A Cup Full of Midnight (32 page)

This time, I just felt bad.

The center of my chest itched where they’d attached the wire.

I climbed out of the surveillance van and into the Silverado. The surveillance team slammed the door I’d just come out of and revved the engine. Frank gave them a wave and followed me to my truck.

“Be careful,” he said. “I don’t want to have to explain to my boss how I let you get yourself chopped up into little pieces.”

“I’m touched by your concern.”

He chuckled and headed for the Crown Vic. He and the surveillance team would park a short distance away so the Eddingtons wouldn’t see them and get spooked. I pulled the Silverado all the way up into the Eddingtons’ driveway.

Doug Eddington met me at the door. “Hannah’s lying down,” he said. “I didn’t see any need to wake her.”

He didn’t offer me a drink this time. We went into the living room and sat across from each other in soft, salmon-colored chairs.

“So,” he said. “You had some questions.”

It wasn’t a real undercover operation. Eddington knew exactly who I was and what I was there for. If I wanted the truth from him, I’d have to get him rattled, make him think I had a royal flush instead of just a lousy pair of twos. I didn’t think he’d rattle easy.

“Last time we talked, you told me your only contact with Keating was when he was treating your son.”

“If you want to call it treatment.”

“But actually, you called him twice the day Razor died. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon.”

His gaze met mine. Unwavering. Sizing up the enemy? Stalling for time? “You want to know why I called him?”

“The question occurred to me.”

He shifted his weight and plopped one ankle onto the opposite knee. Cleared his throat. “Actually . . . The first call was from Hannah. It’s a rough time for her, coming up on the holidays. She was clearing out Chase’s room and it got to be more than she could handle.”

“Why call Keating? Wouldn’t he be the last guy she’d want to talk to?”

With one finger, he traced the pattern on the crocheted doily on the arm of his chair. “I guess she wanted to talk to someone who’d known Chase. Then she called me at work and I came straight home. Got her calmed down. I called Keating that afternoon to let him know she was all right and wouldn’t be needing him anymore.”

It was a good story. I wondered if he’d practiced it.

I wondered if it might be true.

“She found the letter, didn’t she?” I asked. “That’s what upset her.”

Silence. He blinked once, very slowly. Then he said, “What letter would that be?”

“The one Razor sent to your son. The one that told him if he’d take his own life, he’d be one with Razor forever.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and for a moment his eyes filled with a terrible sadness. Then it was gone. “You think my son killed himself over a letter?”

“I think he was confused. I think Razor had been working on him a long time, got him all tangled up inside. The letter just pushed him over the edge.”

“Pretty farfetched theory.”

“My nephew got a letter just like it.”

He gave me a long, flat look. “Is your nephew dead, Jared?”

“No, but—”

“Well, then.”

“It was a near thing.”

His fingers drummed on the arms of his chair. “You want me to say Chase got a letter like that and that’s what drove him to kill himself? I guess it’s possible.”

“But you never saw the letter.”

“I couldn’t say there was one, no.”

I couldn’t say.
Careful words. A careful man. Not a lie, exactly, but not entirely the truth.

“Razor kept a journal. He mentioned sending the letter.”

“I see. And you’re certain it arrived?”

“Razor seemed to be.”

He uncrossed his legs and put his hands on his knees. “You think I had something to do with that man’s murder?”

Still couldn’t bring himself to say the name. “Didn’t it occur to you that one or more of Razor’s neighbors might have seen you and Keating at his house that afternoon?”

His smile was forced, but his gaze never wavered. “Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. Or so I’ve heard. Besides, they couldn’t have seen what wasn’t there.”

“I know you were careful. But it was the middle of the day on a Friday. How could someone
not
have seen?”

He looked down at his hands. Then he said, “You’re bluffing. If I’d been identified by neighbors, I’d be talking to the police, not you.”

“Smart man,” I said. “I’m impressed. But I think you’re going at this the wrong way.”

“How do you mean?”

I walked over to the end table and picked up a picture of Doug and Hannah with their son. “It could be argued that Razor was responsible for Chase’s death.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “It could be argued, yes.”

