Hangman (12 page)

“Where are Aaron and Greg now?”

“They’re driving home from Reno. I’ve already informed them that they need to come to the station house. This is a serious police matter. So far both boys have been cooperative.”

“And they don’t know where Garth is?”

“No idea. I’ve made a couple of calls to the airlines, Oliver’s been calling up Garth’s family and friends, and Brubeck and Messing are staking out his apartment.” Marge got a buzz on her BlackBerry. She looked at her phone. “Hmm…this is good.”

“What?”

“Just a text message. Yesterday there was a Mountaineer Express flight from Reno to Burbank that left at ten-ten
A.M.,
getting into Bob Hope at eleven forty-five. That was the woman from the airlines. She’s agreed to check the manifest to see if Garth was on the flight.” She stowed the phone in her pocket. “I’ll call back in a little bit.”

Decker said, “If Garth was on that flight, he didn’t have a lot of time to act.”

“All it takes is about six to nine minutes of strangulation before the person expires,” Marge said. “According to my calculations, that’s plenty of time.”

W
ITH AROUND HALF
the classes being Jewish subjects, Gabe had lots of free periods—all in all a pretty sweet deal.

At 7:35, there was Morning Prayer.

He was excused from that.

There was something called Gemara: Hannah explained it as interpretation of scriptures.

He was excused from that.

English was English. The only difference was that the class was rowdier than he was used to. If his friends mouthed off to their teachers in the way these Jewish kids did, they would not only have been expelled, they would have had the crap beat out of them by their fathers. St. Luke’s was supposed to be a Catholic prep school, but it was mostly a holding ground until the boys went off in their fathers’ businesses and the girls got pregnant, married, and divorced—uh, excuse me, annulled. There were some smart kids who made it to the Ivies, but most went to State provided that their gray matter wasn’t completely pickled in alcohol or drugs by the time they graduated.

So far, the new place was okay. No one tried to mess with him and he kept to himself.

After English, there was Jewish History. Since that class was given in English, they told him to go and try it out. It was all about the Holocaust: he actually found a situation that was far worse than his. They were talking about the Warsaw Ghetto, which he had never heard about.

American History was American History.

And after attending Math, it was clear that the place prized brains over brawn. He could compete on that level, but why bother? It wasn’t that the kids were assholes, it’s just that his unstable life had turned even more temporary, so it didn’t make any sense to try to integrate. The girls ran the gamut between ugly and cute. Not a lot of blondes. About half of the brunettes had pale pink skin, the other half were olive-complexioned with curly black hair—Mediterranean-looking, which he liked because he grew up with a lot of Italians. The girls glanced at him with stealthy looks and half-closed eyes. He wasn’t interested, and even if he was, what was the point? The only real redheaded girl he’d seen was Hannah.

He liked Hannah. She was easy to be with, didn’t ask questions, had a wicked sense of humor, and there was absolutely no sexual tension between them. It was like she was an instant big sister. He was amazed that she was so accepting of his intrusion. He knew that if the situation had been reversed, he wouldn’t have been nearly so magnanimous.

His next class was Bible and that was taught in Hebrew, so he was excused from it. He wanted to go somewhere and sleep for twelve hours, but since he was dependent on Hannah for wheels, he had no choice but to stick around. Besides, if he didn’t show up at Biology, someone might say something and he didn’t want to cause any problems.

During his breaks, he’d been playing a lot of scales, but the instrument was off tune and it was killing his ears. He didn’t mind banging out an off-pitch “My Heart Will Go On,” but Chopin deserved a lot better. Since tuning a piano was a specialized skill, he finally gave up.

There was a café across the street and he could use a cup of coffee. Technically, sophomores weren’t allowed off campus, but the guards were a joke. Within seconds, he easily slipped out of sight and into freedom—whatever that meant.

He hadn’t walked more than a few steps when he heard the whistle—a melodic slide that went from G to C-sharp. It was always the same whistle—always the same tempo, the same duration, and the same pitch.

Gabe’s ear didn’t come from nowhere.

He stopped walking, his stomach acid churning as his brain went momentarily black. No sense pretending he didn’t hear—clearly he had heard because he stopped walking—so now it was just a matter of choosing the right car so he wouldn’t look like a doofus.

There were three cars parked along the curb. The Honda Accord was out of the picture—too pedestrian and no pickup. The Jaguar was too flashy and in the wrong color—no way he’d drive a powder blue car. The last one was a black Audi A8—2008. Good car with enough pickup, and most important, probably enough room in front to accommodate his long legs and his six-foot-four frame. The windows were tinted but not dark enough to arouse suspicion.

