Билл Пронзини - In an Evil Time

“I’ll manage. One thing: This is just between you and me.”

“Whatever you say.”

“I’ll see you at two-thirty. Don’t miss the flight.”

“I won’t,” Eric said. “Whatever this is about, you can count on me.”

We’ll see about that. We’ll find out a lot of things this afternoon .

Saturday Afternoon

San Francisco International, like so many things to him these days, seemed different, strange. It had been nearly two years since the last time he’d been there, and the ongoing airport construction had altered both its shape and its access; the entrance and exit ramps had been moved, the entrance lanes now ran through an underpass beneath one of the new terminal buildings. New signs pointed him to Arrivals, but the Saturday congestion made it difficult to get around to the United terminal. And when he did get there, ten minutes after the scheduled arrival time of the Santa Barbara flight, Eric was nowhere to be seen among the crush of waiting passengers. He tried to squeeze the Lexus into a parking space between a taxi and a limo; an airport security cop waved him off. He had no choice then but to loop all the way back through the maze of lanes and construction for another pass, fighting aggressive and reckless drivers like a participant in a stock car race.

He had to make four passes, better than half an hour’s wasted time, before he finally saw Eric — Cal Poly sweatshirt that clashed with his old maroon-and-white windbreaker — waving at him from the curb. He jammed on the brakes, cut in front of a stretch limo, and stayed put through a series of angry horn blasts until Eric piled into the car.

“Jeez, I’m sorry, Dad,” he said. “Plane was thirty minutes late taking off.”

“Not your fault.”

Neither of them spoke again until they had cleared Arrivals and were in one of the airport exit lanes. Then Eric asked tentatively, “Where’re we going?”

“Someplace quiet where we can talk.”

They rode in heavy silence after that. Hollis took the north ramp that led to Airport Boulevard, where there were a number of large travelers’ hotels. He swung into the parking lot of the first one he saw, slotted the car near the entrance. His shoulder muscles were tight and he had a vague headache; otherwise he felt well enough, too keyed up to be particularly tired yet. Later, after he was done with Eric and the long drive home, he knew he’d be exhausted.

In the hotel lobby he asked, “You hungry?” and Eric shook his head. They bypassed the restaurant, entered the bar lounge. Dark, quiet except for a TV tuned low to a baseball game, only half a dozen patrons lining the bar. Hollis led the way to a back-corner booth. He ordered coffee for both of them, waited until it was served before he opened the discussion.

“We’ll start with this,” he said. “Have you received any unsigned mail in the past few days? At your office or your apartment, either one.”

Eric frowned. “Snail mail?”

“Any kind of mail.”

“No, nothing.”

“Have you sent me or your sister anonymous notes?”

“Have I— Why would I do a thing like that?”

“Answer the question.”

“Of course not. What kind of anonymous notes?”

“This kind.”

He took the three sheets from his pocket, the one to Angela and the two he’d received, and laid them side by side in front of his son. Eric’s face seemed to harden as he read them, as if his flesh were solidifying from within. When he raised his head his eyes were angry.

“Rakubian,” he said.

“You know it’s not Rakubian.”

“How would I know that? Who else—?”

Hollis said nothing, watching him.

“They sound like his kind of crap,” Eric said. “But this one... ‘What did you do with his body?’ What does that mean?”

“What do you suppose it means?”

“Somebody thinks you had something to do with him disappearing, is that it?”

“Well?”

“You didn’t, did you?”

“Dammit, you know I didn’t kill him.”

“Dad... I never thought you did.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Hollis said wearily. “No more lies or evasions.”

Eric blinked at him. “Hey, wait a minute. What made you think I might’ve sent those notes? I wouldn’t care if you’d chopped Rakubian up into little pieces and fed ’em to Fritz—”

“That’s not one bit funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you or Angie—”

“Not if you were thinking clearly.”

Strained silence for a clutch of seconds. Then, slowly, “You’re afraid I had something to do with whatever happened to Rakubian. That’s why you had me fly up here.”

“It’s time, son. Past time.”

“For what?”

“To get it out into the open. All of it, on both sides.”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Eric, I know . I’ve known all along. I was there not long after you. I found him where you left him.”

“Where I—”

“Who did you think cleaned up his house, got rid of the body? You must’ve guessed it was me.”

Eric sat without moving, his eyes round but showing nothing of what he was feeling or thinking.

“You can tell me how it happened or not,” Hollis said. “That’s up to you. The one thing I have to know is whether you went there with the intention of killing him. Did you?”

No answer. Not even an eyeblink.

“Did you, Eric?”

“When?” The word seemed to come from deep within; his lips barely moved.

“When what?”

“When was he killed? When did you find him?”

“I just told you—”

“Dad, you answer me now. When did all this happen? What day?”

The sudden sharpness in Eric’s voice, more than his words, brought the first stirrings of doubt. Hollis said, “The Saturday before Angela left for Utah.”

“The day I found the box in the garage.”

“You had every right to be furious—”

“Sure I was furious. But not enough to kill him. I couldn’t kill anybody, not even to save Angie. You never did understand who or what I am, did you?” Eric’s body seemed to loosen all at once; he leaned forward so abruptly that his elbows banged the table, rattled the coffee cups. “Listen to me, Dad. That day I did exactly what I told you and Mom I did — drove out to the coast, then up along the Russian River. I didn’t go to San Francisco. I didn’t see Rakubian.”

“You... didn’t...”

“I didn’t kill him. It wasn’t me .”

The truth.

Hollis knew it, accepted it all at once. Certain knowledge replacing the false belief, the rush to misjudgment.

Somebody else had gone to Rakubian’s home that afternoon, somebody else with a powerful reason to hate him and to want him dead. Somebody else had picked up the raven statuette and crushed his skull. Somebody else...

And the corpse, the blood, the carpet, the garbage bags, the cleanup, the nightmare drive, the cop, the gravedigging, the burial, all of it, all of it... for nothing.

He’d covered up somebody else’s murder.

He sat stunned, the truth like a hammer beating at his senses. There was relief in him... Eric was innocent ... but in these first moments it had been dwarfed by the weight of his own mordant guilt.

“Eric,” he said thickly, “get me a brandy. Double shot.”

“You’re not supposed to drink...”

“Just get it. Please.”

Eric hesitated, then lifted to his feet. He seemed to be gone a long time. Then the snifter was in Hollis’s hand, the brandy inside him in two convulsive swallows. Its spreading heat let him think again.