Shotgun Lullaby (A Conway Sax Mystery) (19 page)

Whatever else came out of this meeting, one thing was for sure: Randall was taking a hell of a fresh look at Rinn Biletnikov. “And you …
did
this?” he said. “You put thought and energy into this endeavor?” He probably didn't realize it, but as he spoke he reached down and rubbed his prosthesis.

“Damn you,” Rinn said to me.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“They started with identical running outfits in a five K,” I said, speaking to Randall but locking eyes with Rinn. “Then she walked him up the ladder. His-and-hers cowboy hats, matching Harleys, identical cars. Like that.”

“Who told you all this?” Rinn said. “Donald or Brad?”

I said nothing.

“For what it's worth,” she said to Randall and only Randall, freezing me out again, “I'm not proud of that period. I'm ashamed, in fact. A lot of history led up to it.”

“I'm listening,” he said.

Rinn looked at her lap, pulling her story together.

“There are many nice things about dating older guys, as I always have,” she said. “Money is the obvious one. In high school, my girlfriends were lucky if their boyfriends paid for their Burger King. I was eating at L'Espalier and finding diamond earrings on the dessert cart. An older man fortunate enough to get in a young girl's pants will do anything to stay there.
Anything
.”

“Spurnings,” Randall said. “Strikings.”

She nodded. “But there are downsides, too. Think about the older men a girl meets. Coaches, teachers, family friends. Taboos, taboos, everywhere you look. I lost my virginity when I was fifteen, to my across-the-street neighbor. My parents had known the family forever. My first home wrecked, my first shrink sessions.”

I said, “He in jail now? I hope?”

“You're missing the point, as they all did. I'd had a massive crush on Mr. Freed forever.
I
seduced
him,
and believe me, he played hard to get. But my parents and the police couldn't accept that. Even the shrink kept trying to turn things around. Eventually, I gave up explaining.”

Randall said, “Can we skip from Mr. Freed to Peter?”

“It's a long way to Tipperary,” she said. “I want you to have the whole picture. There are also certain … physical disadvantages to seeing older men. They are not, generally speaking, stallions. Sorry about the icky background. I'm trying to establish that where tending to older gentlemen is involved, I'm something of an authority.”

“So?” Randall said.

But something had clicked for me. “Peter Biletnikov couldn't get it up. Can't.” I said it as much to myself as to them.

They looked at me.

Randall said, “You serious?”

At the exact same time, Rinn said, “How did you know?”

I shrugged. “Everything about him points that way. He's all front, all shell.”

Rinn said, “That's an impressive intuitive leap.”

“For you,” Randall said.

I tried not to smile, looked at Rinn. “Keep going.”

“Peter was, shall we say, unable.”

“Even in this age of chemical miracles?” Randall said.

Rinn snorted, waved a hand. “Viagra, Cialis, Levitra. Hypnotists, fortune tellers, oysters, powdered stag antler, eye of newt, something flown up from Mexico that gave him hives. You name it, we tried it. Colossal failures all. This turned out to be a lifelong issue for Peter. The problem was up here”—tap tap—“not down there.”

“Bummer for you.” Randall said it with soft eyes.

Rinn smiled and shrugged. “I was encouraging and helpful and understanding. At first, anyway. Peter grew angrier and angrier, frustrated, mean as a snake. He lashed out, tried to blame me.” Her eyes hardened. “I set him straight on that.”

“Dumb-guy question,” I said. “If this was a long-term deal, where'd Gus come from?”

“Not to mention Emma?” Randall said.

“Even a stopped cock is right twice a day,” Rinn said, then looked around for laughter that wasn't there.

I said, “You met Peter when you interned at Thunder Junction, right? I'm surprised he was interested. Given what you've said.”

“Peter had a long tradition of using interns as beards.” Rinn half-laughed. “Heterosexual beards, to make the other dudes think he was a hound dog just like them.”

“Dudes still think that way?” Randall said.

“Empty ones,” I said. “Ones who're all shell.”