In a single motion, Gabe yanked up on the passenger-door handle and slid inside. Once there, he stared out the windshield, counting the seconds as they ticked by. He knew that the only way to handle Chris Donatti was to roll with the punches. It took his father a good five minutes before he uttered a sound.

“You okay?”

Gabe nodded, his eyes still fixed ahead. “Fine.” He could hear his father breathing hard. No boozy smell; the man was sober and that made him scarier. A moment later, a manila envelope plopped on his lap. It was closed with a metal clasp and taped several times around the flap.

Donatti said, “Your birth certificate, your passport, your Social Security card plus about ten grand in cash, two debit cards, and your bank account numbers. You’ve got one account that’s active with about fifty grand in it. You can write checks off of it or use your debit card. The second account is all the paperwork for your
custodial account. That’s yours when you’re eighteen. There’s about a hundred grand in it. The last account is paperwork for your trust fund. You’ve got access to it when you’re twenty-one: you’ve got about two mil in that one. The bank’s the trustee. If you need anything before you turn of age, you gotta go to them.

“I don’t know how long fifty grand will keep you, but I’ll be checking in from time to time. If you need more, I’ll know about it and deposit cash into the account. You should be okay.”

Gabe still hadn’t touched the envelope. He nodded.

“Any questions?”

Gabe looked down at the envelope, his lifeline to the world. “Are you leaving the country?”

“Gabe, right now I am so fucked up, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

The admission made him glance at his father before returning his eyes to the windshield. Chris rarely looked healthy, but now he looked exceptionally gaunt. His face was covered by a swatch of blond stubble. His eyes were patriotic—red, white, and blue. Sometimes it was impossible to believe that Chris was only thirty-four. Then there were other times, when his father was cleaned up, off the booze, and had good night’s sleep and proper nutrition; people thought they were brothers.

Donatti said, “I figured the best thing I could do for you was to get your affairs in order in case something happened to me.”

“What would happen to you?” Gabe asked.

Donatti let out a small laugh. “Are you serious?”

Silence.

Donatti said, “Look at me, Gabriel.” When the boy obeyed, he enunciated his sentence word by word. “I…
didn’t
…kill…her.”

Gabe looked away. “Okay.” Silence. “I believe you.”

“But…” Donatti shoved a fist into his mouth and took it out. “But it’s complicated.”

Silence.

“I came back to the hotel…after Decker left…” A pause. “How’s he treating you?”

“He’s okay.”

“Has he talked to you about me?”

Gabe shook his head no.

“I don’t believe that.”

“I mean he asked me to tell him if I heard from you. But I hadn’t, so…”

“So what do you talk about?”

“With Decker?”

“Yeah, with Decker.”

“Nothing really. If we talk at all, he asks me about Mom. Did she sound upset when I last spoke to her—”

“Did she?”

Gabe looked at his father. “Not really, but I wasn’t paying attention.” His heart was beating in his chest. “What happened, Chris?”

“I came back after he left…Decker.” Donatti squirmed in his seat. “She let me in. We fought. It was a bad one, Gabe. I lost my temper.”

“You
beat
her up again?”

“No, no, no.” He paused. “I didn’t beat her and I certainly didn’t
kill
her. She was alive when I left the room. She was scared shitless, but very much alive.”

“Why was she scared?”

“Because I told her if she didn’t get her ass back where it belonged, I’d drag it back dead or alive.”

Donatti wiped drool from the corner of his mouth. He lit a cigarette.

Chris only smoked when he was frazzled.

“I must have been yelling. You know me, I never yell.”

“No, you really don’t.”

“No one can get me as angry as your mom. She knows how to push my buttons and she was pushing every single one of them that day. Fuck, I just blew. I was loud and it was bad.”

He took a drag on his cigarette.

“What made it really bad was that one of the fucking gardeners or maintenance men or whatever the fuck he is overheard me screaming. He knocked on the door, asking if everything was okay.”

“Did he call the police?”

“No. Your mother answered the door and told him everything was fine. But you’d have to be a moron to believe that. The guy was clearly on the brink of saying something. So I made an appearance and flashed him some money. About a grand.”

Donatti laughed.

