Slipping Into Darkness (38 page)

“Why? ’Cause I’m trying to speak to you?”

 

“It’s not a good time.” She dropped her eyes.

 

“Well, can we talk afterward on the train? There’s some things you need to understand about what happened the other night.”

 

“I have a ride.” She glanced over at the guy with the mullet.

 

“Hey, can you gimme a little space here, Big Man?” Hoolian forced a grin. “Everything’s copasetic.”

 

Zana hesitated, tapping the butt of her cigarette before she gave a cautious nod. “Is okay, Nicky.”

 

The big man made a point of wandering only a few feet away, checking his bow tie in a polished samovar as the bartenders started unstacking the crates of champagne.

 

“So I guess you’re upset, huh?” said Hoolian. “You must think I’m some kind of monster, right?”

 

She put her feet together and adjusted her posture with a resigned formality that he found both poignant and mildly intimidating.

 

“I didn’t say anything.”

 

The cigarette came up near her ear, trembling a little.

 

“You think I did all those things they said I did, don’t you?”

 

“No, I’m believing you instead,” she answered. “Who lies about his real name.”

 

“I was building up to it.” He rubbed his hands together, feeling grubby. “I didn’t want to scare you off —”

 

“Tell me,” she interrupted. “How many years were you in prison?”

 

“Almost twenty.”

 

This was clearly not the time to equivocate about bad lawyers and missing witnesses.

 

“And that’s all they give you for killing two women? It’s not very much.” She turned down the corners of her mouth, as if she were personally offended.

 

“That was only for
one,
and I didn’t fucking do it.” He pounded the side of his leg with his fist. “If you read all the way to the end of the story, it said they threw out my original conviction. They made a mistake.”

 

“Then why are they arresting you again?”

 

“They just want to nail me for
something
because they know they were wrong in the first place and don’t want to admit it. Look. It’s all just bullshit. They flaked me. I’m the victim here.”

 

She dropped her cigarette into a half-empty champagne flute, extinguishing it with a bitter hiss. “Please, I’m just wanting to know one thing.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Were you going to hurt me too?”

 

She spoke so softly that he almost didn’t hear her.
“What?”

 

“Isn’t that what you were going to do?”

 

“No. Of course not. Are you crazy?”

 

“I left my son alone with you, I was going to let him take the train with you.”

 

“Ah, shit.” Shame quick-seared him. “He took it bad?”

 

“The police are in his bedroom. What do you think?”

 

“Damn.”

 

“I left Kosovo because there were police in the house. And now this? Maybe it’s my fault.”

 

“No, it’s not your fault. . . .”

 

The dishwasher opened behind him, releasing a humid fog that engulfed him. How many times could this keep happening? When was he going to get out of this repeating nightmare and find the way back to the life he was meant to have?

 

“Look.” He reached for her. “I’m not the bad guy here —”

 

“Don’t touch me!” She jerked back. “Just get away.”

 

Nicky came lumbering back over, his cummerbund like a weight lifter’s belt around his midsection. “Everything okay?”

 

“Yeah, man, we’re fine.” Hoolian waved him away. “Just step off. I’m not done with the lady.”

 

“Looks like she’s done with you.”

 

“What do you got, telepathy? I didn’t hear her ask for you.”

 

“You’re scaring her.”

 

“She’s not scared. Zana, will you tell this fool what’s up?”

 

She looked away, wiping her hands on her apron.

 

“All right, there you go.” Nicky rested a hand on Hoolian’s elbow. “She wants you to let her be.”

 

“Hey,
maricón,
why you feeling me up? You wanna be my boyfriend or something?”

 

“Easy there, amigo.”

 

“Oh, you speak Spanish now?” Hoolian swatted the hand away. “
Chinga tu madre.
Understand that?”

 

“You want to fuck my mother?”

 

“Yeah, I wanna fuck your mother. I fuck your sister, I fuck your grandmother too.
Cara de crica.
”

 

“Who you calling pussyface?” The big man shoved him back into a stove. “Bitch.”

