Reasonable Doubt, page 32
part #5 of Hazard and Somerset Series
And part of him meant Hazard and the look on his face, the bleached pallor of his complexion as though someone had scrubbed at him with a bucket of Ajax until they got to bone. Like it was Hazard who was dead, in some horrible reversal, and not Jesse.
And dryly, clinically a part of Somers’s mind knew the worst was true, knew that it had happened, the final blow had landed and it had carried Hazard over a cliff into a vast and waiting—
—Sheol—
—darkness.
“Shot,” Hazard said, and even his voice sounded like bone, hard and polished as he flipped Jesse onto his back. “A few times, it looks like.”
“Kelley Jane got him. She made sure he couldn’t tell us anything.”
Hazard nodded. He was looking at the corpse, at darkly wet blood, at the blackness beyond.
“Ree.”
“They kept him there.”
And Somers thought of all the times Clyde had told them about Sheol, all the times he had mentioned it as part of his punishment, about the days he had spent in the darkness and filth and silence. Alone. Somers’s heart tattooed the inside of his ribs. Alone, that boy had been alone down there, the same boy who had smiled and laughed and who had slept in an interview room because he didn’t want to be a bother. The boy with cigarette burns on his arms and cuts on his chest and bruises like he’d tried to kiss a prizefighter. The boy who had thought they were preparing him for something special. And what the hell could be so special, what the hell, Somers thought, could be so fucking special that they had to torture a boy—
He drew in a breath, and the air was Sheol: death and corruption and the dark. His eyes met Hazard’s, and those scarecrow eyes were flat and dull like they’d been rolled in the dust in a bad game of marbles.
Somers knew, now. And Hazard knew too. He just didn’t want to say it.
“Ree, it was Clyde. He was the Judas; Clyde killed John Oscar Walden. They’d been working on him for months. Walden was abusing that boy, breaking him down, but that was just because he was a sadist. Kelley Jane and Jesse, though, they must have realized they could really make something out of Clyde. They worked on him too, putting the idea in his head, until they finally convinced Clyde that he was Judas. It was his job to kill Walden. And then all they had to do was let him out of his cage. Damn it, Clyde told us. He told us when we talked to him the first time that he had killed Walden, and then he backpedaled with all that nonsense about praying.”
Hazard’s eyes sparked dully, like last year’s glitter, and he looked like he might say something. Then his phone rang, and he answered it, the words sharp and jerky. And when he disconnected the call, his eyes cut towards the fetid darkness.
“Ree, he’s not responsible. Clyde’s not responsible. We can talk through what happened. We can get him help. God knows the boy needs help.”
“He’s gone.”
“What?”
“Clyde escaped from the hospital.”
THERE WAS NOTHING TO DO for Brother Jesse; they left the corpse with Foley and Moraes. The two uniformed officers breathed through their mouths while Hazard briefed them, and as soon as he was done, they moved out of the tack room and down the length of the barn, away from the stench coming out of that hole.
A dry, crackling part of Hazard, a part that felt like autumn leaves crunching or the snap of twigs or like fire licking its way off a match, that part found the whole thing funny. Lots of things about this were funny. It was funny that Foley and Moraes were bothered so much by the smell; it wasn’t the smell that mattered. Hazard could have told them that. You could get used to a smell. It was the size of the pit that was hell. It was the quiet. It was when the hours of cramps turned into agony, and it was when the silence started ringing like tinnitus, like a phone call, and God help you, a phone call would have been like Christmas morning because you just wanted to talk to someone, anyone, even one of the old bastards from home, even if it were Mikey Grames calling to tell Hazard he was a fag, to punch out his lights, to carve him with a pocket knife, that’s how bad it was, because if it had been Mikey Grames calling Hazard would have plucked the phone out of the cradle and laughed and cried and done anything to keep the bastard on the line.
