Bill Pronzini: The Other Side Of Silence

“I killed him,” she said again.

“Looks more like an accident to me. What happened?”

It was several seconds before she was able to push out a reply. “We were drinking… arguing. Kevin heard us. He came running in and threw himself at Vernon and started hitting him. Vernon slapped him and I slapped Vernon and pushed him, hard, and he… his foot slid on the rug and he fell. His head… his head…” A shudder went through her. “You can’t imagine the sound it made. You can’t imagine. As soon as I heard it I knew he was dead.”

“And Kevin saw it happen.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why he ran away.”

“I couldn’t stop him, couldn’t catch him. The car, Vernon’s car…” She shook her head, looking past Fallon at the dead man. “I killed him,” she said again.

He took her arm, steered her up the steps and out of the room. She let him do it without protest; she seemed to have lost all will of her own. A dining room opened on the left, dominated by a long refectory table. He sat her down in one of the chairs at the far end, where she couldn’t see into the front room, and pulled a chair over and sat next to her.

“What were you and Young arguing about?”

“I started it,” she said, “it was my fault. He’d done so much for Kevin and me, we’d all been through so much. I said it was time to stop hiding the truth, I begged him to let us finally be a family.”

“Family?”

“Vernon was Kevin’s real father.”

No surprise. Fallon had already guessed it.

“He was so angry. He said we’d been over this and over it, we could never be a family. He said what he always said-he had his reputation to think of, he couldn’t leave his wife because a divorce would cost him too much. He said he had blood on his hands for me now, wasn’t that enough of a commitment?”

“Spicer’s blood. He killed Spicer, didn’t he?”

“… How did you know Court’s dead?”

“It doesn’t matter. Go on.”

“I said I couldn’t keep on living the way I had been, even with Kevin back safe. I said… I don’t know, I said a lot of things. He just got more angry. He said if I kept pushing him, he would admit Kevin was his and take him away from me and make him live in his house, with his wife. He said he could prove he’d been paying me support money. He said he’d get a high-powered lawyer and sue me for custody, claim I was unstable, an unfit mother.”

Fallon said, “Is all of this what Kevin overheard? Why he ran in and started hitting Young?”

“Yes. The shock… it was too much for him. He was yelling,‘You’re not my father, you killed my father! I hate you, I hate you!’ ” Casey shivered again. “Now he hates me too. You heard him say so.”

“He didn’t mean it.”

“Yes he did. He’ll go on hating me for the rest of his life.”

No use trying to reason with her. She was too strung out, too full of guilt and self-loathing.

“Did you tell Young when you found out you were pregnant?”

“As soon as I was sure. He wanted me to have an abortion. When I wouldn’t, he… respected my decision. And he didn’t end it between us, I don’t know what I’d’ve done if he had. He stood by me, he did the right thing.”

The right thing. Sure. Monthly support payments of $1,000, no contact with his son, and Casey as his mistress for eight more years.

“Why did you marry Spicer? To give the boy a name?”

“Yes.”

“And you let him sleep with you before so he’d think Kevin was his.”

“Yes. But I told him the truth about how it happened… a mistake with my birth control pills.”

“So he never knew he wasn’t Kevin’s father.”

“He suspected it. Every time he accused me of having an affair, he’d say, ‘That kid’s not mine, is he? He’s somebody else’s little bastard.’ That’s why he fought me in court, why he took Kevin and locked him up and half-starved him for four months-to punish me and my bastard son.”

Fallon said, “Young gave you money to hire a private detective. Why wouldn’t he let you have the two thousand to take to Vegas? Or did you lie to me about that too?”

“No. Vernon said it was a setup, that Court was behind it. I wouldn’t believe him. So I took the money… borrowed it. I knew he wouldn’t go to the police. I lied to you about that.”

“Yeah,” Fallon said.

“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t tell you about Vernon and me, Kevin being his son.”

“No, because you were afraid I wouldn’t help you if I knew the truth.”

She made no reply. Her breathing seemed a little labored now.

He said, “Sunday night. After we talked, you called Young or he called you and you told him Spicer was in Laughlin. Told him Spicer was using Co-River Management as a mail drop.”

“Yes.”

“What else? The rape, the suicide attempt?”

“Just the rape. He… it made him furious. He said Court had gone too far. He said maybe he ought to go to Laughlin, rescue Kevin himself, have it out with Court.”

Man up for once in his life. Hell, cowboy up. Charge in, playing the hero with a gun in his hand. Stupid.

Not that Rick Fallon had been a whole lot smarter.

Casey was saying, “I begged him to let you handle it, you’d done so much already, and finally he said he would. That’s why I went to Laughlin with you. But he brooded about it and changed his mind.”

“How did he find out where Spicer was living?”

“He called the head of the management company Monday morning. Realtors with Vernon’s reputation… it was easy for him to get the address.”

Easy. And obvious, now. Fallon should have figured it out on his own; would have if he’d remembered thinking about Casey’s real estate license and professional reciprocity when they arrived at Co-River Management.

He said, “So then Young drove or flew to Laughlin-”

“Drove.”

“And walked into Spicer’s house with a gun and confronted him.”

“He didn’t mean to kill him. But Court tried to grab the gun, and it… he said it just went off.”

It just went off. The blanket excuse used by every damn fool who didn’t know anything about guns and blew somebody away with one. Young hadn’t meant to kill Spicer, and Casey hadn’t meant to give him the push that caused him to break his neck on the hearthstone. A couple of senseless accidents. And in their wake there was wreckage-a traumatized little boy with two dead fathers and a lying mother, all of whom had betrayed him, and the mother with her zombie eyes and guilt over the death of her lover burned into her conscience.

“Did Kevin see that, too? The shooting?”

“No. He was locked in his room until Vernon let him out.” The words came more slowly now. She sat slumped down in the chair, as if the alcohol effects were wearing off and she was very tired. “But he saw Court lying there dead. He was in shock, crying, when Vernon picked me up.”

“He called you on your cell right after it happened, and you told him where you were.”

“Yes. Oh God, I was so happy Kevin was safe. So happy then.”

“And the three of you drove straight here.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you contact me? Why leave me dangling?”

“I wanted to call. Vernon wouldn’t let me. He said Kevin was safe and you… didn’t matter anymore.”

“Bullshit,” Fallon said. “I mattered to him, all right. He was afraid I’d find out Spicer was dead and he was responsible.”

“You did find out. You found us.”

“Yeah. I found out a lot of things, some of them too late.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

The hell you are, he thought.

She sighed, long-drawn and quavery. “We shouldn’t have come here. I wanted to go home, or to Vegas for my car. Kevin wanted to go home. All those months being locked up like a prisoner, seeing Court dead… my God, what he’s gone through.”