Rob Cornell - Ridley Brone 02 - The Hustle (14 page)

I returned home, thinking I’d catch a nap before having to head over to the bar. While I didn’t find any more photographs taped to my door, I did find Eddie Arndt standing on my porch. He had his hands shoved in his coat pockets, a scarf wrapped around his face just under the eyes, and a knit cap pulled down over his eyebrows.

Anyone else bundled up like that I probably wouldn’t recognize, but I knew it was Eddie the moment I saw him. Something about his posture and, as I closed in, his eyes, those unchanged eyes that carried the sadness from high school to the present day.

I didn’t have a hat or a scarf, so by the time I reached the porch my ears felt like someone had pinched them until the circulation stopped. The chill air dried out my throat when I breathed it in. I hunkered into my coat as best I could. “What’s up, Eddie?”

His answer came muffled through his scarf. “I want to talk.”

“I’ve nothing to say to you.” I skirted around him to unlock my door.

He grabbed my arm. I could feel the cold surface of his gloves cut through my coat and skate up and down my funny bone. I shivered hard enough to shake loose any fillings if I’d had some.

“You have to help me,” he said. “There’s no one else.”

I wrenched my arm free. “I tried to help, remember?” My voice quaked as I continued to tremble against the cold. “Now, I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“You have to let me explain.”

I stuck my key in the door lock after a few shaky jabs. As I turned the key, I said, “You can’t explain away a rape.”

He yanked his scarf down off of his mouth. “You said if I told you what happened to me, you would take back the case.”

I threw open the door, stepped inside, and turned to face him across the threshold. “I said I’d consider it. I’ve since realized there’s no way I could help and still respect myself.”

“You don’t know what happened. What I went through.”

“I can’t believe a word you say now. You get that, right?”

“I know.” He wiped his chin with the back of his hand. “Please. Give me a chance. I want to tell you everything.”

It struck me how those last words echoed what Palmer had said to me. Had I become a priest at some point without knowing it?
Come to Father Brone. I will hear all your confessions.

The open door worked like a wind tunnel, funneling the winter air into the foyer, cutting right through me. At this rate, all 9,000 square feet of this monstrosity of a house would have the heat sapped away in seconds. “I’m freezing my ass off here, so you’ve got one chance.” I put my hand on the door, ready to slam it in his face. “Why should I help you?”

“It’s not a short answer.”

“Summarize as best you can, because I can’t stand another second of this cold.”

He curled one gloved hand into a fist and pressed it against his mouth. His eyes watered. When he pulled his hand away from his mouth, he looked me right in the eye. His stare put the cold wind to shame. “Because,” he said, “what I did before I went to Amanda’s that night…was worse than rape.”

Chapter 15

I could only think of one thing worse than rape, yet I still let him inside. There was no turning back for me now. I had to hear the rest of the story or I would never sleep again.

Once in the foyer with the front door closed against winter’s bite, Eddie pulled off his gloves and his hat and stuffed them in his coat pockets. When he went to unzip his coat, I stopped him.

“You’ve got five minutes to explain what the hell is going on before I kick you out.”

“Can’t we sit—”

“No.”

The cold had colored his cheeks, but that color deepened. His eyes narrowed. “I’m going out on a limb telling you any of this.”

“Let’s make it easy then. How about I call Amanda? She’ll want to hear whatever excuse you have for raping her.”

“Leave her out of this. I’ve already caused her enough trouble.”

What an exquisite understatement. I had seen Amanda, heard the quake in her voice as she told her story. All of her twisted rationalizations to keep herself from hating someone she thought she loved. Not to mention the streak of criminal activity that followed, a self inflicted purgatory born of the belief that she, herself, was somehow responsible for the rape.

I said, “This is a waste of time.”

“You haven’t even heard me out.”

I gave him the don’t-shit-in-my-coffee look. At least, that was the effect I was going for. “You know what I’ve learned in all my years as a PI? The more detailed and complicated the story, the more likely it’s a lie. The details come from a desperate need to sound convincing. The complexity comes from stacking lies to cover up holes in their story.”

“I’m not saying I haven’t lied to you.” Even with the light from the mini-chandelier hanging above the foyer, the ashen light seeping in through the half-circle window high on the door dampened the space. Eddie stepped toward me, a red conviction in his eyes. “I want to clear out the lies now. Will you please just give me that chance?”

Sometimes human emotion could act like a lie detector for someone attuned to recognizing the signs. The talent was more art than science, but a definite craft underlined the process, something that could be taught, something Mort had taught me. It’s partly how I had known Amanda’s story was genuine. Now, like a sixth sense, it told me Eddie might actually have something legit.

Like I said, PI’s are a curious lot. They make cats look aloof by comparison. I wondered if Eddie knew that, if he was using that against me to rope me back into his case. The only way I could know for sure was to let myself get roped.

“All right,” I said. “Take off your coat and stay awhile.”

I didn’t want to bring him into the kitchen again. The kitchen acted as heart to my home. I spent a lot of time in there, and I didn’t want to taint the room with possible bad memories.

I led the way into a den on the first floor. My parents had used the room for composing. A baby grand stood in the center of the room, covered with a sheet. The roll top desk was similarly covered, as was all the furniture—a wingback chair and matching footstool, extra long piano bench that could accommodate the two of them as they worked together on a song, even the mini wet bar in one corner had a sheet draped over it.

I don’t know why I chose this room to take Eddie into. I didn’t have any conscious reason. It was just where I ended up.

Eddie came in behind me, took the room in, and said, “Wow.”

To me the room looked like a miniature snow-capped mountain range with all the sheet-covered shapes. I didn’t see any reason for a
wow
.

“This is where they made their songs, right?”

