Билл Пронзини - In an Evil Time

“Dad? You believe me?”

“Yes. I believe you.”

“Why’d you wait so long to talk to me? All those questions at home the day after, on the phone the other day... why didn’t you say something either of those times?”

“I thought it’d be easier if we just pretended... if we kept our own secrets...” He pressed the heels of his hands against his temples. “You were right — I never did know you very well, did I.”

“Maybe you didn’t try hard enough. Maybe I didn’t, either.”

He nodded. I’m a goddamn fool, he thought.

After a little time Eric asked, “What happened that Saturday? Did you go to Rakubian’s place because you thought I had?”

“Yes.” He explained about Cassie’s phone call, his discovery of the body. The words came in a rush, hot and acidulous in his mouth. “His skull was crushed... and I remembered you saying that was what you wanted to do to him, crush his skull. It never occurred to me that somebody else might’ve done it. I’m sorry... I’m so sorry.”

“If I’d been in your place,” Eric said slowly, “I’d’ve thought the same thing. So then you cleaned up everything, to protect me.”

“No other reason.” Hollis told him the rest of it, everything except the exact location of the grave. Purging himself. When he was done, Eric seemed to be looking at him in a new way. But he couldn’t tell whether he’d gained or lost stature in his son’s estimation, just that he’d been reevaluated.

“It must’ve been pretty bad,” Eric said. “If that cop had looked in the trunk...”

“Might’ve been better if he had.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I screwed up. Not just that day — before and since, all the way down the line.”

“What do you mean, before that day?”

He felt the urge to confess his original plan. I was going to kill him myself, he wanted to say, shoot him down like a dog. And I might have if somebody else hadn’t done the job for me. That’s the really ironic thing here, you see? Somebody else killed him, not me, not you, a third party took care of the problem, and all I had to do when I found him was walk away or call the police and it would’ve been over then and there. We might have been suspected, you and I, but there would have been no proof because we’re innocent and eventually they’d have found out who did it... some little piece of evidence I took away or destroyed. Now it’s too late. Now we can’t call the cops, we can’t dig up Rakubian, and the person responsible not only got away with it but may be stalking us now, like Rakubian stalked us but for no comprehensible reason. All I’ve done is exchange a known threat for an unknown one.

He put none of this into words. His insane plan to take Rakubian’s life — and it w as insane, he knew that now — was his own private cross. No good purpose would be served in sharing it with his son, with anyone ever.

“Before, after, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “I screwed up, that’s all. Maybe put us all right back in jeopardy again.”

“You think whoever wrote those notes is the person who killed Rakubian?”

“Has to be. No one else knows he’s dead.”

“ ‘What did you do with his body?’ Yeah. Killed him and left the body there in the house, and the next thing he knows the body’s gone and everything’s cleaned up. Must’ve been some shock when he found that out.”

“A shock, yes.”

“But how’d he know it was you? He wouldn’t’ve still been hanging around when you got there.”

“May have come back for some reason, saw my car. Or guessed it was me somehow.”

“What I don’t get is why he waited two months, why he started sending those notes. I mean, he was home free. What’s the point of hassling you and Angie?”

Hollis shook his head.

“He sent this one to her at her new apartment,” Eric said. “She’s been living there less than a week. How’d he know where to find her?”

The answer to that was plain enough. Hollis said nothing, let Eric come to it on his own. It didn’t take him long.

“Somebody we know,” he said.

“I don’t see any other explanation.”

“Who? Jeez, Dad, I can’t imagine anybody we know hating us that much.”

I can. One person .

“Who’d want Rakubian dead besides us? Or care what you did with his body? Or want you and Angie to suffer any more than you already have?”

One person, one motive that makes any sense .

He shook his head again. A headshake was neither a lie nor an evasion.

Eric said, “What’re we going to do?”

“ We’re not going to do anything. You’re going back to Santa Barbara on the five-fifty flight.”

“Listen, I—”

“No argument, please. There’s nothing you can do at home.”

“I can help find out who’s doing this.”

“How? What can you do that I can’t?”

“... If you identify him, what then?”

“Cross that bridge when the time comes.”

“You can’t turn him in without implicating yourself. He knows you got rid of the body, covered up, he’d tell the police—”

“His word against mine,” Hollis said. “He can’t be absolutely certain it was me and he can’t have any idea where Rakubian is buried. He’d never be able to prove he didn’t do it himself.”

“The cops might still believe him.”

“I won’t turn him in if I can avoid it. The threat of it alone might be enough to get him off our backs.”

“Suppose it isn’t? What if he tries something... if he has a gun or a knife?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Dad... you’re not thinking of going after him with a weapon?”

Another headshake that was neither lie nor evasion. “There are other ways to protect myself. I may have cancer, but I’m not a cripple yet.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Eric’s mouth tightened; Hollis could almost see the shutter come down behind his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Hollis said, picking his words carefully now. “I know you’re concerned, I know you want to help. But this thing could drag on for a while, turn out to be a hell of a lot less dangerous than it seems. You can’t quit your job, put your life on hold indefinitely.”

No response.

“Let me handle it. If there’s anything you can do, I’ll call you right away. I mean that — right away.”

Another dozen beats. Then, “What about Mom? Does she know?”

“About the notes, yes.”

“But not about Rakubian being dead or what you did.”

“No. It would’ve meant telling her I believed you were guilty, and I couldn’t do that to her.”

“You going to tell her now?”

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

“I am,” Eric said. “She has a right to know the whole story. So does Angie. Tell them both, Dad. We’re all in this together.”

Eric’s gaze was intense, and Hollis understood that the need for family unity was just as important to him. He’d been able to teach him that much, at least. He understood, too, that if the closeness, the new bond that had formed between them here was to be maintained, he must neither argue nor fail to follow through. He nodded, gripped his son’s arm.

“You’re right,” he said. “We’re all in this together, we all need to know what we’re dealing with.”

Somebody we know.

Ryan Pierce.

Driving home, looking at it from different angles as objectively as he could, he came up with Pierce every time. Motive for killing Rakubian: the same as Hollis’s, as Eric’s — to eliminate the threat to Angela and Kenny. The old Pierce might not have been capable of violence, but the new Pierce was a different story. He’d changed, all right, only not in the way Angela and Cassie believed; hardened into a man with definite convictions and a twisted set of values. And the one thing he wanted more than anything else seemed to be a new life with his ex-wife and his son. Motive for sending the notes: to make Angela dependent on him, leverage to convince her to remarry him. Secondary motive: to punish Hollis for standing against him.