“For us it was different,” Rinn said. “With the others, the arm candy, Peter hadn't dared broach the impotency topic. I don't know if he fell for me or what—”

“He fell for you,” Randall said. “Trust me.”

I rolled my eyes.

Rinn ignored Randall and plowed ahead. “From the start, he said I was the one, that he wanted to have kids with me. I think he believed I could … cure him. The promise of a family was part of his sales pitch. He assumed I wanted kids, just as he assumed I wanted a big white-dress wedding.”

“Was he right?” Randall said. “Did you want either of those things?”

Rinn started to speak.

Then stopped. Stared at nothing.

Randall let the silence grow. I followed his lead.

Rinn finally said, “Am I allowed to pass on the question? To say I'm not sure
what
I want? May I plead youthful indecision?”

“I do believe I'm younger than you,” Randall said.

“You don't seem it. And that's a compliment.”

Randall smiled. “I'll rephrase. Was it reasonable for Peter to
believe
you wanted the big wedding? The big family? The big house in Sherborn, the slightly smaller one in Chatham?”

“It was indeed reasonable. I let him believe I was just dying to have two or three wailing, puking, shitting joy-bundles.”

“Why?”

“He wasn't the only one doing a sell job. Peter is an empty suit who stumbled into a pot of money. He's a copycat in an industry that's about vision. When he dumped his first wife and married me, he was imitating a thousand other fiftysomething business swamis. Pumping out a baby or two with the trophy wife is part of the pose.”

“Wailing, puking, shitting,” I said. “That's how you think of your daughter?” Tried to keep the disgust out of my voice. But failed.

“I love her!” Rinn said.

Randall and I said nothing.

“I
love
her,” Rinn said.

Randall and I said nothing.

“I … oh God, I can't believe I'm going to say this out loud. Conceptually, I love her. But in detail, in the day-to-day…”

“The wailing, puking, shitting day-to-day,” Randall said.

Rinn nodded. She looked at nothing. She especially did not look at me.

“Let's get back on point,” Randall finally said. “The more I hear about Peter, the more I want to hate him. But if you look at it from his point of view, it took a twisted brand of courage to make his move on you. To open up.”

“I'm not unaware of it,” Rinn said. “He wanted something badly enough to risk a lot.”

“He risked ridicule,” Randall said. “Which I gather is something he greatly fears.”

“More than anything.”

“And you proceeded to heap ridicule on him. Spurnings and strikings and matching cowboy duds.”

“I said I'm not proud of it.”

Randall said nothing. He rose.

So did I. And then looked at what I held in my hand. Had forgotten about it.

My gaze drew Rinn's, and hers drew Randall's, and then it was too late for me to stash it behind my back. So I held it out.

“Goodnight Moon,”
Rinn read.

“I, ah,” I said. “It's a good book. For babies. For little kids. For Emma.”

She took it. Set it on an end table without really looking at it. “How sweet.”

Randall and I left.

*   *   *

“She wouldn't have looked much different if I'd handed her a steaming dog turd,” I said in the driveway, not looking at Randall as I spoke because we both assumed she was watching.

“She's probably not going to make Mother of the Year,” he said. But seemed reluctant to admit even that much.

“I told you she was a piece of work.”

“Which doesn't make her a murderer. Especially up close and personal with a shotgun. Can you picture it?”

I took my time answering. “I've seen a lot of things I couldn't picture before I saw them.”

“Fair enough.”

“So have you.”

“That's different,” he said. “War … it's different.”

There wasn't much I could say to that. He'd been there. I hadn't.

So we stood quiet awhile.

“What's your take on Rinn?” I finally said. “Anything jump out?”

“Her lack of connection to the baby, her disdain for Peter, they're …
palpable
.”

“Spurnings and strikings.”

He nodded. “And the running around with Gus and Brad. I hate to admit it, but now you've got
me
wondering if she had anything to do with the murder. There's something worth teasing out here.”

“So tease it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Make yourself Rinn's best new pal. Charm her. Tell her about the time you jumped on that grenade. In that foxhole.”

“To save those nuns,” he said.

