Winter and Night (14 page)

"No." I wasn't even sure what else was in the box.

Carefully, she put the CDs back in the order she'd found them, saying nothing. Looking at me again, she asked, "Learn anything out here?"

"Macpherson thinks Scott's an asshole."

"This is not news."

"That Macpherson thinks so?"

"Macpherson strikes me as a man who probably thinks that about a lot of people. And from what I've heard, Scott is one."

I tamped my cigarette in the ashtray, smiling a little. "You can't say it, can you?"

"I could," she answered breezily. "But I don't intend to be dragged into the mud with all the other Neanderthals on this case."

"Me included?"

"Of course."

"Anything happen in there after I left?"

"Barboni asked me out again. It seems he gets excited by girls with guns who push him around."

"Here's a secret about men: We all do."

"Here's a secret about women: We all know you do."

"So why don't more of you carry guns?"

"So more of us can get asked out by guys like Barboni?"

"Or like the rest of us. I get your point."

"Anyway," she said, "I apologized for your thuggish behavior, and told Mr. Hamlin I understood how important it was for him to maintain discipline, and assured him I agreed he couldn't be expected to set a bad example for the boys by breaking his own rules."

"You'd better be going somewhere with this."

"No, I just didn't want to be associated with your approach. In case they ever need another security guard out here. It seems like kind of a good job. I like the ambience."

"And you could work the night shift with Barboni."

"Another plus. What I did was to ask Mr. Hamlin if the boys would be likely to have heard about Tory Wesley."

"And?"

"He carefully explained to me again that they're not allowed outside contact while they're here, so no, they wouldn't have. So I smiled and thanked him and asked him to keep his ears open, and to please let me know if he happens to hear any of the kids saying anything that might mean they know. Because if they do—"

"—it'll be because they knew already, before Sullivan and I found her body. You know, you really are a genius."

"You wouldn't just be saying that?"

"Sure I would. But you'd kill me if I didn't."

"That's true."

"You think he will? Let you know if he hears anything?"

"Fifty-fifty. He doesn't think very highly of me. But he'd love to prove to me how much more he knows than I do. He'd especially love to prove to me how much more he knows than you do. It's that male gorilla thing."

"Any gorilla knows more than I do, male or female."

"But that was strange, that thing."

"What was?"

"Well, usually, when a guy does that male gorilla thing and chases the other gorilla away—"

"Me?"

She gave me a silent look, went on, "—usually he follows it up with more chest thumping and a bad come-on line. To collect his prize."

"You?" When she didn't answer I asked, "Hamlin didn't?"

"As soon as you guys left and it was just the two of us it was like a switch turned off. He sat in his chair like nothing had happened and answered my questions patiently, as though he had all night."

"It looked to me like that was at least partly an act," I said. "All that yelling. And maybe more for Macpherson than for us."

"I had the same feeling. Well, I'm just as glad he didn't come on to me."

"Why? So you don't have to choose between him and Barboni?"

"A tough choice," she confirmed. "So, what do we do now?"

I thought. For a while in my car it was just silence and odd shadows, Lydia's leather jacket and the faint freesia scent of her hair. The wind came up, shifting the shadows around; Lydia zipped up the jacket.

"Cold?" I asked her.

"A little," she admitted.

"You know how to start a stick shift?"

"You'd let me start this car?"

"When you put it that way," I said, "no. Anyway, we'd better get out of here. Before Sullivan gets here."

"Can Mr. Hamlin really keep the police from questioning the kids?"

"Sure. Cops have no right to talk to anybody without a warrant. It'll piss the cops off, but Hamlin doesn't seem like a guy who cares about that."

"He seems to me like a guy who likes it. Bill?"

I looked at her, waiting.

"Mr. Macpherson's a parent paying a lot of money to send his son here. You and I are just PIs who Mr. Hamlin doesn't know from Adam."

"Or Eve. And?"

"Well, wouldn't a parent be someone you'd want to at least try to keep on the good side of, even if you weren't going to let him have what he wanted? But Mr. Hamlin was going way out of his way to be unpleasant to Mr. Macpherson, much more than to us. He really seemed to be enjoying it."