A rough, scratchy sensation scraped down through my lungs. I felt the urge to cough, but couldn’t get it out. I busied myself with uncovering the pair of available chairs, one at the desk, the other the wingback. I shoved aside the footstool, then dragged the desk chair over so we could face each other while we talked.

When I finished setting up our mini parlor, I gestured to the wingback. “You can have the comfy chair.”

He started over, but paused when he reached the covered piano. He drew a hand over the drape. “They wrote some of my favorite songs.”

Cheesy pop songs, if you asked me. But I knew plenty of locals who claimed to love the music my parents wrote. I often wondered if they liked the songs only because their composers lived in the same city. I couldn’t be the only person in Hawthorne whose eyes crossed every time he heard the kind of sugary bubblegum pop music my parents wrote.

I stood by the keys on the opposite side of the piano from Eddie. My fingers acted on their own, curling a few inches from the drape as if they wanted to pull it free, open the piano, and start banging on the keys. I closed my hand into a fist and pinned it against my hip. “They were something else,” I said.

“You miss them?”

Not going to go there. Certainly not with him. “You want to talk, let’s do it.”

He pulled his mouth in his signature sideways pucker, shrugged, and took a seat in the wingback.

The desk chair was an old-fashioned wood deal on metal casters. When I sat down, the chair groaned as if relieved to finally have someone sit on it again. The second I sat, I wanted to pop up again. Wanted to choose a different room. Why the hell had I come in here? I couldn’t shake loose the sensation that invisible eyes stared at me from two sides. The ghosts of my parents perhaps.

Eddie didn’t say anything, so I pointed at him. “Go,” I said.

He swallowed, looking a little strangled for a moment. “I should have never gone to her house that night. I was out of my fucking mind.”

“Why?”

He gave me the palm. “I’m getting to that.”

I leaned back and folded my arms. I felt a titch queasy. Not sure if it was the metaphorical ghosts in the room or the sound of Eddie’s agitated voice that caused it. Maybe a combination. I kept my mouth shut and signaled him to go ahead.

He shuddered out a sigh. Lines pinched the corners of his eyes. He still carried with him the smell of cold from outside. “That thing about everybody exploding? That’s why I ran to her house. I had to get away, had to…” He moaned softly. “I can’t do this.”

“If you want to stay out of the cold a little longer, you’re gonna have to.”

He hung his head. “This isn’t easy.”

“I know you’re looking for sympathy, but it ain’t happening here. Got it? There’s no point to the dramatics.”

He lifted his gaze to me. “Fine.”

We had a couple second stare-down before he cracked first and continued his story.

“You talked to Warren, right?”

“Yes.”

“He told you about how he broke my arm to get back at me for pushing him down the stairs?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you he threatened to kill me?”

“It didn’t come up,” I said. “But guys like Warren make threats like that all the time.”

“How often do those guys put a knife to your throat?”

Did I hear him right, or did my brain just fart?
“Hold up a sec. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Because I didn’t think it was relevant.”

“How could it not be?”

“Because I thought it was settled.”

Deep breath. He’s having a hard time. He doesn’t mean to be so annoyingly cryptic.
“Keep talking.”

“After the incident with Warren, while I was in the hospital, I told my dad what had happened. He wanted to call the police, but then I told him why Warren had broken my arm and threatened me.”

Something ticked at the back of my mind like a time bomb.

“He was pissed at me,” Eddie said. “He all but told me I deserved what I got.”

“That’s harsh coming from a dad.” I didn’t add that it supported the case against him as a family killer. I was angry with Eddie, but I wasn’t a cruel person.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

“Quit worrying about what I think.”

He paused a moment, eyes shifting to one side, thinking it over. When he made his decision, he rubbed his palms on his pants and continued. “A few weeks later, Warren’s out of school. No big deal, but then he’s gone for a whole two weeks. When he gets back, his face is all black and blue. He’s on crutches. His story? He fell down the stairs.”

“Had trouble with stairs, huh?”

A humorless puff of laughter escaped Eddie’s mouth. “Dad didn’t say anything to me, but I was certain he had something to do with happened to Warren.” He drew a thumb across his upper lip to wipe away some sweat. “I wasn’t sure if I should be grateful or afraid.”

I still couldn’t figure out how this supposedly led to Amanda’s rape. However, I
could
see how it might foreshadow his father’s last, tragic act. “If your dad was cold enough to beat up a high school kid—”

“No,” Eddie all but shouted. His voice buzzed in the dormant room. “You’re jumping ahead. I haven’t finished.”

There’s more?
The abundant layers to this story stoked my doubt that any of it was real.

“It wasn’t my dad,” Eddie said. “I found out later my cousin overheard my dad telling my uncle about it.”

I blinked a few times, trying to follow that last sentence. Cousin, dad, uncle. Got it. “Which cousin?” I asked.

“My aunt Minnie’s son. Hunter.”

This thread was starting to unravel. I could feel us coming to the frayed end. “You think Hunter did that to Warren?”

“I know he did. He told me.”

So Eddie pushes Warren down the stairs. Warren returns the favor by breaking Eddie’s arm and supposedly threatening him with a knife to the throat. Eddie’s dad finds out, tells the uncle about it, and Hunter decides to even the score for his cousin by beating the crap out of Warren.

“Hunter’s a Wagner. I thought you didn’t get along with that side. Why would he do that for you?”

His gaze skipped around the room, everywhere but on me. “Hunter was a weird guy. He did a lot of things I…didn’t understand. I didn’t know what he’d done to Warren until the next holiday we saw that side. Easter. He pulled me aside, told me he’d taken care of my issue.” He waved a dismissive hand. “He was just strange.”

I leaned back. The wooden chair whined. A wicked story. As crooked as it was, it almost sounded true. One little thing bothered me, though. “How does any of this tie in with the night at Amanda’s?”