mind is to endow an annual prize to be given to the Texan who … oh, contributes the most to crime writing—you know, to educate the public about the dangers and all that. And you’d be the first recipient. One hundred thousand dollars in cash, Molly—enough to support you while you write another book—on any subject in the world except my sorry family history.”