“He took it, making the problem go away…temporarily.” He took another drag on the cigarette. “Now, I don’t like Decker. I think he’s an arrogant self-righteous son of a bitch who gets his kicks out of torturing me. But he’s a good detective. How long do you think it’ll be before he locates that stupid fuck?”

Gabe was silent.

“He’s going to find out that I fought with her. He’s going to find out that I threatened her. And now she’s gone.” Another puff. “Circumstantial evidence…because there’s no body and without a body you don’t get good forensics. It would be hard to prove a case against me. My lawyer would argue that she ran away and went into hiding. That’s a two-way street, given the most recent interaction of my fists and your mother’s face. Hiding makes sense, but also my killing her would make sense. Juries are unpredictable and I’m not willing to risk it.”

He flicked ashes into a paper cup.

“If she split to get away from me, I’ll find her. She doesn’t stand a chance.”

Gabe glanced at him, then averted his eyes.

Donatti exhaled out loud. “What I meant is that I can find anyone. And when I do, I’m not going to hurt her. I just need for her to hear me out. I need…you know…to make it right.”

Gabe nodded, although he doubted that they held the same definition of “make it right.”

“But there’s also the possibility that something bad happened to her…” Donatti finished the cigarette and dropped it into the cup. There must have been liquid in it, because it sizzled. “I have to know what happened to her, and if it’s bad, who the hell did it. Exact my own kind of revenge on the motherfucker. If I’m locked up, how the hell am I going to do that?”

Gabe stared at the manila envelope—his life summed up in a paper packet.

“You understand, right.”

“Of course.”

“And you’re going to keep quiet about this?”

“Of course.”

“Look at me and say that.”

Gabe locked eyes with his father. “If you didn’t hurt Mom, I would never ever betray you. You’re my father.”

“Whatever that means.”

“It means something to me.”

“Do you hate me?”

“Sometimes. And sometimes I love you. Most of the time, I try to keep out of your way.”

Donatti regarded the teen’s face. “You know you were an accident, but I wasn’t unhappy about it.”

“Thanks…I think.”

“So how are you going to explain that to Decker?” Donatti was pointing to the envelope.

“Before I left the hotel, I took stuff out of the safe and shoved it into my backpack.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Some of Mom’s jewelry and a lot of cash. The point is that the lieutenant doesn’t know what I took.”

“How much cash?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t count it.”

“Take a guess.”

“Maybe like five thousand dollars. It’s in hundreds. You want it back?”

“No, I don’t want it back.” Donatti lit another cigarette. “If she left behind cash, that isn’t good.” He inhaled deeply on his smoke. “On the other hand, how far would five grand get her? Shit! This is really messing with my mind. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t do business, I can’t think. I probably can’t even shoot straight. I’ve got a lot of enemies, Gabe. I’m always looking over my shoulder. I’ve
got to be alert. I’ve got to know what happened to her. I just can’t function until I have this behind me one way or the other.” A pause. “You’ll keep quiet about this talk, right?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t believe you,” Donatti said. “Not because you’re dishonest but because you’re too honest. It’s gonna slip out.”

“I know how to lie.” He looked at his father. “I’ve learned from the best.”

“You think?” Donatti laughed. “You’re your mother’s son. If your ear wasn’t as good as it is, I’d swear that your mom fucked some other tall guy while I was penned up. Your face is easy to read, and if I can read you, Gabe, so can Decker.”

“I swear I won’t say anything. What more do you want from me?”

Donatti was silent for a minute or two. Then he said, “Give me three days to disappear. I can make my trail go cold in three days, okay.”

“Okay.”

“After that, I want you to tell him that we talked. Tell him I came so I could give you all the shit that I gave you. And tell him I didn’t do it. But don’t tell him about the fight and don’t tell him about the dude who I paid off. Let him figure it out himself. Agreed?”

“Whatever you want, Chris. You call the shots.”

“That’s what I want.”

“I’ll do and say whatever you want me to do as long as you didn’t hurt Mom.”

“When I left her, she was alive. I swear on my mother’s grave, that’s the truth.”

“Then it’s a done deal.”

Donatti laid a meaty hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’ll be okay?”

“I’m fine.” In fact he was relieved by his father’s admission. Of course, his mom was still missing. But at this moment in time, it suited him best to believe Chris.

Donatti took a final puff on his second cigarette and dropped it into the cup as well. “You know you’re in good hands. Better than with me. We both know that.”

“I’d be fine with you, Chris. I’m okay wherever I am.”

“That girl you’re hanging with…She’s Decker’s daughter, right?”