Thomas Cook - Red Leaves

"And he was," I said, a response that struck me as wholly reflexive.

Peak returned his attention to the deserted playground, held his gaze on the ghostly swings and monkey bars and seesaws. He seemed to see dead children playing there.

"What if your son hurt Amy Giordano?" He looked at me very intently, and I saw that he was asking the deepest imaginable question. "I mean, if you knew he did it, but also knew that he was going to get away with it, and that after that, he was going to do it again, which most of them do, men who kill children. If you knew all that I've just said, Mr. Moore, what would you do then?"

I would kill him. The answer flashed through my mind so suddenly and irrefutably that I recoiled from this raw truth before replying to Peak. "I wouldn't let him get away with it."

Peak seemed to see the stark line that led me to this place, how much had been lost on the way, the shaved-down nature of my circumstances, how little I had left to lose. "I believe you," he said.

***

Meredith was waiting for me when I got home, and the minute I saw her, I recalled the way she'd stood with Rodenberry, and all my earlier feelings rose up, hot and cold, a searing blade of ice.

"He's dead," I told her flatly.

Her hand lifted mutely to her mouth.

"He shot himself in the head."

She stared at me from behind her hand, still silent, although I couldn't tell if it were shock or simply her own dead center that kept her silent.

I sat down in the chair across from her. "What did he say to you?"

She looked at me strangely. "Why are you so angry, Eric?"

I had no way to answer her without revealing the murky water in which my own emotions now washed about. "The cops will want to know."

She bowed her head slightly. "I'm so sorry, Eric," she said quietly. "Warren was so—"

Her feelings for Warren sounded like metal banging steel. "Oh please," I blurted. "You couldn't stand him."

She looked stunned. "Don't say that."

"Why not? It's the truth."

She looked at me as if I were a stranger who'd somehow managed to crawl into the body of her husband. "What's the matter with you?"

"Maybe I'm tired of lies."

"What lies?"

I wanted to confront her, tell her that I'd seen her and Rodenberry in the college parking lot, but some final cowardice, or perhaps it was only fear that if I broached that subject, I would surely lose her, warned me away. "Warrens lies, for one thing. Those pictures the cops found on Keith's computer. They were Warren's."

Her eyes glistened slightly, and I saw how wracked she was, how reduced by our long ordeal, her emotions tingling at the surface.

"Leo told me about it," I went on. "He said Warren had been caught watching kids play at the elementary school. He'd stand at the window of his little 'bachelor lair' and watch them. With binoculars. It was so fucking obvious the school complained about it. The principal went over and told Warren to stop it. So when this thing with Amy Giordano happened, somebody called the police hotline and told them about Warren."

"So that's what it was," Meredith said. She seemed relieved, as if a small dread had been taken from her. She remained silent a moment, gazing at her hands. Then she said, "Warren couldn't have done something like that, Eric. He couldn't have hurt a little girl."

Her certainty surprised me. She had never cared for my brother, never had the slightest respect for him. He was one of life's losers, and Meredith had never had any patience for such people. Warren's drinking and self-pity had only made it worse. But now, out of nowhere, she seemed completely confident that Warren had had nothing to do with Amy Giordano's disappearance.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"I know Warren," she answered.

"Really? How can you be so sure you know him?"

"Aren't you?"

"No."

"He was your brother, Eric. You've known him all your life."

Peak had said the same thing, and now I gave the same reply. "I'm not sure you ever know anyone."

She looked at me, puzzled and alarmed, but also alerted to something hidden. "Warren said you came over to his house. He said you had a quarrel."

"It wasn't exactly a quarrel," I told her.

"That's what he called it," Meredith said. "What was it then?"

"I talked to him about the pictures."

"What did he say?"

"That they weren't really sexual." I shook my head. "He said he just liked looking at the pictures. That the kids were ... adorable."

"And you didn't believe him?" "No."

"Why not?"

"Oh come on, Meredith, he fits the profile in every aspect. Especially the low self-esteem part."

"If low self-esteem is a big deal, then you'd better mark Keith for a pedophile, too."

"Don't think that hasn't crossed my mind."

Now amazement gave way to shock. "You think that?"

"Don't you?"

"No, I don't."

"Wait a minute," I yelped. "You're the one who first had doubts about Keith."

"But I never thought it was a sexual thing. That even if he hurt Amy, it wasn't because of sex."

"What then?"

"Anger," Meredith answered. "Or maybe a cry for attention."

A cry for attention.

This sounded like the sort of psychobabble that would come from Stuart Rodenberry, and I bristled at the thought that Meredith was arguing with me through him, using his professional expertise and experience against me.

"Oh, bullshit," I said sharply. "You don't believe a word of that."

"What are you saying, Eric?"

"I'm saying that from the minute Amy disappeared you thought Keith was involved. And I don't for a fucking second believe you thought a 'cry for attention' had anything to do with it." I looked at her hotly. "You thought it was in the family. Something he inherited. Connected to me. To Warren." I laughed brutally. "And you were probably right."

"Right? You mean because you've decided that Warren was a pedophile?" Her gaze was pure challenge. "And what, Eric, makes you so sure of that? A few pictures on his computer? The fact that he liked to watch kids play? Jesus Christ, anybody could—"

"More than that," I interrupted.

"What then?"

I shook my head. "I don't want to go into this anymore, Meredith."

I started to turn away, but she grabbed my arm and jerked me around to face her. "Oh no, you don't. You're not walking away from this. You accuse Keith of being a pedophile, a kidnapper, and God knows what else. You accuse me of suggesting that something awful is in your family. You do all that, and then you think you can just say you're tired and walk away? Oh no, Eric, not this time. You don't walk away from an accusation like that. No, no. You stand right here and you tell me why you're so fucking sure of all this bullshit."

I pulled away, unable to confront what I'd seen in Jenny's room that morning, then conveyed to Warren in a single glance, how, upon that accusation, he must have finally decided that the world was no longer a fit place for him.

But again Meredith grabbed my arm. "Tell me," she demanded. "What did Warren or Keith ever do to—"

"It has nothing to do with Keith."

"So, it's Warren then?"

I gazed at her desolately. "Yes."

She saw the anguish flare in my eyes. "What happened, Eric?"

"I thought I saw something."

"Something ... in Warren?"

"No. In Jenny."

Meredith peered at me unbelievingly. "Jenny?"

"The day she died I went into her room. She was trying desperately to tell me something. Moving all around. Lips. Legs. Desperate. I bent down to try to hear what she was saying, but then she stopped dead and pulled away from me and just lay there, looking toward the door." I drew in a troubled breath. "Warren was standing at the door. He'd been with Jenny that night and..." I stopped. "And I thought maybe he—"