Time Bomb (36 page)

He slammed his fist down on the desk.

“Sure he told you a different story. He lies. Without blinking. Tells you one thing one minute, then denies he said it a minute later. Or maybe to him it’s not a lie—maybe he really believes the bullshit he spins for himself. I don’t know. Even after all these years I don’t know. And I don’t give a fuck. What I do know is that he’s a selfish asshole who cares only for himself and is into power trips—total control. He has to control everyone and everything. Call the shots. When I lived at home I was a prisoner: The way I dressed, what I ate, everything had to pass his fucking muster. Moving out was like being reborn.”

“What about Holly?”

“My sister was the worst kind of prisoner.”

“Solitary confinement.”

He looked startled.

I said, “It’s the phrase that came to me when I saw her room.”

His eyes moistened. “Yeah. A fucking life sentence. At least I had the ability to get myself out of there. She didn’t— no skills. She’s—
was
—one step above retarded. Which was perfect for
him.
Soon as she finished high school, he fired the maid, used Holly to clean the house.”

“Did Holly object?”

“Holly didn’t object to anything.”

“Was he ever . . . inappropriate with her?”

His eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”

“Sexually inappropriate. Overtly abusive.”

He shook his head. “You guys have that on the brain.” Then his face tensed with anger. “Why? Do you know something?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Nothing at all.”

“Then why’d you ask that?”

I phrased my words carefully. “They lived an isolated life, which is consistent in abuse situations. He used her as a cleaning woman. It seemed almost . . . marital.”

“Don’t go smearing us,” Burden said. “We’ve been through enough.”

“I wasn’t planning to—”

“Let me make one thing clear: If my name or the name of anyone in my family shows up in any report you write for him or anyone else, I’ll fucking sue you with the full weight of this corporation behind me. And if you mention anything to
him
that gets him hassling
me
—about anything—I’ll personally take it out of your hide. I may look like some fat fuck, but I can bench-press two hundred, okay?” He raised his shoulders and pounded the desk for emphasis. “That clear?”

I said, “I’m not writing anything up. And I came here to talk about your sister, not you.”

That shook him. He rolled his knuckles on the desk, gorillalike, then sank low in his chair. Several moments passed before he spoke.

“Before you showed up I told myself I was going to give you diddly, maintain my dignity, and here I go pushing the me-buttons.” He gave a sick smile. “God, I’m turning into him.”

“I doubt it,” I said, looking pointedly at the photos on the wall. “What you’ve created for yourself looks a hell of a lot different from what you grew up with.”

He covered his eyes with one hand. “They’re the best,” he said in a choked voice. “I can’t let this affect them.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? Do you know what it’s like for a six-year-old to walk out of her house and have reporters scream at her? To have kids at school taunt her about her aunt shooting at children? I had to move both of them out of town. I was just thinking about bringing them back. I can’t let this change them—can’t let
him
into our lives.”

“Of course not,” I said. “The narcissism would be destructive.”

He nodded. “That’s exactly what my therapist called him. Narcissistic personality disorder—sees himself as the center of the world. Like a three-year-old who’s never grown up. Incurable—I shouldn’t expect him ever to change. My choice was either learn to accept him or stay away from him. At first I thought I could learn, get some kind of casually friendly thing going. But after I met Gwen and her family, saw the way families
should
be, it made me realize what he’d done to all of us. How truly
fucked
he’d been. It made me hate him more.”

I listened to all of it, but two words rang in my ear:
my
therapist.

Burden saw my incredulous look, smiled, and shrugged.

“Mine’s different,” he said. “One of the good ones. Straight shooter. I started seeing him back in college—the counseling center. I was having stomachaches, thought I was going to die the way my mother did. He was doing volunteer work, never earned a cent. Took him two years to fix me up; then he booted me out into the real world. He’s retired now. Lives down in Del Mar, plays golf. Once in a while I get down there. Dr. George Goldberg.”

I didn’t recognize the name.

“He didn’t know you either. I called him and asked him about you. He asked around, looked you up, said your credentials were good, you seemed to have a decent reputation. Otherwise I wouldn’t have agreed to see you, blood pressure or no blood pressure.”