Those kinds of things were funny. It was funny, too, that it had all come around like this. That Elah, the conversion therapy, the fasting, the praying, the kneeling, the bleeding, the sweating, the crying, the sanctuary—when the sun rolled around and painted the walls white-hot and crisped the air so that he couldn’t breathe—that it could all come back around like this. That was Biblical, Hazard thought. It really was. The sins of the fathers, and for a moment, he thought he might lose it, might start laughing, and he had to pause at the barn doors and grip the wood until it passed. Slivers of the wood punched up under his thumbnail, and that helped with the laughing.
“Jesus,” Somers said. “Are you all right?”
That was funny too. It was all funny. It was all just so fucking funny Hazard couldn’t stand it anymore, and he wished it wouldn’t be funny for a while. He wished he could go home and close his eyes and when he woke up, this would all be over, and he wouldn’t have to think about Clyde in the reeking blackness, about a boy tortured until his mind broke and then turned into a killer, about corpse-robbers and murderers and thieves who had made the name of God the best con-job in fifty states.
The pain in his hand had grown worse, and it pulled him out of his thoughts. A spring breeze brushed him, and it carried the smell of the leaves on a gnarled Japanese maple and the crushed stone of the drive and the mildew under the barn’s eaves. Somers was gone, and Hazard’s thumb was bleeding, so he dug under the nail until he thought he had gotten all the slivers, and then he wrapped his thumb in a handkerchief and started towards the car.
Somers met him on the way back.
“Just stay right there. I don’t want you walking around; you look like you’re about to fall over.”
“We need to go look for Clyde.”
“I just talked to Cravens. She’s got everybody out looking.”
“Bullshit. She’s got everybody playing fireman in case those pilgrims decide to riot.” From down the street came the sound of a dog barking, and then the high, bright voices of children, and the darkness magnified all of it, brought it closer. “He’s out there. He’s alone, and he’s hurt, and he feels . . . Christ, I don’t know. But if he finds out that Jesse stole Walden’s body and Walden isn’t coming back to life, he’s going to do something stupid.”
“Ree.”
“I’m not going to sit around and babysit because Cravens is worried those lunatics will cost her her job.”
“Ree.” Somers’s hand, warm, both soft and firm, cupped his chin. “Dum-dum. Listen.”
The dog was barking wildly now. Happy barking. And those silvery laughs. They were chasing the dog, Hazard thought. Or it was chasing them. It sounded big, maybe a Lab or a shepherd. And the kids couldn’t have been past ten years old, not laughing like that.
“I’m going to find him with or without you.”
“Ree, the pilgrims are gone. Disappearing. As soon as Kelley Jane got arrested, they fell apart. Some of them went back to the farm, and God only knows how crazy they’re going to get. But they aren’t in town, and that means Cravens put everybody on finding Clyde. I explained it to her.”
That was all he said: I explained it. Out of anybody else, those words would have made Hazard think about punching out teeth. From Somers, though, they soothed the worst of the pain. Somers had explained it. He had told Cravens the worst of it, and he had done it to spare Hazard. Somers, people would listen to. Somers, people would trust. If there was a way to help Clyde out of this, it would come from Somers.
“I got us a hotel room for tonight. Not the motor court, don’t worry. An honest-to-Jesus Marriott. Out of town.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you’re exhausted. I’m not stupid enough to think you’re going to let this go, but I know you can’t keep working like this. You need to sleep. You need to rest. In the morning, you’ll feel better—”
“I’m not ever going to feel better. Just send that idea the fuck home, all right? I’m going to find Clyde.”
Somers didn’t respond. His eyes were huge. The tropical blue had darkened, the color of water a few meters down, and cooled.
Hazard shook his head, and the echo of his own words made him sound like a child. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll drop you off at the hotel. And then I’ll pick up some clothes for us.”
“No.”
“Ree, I don’t fight you on a lot of the shit you pull. I’m going to fight you on this. And—” Somers flashed that trademark smile, boyish and gentle and, most of all, stunning. Stunning like Hazard had licked a car battery. “You’re going to lose. So let’s not fight.”
