John Lescroart - Dead Irish

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the bricks lining the tub. And had another sip of brandy.

Maybe I don’t think enough, she said to herself. Maybe I’ve been on automatic too long.

There was only the one light on in the trophy room, as they called it, down the hall from Steven’s. The one with all the pictures. She’d been gravitating to it a lot lately.

Big Ed’s snoring was audible from time to time in the next room, but it didn’t bother her. Really-it was funny-not much of what Ed did bothered her. Cigars, maybe, once in a while, but she had her vices that he tolerated, too-not being home enough, for example, running around helping everybody who asked, being unable to say no.

She looked at the wall with its pictures. She and Ed had talked about taking down the ones of Eddie, but then she realized that there would be no reason for it. It wouldn’t lessen the pain. It was just another of the idiotic ideas she’d entertained in the last week.

Now she ran a finger across the bottom of the frame of the one where he was down at the merry-go-round at the old Playland at the Beach. He’d been seven or so when the picture was taken.

The little boy-mounted on the horse, mane splayed out in the wind-smiled out at her like his face would break. Erin remembered the day too perfectly. She saw the smear of mustard still on his cheek from what had been his first corn dog. Somebody’s hand was just visible at the bottom of the picture. That had been Mick, reaching up to ride double.

She let her eyes go around the other pictures. It was true, there weren’t many of Steven, and none in the past two years. There was Mick, playing ball, graduating, diving from the pier at the place they’d rented the past few summers at Bass Lake. Jodie was accepting her debating award last year, biting her tongue in the front of her mouth in concentration over her cooking at the Girl Scout camp, in her first formal dress for the frosh hop at Mercy.

Stepping back, she tried to find the most recent picture of Steven. There was one of him with Eddie at the wedding two years ago, before he’d done that ridiculous thing with his hair that Big Ed had wanted to scalp him for. Another one, the year before that, was really just a snapshot of him and his dad and Eddie when they had come home with their limits of salmon.

That was it for the latest ones of Steven. The most recent after those was Steven at about eight, with Jim, Steven forcing a smile from the front seat of that Corvette Jim had loved so much. Before that was his First Communion, with the white pants and jacket.

How could she and Big Ed have missed what this wall proclaimed so clearly? There wasn’t one shot of Steven all alone, by himself, the star of the show, for at least the past six years.

Last night, after everyone else had gone to sleep, she and Ed had sat in this room, wondering if they could have done things differently. And even then, with all these pictures staring down at them, they hadn’t seen it. It was the same as always, she thought. They just took for granted that Steven was up there on the wall with his brothers and sister, a good well-adjusted kid like the others. They’d raised them all the same-same environment, same values. Of course they’d all turn out okay.

After agonizing over every parental decision with Eddie, then Mick, then of course Jodie because she was the first girl and there were lots of things that hadn’t come up with Eddie or Mick, by the time Steven had come along they’d done it all before, right? So raising Steven would be the same as it had been with Eddie or Mick.

And finally she had been able to start taking the time she’d craved for herself, to somewhat offset the nagging guilt that she wasn’t accomplishing much in her life except raising kids. Not that that wasn’t important, but she had more to offer.

And Big Ed, too. He’d finally found the time for the fishing trips he couldn’t ever take when the kids had been little. And for the poker once a month. And, mostly, just for the solitude- reading in the room out behind the garage, or walking down to the beach.

Neither of them had meant to be neglectful of Steven. Maybe, she reflected again, maybe it had just gotten too hard to think about. Forget what the evidence of their own eyes was telling them-that Steven was getting away from them, that he was nothing like the other kids. No, that didn’t fit in with the leisure they thought they’d earned, so ignore it. It would probably work out.

And now the boy lay broken and bandaged down the hall, and Erin had no inclination to blame anybody but herself.

“Thank you, God, he’s still alive,” she whispered, a real prayer, just talking to God. She hadn’t done that since she’d gotten the news about Eddie, and she didn’t really think about it now. Just thank God Steven wasn’t gone, too.

She walked down the hallway. The house felt empty. Because Frannie had gone back home today? No, probably just a reflection of how she felt-empty.

Ed snored once again. She heard him turn over in bed. Steven lay on his back, breathing evenly. She leaned over and held her face above his, taking in the sweet-smelling air he exhaled. It was still not adult’s breath, but that wonderful stuff that came out of kids’ mouths. The air in heaven, she thought, must smell like a baby’s breath.

She touched the good side of his face, but so lightly he didn’t move. Moving up a chair next to the bed, she sat and forced herself to keep thinking about the things she was going to change in her life. She really had stopped thinking enough the past few years. You could be endlessly busy and still not be doing enough of the right things. Maybe she and Ed had gotten lazy that way, morally lazy, selfish.

She put her head down on the blanket, up against his hip. She didn’t know how long she’d been dozing when he moved, moaning. She reached up and caressed the side of his face.

“Mom?” he asked.

“I’m here, Steven,” she said, “I’m right here.”

ALPHONSE PAGE?” Hardy said, somewhat surprised to hear a name he had never come across.

Glitsky, out in the Avenues on another homicide, stopped by Hardy’s as promised. It made three days in a row that Hardy had been awakened before seven A.M.

“Alphonse Page. Of this there is little doubt.”

They were in Hardy’s kitchen. The fog outside was thin and still, the kind that had a chance to burn off.

“You think he killed Cochran?”

Abe shook his head. “I am fairly certain he killed Linda Polk, that’s all. Different MO than Cochran anyway. Cut her throat.”

“Money? What else.”

“Well, it gets a little funny there.” Hardy waited. “Her father called it in-the same guy you told me about, huh?”

“Short, sad, dumpy?”

“That’s him.”

“What was he doing at work on a Sunday?”

“He said he was feeling guilty he hadn’t been in all week. Wanted to get a fresh start, jump on Monday, like that.”

“Oh, certainly.”

“I know.”

The two men nodded at each other. “So,” Glitsky continued, “there was no money around, although there was a safe in the room, closed up tight, and the victim, Linda, was lying in a pool of blood right by it.”

“So he emptied the safe.”

“In any event, it was empty when Polk opened it up for a look. I guess it was either him or Alphonse, maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe? Why else would she have been aced?”

“Diz. The lab tells me she was filled with sperm. They also found three or four hairs in her crotch. Appear to be from a black man.”

“Jesus, she was raped?”

“I don’t know, but that waters down the money as the only possible motive. She’d certainly had sex just before she died, like, within an hour or two.”