“And orphans. Meanwhile, I'll talk to Brad again, see if I can learn more about Gus's relationship with his dad. And I need to figure out where Lima's headed with this thing. I should talk to Peter, too. I need a better handle on him.”

“That all you've got planned? Easy peasy,” Randall said, and I heard his smile, though I still wasn't looking at him. “What about your good friend Charlie Pundo? Aren't you worried he'll take another run at you?”

“Worried? No. Dead sure? Yes.” I shrugged. “We'll cross that bridge.”

“Anything I can do, amigo? Besides the arduous duty of making myself available to Rinn?”

“Yeah,” I said, heel-rubbing my eyes. “Make sure Charlene doesn't kill me while I'm screwing around with this.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Guilt drove me to the shop to see how things were going.

They weren't going well. I found Andrade parked in the office, one-handing the computer. He said he was learning our software, but his fast mouse click when he saw me looked like a telltale for solitaire. Or porn surfing.

Floriano was working on two cars at once and trying to handle late drop-offs at the same time.

I really wanted to visit Brad Bloomquist again.

“Hell,” I said.

If Floriano heard, he didn't respond.

I sighed, grabbed my coveralls, stepped into the flow.

Spent the rest of the day doing boring maintenance on boring cars. Thought about Rinn Biletnikov, Donald Crump, Brad Bloomquist. Especially Brad. Something about his story didn't click. I waited for it to come to me.

It didn't.

What did come to me: flashes of Gus. The banister slide into his very first Barnburners meeting. His hero worship when I beat up Andrade. His hidden nervousness about speaking in AA, followed by the smooth talk itself.

The way he tabletopped his dirt-bike jumps, like he was born to do it.

The way he looked like Roy: slender, big brown eyes, uncombed hair, that unfinished look to his features.

The way he looked gut-shot in a sweatshirt, his back arched, one hand clutched delicately like he was holding an imaginary piece of chalk.

The way I'd walked out on Roy. The way I'd tossed Gus down a flight of cast-iron stairs.

These flashes would come, and I would feel so … heavy. Like I needed to sit right away. But if I sat, I'd want to lie down. And if I did that, I'd want to sink through the floor.

I worked slow that day.

At five thirty, we all drove to Marlborough for Andrade's tools. Three wide on my F-250's bench seat. Nobody said a word. When Floriano saw Andrade's immaculate shop, he made a tight little nod, and I knew he understood why I'd hired a new guy with one good arm.

You can't lift a loaded rolling tool chest. We had to empty every drawer by hand, and even then Floriano and I could barely wrestle the piano-sized chest into the back of my truck. By the time we got everything to my shop, unloaded, and squared away, it seemed like I should take the guys to dinner. And then we had to wait twenty-five minutes for a table at T.G.I. Friday's. And still none of us said much of anything.

Long day.

*   *   *

“No man should have to do this,” I said to Peter Biletnikov the next morning, extending my hand. I had made my way up front, to the pews reserved for family.

He stared at the hand until I pulled it back. Then he turned and put his arm around Rinn, who stiffened but let him leave it there.

I walked to the back, wanting to serve as an informal usher when the Barnburners rolled in.

It was a small church, but pristine. The paint was fresh, the blue carpeting was new, all the Bibles matched—it was what you'd expect in a town like Sherborn.

Those reserved pews weren't anywhere near full. It was just Peter, Rinn, Haley holding the baby, and a pair of great-aunts who looked just off the Trans-Siberian Express. Everybody wore black. Nobody spoke.

Even at two minutes of ten, the joint was nearly empty. Maybe the Barnburners had stiffed Gus—hell, they barely knew him.

The preacher, a woman who didn't look much older than Gus, spoke quietly in a corner with a man who must have worked there. Brad Bloomquist sat in a back pew, as far from the Biletnikovs as he could manage. He was the only one who'd arrived before me. His suit was neat enough, and he'd trimmed his beard.

And he was crying. Silently, steadily. Bolt upright, hands between his legs, making no effort to wipe the tears that rolled into his beard and eventually dripped from it.