A woman was calling to the children. The dog’s barking trailed off, and the children’s shouts and laughter went quiet, and suddenly Hazard was aware of the trees along Walden’s property, the way the slowly shifting night air tickled their leaves. He was just so damn tired.
“No.”
“Ree—”
“Not the hotel.”
Somers frowned. “I want to take you to a hotel.”
“I’m sleeping in my own bed, tonight, Somers. I don’t care what you say. I—I feel like I’m coming apart. Like I’m fucking cracking up. If you want me to call it a day, fine. But I’m not going to run away from our home.”
A flicker of something touched the corners of Somers’s mouth. “Our what?”
“I’m sleeping in our bed tonight, Somers. In our home.”
The corners of his mouth twitched again. Then he looked serious. “Ree, I screwed up. The apartment—”
Hazard bent and grabbed him by the hair and kissed him. “John, take me home.”
For some reason, the blond man didn’t have a smart answer for that.
They drove into the city, and the evening light silvered everything. It limned tree branches, fence lines, tuckpointing, and the round caps of furnace vents. It graffitied the river. It shone in a nimbus around the Crofter’s Mark building, where their apartment waited on the fourth floor. Everything was silver except the fourth-floor Hazard was watching, where warm, yellow light glowed.
“Someone’s in our apartment.”
“Nobody’s in there.”
“The light’s on.”
“Nobody’s in there, Ree.”
“I didn’t leave the light on. I always check.”
“I promise.” Somers blew out his cheeks. “I asked Cora to turn them on.”
“What?”
“You’ll see when we go up.”
And that’s all he would say, and they rode the elevator up from the parking garage, and the mirrored walls gave back a hundred different versions of Somers, all with their lips zipped, no matter how hard Hazard stared.
“Just try not to shoot anything,” Somers said as he unlocked the door.
“What the hell are you—”
Inside, someone had decorated the apartment. No, Hazard’s brain corrected. Not someone. Cora. Cora had decorated their apartment. She had strung a banner that said Happy Birthday across the living room, and balloons hung from the ceiling, and paper chains and glossy ribbons crisscrossed the space like a spider web. On the kitchen counter sat two party hats and matching kazoos.
“I said don’t shoot anything.”
Hazard’s hand flexed once around the .38. “I wasn’t.”
Snorting, Somers moved past him into the kitchen, where he retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge.
“I don’t like birthday parties.”
Somers uncapped the bottle and drank.
“I didn’t want you to make a big deal.”
Sighing, Somers lowered the bottle and eyeballed it.
“Spending a night with your friends pretending to care that—”
“Jesus, Ree. Give me a little credit.”
Peeling his fingers off the .38, Hazard shut the door behind him. He glanced around the space. Decorations, yes. Those damn party hats, yes. Godforsaken kazoos, yes. But no guests. Not even Cora. But on the coffee table in the living room, there was a DVD with a bow, and Hazard could read the title from a distance. A History of Birthdays Volume 25: Yurts and Yemeni Traditional Celebrations.
When Hazard looked back at Somers, the blond man had a crooked little smile.
“I don’t like birthdays.”
Somers rolled his eyes. “You like Guinness, and there’s a six-pack in the fridge. You’re obsessed with that double chocolate fudge cake from the Wahredua Family Bakery—”
“I’m not obsessed with it.”
“You ate two pieces when I sent you to pick up donuts last week. I found the box in the trash.”
“Maybe someone else went there.”
“Don’t lie.”
“Maybe it was one piece.”
“It was a big box. And I said don’t lie.” Somers still wore that crooked smile, and he opened the fridge again to reveal a white pastry box stamped with the Wahredua Family Bakery name. “You like quiet evenings at home. You like DVDs. And some days,” Somers rolled his eyes, and they were a turquoise so bright they were almost translucent, “I even think you might like me. So what’s wrong with your birthday?”
“I don’t like birthdays. This is—” Perfect. He should have said perfect because it was perfect, the kind of perfect that only Somers could put together, but something was twisting inside him, and instead he said, “Nice.”