 

Hoolian heard a loud alarm bell ringing in his ears. Before he knew what he was doing, he grabbed two hanks of mullet hair, yanked them as hard as he could, and smashed his forehead into the middle of the man’s face. He saw little sparks and flaming cinders floating in space. When his vision cleared, he had a splitting headache and Nicky was slumped against a counter, with blood streaming from his nose and wounded rage brimming in his eyes.

 

There was no backing down now. Hoolian grabbed a skillet off a nearby stove and waved it around, ignoring the heat from the handle and the cinders floating before his eyes. Immediately, everyone else in the kitchen fell into a respectful silence. He noticed how two of them ran out while others started moving knives out of the way.

 

Their fear invigorated him, gave him a sense of power and authority he hadn’t known since he got out of prison. It was almost a relief, to see the veneer of things fall away, to know that once you took away the flowers, the bow ties, the wedding dresses, and the table settings, all the symbols of fake polite society and gentility, it was still a matter of who was willing and able to give out a good beating.

 

But then he saw the way Zana was looking from his face to the skillet and then back again. It was as if she were seeing him get smaller as the weapon he was holding got bigger.

 

He realized it was too hot to keep holding. He put the pan down just as Kevin, the professionally charming owner of the catering company, rushed into the kitchen.

 

“Christopher! What are you doing?”

 

“Nothing.” He felt his palm throb with the burn.

 

Kevin looked at Nicky holding his nose. “You didn’t have to come in tonight,” he said, trying to smooth it over as fast as he could. “We could’ve covered for you.”

 

“Well, I’m here now.”

 

“It’s okay, we’ll reimburse you.” Kevin took a deep breath, making eye contact with everyone in the room to make sure nobody else was hurt. “You should’ve been informed.”

 

Hoolian touched the bump rising on his forehead and realized it was still slightly damp with Nicky’s blood. “Sure? I can stick around to help with the cleanup afterward.”

 

“That’s all right. I think we have enough people.”

 

Just over the manager’s shoulder Hoolian saw a lobster struggling to get out of a boiling pot, a bright red claw reaching slowly over the edge.

 

It stretched for the light, straining against its rubber band, making one last desperate attempt at escape.

 

But it had been sitting in the pot too long. It never stood a chance. Its insides were already cooked. With a heavy scorched heart of his own, Hoolian watched the claw go limp and lifeless over the side.

 

 

PART VI

BEGINNING TO SEE THE LIGHT

 

 

45

 

 

 

ON THE TUESDAY morning after Columbus Day, Francis went to a meeting at the district attorney’s office and found Tom and Eileen Wallis already staring down Paul Raedo and Doctor Dave across a conference table.

 

“Francis, what is this I’m hearing?” Tom pinched the fold of skin between his eyes. “You said you were looking out for our family. Instead, we’re getting dragged back and forth to court again, we’ve got the media calling the house, and now I’m hearing some crazy story about my sister’s blood showing up in some other victim’s apartment.”

 

“Tom, Eileen, I apologize.” Francis took a seat under Paul’s harpoon. “We’re going to get to the bottom of what’s going on as soon as we can. Apparently, there’s been some mix-up with the DNA evidence in this case and we need to get it straightened out before the defense gets ahold of it and uses it to muddy all the waters.”

 

“I don’t understand any of this,” said Tom, running his finger back and forth across a crease in his brow. “First, you let out my sister’s murderer before the end of his sentence. Then this other girl gets killed and it’s somehow connected to Allison. And in the meantime, this guy Vega is still not back in prison?”

 

“If I may?” Dr. Dave interrupted. “There are a couple of aspects to this that we need to go over very carefully. We’ve already established there’s a definitive DNA link between your family and the woman whose blood we found at the Christine Rogers homicide. So the first thing we need to know is if you have any other sisters.”

 

“Of course not.” Tom rolled his eyes. “What kind of insane question is that?”

 

“We’re just looking for logical explanations about whose blood this might be,” said Dr. Dave.

 

Francis cut a look across the table. “Eileen?”

 

She’d been sitting there silently, in her black suit and tinted glasses, the elegant sphinx.

 

“I know this is a hard thing to talk about.” He prompted her, thinking she might have doubled up on her meds since the last time he saw her. “But we really need to know. We’re all grown-ups in this room. We all understand that things happen before and after people are married. So you need to tell us the truth. Did you ever have another child that you maybe put up for adoption?”

