Jeff Abbott: Distant Blood

“Your son's ready to destroy our family.” Mutt spoke sharply.

“This family was destroyed long before I got here,” I answered. I stuck the unloaded gun in my pocket. Mutt wasn't the only one who could benefit from a prop. “Excuse me.”

I left them, heading up the stairs. To Philip's room.

The lowing sounds of men singing Gregorian chants surprised me as I leaned close to Philip's shut door. The voices rose as if a cathedral lay on the other side of the wood. Throats hummed in praise of God, baritones mixing with the cry of countertenors.

Funeral music for Philip was fine with me.

I knocked on the door. The music diminished in volume after a moment, and Philip bade me come in.

I swung the door open. He lay on his bed in a thin robe, hands on his chest in monkish repose. He barely glanced at me, then returned to considering the ceiling.

“Contemplating your sins?” I asked.

“No. I can't undo anything I've done. I just go on.” He blinked at me. “I hope you didn't beat up my brother too bad.”

“Neither one of us is worse for wear.” I closed the door behind me. I walked to the side of his bed, the vague sense of distaste I felt whenever I was near him rearing its head. A stack of tapes stood by a portable player. Palestrina, a Mozart mass, a collection of Gregorian chant, and a name I didn't recognize. I picked up the cassette. “Gesualdo. Tenebrae.”

“He was a murderer. Aside from being a talented composer.”

“Like drawn to like?”

He fixed his blue eyes on me. “I may be many things, but I'm not a killer. How are Candace and Aubrey doing?”

“Do you care?”

He watched my face. “Actually, I do. I think you're a pain, but Candace seems perfectly nice, if a bit too enthralled with you.”

“And no bad blood between you and Aubrey?”

“I don't care much for hypocrites, but I hope Aubrey's okay. I'm sorry it's taken their suffering to bring this family rightly to its knees.”

I sat on the bed and pulled Mutt's firearm from the back of my pants. Philip's eyes widened as I toyed with the gun.

“Candace lost a baby. I didn't even know she was pregnant.”

Philip jerked up to a sitting position. Genuine shock flushed his face. “Oh, my God. Oh, shit.” He swallowed. “Christ, Jordan. I'm so sorry.”

“Mutt's downstairs. He says you're the poisoner.”

I expected vehement denial, castigation of the accuser, and general bluster. None came. Philip stared at me, then started to laugh, a throttle of a giggle.

“That old shit. He's still trying to cover his bases.”

“Are you?”

“No, I'm not. I have no reason to hurt Lolly, Aubrey, or your girlfriend.”

“He claims you do.” I rubbed my fingers along the gun- unloaded, but Philip didn't know. He watched, fascinated, like a bird transfixed before a slithering cobra.

“Look, Jordan, I've never liked people like you-blond boys who have the world handed to them on a platter.”

“You don't even know me, Philip. You have no clue as to what my life is like. At least I never dealt drugs, got my own brother addicted, or stole money from my family.”

He raised a hand and an eyebrow. His gaze stayed on the gun, but then his eyes met mine in unexpected frankness. “Fine. You want to play priest in the confessional? Yeah, I sold drugs. I sold a lot of them. To college kids, to soulless lawyers, to bored housewives. Did I fuck up some lives? Sure. My own included.”

“Don't wait for me to weep for you. You never did jail time.”

“Only because,” he said, “Mutt found out. And he gave me a choice. Turn over all my drug money-all of it-to him, or he'd turn me in. He ain't no saint.”

I leaned back, doubt clouding my face. Philip laughed. “Mutt's a piece. He took the money I'd made for himself. But he got Tom straightened out. It was a fair trade.” He glanced down at the stack of spiritual tapes. “My life's better now. So's Tom. He and I aren't ever going to be close again, but we're okay.”

More hurt tinged this admission than he would ever openly admit; his heavy-jawed face creased and he bit at his lip pensively. I didn't speak for a moment and the tape of chant ended with a click, and it sounded like the doors of heaven shutting.

“You stole money from Mutt.”

Philip smiled again. “Wrong. I'm trying to prove he's stealing his own.”

“You must be on drugs again.”

“Hell, I never took that stuff.” He shrugged. “You deserve to know what's happened here, the game that Mutt's played out to its end.” He leaned forward, the sly, boyish smile of a secret to be shared cutting his face. “Mutt's not dying.”

“That's crazy.”

“Dead men don't pay taxes,” Philip said. “He's decided to vanish by going into his grave.”

“If he wanted to fake his death, he wouldn't claim to have cancer. He'd fake an accident or something and drop out of sight.”

Philip nodded. “So one would think. But not our Mutt. He-and the delightful Miss Wendy-are planning on taking what's left of his fortune, heading far away, and setting up house with new lives. New names.”

“Why?”

“He wants to marry her without the family hovering, I guess. Or maybe he's just tired of Lolly and Jake being like warts on his ass.” He coughed, then stared hard into my eyes. “And I get the distinct feeling there's something bad in his life he'd like to forget and evade forever, but I don't know what it is.”

Paul's death. And Brian's. Dead men can't be prosecuted, either. Philip's eyes betrayed nothing more. Perhaps he didn't know about the cover-up involving Paul.

“And just how have you been planning to prove this?”

“I got Mutt-finally-to let me handle some of his financial affairs. He figured he could keep an eye on me. But eyes look both ways, don't they? He's been a little lazy about not passwording some of his computer files and I noticed key investments being sold off. Dumped into banks in the Caymans and Switzerland. Mutt's slowly moving offshore, so to speak.”

“Still not proof enough.”

“No, not on hard paper. But you tell me why he's got driver's licenses and passports-for names other than Emmett Goertz and Wendy Tran-in his safe.”

“Did you see those?”

He nodded. “He asked me to get some papers out of the safe and I grabbed the wrong envelope. He was in the John off the study, talking to me while he peed. I slipped out a Canadian passport made out for Edward Grimes, but with Emmett Goertz's picture on it. I stuck it all back in before he came out of the John. I'd nearly pissed myself.”

My throat felt dry. Who to believe? “So when is he planning on jumping ship?”

“Don't know. But he's announced he's got six months to live. So my countdown's started.” He coughed again. “He'll 'die,' and suddenly the family will discover there's nothing left. No money, no land, no stocks. Damned Uncle Mutt, they'll say, he done spent it all. And Mutt'll be off lying in a hammock in Jamaica, screwing Wendy and laughing his ass off at us all.”

“So why haven't you called the police yet?”

“I don't have proof. Has he committed a crime? And maybe I'd be happier if he vanished. I'm tired of dancing to his old tunes.”

I rubbed my eyes with my hands; suddenly I felt an unforgiving weariness pervade my whole body. “So why are you telling me? And what are you going to do next?”

“Can't do anything until the storm lets up and we get the phones back. But I'm telling you this, because Mutt suspects I've been sniffing around. He wants to discredit me.”

“So why doesn't he announce your past crimes to the world himself?”

Philip shrugged. “Maybe he doesn't want the authorities looking too closely at me, or at any member of this family. And if he thinks Aubrey's going to ruin me with his book, he doesn't need to lift a finger. He'd be vanished by the time that book hits the shelves. The dirty work's done for him.”