“Did Dr. Goldberg ever meet your father?”

“No. The bastard never knew I was seeing anyone—otherwise he would have done something to stop it. Or take it over. Now he’s hired
you
. Pretty funny, huh? Sweet fucking ironies of life.”

“I don’t know what he told you,” I said, “but I’m not working for him, haven’t taken a penny from him, and don’t intend to. I got involved because the police asked me to help the kids at the school cope with the aftermath of the sniping.”

He said, “Yeah, the kids. How’re they doing?”

“They’re doing all right, but the idea of a total stranger—a girl—shooting at them is still baffling to them. So when your father offered me the chance to learn something about Holly, I took it.”

“Holly,” he said. He stared at his desk and shook his head. “I know what she did was evil. If my kid had been out in that yard I’d have wanted to kill her myself. But I still feel sorry for her. I can’t help it.”

“That’s understandable. Do you have any idea
why
she did it?”

He shook his head. “I’ve been racking my brain—Gwen and I both have. I mean, Holly was weird—she was always weird. But never violent. Not that I knew her well—so many years between us, we never had a damn thing in common. Never had any kind of a relationship. She didn’t cling the way other little sisters do—she always went her own way, doing her own thing. And
he
was always comparing us—holding me up to her as an example, driving a wedge between us.”

“What was her own thing?”

“Sitting in her room listening to the goddam radio and dancing in circles. Crazy-looking. I used to be embarrassed about her. She was . . . dull. I didn’t want anyone to know she was my sister.” He gave a sick smile. “Now it’s out, huh?”

I smiled and nodded.

He said, “Gwen has four brothers. She’s very close to all of them. She couldn’t understand how a brother and sister could be total strangers. Then when she met
him,
she understood—how he kept us separate, always had. To control us. The hell of it is that recently, we were trying to change things. Gwen initiated it. She invited Holly over, tried to get to know her better. Also to get Holly away from him. Gradually. Out of her shell. She was willing to put the time into Holly. In some ways, what’s happened has been harder on her than me.”

“You had Holly over to your house?”

“Yes. Just a few times—maybe three or four.”

“When was this?”

“This summer. August, September. We made sure to invite her when he was gone. He travels a lot, visiting his suppliers. The business is his fucking life—his real kid. That fucking asshole Graff he created—his own personal Frankenstein doll. We knew if he found out he’d try to fuck it up, and on top of that, Gwen refuses to have him anywhere near Amy. We didn’t even want to call, because for all we know, he’s got the phones tapped—he’s a real gadget freak, loves all that paranoid high-tech stuff. Still reliving his spook days in the army—”

“He was a spy?”

“Some sort of Intelligence work. Supposedly. He’d hint around at it, then if I asked him, refuse to talk about it. ‘I can’t get into that, Howard.’ Sadistic. Always on a fucking power trip.”

“He told me he was in cryptography, demographics.”

“Like I said, he lies. Maybe he made all of it up, was a fucking latrine cleaner. Anyway, Gwen drove by the house until she caught Holly out in front, taking out the garbage. She tried to strike up a conversation, told Holly to call us next time he was out of town. A few weeks went by—we didn’t think she’d follow through. But then she did. We had her over for Sunday dinner. Turkey. Chestnut stuffing. One thing I did remember is she’d always loved turkey.”

“How’d it go?”

“It wasn’t a bundle of laughs, if that’s what you mean. Not much conversation. Holly mostly sat and listened to the three of us talk, watched Amy play with her dolls, never joined in much. Then we put on music and she danced a little; she wasn’t very graceful. But then she and Amy started to do it together. And they danced the next few times she came over. Amy’s very bright—she was the one leading Holly. The two of them actually seemed to be getting along well, like peers. Amy’s a very kind child—she’d never make fun. She knew Holly was strange, but she never said anything about it, just danced with her. Gwen and I both thought we were making some progress, but then Holly stopped calling. Just like that. We couldn’t figure out why, said to hell with him and tried phoning, got his fucking machine. So Gwen started driving by again, waited for a time when his car was gone, and knocked on the door. Holly answered. Gwen said she looked terrible—haggard, as if someone had died. Gwen tried to talk to her, but she shut her out, kept wringing her hands and talking nonsense.”

