A Cup Full of Midnight (21 page)

I got up and scooped him into my arms. “Maybe another time. When you’re feeling stronger.”

“Sure.” Dylan’s voice was bitter. “Whatever you say.”

I couldn’t meet Jay’s gaze.

“Well,” Jay said. His tone was conspicuously bright. It made me feel even more like a shit. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

We spent the morning strolling past carolers in period costume and drinking hot wassail. I pointed out the characters from
A Christmas Carol
, and Paul, having wed himself to the version enacted by Muppets, staunchly insisted that Bob Cratchit was a frog. Dylan, slipping in and out of lucidity, seemed mostly to enjoy himself. A little before noon, he dozed off, snoring quietly, chin on his chest.

As Paul ran ahead to buy a bag of roasted chestnuts, I looked at Jay and said, “About this morning. I’m sorry about—”

“Don’t.” He looked away. “Can’t expect you to be enlightened twenty-four seven.”

“I was an ass. It won’t happen again.”

He forced a smile. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I—”

He held up a hand. “It’s all right, Jared. Really. You’re allowed to be human. Just . . .”

“Just what?”

“Just let’s not mention it again.”

Thanks to the miracle of modern cell phones, I called Randall once and Frank twice, was reassured that Josh was safe and Elgin neutralized. I tried to push thoughts of Judith Hewitt, Elgin’s threats, and Razor’s gutted corpse from my mind and just enjoy my son.

On the way to Pizza Hut for dinner, Paul snuggled in between Jay and me, while Dylan dozed in the backseat, cushioned by pillows, blankets, and the inflatable raft we’d used before.

I glanced into the rearview mirror, and Dylan’s eyes snapped open.

“Never seen a gay man sleep before?” he asked. His voice was weak.

“Just thinking, if you’re tapped out, we can call it a day.”

“No.” He cast a wistful glance in Paulie’s direction. “I don’t expect I have too many of these left.”

“These . . .”

“Days,” he said softly, and turned his face to the window.

Later, while everyone else slept, I booted up my laptop and pulled up a background check program. Starting with Barnabus (birth name Robert Christopher Collins) and Medea (birth name Medina Rhiannon Neel), I worked my way through my list of suspects—criminal records, financial history, driving and employment histories, and more.

Barnabus and Medea came from affluent homes, where youthful indiscretions could be smoothed over with a generous coating of green, but between them, they’d amassed twenty-three speeding tickets and several dozen unpaid credit cards. Barnabus had two arrests—but no convictions—for domestic abuse; Medea had been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital for setting fire to a neighbor’s cat. No mention of whether the cat survived. I hoped it had.

Dark Knight was too young, but his mother had a history. Three DUIs, two bankruptcies, and a conviction for passing bad checks. No jail time. No surprises there—it was penny-ante stuff—and there was nothing to make me think she had the brains or the self-control to stage a murder scene like Razor’s.

Except for a couple of traffic violations, Hewitt and his wife were clean, but a deeper look into Elgin’s past turned up two five-year gaps in which he abruptly ceased to exist. His bio said he’d spent five years as a mercenary, so maybe he’d been out of the country. Or maybe some secret government agency—ours or someone else’s—had helped him disappear.

I shut down the computer, my heartbeat loud in my ears.

Elgin Mayers was beginning to scare the hell out of me.

CHAPTER THIRTY

B
y Monday, the swelling in my lip was gone, and the bruises on my face had taken on a range of hues from greenish yellow to deep plum. As I sat in my office in my ergonomically designed swivel chair with my feet propped on my Wyatt Earp desk, my cell phone rang. I checked the ID. Sherilyn, my friend from the juvenile division.

“Hi, Handsome,” she said. “Got something for you.”

“Byron Birch?”

“I ought to make you take me someplace nice for this one,” she said. “I understand you’re working on that vampire killing.”

“If this is good, you can name the place.”

“It’s good,” she said. “But I’ll let you off the hook this time. Turns out Earl doesn’t like me going out with you hot heroic types. Let’s just say you owe me one.”

“Deal,” I said. “What have you got?”

“Mostly small potatoes. Possession of marijuana. Incorrigibility. Picked up a couple of times for solicitation. Ran away from home three times. His caseworker always suspected there was some kind of abuse in the home. One of the stepfathers, probably. There was a whole string of them.”

It took me a minute to take control of my voice. “You ever meet him?”

“No.”

I said, “Kids like that, they’ve usually got a shell around them. He didn’t seem that hardened to me.”

“His case worker thought he was a sweet kid. Charming. But there was something about him. A lot of hurt, way down deep. So I called in some favors, checked a few files. Turns out there was an incident.” There was satisfaction in her voice. “No charges were filed. The usual story. Married john, doesn’t want his wife to know where he spends his lunch hour.”

“What kind of incident? Come on, Sher. You’re killing me.”

“Oh, all right.” She took a deep breath, and I realized I was holding mine. “It happened last spring, and your boy Byron . . .” She paused for effect.

“Go on. My boy Byron, what?”

“He stabbed a guy. Almost hacked his penis off.”

I squirmed reflexively. “You’re right. That is worth dinner.”

“I’ll take a rain check,” she said. “Who knows if this thing with Earl will work out?”

She gave me the name, address, and workplace of Byron’s alleged victim, blew me a kiss over the phone line, and hung up.

I thought about Josh’s wry pronouncement at the funeral.
Angel Face was hustling tricks way before he met Razor.
A troubled kid with a history of drug use and sex offenses. Possible abuse, physical and sexual, in the home. The kind of background that was a breeding ground for sociopathy.

