Blood Relations (50 page)

“Give me a break.” Chuckling, Tolin walked around his desk. “I was in court.”

A black leather desk diary occupied a spot next to the telephone. Ryabin went over and picked it up.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He flipped backward a week. Thursday afternoon, clients from two to four o’clock. Friday morning, a trial starting at nine. Friday afternoon Tolin snatched the book away and slammed it back on his desk. “Why don’t you leave before I file a complaint with Chief Mazik, whom I happen to know personally.”

Tolin crossed the room. He tilted slightly to the left, as though protecting cracked ribs.

At the door to his office he said, “Good luck, Detective.

I hope you find the guy. You can take this as gospel: It wasn’t me.”

Now, standing in the lobby at police headquarters, Gene Ryabin glanced at the big clock over the elevators.

6:20 P.m. Miss Dorn was nearly half an hour late.

Yesterday afternoon-for the fifth time-he had gone by Klaus Ruffini’s house on the bay side of the island, and for the fifth time Ruffini wouldn’t let him through the gate. This morning his lawyer, Gerald Fine, had complained to the chief about harassment.

At noon today Nestor Lopez had noticed the bodyEL

guard, Franco, filling up Ruffini’s red Cadillac convertible at a gas station on Fifth Street. He blocked the car with his unmarked sedan and threatened him with arrest for obstruction of justice if he refused to cooperate with a murder investigation. Where had Franco been at 10:00 A.M. on Friday, the precise time of Marty Cassie’s death? Having breakfast with Klaus and a few of his friends, including a producer for Miramax Films. Call him up and ask him. What about later in the day? Or the preceding afternoon? Franco had no answer for that.

Now Ryabin would ask questions of Caitlin Dorn. Often the girlfriend knew things. No longer a girlfriend.

Ryabin assumed that Sam Hagen’s reappearance had ended that relationship, And now Sam and his wife had separated. What a drama this had become.

Dina, who had lost both son and husband, would seek peace in her childhood home. And Sam and Caidin …

Ryabin worried about them. Such love affairs often turned into tragedies. No one could help them now. Ryabin could only watch with the detachment of a man in the autumn of his life, safely beyond reckless passion. His hand went to his shirt pocket, absently caressing his pack of cigarettes.

There were five remaining. He decided to have one after his interview with Miss Dorn.

He paced for a while in the lobby, then looked again at the clock. 6:33. Caitlin Dorn wasn’t going to show up.

When Sam let her in, Caitlin slid her hands up the lapels of his jacket and locked her arms around his W neck. She stood on tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “You don’t know how much I want you right now. Only four days and it seems like a month.” She knew he could smell the perfume she had touched to her skin in the elevator.

Her dress was pale green and gauzy, with a low neckline and a woven belt.

Sam’s kiss was brief, but then he held her tightly. She could feel the strength in his arms, holding her as though it really had been a month since they’d seen each other.

Or as though it would be a year till the next time. Over his shoulder she noticed the room: terribly anonymous, s e thought. But he had said to come to the Holiday Inn downtown, so she hadn’t expected a suite with a marble bathroom.

When he let her go, Caitlin walked to the dresser to put down her bag. She withdrew a box of crackers, some cheese, a bottle of red wine. “I thought this would be good. It’s nearly dinnertime. And look. More candles.” They filled her hands, six colored-glass holders.

He stood at the end of the double bed, the bed still tightly made up, and Sam in his dark suit. She put the candles back on the dresser. “What’s wrong?”

“We need to talk, Caitlin. Sorry it has to be here.” His tone was so neutral she couldn’t read the emotion under neath. “Not much of a room, is it? I couldn’t think of anything else. Neither one of us has our own place to go to.”

“No, it’s all right.” Then she noticed his right hand.

He was wearing a wrist brace and a bandage over his knuckles. “Sam! What have you done to yourself?” She went to see.

He turned his hand over, looking at it, the thick palm and fingers. “I got this at Frank Tolin’s office. It hurts like hell.” He made a short laugh. “I’m too old to be brawling.”

“Why did you hit him?” She touched his injured hand.

“What did Frank say to you? Something horrible, no doubt. I told you he would.”