“Wife calls you, tells you about this letter she found that almost certainly contributed to your son’s suicide. You go over to confront Razor. Things get out of hand. There’s no doubt in anybody’s mind that Razor was scum. Any defense attorney with half a brain could convince a jury you were out of your mind with grief when you killed him. Panicked. Called Keating to help you clean things up. That’s how I’d go about it.”

“Why do you assume I did it?”

I held up the photograph. “You had the best motive.”

He plucked again at the frayed patch. “I bet you can’t count on both hands the people who wanted him dead. Besides, I heard on the news they got the guy who did it.”

“Elgin Mayers. He did some bad things, but he didn’t kill Razor. Besides, we know Keating was there that afternoon.”

“Then why aren’t you talking to him?”

“We did. And we know there are calls from your phone to Keating’s shortly before and shortly after Razor died.”

“Circumstantial evidence.”

“Sometimes that’s the best kind. But I agree. You might get away with it, since it’ll be easier for a prosecutor to pin it all on Keating. It was an ugly murder. They may even go for the death penalty.”

A strangled cry came from the doorway, and I turned to see who had made it. Hannah Eddington stood just inside the room, one hand pressed to her lips, the other gripping the doorframe so hard her knuckles turned white.

“Honey . . .” Doug got to his feet, pushed past me to get to his wife. “You should be upstairs. Resting.”

“Is it true?” she asked me. Her knees buckled, and she steadied herself against the door. “Alan is in trouble?”

Alan. Not Mr. Keating.

“He’s in trouble,” I said.

She started to speak, but Doug put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. His eyes were wild. “Hannah. Don’t.”

“We have to,” she said. “We have to. We can’t just let him—”

“Hush,” he said. “This guy’s grasping at straws.”

I took a step toward them. “You remember what you said earlier, Doug? About how if the neighbors had ID’d you, you’d be talking to the police right now instead of me?”

“So?”The affable demeanor was gone and there was nothing in his face now but a smoldering hostility.

I unbuttoned my shirt and showed him the wire. “You are talking to the police.”

“Oh, God,” Hannah said.

Doug looked at the wire and then back at his wife. All the air seemed to leak out of him, and he suddenly looked smaller.

“All right,” he said. “All right. You’ve worked it all out. I killed him. I thought I’d covered everything, but I guess I was wrong.” His hand gripped Hannah’s shoulder so hard it must have hurt.

She put her arms around his waist and buried her face in his shirt. Took a deep breath, as if somehow she could draw his strength in through her lungs.

“Sssh,” he said, stroking her hair. “It’s all right, honey. It will be all right.”Then Hannah lifted her face to look at me, and Doug said, “Honey, no, don’t.”

“It’s the right thing,” Hannah said. “We should have done it a long time ago.”

“No,” Doug said, and looked at me. “Turn that thing off, and I’ll tell you everything.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

I
magine a Saturday in late November. The air is brisk and crisp. It smells of juniper and burning leaves. Hannah Eddington goes into her dead son’s room. Smells the stuffy air and wonders if there still might be some trace of him that she can savor, a breath of aftershave perhaps. Or even a sweaty gym sock. Thanksgiving has passed, one empty holiday over, hundreds left to sleepwalk through. All the Christmases, the Easters, the St. Patrick’s Days, all the July Fourth fireworks, all the Mother’s Days. Can she be a mother without a child? And if not, what does that make her?

This day is just one more day to get through. Time to let go of the past.

She begins by sorting through his clothes. Throw this away or give it to charity? Ah, this one has a hole in the knee, out it goes. His favorite shirt. Perhaps she’ll keep that just a little longer.

Then on to his other possessions. Most of it she gently packs into a box. She’ll have Doug take it to the Goodwill in the morning. But some things are too precious to give up. The pennant he won playing Little League. His drama award. A sketchbook full of comic book-style drawings and classical nudes of well-muscled young men.

Her husband can’t admit their son was gay, but Hannah knows better. She knew even before what she thinks of as The Terrible Thing. It doesn’t matter. He could be gay or straight or bi or non. All she wants is for him to be back.