I didn’t want it to be Byron, but it wasn’t the kind of information you could ignore.

I called the number Sherilyn had given me, asked for Kevin Moreland. Married man. Sexual predator. Victimizer. Victim.

The receptionist had a nasal quality to her voice that grated on my nerves. “Mr. Moreland is in a meeting. If you’ll leave your name and number, I’ll let him know you called.”

“Jared McKean. Tell him I’m a private investigator looking for information on an acquaintance of his. Byron Birch.”

I left her my number. It took exactly three minutes for the phone to ring.

“My God.” His voice was an agitated whisper. “What do you mean, calling me here? Is this some kind of shakedown?”The terminology sounded out of character, as if he’d pulled it from some gangster movie.

“No sir. As I told your receptionist, I’m a—”

“I know what you told her,” he said. “A private detective. How did you get this number?”

“That’s what detectives do. There’s no reason this has to interfere with the rest of your life. I’m curious, though. Why didn’t you press charges?”

“I have a wife. Kids.” His voice dropped back into the whisper. “My God, I have a
career
. If this got out . . .” His voice cracked, and I imagined the sweat breaking out on his forehead. “Just tell me what you want.”

“Just to talk, Mr. Moreland. I’m digging into the kid’s history, and here’s this . . . incident. Surely you can see why it might be important.”

“What? Like some kind of background check? The kid’s a psychopath. Simple enough?”

“Like I said, I’d really like to go over the details with you. I’d be happy to come by your house to discuss it.” I started to read off the address.

“No!” He cut me off. “Look, I’m in meetings all morning. You know Santa Fe Steakhouse on Music Valley Drive? Twelve-fifteen. I’ll meet you there.”

“Twelve-fifteen.” I wrote it in my appointment book. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

M
oreland resembled a weasel with thick, wire-rimmed glasses and a scraggly mustache. He tugged at his tie, smoothed the top of his thinning hair as if to reassure himself that it was still there, and shot a quick, furtive glance around the room. I knew who he was the minute he walked in.

When I waved him over to the table, he ducked his head as if to avoid being recognized and shuffled over. Slid in across from me and smoothed his hair again. I was sure he’d picked this restaurant because, in spite of the lunch crowd, the high-backed booths gave the illusion of privacy.

“Mr. . . . McKean, is it?” he said. “I’m here. Say what you have to say.”

“Wouldn’t you like to order first?”

“I just want to get this over with.”

“Worried about the family finding out, huh?” I shook my napkin out and draped it across my lap. “What I’m wondering is how you managed to keep it from your wife in the first place. A wound like that, I’d think it would be kind of hard to explain.”

He averted his gaze. “I told her it was a random mugging, that they never caught the guy.”

“A random mugger who just happened to take a whack at your johnson.”

“There’s an artery in the groin. I told her he was probably going for that.”

“Uh-huh. Bet she was real sympathetic too, seeing’s how he must’ve been trying to kill you.”

He fumbled with his napkin. Unrolled it too quickly, and the silverware inside clattered to the table. “I don’t see how this kind of sarcasm is necessary.”

“It makes me feel better.” I leaned across the table and stared into his eyes until he looked away. “I mean, you lie to your wife, maybe give her some god-awful disease, and in the process, you exploit some underage kid who’s living on the streets.”

“It wasn’t like that!” His cheeks reddened, two crimson spots against the pastiness of his face. “The Birch kid . . .
he
came on to
me
.”

“Yeah, those street punks are like that. Living hand to mouth. Anything for a couple of bucks.”

“Exactly,” he said, missing the sarcasm this time. “It wasn’t like I picked him up off a
playground.
”

“So he wasn’t exactly an innocent.”

“Not at all.”The waitress brought us menus and filled our water glasses. When she had gone, Moreland licked his lips and took a sip. “He’s been around the block a few times, take it from me. That innocent little baby face? Nothing but pure evil underneath.”

“So how’d it happen?”

He took another sip of water and dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. A droplet hung, glistening, in his mustache. “I was on my lunch hour, and I happened to take a walk down around Centennial Park. He stopped me. Asked if I wanted a blowjob. Naturally, I refused.”

“Naturally.”

He glanced up to see if I was mocking him, and this time I managed to keep my expression neutral. “He came on stronger. Told me he hadn’t eaten in two days, really needed the money. So finally, I agreed.”

“So it was a humanitarian gesture.”

“Exactly. I was just trying to help the boy out.”

I refrained from asking why he didn’t just hand the kid a twenty.

“So we go to the back of the park, to the little island in the middle of the duck pond. It was spring, and there was a lot of vegetation, so we were pretty well hidden. He . . .” Moreland coughed, glanced away. “He unzipped my pants and started to . . . you know.”

I nodded.

“I had my eyes closed. Enjoying it.” He had the decency to look embarrassed. “And all of a sudden, I felt this horrible pain. I thought he’d bitten it off.” He shuddered at the memory, and I felt my own testicles draw up in sympathy.

“So much blood,” he said.

“What did he do then?”

He gave an angry laugh. “Took my wallet and ran away. I managed to staunch the bleeding and stagger to the parking lot, where someone was kind enough to call 911.”

“You told the police this?”

He shook his head. “I told them the same thing I told my wife. That it was just a mugging. I went so far as to identify him in a photo lineup. But they knew I hadn’t told the whole truth. I could tell. I realized if I testified, it would all come out, how it had happened. I’d be ruined, you understand? My marriage, my career . . . I might even be charged with statutory rape.” His voice faltered, and his fingers tightened on the edge of the table. “I told them I didn’t want to press charges, that I wasn’t certain enough of the identification.”