"Because Macpherson's a lot more obnoxious?"

"You'll excuse me if I say I don't think, in terms of the events of this evening, that he was."

"You could be right."

"Then why?"

"I don't know."

"And another question: What was Mr. Macpherson doing here?"

"I assume he thinks his son knows something about Tory Wesley's death and he wanted to find out what."

"So why didn't he take him home, if that's the only way to talk to him?"

"Because the kid's a senior, he's been scouted by colleges, and this is football camp."

"If you had a son involved in a murder, wouldn't you think finding out just how involved would be more important than football?"

"I would. You would. But we're not from Warrenstown."

"He'll be back."

I looked at her, her dark eyes hidden in the shadows.

"He had to think about it," she said. "He had to decide what to do. But he'll decide he has to know, and he'll be back."

I nodded. "You might be right. I'll stay."

She stared out through my windshield, at the lights in Hamlin's buildings and the lights on the road. "And I'll go back to New York," she said, "and do what I was doing this morning." She opened the driver's door; then she turned back, leaned over, and kissed me, quickly, softly. She let her fingertips linger on my jawline. "I'll go back to New York," she repeated, "and find Gary." She got out, closed my door, walked quickly across the parking lot to her car. I watched her get in, start up. Her headlights, when she switched them on, changed the shadows entirely.

Nine

I let Lydia go first, followed her down the long driveway. She turned onto the streets of Plaindale, to work her way to the highway, head back to the city. I U-turned down the road from the entrance to Hamlin's, parked facing the drive. I killed my lights and lit a cigarette, watched traffic drift down the road. After about twenty minutes I reached into the CD box, pulled out the first thing under the Bach. I thumbed it open, slipped the disk in the player without looking at it. Brahms, it turned out to be, the F-sharp minor Sonata. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but I left it on.

The night grew darker; some stars came out. Cars rolled by. The Brahms came to an end. A few blocks away, the blue neon in the window of a diner seemed to glow brighter and brighter. I wondered if I could slip down there, get coffee and something to eat and still not take my eyes off the road in case Macpherson's SUV came roaring back. I was almost ready to try it when my cell phone rang.

"Smith," I said.

"Sullivan," it answered.

"I left town."

"I know. I've had guys on the lookout for your car, just to make sure."

"Is that what you're calling to tell me? That you'll know if I come back, so I shouldn't bother? Go to hell, Sullivan, I'm not in the mood."

"What's eating you?" he asked evenly.

I slipped out a cigarette, but I didn't want it. I shoved it back in the pack, threw the pack on the dash. "It's been a long day, Sullivan. You want something?"

"Yeah. I wanted to tell you that preliminary results on the beer cans and the inside of the Wesley house didn't turn up any prints that match anything at your sister's."

Sullivan's voice was fading in and out. He was on a cell phone, too, probably moving. Probably in a Warrenstown official car on his way to where I was right now.

I asked, "What are you saying?"

"I'm not saying anything. This is off the record. It doesn't mean he didn't kill her and it doesn't mean if he did I won't be able to prove it." He paused. "I still want him, Smith, and I'm still looking. I know you're still looking, too. I just thought, while you looked, this was something you'd want to know."

"You told me to stop looking," I pointed out.

"I'd have to be even stupider than I am to think you would. All I need is for you to stay out of my town and away from my witnesses. And if you do find him somewhere in New York there, I want you to remember what a good idea it would be for him to turn himself in. I thought this would help you remember that."

"This wouldn't be bullshit, would it, Sullivan?"

"No. It's too easy to check."

That was true. Any cop who owed me a favor, or wanted me to owe him one, could call any cop in Warrenstown and find out whose prints were on those beer cans.

"Whose were?" I asked.

"What?"

"Gary's prints weren't there. Whose were?"

"Not a chance, Smith."

"Thought I'd try."

"I'm not surprised, but no."

"Okay," I said. "Thanks. And if anything else comes up that helps my side, let me know that, too, okay?"