In the back of his closet, she finds his high school yearbook. Picks it up. Strokes it lightly with her fingers. No way will she give this up. Who except herself would want it anyway? She opens it up, wanting to read the cryptic, silly messages his friends have scrawled inside.

Something flutters out from between the pages. A piece of unlined paper. She picks it up and reads it.

Dear Chase,
it begins,
I am sitting at my bedroom window, looking at the moon and wondering if it is the same moon you see . . .

As she reads, the blood roars in her ears. Her heart races. She can hardly breathe. This letter . . . She is holding her son’s death in her hands.

She looks again at the signature. The man is a monster. How could he have done such a thing? Was it a joke, perhaps? She could understand that, a joke gone horribly wrong. She picks up the phone, dials the first three digits of her husband’s work number.

Puts the receiver back in its cradle.

No. Doug will kill the man.

Instead, she calls her son’s therapist. A nice enough man, she’s always thought, though Doug has never trusted him. Now the questions simmer in her mind.
Did Alan know? Could he have stopped it from happening?

Her conversation with Keating is unsatisfying. He seems horrified at what she has learned. But she still has to know what would drive someone to write such horrid things to her son. She needs to believe it was an accident. At least, that’s what she tells herself.

An open wound, she drives to Razor’s house and rings the bell. He answers in a black silk robe tied at the waist. As if from far away, she hears herself speak. “I’m Hannah Eddington. Chase’s mother.”

The weather is brisk, and she has pulled on driving gloves and a light jacket. He doesn’t offer to take her coat.

She holds the letter out for him to see. “Why?”

“Oh, that.” He laughs. “I just wanted to see if he would do it.”

Her face feels warm. Her throat is too tight. It hurts even to breathe.

“Let me get you a glass of water,” he says, but his voice is mocking.

She turns away to hide her face. Not a joke, then. Not an accident. In front of her is a shiny black curio, and on it she sees only one thing. A small curved dagger with a black handle. The edge looks very sharp.

She doesn’t plan to kill him, even then. It’s just a thought, dancing at the edge of her mind. Somehow, the dagger finds its way into her hand. It feels nice there. Safe. With it, she could . . .

No.

She feels his warmth behind her. He seems to radiate a kind of heat. Perhaps that was what first attracted Chase to him. That raw, primal heat. She has to get away from him before she is consumed by rage. Get away. Run away. Put down the knife and tell him she has things to do.

Then he says, “You know what I loved most about your son? He had such a nice tight little ass.”

She turns to face him and the knife comes up.

Then there is only blood.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

M
y cell phone, on vibrate, buzzed against my hip. I closed my hand over it to further mute the faint sound and tugged aside the curtain to wave at the police van down the block.

“He was a monster,” Doug said. “Hannah did the world a favor.”

“Maybe.”

“And if you repeat any of this, we’ll both deny it.”

“It doesn’t matter what you deny,” I said. “We have Keating. You think he’ll go to prison for you?”

“A good lawyer—” he started, and Hannah laid a hand on his forearm.

“I killed a man,” she said. “And it was wrong. We can’t let Alan take the blame.”

Doug gave his head a heavy shake. Directed his next words to me. “I won’t let her go to prison, McKean. You know what it will do to her.”

The phone buzzed again, and I tugged it off my belt and flipped it open to see the caller ID. No surprises there. It was Frank.

“I better take this,” I said. “If I don’t, he’ll think I’ve been taken hostage and storm the battlements.”

They nodded in unison, his arm around her shoulders, her hand clamped to his wrist.

I pressed the
talk
button and said, “McKean here.”

Frank’s dry rasp came across the handset. “Glad you’re not dead yet. You got what we need?”

“Almost.”

“Get it on tape, McKean. And get out here. Fast.”

“What’s happening, Frank?”

“Just do it,” he said, and broke the connection.

I turned back to the Eddingtons and said, “It’s time.”

Doug’s hand tightened on Hannah’s shoulder. “You aren’t listening. You charge her, and I’ll twist up your case so bad the D. A. will wind up in a straitjacket. You know the evidence is iffy. No one will do a day of time if you charge her.”

“A man was murdered. We can’t just let that go.”