Blood Ties (16 page)

“Because the kid's a senior, he's been scouted by colleges, and this is football camp.”

“If you had a son involved in a murder, wouldn't you think finding out just how involved would be more important than football?”

“I would. You would. But we're not from Warrenstown.”

“He'll be back.”

I looked at her, her dark eyes hidden in the shadows.

“He had to think about it,” she said. “He had to decide what to do. But he'll decide he has to know, and he'll be back.”

I nodded. “You might be right. I'll stay.”

She stared out through my windshield, at the lights in Hamlin's buildings and the lights on the road. “And I'll go back to New York,” she said, “and do what I was doing this morning.” She opened the driver's door; then she turned back, leaned over, and kissed me, quickly, softly. She let her fingertips linger on my jawline. “I'll go back to New York,” she repeated, “and find Gary.” She got out, closed my door, walked quickly across the parking lot to her car. I watched her get in, start up. Her headlights, when she switched them on, changed the shadows entirely.

nine

I let Lydia go first, followed her down the long driveway. She turned onto the streets of Plaindale, to work her way to the highway, head back to the city. I U-turned down the road from the entrance to Hamlin's, parked facing the drive. I killed my lights and lit a cigarette, watched traffic drift down the road. After about twenty minutes I reached into the CD box, pulled out the first thing under the Bach. I thumbed it open, slipped the disk in the player without looking at it. Brahms, it turned out to be, the F-sharp minor Sonata. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but I left it on.

The night grew darker; some stars came out. Cars rolled by. The Brahms came to an end. A few blocks away, the blue neon in the window of a diner seemed to glow brighter and brighter. I wondered if I could slip down there, get coffee and something to eat and still not take my eyes off the road in case Macpherson's SUV came roaring back. I was almost ready to try it when my cell phone rang.

“Smith,” I said.

“Sullivan,” it answered.

“I left town.”

“I know. I've had guys on the lookout for your car, just to make sure.”

“Is that what you're calling to tell me? That you'll know if I come back, so I shouldn't bother? Go to hell, Sullivan, I'm not in the mood.”

“What's eating you?” he asked evenly.

I slipped out a cigarette, but I didn't want it. I shoved it back in the pack, threw the pack on the dash. “It's been a long day, Sullivan. You want something?”

“Yeah. I wanted to tell you that preliminary results on the beer cans and the inside of the Wesley house didn't turn up any prints that match anything at your sister's.”

Sullivan's voice was fading in and out. He was on a cell phone, too, probably moving. Probably in a Warrenstown official car on his way to where I was right now.

I asked, “What are you saying?”

“I'm not saying anything. This is off the record. It doesn't mean he didn't kill her and it doesn't mean if he did I won't be able to prove it.” He paused. “I still want him, Smith, and I'm still looking. I know you're still looking, too. I just thought, while you looked, this was something you'd want to know.”

“You told me to stop looking,” I pointed out.

“I'd have to be even stupider than I am to think you would. All I need is for you to stay out of my town and away from my witnesses. And if you do find him somewhere in New York there, I want you to remember what a good idea it would be for him to turn himself in. I thought this would help you remember that.”

“This wouldn't be bullshit, would it, Sullivan?”

“No. It's too easy to check.”

That was true. Any cop who owed me a favor, or wanted me to owe him one, could call any cop in Warrenstown and find out whose prints were on those beer cans.

“Whose were?” I asked.

“What?”

“Gary's prints weren't there. Whose were?”

“Not a chance, Smith.”

“Thought I'd try.”

“I'm not surprised, but no.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks. And if anything else comes up that helps my side, let me know that, too, okay?”

“How do you know,” he asked, “which side you're on?”

I didn't answer that. “You have autopsy results yet?”

“No. Tomorrow, maybe even another day.”

“No preliminaries? Time of death?”

“Saturday night, early Sunday morning.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing I'm going to tell you.”

“The news about that party must be all over Warrenstown by now,” I said.

“Pretty much.”

“You talked to the other kids?”

“Except the ones at Hamlin's.”

“You headed there now?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Let me save you some trouble. I've just come from there.”

A pause. “Smith, if you—”

“I would have, but Hamlin wouldn't let me. He won't let you, either.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You'll need warrants. You're hooking up with the Plaindale police?”

“Of course,” he said warily. “What—?”

“Hamlin's position is, you can arrest them and take them out, or a parent can take them home. But if they leave they don't come back.”

“Who the hell is he? Some of those kids may be material witnesses in a homicide.”

Or killers, but he didn't say that.

“I mentioned that,” I said. “He wouldn't let me near them. Randy Macpherson's father was there and he threw him out, too.”

“Macpherson? He was there already?”

“Uh-huh. He and Hamlin don't seem to get along very well.”

“Nobody gets along with Macpherson. What was he doing there?”

“He wanted to talk to his kid. Hamlin wouldn't let him. And tell me something else: Why haven't the parents of all the other kids who were at that party swarmed Hamlin's, too?”

“Maybe because we're being real tight-lipped about whose prints we found, so if someone's kid doesn't own up to it, they don't know for sure they were there.”

“And the kids at Hamlin's can't talk to anybody, so they can't own up.”

“And in Warrenstown,” Sullivan said, “it takes a hell of a lot for people to want to mess with seniors' camp at Hamlin's.”

“Business as usual, no matter who's dead?”

“This is Warrenstown,” he said. “This is football.”

We hung up. Sullivan didn't thank me for the heads-up about the warrants, but, though he gave me another lecture about keeping clear of his witnesses, he also didn't say he was giving my license plate number to the Plaindale police. That was a fair trade-off, I thought.