“What kind of nonsense?”

“Saying stuff over and over again. Gibberish.
Wanna see.
Or
wanna say. Wanna see too.”

“T-O-O?”

“Or maybe it was T-W-O—who gives a fuck? Doesn’t make much sense either way, does it? Gwen tried to get her to explain, but Holly got agitated and ran back inside the house. Gwen followed her in. Holly had gone to the gun closet, pulled out a rifle.
That
freaked Gwen out. She left in a hurry and called me. We talked about it, figured Holly had had some kind of breakdown. Her grabbing the gun really had us worried—she’d always hated his guns, never went near them. We called the police, anonymously. Told them a disturbed person had access to firearms and gave them the address. They asked if the disturbed person had either been certified disturbed or had actually threatened someone with the gun. We said no. They said then they couldn’t do anything unless we went to Recognizance Court and convinced the judge she was a danger to herself and others. Even then all we could get would be a seventy-two-hour hold. And
he
was sure to fight that. So we ended up doing nothing. Because of Amy. We didn’t want her exposed to any craziness. To courts and shrinks and
him
. And we stopped trying to get closer to Holly.”

“When did this happen—grabbing the gun?”

“Last month. A couple of weeks before . . .”

He hung his head. “So what happened is no big surprise, is it? She was obviously having violent thoughts and no one took them seriously. I keep wondering if I could have prevented it.”

“Not likely,” I said. “Did you tell the police any of this?”

“What the hell for? Drag my family into more shit? Get my name in the papers again? Besides, the guy they sent down looked like a fucking actor, couldn’t have cared less.”

“Lieutenant Frisk?”

“Yeah, that was him. I remember thinking what an asshole. Trying to stare me down, obviously considered himself hot shit. Kept harping on was she a member of any subversive groups. That’s a laugh, huh? Holly joining the fucking Red Brigade.” He shook his head. “No, we haven’t talked about it—the guns—to anyone. Gwen still can’t talk about it—any of it. She’s convinced it’s her fault. Here she is, the kindest person who ever walked this earth, and she’s blaming herself.”

I said, “The kind ones always do. Maybe you and she should take a trip down to Del Mar.”

Risking his anger by giving advice.

But he said, “Maybe,” in a defeated voice. “I wish there was some way to turn back the clock. I know it’s a fucking cliché, but it would make life a helluva lot easier, wouldn’t it?”

He covered his face again, gave a loud sigh.

I said, “Do you remember when it was that Holly stopped calling?”

“September. Late September.”

Right after Ike Novato’s murder.

Terrible. Haggard. As if someone had died.

I said, “Did she have any friends?”

“None that I ever saw.”

“Did she ever mention the name Novato?”

He moved his hand from his face. “No. Who’s that?”

“Someone who may have been a friend. He delivered groceries for Dinwiddie’s market. We know he and Holly had at least a few casual conversations.”

“Is that what he says?”

“He doesn’t say anything. He’s dead.”

“How?”

“Murdered, last September. Just around the time Holly started pulling away from you.”

“Murd— Oh, Jesus. You think that’s what tipped her over?”

“It’s possible.”

“You’re saying this Novato meant something to her?”

“Maybe. Your father says no—”

“What he says means fucking diddly-squat. Who is—was—this Novato? What kind of person.”

“People who knew him say he was a nice kid. Smart, black. Ted Dinwiddie thought highly of him. He was Dinwiddie’s delivery boy.”

He smiled. “Black. That makes sense. Back in high school, Ted Dinwiddie used to be our local flaming radical. Now he’s a businessman, probably feeling guilty about it. Hiring a black kid is something he would have done. And felt nervous about. The anxiety would have assuaged his guilt.”

He was silent for several moments, seemed to be lost in memories. Before the silence could curdle, I said, “What are your father’s political views?”

“I don’t know that he has any. He’s a fucking Mah
lon
icrat. Worships himself—fuck everyone else.”

“When Holly came over did she ever talk politics?”

“Nothing. Like I told you, she barely said anything at all. Why? What’s this all about? Who killed Novato?”