Dennis Lehane - Prayers For Rain

“That’s what I don’t get,” I said. “Six months ago, she was a whole different person. She was-”

“All sweetness and purity, yeah?”

I nodded.

“You wouldn’t believe she had a dirty thought in her body.”

“Exactly.”

“That was always her way, yeah. She dealt with it-all that fucking madness in that fucking house-by becoming that thing. I don’t think it was natural, though, you know. I think it was who she wished she could have been.”

“What about that shrine of photographs in the foyer?” I asked. “There’s a young guy in them, looks like he could be the doctor’s little brother, and then that little girl.”

She sighed. “Naomi. The only child they had together.”

“She die?”

Siobhan nodded. “A long time ago. She’d be fourteen, I think, possibly fifteen by now. She died just before her fourth birthday.”

“How?”

“There’s a small pond behind the house. It was winter, and she chased a ball out onto the frozen surface.” She shrugged. “She fell through.”

“Who was watching her?”

“Wesley.”

I could see the small child on the white frozen surface for a moment, reaching for the ball, and then…

A small shudder corkscrewed in my bones.

“Wesley,” I said. “He’s Dr. Dawe’s little brother?”

She shook her head. “Son. Dr. Dawe was a widower when he met Carrie, a widower with one child. She was a widow with one child. They wed, had their own together, and she died.”

“And Wesley…”

“He had nothing to do with Naomi’s death,” she said with a hint of anger in her voice. “But he was blamed, because he was supposed to be watching. He took his eye off her for a moment, yeah, and she dashed onto the pond. Dr. Dawe blamed his son because he couldn’t blame God, could he?”

“Do you know how I could get in touch with Wesley?”

She lit another bent cigarette, shook her head. “He left the family long ago. The doctor won’t allow his name to be spoken in the house.”

“Was Karen in touch with him?”

Another shake of the head. “He’d been gone, oh, ten years, I believe. I don’t think anyone knew what became of him.” She took a small hit off her cigarette. “So what are you going to do next?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Hey, Siobhan, the Dawes said Karen saw a psychiatrist. You know the shrink’s name?”

She started to shake her head.

“Come on,” I said. “You must have heard it over the years.”

Her mouth parted slightly, but then she shook her head again. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t recall it.”

I stood from the bench. “Okay. I’ll find out somehow.”

Siobhan looked into my eyes for a long time, the smoke from her cigarette rising up between us. She was so sober, so stripped of levity, I wondered if the laughs she’d had in her life were separated by months or years.

“What are you after here, then, Mr. Kenzie?”

“A reason why she died,” I said.

“She died because she came from a fucking horror show of a family. She died because David was hurt. She died because she couldn’t handle it.”

I gave her a small, helpless smile. “That’s what I keep hearing.”

“So why, if I might ask, isn’t that good enough for you?”

“It might have to be, eventually.” I shrugged. “I’m just playing out the hand, Siobhan. I’m just trying to find that one concrete thing that makes me say, ‘Okay. I understand now. Maybe I’d do the same thing given those circumstances.’”

“Ah,” she said, “you’re such a Catholic. Always looking for reasons.”

I chuckled. “Lapsed, Siobhan. Permanently lapsed.”

She rolled her eyes at that, leaned back, and smoked for a bit without saying a word.

The sun drifted behind some greasy white clouds, and Siobhan said, “You’re looking for a reason, yeah? Start with the man who raped her.”

“Excuse me?”

“She was raped, Mr. Kenzie. Six weeks before she died.”

“She told you this?”

Siobhan nodded.

“She give you a name?”

She shook her head. “She said only that she’d been promised he wouldn’t bother her, and then he did.”

“Cody fucking Falk,” I whispered.

“Who’s that?”

“A ghost,” I said. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”

Cody Falk rose at six-thirty the next morning and stood on his back porch with a bath towel around his waist and sipped his morning coffee. Once again, he seemed to be posing for envisioned admirers, his strong chin tilted up slightly, coffee cup held sturdily aloft, his eyes slightly dewy through my binoculars. He looked out at his backyard as if surveying his fiefdom. In his head, I was pretty sure, a voice-over for a Calvin Klein commercial played.

He raised a fist to stifle a yawn, as if the commercial had begun to bore him, and then he sauntered back inside, closed the sliding glass doors behind him, and threw the lock.

I left my spot and drove around the block. I parked two houses down from Cody’s and walked up to his front door. Three hours ago, I’d found his backup keys tucked away in a magnetic Hide-a-Key caddy attached to the underside of his drainpipe, and I used them to let myself in.

The house smelled of those potpourri leaves people buy at Crate & Barrel, and it looked like Cody had ordered the rest of the house from the same catalogue. It was rustic, Santa Fe mission chic right down the line. A cherry-wood dining set sat just off to my left. The seat-cushion prints were faux Native American and matched the rug underneath. An oak chest and hutch with Aztec moldings served as Cody’s liquor cabinet, and it was fully stocked, most of the bottles only a third full. The walls had been painted dark gold. It looked like the kind of room an interior decorator would try to sell you on. Step out of Boston and into Austin, Cody, you’ll feel so much better about yourself.

I heard the shower turn on upstairs, and I left the dining room.

In the kitchen, four high-backed bar stools surrounded a butcher-block table in the center of the floor. The blond oak cabinets were half full, mostly goblets and martini glasses, a few canned vegetables, some Middle Eastern rice mixes. Judging by the stack of takeout menus to gourmet supermarkets and restaurants, I determined Cody didn’t cook in much. The sink held two plates, rinsed clean of food, a coffee cup, three glasses.

I opened the fridge. Four bottles of Tremont Ale, a carton of half-and-half, and a container of pork fried rice. No condiments. No milk or baking soda or produce. No sense that there’d ever been anything in there but the beer, the half-and-half, and last night’s Chinese.

I went back through the dining room and entrance foyer and I could smell the leather in the living room before I entered. Again, a southwestern motif-dark oak chairs with hard straight backs supporting cranberry leather. A coffee table on stubby legs. Everything smelled well-oiled and new. A stack of magazines and glossy circulars on the coffee table seemed typical of the owner- GQ, Men’s Health, Details , for Christ’s sake, and catalogues to Brookstone, Sharper Image, Pottery Barn. The hardwood floors gleamed.

You could photograph the lower half of the house and put it in a magazine. Everything matched, yet nothing gave any discernible clues to the owner himself. The gleaming hardwood floors only accentuated the warm, dark coldness of the place. These were rooms meant to be looked at, not enjoyed.

Upstairs, the shower shut off.

I left the living room and climbed the stairs quickly, tugging gloves over my hands as I went. At the top, I removed the lead sap from my back pocket, listened outside the bathroom door as Cody Falk exited the shower stall and began to dry himself. The plan, such as it was, was simple: Karen Nichols had been raped; Cody Falk was a rapist; make sure Cody Falk never raped again.