I stayed where I was. If the cops came, I'd leave. If Lydia was right and Macpherson came back, I'd see if that did me any good. Meanwhile, I sat in the car, surprised at how Sullivan's news made the night seem a little warmer, the road in front of Hamlin's a little less dreary. Whatever Gary was up to, if he hadn't been at Tory Wesley's party, then he hadn't killed her. Whatever he'd done and whatever trouble he was in, maybe it wasn't that.

I didn't even bother giving myself a hard time for thinking it might have been. I reached over, took the Brahms out of the CD player, put in the Bach. Single notes, flashing fast, wove themselves into crystal clear designs of sound, of rhythm. The French Suites: music for dances. Popular dances of their time, but dances we no longer understood, steps, turns, gestures we no longer knew. All we had now was the music, though you could feel, if you let yourself, the thrill of speed in one, the intricate, tight focus of another.

It sounded, I thought, pretty good.

I smoked, listened, thought about football, about basketball and baseball and soccer: about individual players running formations and plays that have been run before, running them differently, in different games, different circumstances. Organizing themselves into patterns, taking on the obligation to create order from chaos.

I gave myself another cigarette, and I called my sister.

“It's Bill,” I said. “You heard from anyone?”

“You mean Scott? No, he hasn't called.”

“Or Gary.”

“Gary? No. No, why? Do you—?”

“No. But I wanted to tell you this: So far the cops haven't turned up anything that would prove Gary was at that party.”

“What . . . what does that mean?”

“Oh, for Christ's sake, Helen! It may mean he wasn't there. It may mean he didn't kill anybody.”

I knew it was a mistake as soon as I said it. She was his mother; what did I expect? “You thought he did? You've been thinking that?” Her voice went up a pitch. “I can't believe you could even say that.”

“Don't start.” I blew out a breath. “Family. They're all saints, aren't they? They have to be. Or they're not family.”

“That's not fair. That's really not fair. You—”

“Oh, shit. I can't, Helen. Not now. I'll call later.”

And I hung up on her.

What did I expect?

What had I ever expected?

I got out of the car, stood breathing the cold night air. I stopped myself from pounding my fist on the hood by heading down to the diner, for the coffee I'd wanted twenty minutes ago, had needed for hours.

The diner coffee was strong and bitter and no cars turned into Hamlin's driveway while I was buying it. I picked up a cheese danish, too, bit into it while I headed back to my car, so my hands were full and one of them was sticky when my cell phone rang again.

I was tempted to let the damn thing just go on ringing. It would take a message, and I'd call whoever the hell it was back when I felt like it, which was unlikely to be soon. But it could be Lydia. It could be Gary. It could be important.

I juggled the coffee and danish, flipped open the phone, told it who I was.

It told me, “Stacie Phillips,
Tri-Town Gazette
.”

I sipped some coffee, started toward my car again. Bitter or not, the coffee was hot and full of caffeine, and Stacie Phillips was a seventeen-year-old kid who as far as I knew didn't owe me a thing.

“Hey,” I said. “I'm having coffee. Can I buy you a cup?”

“Funny. Did you find Gary Russell yet?”

“You looking for a scoop?”

“Of course. If you promise me one, I'll trade.”

“Trade what?”

“Information. I know something you might want to know. I'll tell you if you promise that when you find Gary I can talk to him first.”

“First before the other reporters?”

“Of course, but mostly first before the police.”

“I'm not sure I can do that.”

“You could if you wanted to.”

“I'm not sure I want to. What are you trading?”

“This: They haven't found Gary's fingerprints anywhere at Tory Wesley's house.”

“This may ruin your day,” I said, biting into the danish, “but I know that already.”

A pause. “How?”

“Sullivan called me.”

“No way. I thought he didn't like you.”

“If everyone who didn't like me refused to call me I'd be a very lonely man. More interesting to me is, how do
you
know?”

“Sources.”

“Come on. If this is all over Warrenstown, I want to know about it.”

“It's not. It's confidential information.”

“Sullivan called you, too?”

“Yeah, right. Hey, I have my own sources.”

I thought back to Warrenstown, the bright sun, the yellow leaves blowing across the Wesleys' lawn. “That cop,” I said. “Trevor.”

I could hear the grin in her voice as she said, “I told him if he kept me filled in I'd try to talk my sister into dating him again when she comes home for Christmas.”

“You think she will?”

“Ugh.”

“And knowing that, you still promised? I'm getting seriously disillusioned about the press here.”

“I only said I'd try. Hey, it gives the guy something to look forward to. How close are you to finding Gary?”

“I don't know.”

“Where are you?”

“Hamlin's.”

“Ohmigod,” she said. “The promised land.”

“Everyone seems to feel that way. What is it about this place?”

“They build men out there.”

“So do the marines, and Dr. Frankenstein. What is it about Hamlin's that gets everybody all excited?”

She paused. “I think because Mr. Hamlin, he does it exactly like they do it here.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, you know Coach Ryder? Oh, actually, I guess you don't.”

“No, we've met. I saw him at practice today.”

“Then you know. I mean, I've never met Mr. Hamlin, but from everything I've heard he's just exactly the same as Coach Ryder. He thinks the same way about sports. And he even uses the same kinds of drills and things.”

“And yells at the kids the same way. You know, you're right.”

“Why do you sound surprised? Because I said something smart and I'm a kid?”

“No, because you said something true and you're a reporter.”

“You better remember who can misquote who.”

“
Whom
, I think. You won't get a job on the
Times
if you can't tell your
who
from your
whom
.”