"How do you know," he asked, "which side you're on?"

I didn't answer that. "You have autopsy results yet?"

"No. Tomorrow, maybe even another day."

"No preliminaries? Time of death?"

"Saturday night, early Sunday morning."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing I'm going to tell you."

"The news about that party must be all over Warrenstown by now," I said.

"Pretty much."

"You talked to the other kids?"

"Except the ones at Hamlin's."

"You headed there now?"

"Who wants to know?"

"Let me save you some trouble. I've just come from there."

A pause. "Smith, if you—"

"I would have, but Hamlin wouldn't let me. He won't let you, either."

"What are you talking about?"

"You'll need warrants. You're hooking up with the Plaindale police?"

"Of course," he said warily. "What—?"

"Hamlin's position is, you can arrest them and take them out, or a parent can take them home. But if they leave they don't come back."

"Who the hell is he? Some of those kids may be material witnesses in a homicide."

Or killers, but he didn't say that.

"I mentioned that," I said. "He wouldn't let me near them. Randy Macpherson's father was there and he threw him out, too."

"Macpherson? He was there already?"

"Uh-huh. He and Hamlin don't seem to get along very well."

"Nobody gets along with Macpherson. What was he doing there?"

"He wanted to talk to his kid. Hamlin wouldn't let him. And tell me something else: Why haven't the parents of all the other kids who were at that party swarmed Hamlin's, too?"

"Maybe because we're being real tight-lipped about whose prints we found, so if someone's kid doesn't own up to it, they don't know for sure they were there."

"And the kids at Hamlin's can't talk to anybody, so they can't own up."

"And in Warrenstown," Sullivan said, "it takes a hell of a lot for people to want to mess with seniors' camp at Hamlin's."

"Business as usual, no matter who's dead?"

"This is Warrenstown," he said. "This is football."

We hung up. Sullivan didn't thank me for the heads-up about the warrants, but, though he gave me another lecture about keeping clear of his witnesses, he also didn't say he was giving my license plate number to the Plaindale police. That was a fair trade-off, I thought.

I stayed where I was. If the cops came, I'd leave. If Lydia was right and Macpherson came back, I'd see if that did me any good. Meanwhile, I sat in the car, surprised at how Sullivan's news made the night seem a little warmer, the road in front of Hamlin's a little less dreary. Whatever Gary was up to, if he hadn't been at Tory Wesley's party, then he hadn't killed her. Whatever he'd done and whatever trouble he was in, maybe it wasn't that.

I didn't even bother giving myself a hard time for thinking it might have been. I reached over, took the Brahms out of the CD player, put in the Bach. Single notes, flashing fast, wove themselves into crystal clear designs of sound, of rhythm. The French Suites: music for dances. Popular dances of their time, but dances we no longer understood, steps, turns, gestures we no longer knew. All we had now was the music, though you could feel, if you let yourself, the thrill of speed in one, the intricate, tight focus of another.

It sounded, I thought, pretty good.

I smoked, listened, thought about football, about basketball and baseball and soccer: about individual players running formations and plays that have been run before, running them differently, in different games, different circumstances. Organizing themselves into patterns, taking on the obligation to create order from chaos.

I gave myself another cigarette, and I called my sister.

"It's Bill," I said. "You heard from anyone?"

"You mean Scott? No, he hasn't called."

"Or Gary."

"Gary? No. No, why? Do you—?"

"No. But I wanted to tell you this: So far the cops haven't turned up anything that would prove Gary was at that party."

"What… what does that mean?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Helen! It may mean he wasn't there. It may mean he didn't kill anybody."

I knew it was a mistake as soon as I said it. She was his mother; what did I expect? "You thought he did? You've been thinking that?" Her voice went up a pitch. "I can't believe you could even say that."

"Don't start." I blew out a breath. "Family. They're all saints, aren't they? They have to be. Or they're not family."

"That's not fair. That's really not fair. You—"

"Oh, shit. I can't, Helen. Not now. I'll call later."

And I hung up on her.