John Lescroart - Dead Irish

It bothered him, and he walked over to turn it off.

“What are you doing here?”

It was the younger son, Steven, hands on the doorsill. “This is my room. What are you doing?”

“I was waiting for Frannie and your sister to finish crying, and I saw this TV on. I thought I’d turn it off.”

“I want it on.”

“Great, I’ll leave it on. Good show?”

Steven ignored that, seemed to be studying him. “I know you, don’t I?” Grudgingly, still hostile.

“Yeah, we met. Up at Frannie and Eddie’s one time.”

“That’s it.”

Steven seemed to file it away without interest. Hardy was categorized and put on a shelf in a certain place. After that, it seemed, he didn’t exist.

Steven went and plopped himself on his bed, feet crossed at the ankles, and ran his hand through his spiky hair a couple of times. “You want to get out of the way?”

Hardy pulled a chair from under the writing desk and sat on it backward. “I’m trying to find who killed your brother.”

No response. Steven just looked over at the droning white noise of the television. Hardy stood, strode over and slammed it off.

“Hey!”

“Hey, yourself. I don’t care if you want to rot here in your room, but I’m trying to do a little good for Frannie at least, and if you know something that can help me I’m damn well gonna find out. Is watching your blank TV supposed to impress me with how tough you are? You don’t feel anything about Eddie? About anything, right?”

Hardy watched the kid’s bluff fade. He wasn’t really angry, had just let his voice get louder. Now he sat down again, pulled closer to the bed. “You know, the option is you can help me if you want.”

“I just don’t believe Eddie’s gone.”

Hardy folded his hands, exhaled, looked down. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s the tough part.”

“What do you mean you’re trying to find who killed Eddie? I thought he killed himself.”

“Why do you think that?”

The kid rolled his eyes up. Hardy reached down, grabbed Steven’s ankle and started squeezing. Hardy had a good grip. Steven tried to pull away but couldn’t do it.

Hardy forced a tight grip and spoke in a whisper. “Listen, you little shit, I do not need to take any high-school tough-guy attitude crap from you. Do you understand me?”

Hardy’s left forearm was burning from the pressure. Steven’s jaw was set. “Let go of my leg.”

“Do you understand me?”

Steven took another five or six seconds to save a little face, then nodded and mumbled, “Yeah.”

Hardy figured that was good enough. He let go. “Now, if you remember, I asked you why you thought Eddie killed himself. Did the police or somebody tell you that?”

Steven rubbed his ankle, but Hardy had gotten his attention. “I mean, he had a gun in his hand, didn’t he? There was a note.”

“It’s easy to put a gun in the hand of somebody who’s already dead. And the note could have been anything. What I want to know is why you think it-that he killed himself?”

“ ’Cause he was smart, and who’s smart wants to live?”

It wasn’t mock macho. The kid meant it. It rocked Hardy a little. He hung his head a minute, took a breath. “Hey, is it that bad, Steven?”

The boy just shrugged, his thin arms crossed on his chest.

“Was he depressed? Eddie, I mean.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Hardy looked up at him. “Why do you think I’m doing this? You think I want to be here, going over all this with anybody who’ll talk to me? Would that be your idea of a good time?”

“I don’t have any idea of a good time,” the boy mumbled.

Hardy swallowed that. “Okay.”

Steven reached into the top drawer of the dresser next to his bed and pulled out a switchblade knife that he began to snap open and closed methodically. Modern American worry beads, Hardy thought. Hiding his surprise, he asked where it had come from.

“Uncle Jim brought it back from Mexico.”

“Uncle Jim?”

“Sure. You know. Father Cavanaugh. But don’t tell Mom, would you? She’d probably be nervous.”

After a minute Hardy was used to it-the skinny little kid moping on the bed, opening and closing a switchblade for solace.

“So you want to help?”

Steven closed the knife. Not exactly trust yet in the eyes, but at least a lack of active distrust. Probably the kid couldn’t help Hardy at all, but it wouldn’t hurt him-the way he felt about himself-if he felt he was doing something about his brother’s death.

“What could I do?” he asked.

“Keep yourself alert. Think about things over the past month or two, anything Ed or anybody who knew him might have said or done, what he might have been up to, anything.” He pulled out his wallet. “Here’s a card. Why don’t you keep it to yourself, same for me and the knife, right?”

Secrets together. As good a bond as many. “This is a neat card,” Steven said.

Hardy got up. “Be careful with that switchblade,” he said. Then, at the door, he turned. “Think hard, Steven. Something’s out there.” Maybe the wrong thing to say to a kid, but he wasn’t editing just now.

Jodie and Frannie, holding hands, were standing in front of the wall of the den now, looking at the pictures.

Hardy didn’t knock. “Your family keeps Kodak in business,” he said.

They turned, and Frannie introduced Jodie. Eighteen or so, she was just passing through gangly. Her freckled face was still blotched from the crying. Some baby fat rounded, but only slightly, the corners of her cheekbones. Her wide blue eyes, also reddened, had irises flecked with gold. Her nose wasn’t perfect, but Hardy liked it, a little too flat at the bridge and sticking out at the bottom like a baby’s thumb.

She was obviously Erin ’s kid, but as with Steven and Ed, and even Mick for that matter, there wasn’t much sign of Big Ed’s genes.

“You wanted to see me?”

Frannie, confused momentarily, stared back at the wall of pictures, then again at Hardy. “I think…” She turned to Jodie and smiled. “My mind…”

“It’s okay,” Hardy said. “It can wait.”

“No, I know I asked Moses if I could see you, but I… this other stuff…”

“Sure.”

Jodie spoke up, her voice the echo of her mother’s, cultured, not so deep as to be husky, but adult. “I thought you were wonderful catching Frannie. Thank you.”

She turned to her sister-in-law. “You really went out. I don’t know how Mr. Hardy did it, but he was over to you-”

“That’s it,” Frannie said. “That reminds me.”

“What?”

“Why I wanted to see you. I just remembered.”

She let go of Jodie’s hand and sat on an ottoman. “I’ve never fainted before, so I didn’t know it was even coming. It’s just the last thing I remember was I saw Mr. Polk there. He’s… he was Ed’s boss, I mean the owner. He wasn’t really a boss, I don’t think. Ed was the real manager, but he made policy, you know.”

Hardy put up with the rambling. She had obviously thought of something, and would be getting to it.

“So when I saw him, I remembered again that you said I should tell you anything that might matter.”

“And Mr. Polk’s being there might matter?”

She shook out her red hair, then closed her eyes as though the thought had eluded her again. Jodie sat on the edge of the ottoman and put an arm over her shoulder. “It’s okay, Frannie.”

“It’s just so hard to think.” She pouted, biting her lip.

“Mr. Polk,” Hardy said quietly.

“Oh, Mr. Polk, that’s right.”

“Why would it matter him being at the funeral, Frannie? It seems perfectly natural to me. Had they been fighting or something?”