The Dead Past (16 page)

Tons closed his eyes and rolled the glass over the bridge of his nose.

"You mind if I take a look around Richie's room?"

Deena gave me a puzzled glance. "Why?"

"I don't know."

"Cops were already here," Tons said. "They can try and pin whatever the hell they want on him, it ain't gonna do anybody any good now. What's the point?"

I nodded. "I'd still like to look around. If you don't mind."

He shrugged. "Who gives a damn? Go ahead."

"I'll show you," Deena said. "But be quiet. Kristine is sleeping." She led me past the dogs to the back of the house. The one large window faced the East so the room was relatively dark. Either someone had cleaned his bedroom or Richie
Harraday
had been an exceptionally neat kid. The top of the dresser had been kept well-polished. There was a rifle rack with two BB guns over the headboard. Directly on top of that was another rack with three fishing poles.

On the far wall rested a tack board covered with the usual: stickers, pennants, and group photographs. I realized I'd never seen a picture of Richie
Harraday
and asked Deena to point him out. She chose a family shot down by the river: Tons had a beer in one hand toasting the camera, his other arm thrown around Deena, who was smiling seductively, hair alive in the wind. I got another charge from her, seeing those bedroom eyes, and wondered how she'd wound up with a guy named, at his best, Tons, and at his worst, Maurice. Richie stood a couple of feet to one side of Deena, a noncommittal smirk on his face. I didn't know what I'd expected, but he looked more average than I would have thought: wavy brown hair, round face like his brother,
Beverly Hills 90210
sideburns thick and well-trimmed. He was just a rather clean-cut looking kid, and if I had a baby sister I would've preferred that Richie took her out than the enraged, acne-riddled maniacal Dean.

Deena grinned sadly and pointed out a couple other photos of Richie. "This one was taken at the sheet metal factory where Tons works part-time."

"Did Richie work?"

"Nah, not really. He picked up a few bucks here and there, but nothing steady. He tried but never got his diploma. He would have graduated last year, but he had to take summer school and Richie wasn't the type to give up his summers for anything."

I didn't want to search Richie's room while Deena was present but she made it obvious she wasn't about to leave. I tossed the room anyway, starting in his closet. Nothing unusual, just clothes and ordinary hideaway junk. Drawers of his dresser were the same, as were the two shelves beside the tack board. Nothing struck me as odd until I opened his night stand. There was an open box of condoms.

"I think maybe he had a girlfriend after all," I said.

Deena frowned. "Hell, anybody can get laid. It only costs a couple bucks."

"Would a shy kid like Richie go to a pro?"

"I can't imagine it, really, but if he had a girlfriend he never brought her home or talked about her. Why wouldn't he have told me?"

"Was he gay?"

The narrow eyebrows moved liked spiders. "If Tons heard you ask that he'd beat you to your knees.”

“That's not really an answer," I said.

"No, I don't think so. I'm not sure what Richie was, and this is starting to get a little rude for my tastes, if you know what I mean."

"Were you close?"

"I thought we were, but Richie was so quiet you just took it for granted that he had his secrets like everybody. He didn't talk enough about what was on his mind. He kept too much to himself." Her voice had consistently faded as she spoke, until now she was barely whispering. "His funeral's the day after tomorrow, if you want to come."

I looked at his photographs again—a nice-looking boy with a self-conscious smile, his eyes anything but shrewd—and thought, Jesus Christ, kid, how did you end up in my trash?

~ * ~

The roads were slick getting back, melting snow turning to ice as night fell. The sheen of black ice made for especially dangerous driving. I switched on the radio and the newscaster said our streak of one beautiful day was at an end, and we could expect six more inches of snow by morning.

I pulled into Anna's driveway, but decided I should speak with Jim
Witherton
at least once. I'd talked with everybody else I could think of and wanted to be thorough before I told Anna I'd been punched out, stitched in the emergency room, troubled by
Crummler
, involved in a family dispute, and learned absolutely nothing all day. I jogged down to Jim's house. No lights showed through his windows. I knocked, waited, tried again. Still no answer.

I walked back to Anna's and let myself in.

Anubis wandered over and stared stoically at me. I should've brought him to
Harraday's
house to kick the shit out of Fred and Barney. He stepped forward and stuck his tongue out to lick my hand but didn't quite make it. He slurped his lips and turned and went back into the bedroom.

"Jonathan?" Anna called.

"It's me," I said. "I'll be there in a minute." I went to the refrigerator and wished I'd stocked up on beer. The hardest drink we had was milk, so I poured myself a double. I actually had a hankering for some cookies, but I wouldn't be caught dead having milk and cookies in my grandmother's house. Somebody might write me into a nursery rhyme.

Anna didn't want to wait. I heard her throw a book aside and wheel herself out into the kitchen.

"Where have you been?" she said, as close to angry as she usually gets. "Why haven't you called?”