 

She took off her glasses and looked at him, no clouds in the blue eyes today.

 

“Francis,” she said. “If I’d had another baby, I think I might’ve noticed. I haven’t always been the most observant of parents, but that probably would’ve gotten my attention.”

 

The men each took a share of one great shrug.

 

“Wait a second, wait a second.” Tom stopped rubbing his forehead, leaving a raw red spot. “How is it exactly that you guys established a link between this newer DNA you found and our family? I don’t recall giving anyone a sample.”

 

“I gave it to them,” his mother said.

 

“You what?”

 

“Detective Loughlin came to see me last week when I was at the playground with the kids,” she said. “And so I happily gave him what he needed. In a handkerchief. I’m sorry, honey. I probably should’ve mentioned it to you.”

 

Tom’s Adam’s apple went up and down and he turned to Francis, as if he expected an explanation. But Francis was looking at Eileen, trying to figure out what she was up to. Was that the slightest hint of a knowing Cheshire cat smile on her face?

 

“Well, then, the bottom line is we don’t have any choice,” said Dr. Dave, picking up a pencil and slowly turning it. “We’re going to have to order an exhumation.”

 

“You’re going to dig her up?” The red mark on Tom’s forehead began to fade.

 

“I’m afraid we have to,” said Dave. “It’s the only way we can definitively eliminate your sister as a donor for this more recent sample.”

 

Francis gave Tom a sympathetic nod, knowing what it was like, trying to keep a broken family together.

 

“Tom, I understand how you feel. . . .”

 

“You
don’t
understand how I feel, Francis. Are they digging up somebody in your family?”

 

He gave his mother a long-suffering headshake.

 

“Tom, believe me”—Paul stretched a hand out—“if there was any other way . . .”

 

“But what about this other story that came out over the weekend?” Tom protested. “The one that said you just found something else that connected Vega to my sister’s crime scene? Why aren’t you following up on that instead?”

 

“We are,” said Francis. “We still think he’s connected to it, but we’re at a little bit of an impasse because of this other DNA. So we have to try and clear up where it came from.”

 

“Ucchh.” Tom threw himself back in his seat. “It’s so sick. I can’t believe we have to go through this all over again. It’s like you’re yanking the stitches off the same wound over and over.”

 

“I’m all for it,” said Eileen.

 

Francis felt a tiny crystal crack in the air. He looked around and saw Paul, Tom, and Dave all similarly brought up short.

 

“You’re all going to see I was right all along,” she said. “That’s not her.”

 

“Mom . . .” Tom flushed.

 

“I’m serious. The truth is going to come out.”

 

“See what you did, Francis?” Tom pressed his finger into the tabletop until the cuticle turned white. “You encouraged her. Does she sound sane to you?”

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Dr. Dave murmured.

 

“What do you mean, ‘It doesn’t matter?’ This is going to turn into an even bigger media circus, when I’m trying to protect whatever little shred of dignity my family still has. I’ll petition the court to keep it from happening. . . .”

 

“Don’t bother.” Paul started shuffling papers.

 

“What do you mean ‘don’t bother’? Who are you to tell me?”

 

“It’s the final decision of the chief medical examiner. We don’t need a family’s permission to exhume a body if it’s buried in the five boroughs.”

 

Francis studied the reaction of mother and son. Tom giving his mother a look somewhere between mournful exhaustion and disgust. And Eileen staring serenely into space, ignoring him, like the smiling figurehead on a great ship oblivious to the spraying crests and dark squalls up ahead.

 

“So why’d you even bother calling us down here?” Tom asked.

 

“Common courtesy,” said Paul.

 

 

46

 

 

 

HOOLIAN, UNSHAVEN AND red-eyed from a sleepless night in a city shelter, showed up at Nita’s coffee shop around lunchtime. One side of the restaurant was filled with young mothers with deep circles of their own under their eyes, struggling to shovel the occasional spoonful up to their mouths when they weren’t trying to soothe their screaming infants. Relaxed older women in running shoes and denim jackets watched them from across the aisle with wry jaundiced amusement.