Sam took so long in answering that she knew what he was going to say before the words came out of his mouth. At the core of her body she felt a sudden coldness. The light filtering through the curtains seemed to fade.

“You said he would lie to me. I told myself that’s what it was. A lie. A bomb he threw at me to even up the score, so why not just ignore it?” Sam exhaled. “I tried to, Caitlin.”

There were two chairs at the small table by the windows. He sat in one of them and motioned for her to have a seat, but she remained standing. He casually crossed his legs.

“Frank said you slept with Matthew.”

When Caitlin didn’t reply, Sam said, “I’ve been a trial lawyer for almost twenty years. I thought I was better at picking up on things. You told me he wasn’t gay.

How were you so sure about that? You said you’d taken nude pictures, and it went fight over my head.

In those portraits you showed me, he was wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. I didn’t pay any special attention at the time. But the way he looked into the lens-at you-”

Caitlin grabbed the votive candles off the dresser and threw them back into her bag, heard the crack of breaking glass. Pieces flew out onto the dresser. “I’m not a defendant in one of your damned trials. I’m not on the stand.

How could you do this? To ask me to come here. Not telling me it was for this.”

She was reaching for the doorknob when he caught up and swung her around. She gasped and raised an arm over her face.

“Caidin, stop. I’m not going to hit you.” His left hand tightened on her elbow. “You’re going to tell me what happened.”

“Oh, God, Sam. Could it possibly make a difference?”

He put her on the end of the double bed, standing over her. “I wish I’d done what you told me to. Stay the hell away from Frank. Remain blissfully ignorant. But I didn’t. I’m trying to be fair, to understand.”

“No. Frank has poisoned us.” She looked up at Sam.

“He knows you so well, and he knew what would hurt you most.”

“And what were you thinking of, Caitlin, when you slept with my son? Did you realize that he knew about us?

He did. His mother told him. Did you and Matthew talk about it?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t tell me he knew about us.”

“So what was it?” Sam leaned against the dresser.

“He was good looking. Young. But you’re still young, aren’t y . A beautifu woman. When I was a kid, I had a thing going with a woman who lived down the road. I used to take care of the orange trees in her backyard. She started coming outside in her swimsuit, getting a suntan, and one day she asked if I’d like to come in for a cold drink.” He laughed. “But she hadn’t been sleeping with my father.”

“For God’s sake.” Caidin turned away.

“When you were with Matthew, was it me you wanted?

Or maybe you were still so angry at me for ending our affair that you wanted to get even.”

“How simple. Yes, maybe that’s it.”

“Tell me what it was, Caitlin.” A piece of blue glass from one of the broken votive candles lay on the dresser. Sam picked it up. “Was it Matthew’s idea? At his age, I was a spec five in the army. I’d worked in my groves since I was twelve years old. I had to earn every dollar I spent. Matthew had everything he wanted, and he couldn’t care less about it. The fact that you and I had been together wouldn’t have meant a damn thing.”

7 Sam tossed the glass into her canvas bag. “No. Maybe it did. What better way to make a point than to screw the woman I used to sleep with.”

“Stop it!” She stood up from the end of the bed and pushed past him. “What did you tell me, Sam? ‘I love you, Caidin. Be patient. It will all work out this time, Caitlin. I promise.”

“

“I didn’t know about this!” he said. “You deliberately withheld the truth.”

She laughed. “And you would have been so understanding, wouldn’t you?”

He closed on her, furious. “My son-the only son I will ever have-is dead. He drank. He took drugs. He got on his motorcycle-after he’d had six or eight shooters at a bar-and he might as well have blown his brains out. So when I ask you-you, Caidin, who were sleeping with him and presumably knew his state of mind-when I ask you what the hell he was doing, then I expect to get an answer.”

Sam gripped the back of a chair, then winced and pulled his right hand away. He held it gingerly with the left and cursed under his breath.

The room fell silent, only the air conditioner buzzing under the window. Caitlin said, “You think he wanted to die.”

“I don’t know what he wanted,” Sam said.

“It was an accident.”

“That’s what I used to tell his mother. Nothing caused it, Dina. Just accept it and buck up, honey. Nothing you can do. It’s not your fault.”

a Caidin sat down in the other chair, still trembling little. “You know something? You’re not what I thought, either. Well. I guess we all see what we want to see.”