"Anna."

I turned, and when she saw the bruises her face tightened. "You've been in a fight. When? With who? What have you been doing? Explain yourself."

I pulled a chair from the table and drank my milk and she sat next to me. Anubis kept the side of his head pressed to her leg and occasionally gurgled and moaned. I told her what had happened at
Raimi's
and she listened thoughtfully but
tsked
a lot; shudders of irritation run up my back whenever she
tsks
me.

"Are you in much pain?"

"No," I said.

"Did you pound him to within an inch of his life?”

“No, but I've got a much better hairstyle."

"Well," she sighed, "I suppose that is something."

It was odd, but—sitting there and sensing the sharp and keen presence of her strength—I felt especially weak in comparison, a failure by default. She held her finger up like a teacher making an important point about the atomic weight of Bromide. "You shouldn't be off all day probing this case on your own. You know as well as I do how dangerous that can be, and you wear the scars for it. I insist you inform me of your whereabouts and . . ."

"Anna, I'm not ten years old."

"Then I suggest you stop acting like a petulant child, always forcing me to reprimand you because you enjoy it so much. Do not approach this case with such
obstinancy
, Jonathan. The time for that is over, we've dealt with the past. This is a serious matter."

"Case?" I said.

She frowned. "Yes."

"What case? Where is this case you see, will you tell me, please? When the
Degrase
baby was taken there were pieces that didn't fit, there were steps to follow; we caught the infant's aunt in lies and found out she'd snatched the kid and was blackmailing her own sister.

We dug into their past and you stuck it out and kept coming at them from different angles until the woman broke. If
Broghin
and Lowell hadn't been tied up with the bank robbery at the time, they would've spotted it, too."

"We can only hope," Anna said. "But I still have my doubts about that. Don't underestimate your own temerity or the danger it placed you in at the time, as it has before."

"I don't want to go into it again."

"However, the fact remains that the police did not solve the case, and we did."

"That doesn't mean we should go hunting for trouble. There's nothing here involving us so far, just a lot of talk and rumor. You shouldn't get so caught up in playing Miss
Marple
."

Strands of her silver hair caught in the corners of her mouth, and she turned on me as I licked my milk mustache and made me think twice about my ability to outrun her. Her hand shot out and gripped my wrist, and though her voice never wavered there was a pain in there that nearly took me out. "Are you suggesting I'm a senile woman who doesn't know the difference between reality and the irrational? That I cannot distinguish the truth from desultory fantasies?"

I swallowed thickly. "No, I'm not saying that. But I'm doing the dirty work to cover our asses and make sure Richie's corpse in the garbage doesn't really have anything to do with you."

She gave me a thick
harumph
. "I do not need you to 'cover my ass.' In fact, the image is enough to give me chills. Kindly refrain." Anna worried her bottom lip and cleared her throat. "I've never seen you in this state. Obviously you have a great deal more than this"—she didn't use the word "case"—"situation weighing on your mind." She took a breath and held it longer than a champion diver, letting it out slow so that it puffed her hair back around her ears. "I am sorry I haven't noticed, that I've been preoccupied." She looked me in the eye and said quietly, "But you know that if you ever need to speak with me I am always available to you."

"I know. It's not your fault."

"Then, please, dear, tell me."

I didn't know what to say. "I'm getting a little tired of it. I'm sick of always feeling like there's something chasing me. I'm not a cop or a private detective or a mystery writer who stumbles into real life crimes. I'm just a bookseller."

"Oh, you say that with such a sense of loss." She was taken aback and the sorrow lined her face. "You are far more than your designated career, Jonathan. You've proven that several times over the last half decade. You've a passion for justice surpassing that of most law officers. You also care about people, especially the people of this town."

"Of course I do," I said, "but that has nothing to do with this."

"It has everything to do with this."

"I'm not so sure."

"What happened today?" she asked.

"I'm not so sure about that, either," I said.

The sun had set and the kitchen had grown dark while we talked. I put on the light, a headache beginning to clamp the back of my skull.

Anna scratched her neck, leaving fine white line trails. "It's been a long time since you've been to the cemetery.

"Yes."

And that was that.

She said, "I'll get our dinner," and moved to the stove.

We ate lamb chops and Anubis eyed me woefully. I had a lot to talk about with Anna but didn't know how to begin again; she wouldn't push. I washed the dishes and took Anubis for a walk in the park and the two of us sat by the pond while the snow started to come down. When I got back I reread
Kosinski's
Steps
and didn't like it as much the second time around. I got ready for bed and slept and woke in a dark fury, hearing my mother's neck crack, slept a little more, and woke again, the stitches pulling painfully whenever I turned in my sleep. My watch said 12:30. I got up.

Anna was in the kitchen, robe loose around her waist. "I couldn't do more than nap a half hour at a time," she said, "so I decided to make myself a hot cup of milk."

"People really drink it like that?"