Jeffery Deaver - The Lesson of Her Death

His wife said to a lumber yard calendar. "I can't call my mother. How can I call her? I'd be so ashamed."

"He did some things to that girl, yeah, and he oughta be whipped and he will be. But he didn't kill anybody. I'll swear to that. What we should do is get some help."

"Oh, sure. How?"

"There's state help, I guess. Talk to a… I don't know. Somebody."

"Oh, just like that? Sure. If you made money maybe." Her voice clear as gin.

"I put a roof over his head. I put food in his mouth. And yours too. Food, and that's not all." Two digs in one day. Halpern was shaken.

"If you made money -"

"I fucking make money. You could make money too."

"- we could do a few things."

"I'm stopping you from getting a job?"

"You don't remember. You don't remember anything."

Halpern said, "I can't talk to you when you're this way."

"How come," she asked curiously, "you don't fuck me anymore?"

Halpern's temper blazed then died immediately to a simmer. He considered open-handing her cheek but was paralyzed by a bottomless remorse. He joined his wife in gazing out the window. It occurred to him that most of their arguments happened just this way – her drunk, him thinking about other places and people, both of them staring out the window. Wanting to smack her and not having the energy or the type of hate required.

"Oh, go to hell," his wife said as if giving directions.

Halpern snatched up the screwdriver. He squeezed it a dozen times, feeling the resilience of the rubberized handle spattered in paint. He stepped slowly to the kitchen sink, leaned forward and dug the screwdriver furiously into the seam of the window, cracking chunks out of the soft pine sill.

He heard a clatter of pans behind him.

He heard the sticky sound of the refrigerator door opening.

He heard the sound of pouring liquid.

He heard his wife's voice. "Philip!"

Halpern turned. The boy had entered through the back door and stood in the center of the kitchen.

"When d'you get out?" his father asked. He felt a horrid urge, a salivating urge, to step forward and bloody the boy's nose. To scream at him. (To scream what? " How could you do that to a poor girl? How could you, you stupid little prick? " To scream: " What'd I do to make you this way? I loved you! I really loved you! I'm so sorry! ")

Creth Halpern stood completely still, the screwdriver sliding from his hand. He stood twenty feet away from his son, whose upper lip glistened with snot and whose face was glossy with sweat, his fat three-dimensional chest heaving.

"How did you? -"

His wife whispered, "Oh my God."

Creth Halpern too saw the gun.

"Whatcha got there, boy?" he asked.

Philip's head turned to his mother. The glass fell from her grip, hitting the floor and whipping a tail of liquor against the refrigerator. Her smooth hands, tipped in unchipped red nails, went to her mouth. Philip turned back to his father. The boy's mouth moved but no words came out. It was the mouth of a fish eating water.

Finally, he swallowed then said in a weak voice, "The handy man's here."

"Listen up, young man. Put that gun down."

"The handy man."

His mother said, "Philip, don't do this." She sobbed, "Please, don't do this."

"I never did anything to you," the boy said to his father.

"Son -"

Philip held the gun up and said, "Handy man. Handyman, handymanhandyman -"

"I only wanted to help you, son."

"I never did anything to you," Philip whispered.

"Son, I know you didn't hurt those girls."

"You were talking to the sheriff. I saw you."

"I was giving him that purse you hid. The note! The note was inside. You know what I'm talking about! It shows you didn't kill her."

In a voice more assured and more adult and more frightening than Halpern had ever heard, Philip said, "I'm sorry, Dad, but the handy man's here."

"I wanted to help you," his father said.

Philip said, "Hold out your hand."

Bill Corde stepped silently past a drowsy old mutt, chained to the worn railing of the front porch. He slipped through the door and made his way toward the back of the house along the pink carpet runner, stained with dark patches. He smelled dog piss and old food and bleach. He could see Philip in the kitchen, holding the dark gray gun. He could see Halpern nearby. He could see a woman's white arm ending in long polished nails. Corde stopped in the dining room outside the kitchen doorway. He left his revolver holstered then took off his hat and set it on a dusty Sanyo TV. He paused next to the dining room table, which was covered with sticky soiled dishes and scraps of food, crusts from last night's pizza. In the center of the Formica a large paisley spill of ketchup had coagulated darkly.

"Hi, Philip," Corde said softly.

Creth Halpern jumped at the sound. His wife's shocked face appeared in the doorway. Philip looked at the detective, uninterested, then back to his father and said, "Hold out your hand."

Halpern said slowly to Corde, "He's got himself a gun."

"Hold up your hand!"

Halpern raised his hands above his head.

"No, not up. Handy man is here. Hold out your hand! You know how to do it."

"Phil," Corde said. The boy looked at him for a minute then back to his father. When Corde moved a step closer to the living room Philip raised the gun to the center of his father's chest.

"Philip," Corde said, speaking casually. "Why don't you set the gun down? Would you please?"

His parents looked helplessly at Corde. He saw despair in their faces and he saw that the boy's father wore it the hardest.

"Please honey, please son," his mother was whimpering.

Philip looked at her. He smiled. He said, "Open the refrigerator."

"Please honey…"

"OPEN IT!"

She screamed, and tore open the door. Philip held the gun up and fired a ringing, deafening shot into the bottom of the pitcher. The stained beige Rubbermaid exploded in a mist of gin. His mother screamed again. Neither Corde nor Halpern moved. Philip turned back to Corde.

Corde said, "Nobody's going to hurt you."

Philip laughed triumphantly. "You think I don't know about that? That's what they tried with Dathar. They tried to fool him. They lied to him but he didn't believe them."

"We want to help you, Phil."

"Jamie turned me in."

Corde said sternly, "No, he didn't. I talked -"

"He did."

"He didn't!" Corde shouted furiously, risking the boy's reaction. "I talked to him about what happened. Some people at the sheriffs office tricked him. He didn't know they followed him. He was trying to save you. He has a message for you." Corde held his hand in the Naryan salute.

"The gun in Philip's hand wobbled. He said that?"

"He sure did."

Philip nodded and smiled weakly. Then he turned to his father and spoke in a mournful voice. "You didn't come to see me."

"They said I couldn't. There was visiting hours. I was coming tonight. Like at the hospital when we went to visit Gram. They said I could only come at four o'clock."

Philip looked at Corde, who said, "That's true, Philip. It's the Sheriffs Department rules."

The boy's eyes swept the floor.

Outside when he heard the gunshot and the scream, Charlie Mahoney put aside the Motorola walkie-talkie on which he'd just called T.T. Ebbans and Hammerback Ellison. He pulled his federally licensed automatic pistol out of his pocket and started up the porch stairs.

After following Corde here he had waited on the front steps considering what to do next. The gunshot ended the debate. Crouching, taking a fast look through the rusted, torn screen, he pulled the door open and crawled onto the porch. The lime green indoor-outdoor carpet was filthy and Mahoney's expensive gray plaid slacks ended up hoof-marked on the knees with dirt.