“I guess we do.”

Sam sat on the corner of the bed with his forearms on his knees. His suit coat pulled on his shoulders. His shoes were heavy wing tips with worn-down heels.

She smiled slightly and looked away. She had mended her bra strap with the wrong color thread in the rush to get here. They might as well be sitting naked with the curtains pulled open all the way. Candlelight had been prettier.

She looked back at Sam. “I met Matthew about a year and a half ago. I don’t remember the first time we met because he probably didn’t impress me as being different from any other young male model. He was handsome, but so many of them are. He called himself Stavros. Just that.

Stavros. I didn’t know who he was. Then he asked me to do his composite. He said he’d heard about my work, and that his real name was Matthew Hagen. He said he was from Miami, and his father was a big deal at the state attorney’s office. I almost told him I was too busy, find somebody else to take his pictures. And besides that, he was as arrogant as hell. But I needed the money, so I did it. And I guess I was curious about him, too. Sam Hagen’s son.

“We saw each other in the business. He was on a few shoots I did. Or I’d see him by accident on the street.

That sort of thing. We got to know each other. I didn’t think of him sexually. I’d seen so many beautiful young men, after a while they all run together. Anyway, he was too young. And he was your son. That put him off limits.

“What surprised me at the time-but now I understand it-he was interested in me. Nothing heavy, just flirtation. He’d kid around, and that was it. We’d talk about whatever would come up. I’d been in the fashion industry for a long time, and I gave him some advice. I lent him money. He usually paid me back. I knew he was into cocaine, but I wouldn’t let him have it around my place.

Later on I found out how bad it was and that he was shooting up, too. He said he didn’t do it a lot. He could control it.

“What I always sensed about Matthew was his anger.

Sometimes I’d feel it was directed at me. Now I can see that it probably was. One night he came to my apartment, drunk, and so angry he was shaking. He wouldn’t say much. Then he kissed me. I pushed him away. He was very strong, and he held me down on the sofa and it wasn’t gentle, but I didn’t want to scream and have everyone come running. And for a minute I was thinking about you, and it was so awful. I said, ‘Matthew, please.

Please don’t.” He stopped. Just like that. He got up and left. A couple of days later he came back to apologize. Now I understand. He’d known about you and me all along. He hated me. Hated and desired me. And, yes, it was crazy. It was all tied up with you and his mother and me and what he thought was the wrong I had done to all of you.

“Even with that, we became friends. It wasn’t sex. Or maybe it was, in some way, and maybe we both knew it, but there was a line there, and we didn’t cross it.

“Matthew had a hard time making it as a model. He was undisciplined and impatient. I tried to help. I made him a new composite for free, and he looked terrific. He got some work, but it was so hard, finding his way in a business where, really, nobody looks beyond the surface. He was on and off drugs, he was drinking. He got a few good jobs. That was when he bought his motorcycle. He was beginning to be known. People were starting to ask for Stavros. Then I didn’t see him for a while. Someone told me he was involved with Sullivan. I was surprised, and yet I wasn’t. You might want to blame Sullivan for what happened to Matthew, but you can’t, not completely. We all share complicity in what happens to us. Oh, yes, Sullivan had his despicable moments, but he did care for Matthew, as much as Sullivan could have cared for anyone.

“I don’t know how it happened. I never asked. As I told you, it was brief. I heard through someone else that they’d argued. Then Matthew came to my apartment to pick up some prints I’d made for him. He was having trouble again. He had no money left. I fixed him a sandwich because he hadn’t eaten all day and he was hungry. We had some wine and we talked.

He said he wanted to give up. He didn’t know what to do. Sullivan had told him he’d never make it. ‘Stavros, you’re a pathetic little faggot, an irresponsible child.” That’s what he said. Matthew couldn’t shrug it off because there was enough truth to cut deeply. He was so ashamed. He started to cry. My God, like everything in him had been smashed and it would never be put right again.

“Yes, I slept with him, I did it because he needed me, and he was yours, and I loved him because he was part of you, and because of who he was, himself.

Matthew. I told him to stay with me awhile. He did, for nearly two weeks. That’s when I took the photographs.