“Nice.” Somers looked like he was trying to rein himself in. “I know you’re tired. I know today has been horrible.”
“I just don’t understand. I told you I don’t like birthdays.”
“Christ.” Somers rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry. Today has been shit for you, I get it. I’m sorry about all of this.” Snagging the bottle of water, he moved past Hazard towards the bedroom.
He was being too nice. He was being too understanding. He was going to be kind about it all, and kindness was the last thing Hazard wanted. What he wanted was a fight. The kind of fight that took out your eyeteeth and left you eating soup for a week. “John?”
“You need to sleep, Ree. We both do. And I should have asked you about all of this instead of—I don’t know what I was trying to do. Let’s just call it a night.”
“No. You planned this whole thing. I told you I don’t like birthday parties, but you planned this whole thing anyway. Get back here. Put on a hat. Let’s crank up the music and eat cake.”
Somers leaned against the door. In the bedroom shadows, his eyes weren’t nearly as blue. They were silty, almost the color of slate. “I know today was a bad day—”
“A bad day? What the fuck is that? It’s my birthday, isn’t it? And you got your ex-wife to come into our apartment, you got her to come hang up these shitty streamers and put a piece of cheap cake in the fridge, so get back here. Don’t go in the bedroom. Get the fuck back here and let’s have a party since you want a party so damn much.”
“Jesus Christ, Ree. You’re a real asshole sometimes.”
And he shut the door behind him.
Hazard stared at the bedroom door. He took a step. Streamers brushed his face. Streamers that Cora had hung. And Hazard stopped. Cora had hung them. Cora had been in here. Cora had been the one Somers called. His family. When Somers had needed a favor, he hadn’t called Swinney or Foley or Moraes. When Somers had wanted to surprise Hazard, he had called his wife. His family.
Seizing the streamer, Hazard yanked on it, and the Scotch tape buzzed free from the wall. Crepe paper curled down around Hazard, and he found the next streamer and ripped it from the wall. Then the next. And the next. He cracked his shin against the coffee table, and the DVD about birthday yurts slid under the sofa. Swearing, Hazard snagged another handful of streamer and tugged. Paper chains tumbled down, tangling in his hair, draped across his arms and shoulders.
“What the fuck is all this?”
The gravelly voice from the door surprised Hazard, but he recognized it, and he turned as slowly as he could, plucking the streamers from his head and arms and letting them cascade to the ground. Frank Hazard stood in the doorway, a dead cigarette clamped between his teeth, taking in the scene.
“It’s my birthday. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Like you said: it’s your birthday.”
“Very funny.”
“I can’t take my son out on his birthday?”
“You haven’t taken me out for my birthday since I was fifteen, when we had dinner at Hooters because you thought seeing breasts would fix your fag son.”
A grimace tightened Frank Hazard’s face, and he took the cigarette between two fingers. Even angry, Hazard could see how tightly his father gripped it. Those big, callused fingers damn near bent the cigarette in half. Good, Hazard thought with a vicious surge. Good, and fuck him.
Between them, there were only the reverberations of traffic from the street, and a long, sustained blat of a horn, and the refrigerator’s humming. The bedroom doorway was behind Hazard, to his left, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Somers was behind that door. Somers was there, and Somers would run his fingers along the back of Hazard’s neck, would wrap both arms around him, would—
—would leave and go back to his family.
But the door was still there, and that itch, the urge to turn and look, to see if Somers had opened it, was standing there, to catch one of those smiles that he pitched like a screwball, it was still there, and it took everything in Hazard not to glance over his shoulder.
“Well?”
“I’m having a bad night. Can you just go?”
Those big fingers twisted the cigarette until the paper tore and tobacco flakes peppered the back of his hand, then fell, scattering along the polished floor. Somers wouldn’t like that. He didn’t make a fuss about cleaning, didn’t put forth the same effort as Hazard, but he didn’t like a mess. His house with Cora had always been clean.
