Blowout (31 page)

Martin eased down into the chair like it was an old friend and stretched out his legs in front of him. As if by habit, he reached into the chair’s side pocket, felt the remote control, brought his hand back up. He didn’t face Savich yet, just looked down at the remote for several moments. Then he splayed his palms on his legs, as if trying to relax. He said, still without looking up, “I lost it. I just lost it. Like Janet said, it’s happened a couple of other times, but I never had a gun before.” He shuddered, drew a deep breath, and at last met Savich’s eyes. “I went out last week to a gun show in Baltimore, and I bought the SKB and a big box of shells.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know really. I felt I had to. Something was pushing me, like it had me by the throat. I felt like something bad was coming.”

“Was it a memory, or dream, what?”

“A dream where everything is black, and I’m hiding, where, I don’t know, but I do know to my soul I have to stay hidden. I know something horrible is happening, but I can’t move.”

“Do you think it had something to do with your mother’s murder?”

Martin looked toward the hole in the living room wall. “Everything was black. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t even tell where I was. I didn’t even know my mother was murdered until I was eighteen.”

“You didn’t know or you didn’t remember?”

“I don’t really know which. All I knew was that she wasn’t there anymore. Sheriff Harms—I remember him really well—he was younger then than I am now—I saw him in my dream when I was eighteen. I actually saw my hand in his. Mine was so small and his was like a giant’s, I do remember that, and he was leading me downstairs and my father and a whole lot of people were there, looking very serious and sad. He handed me over to my father. Then I don’t remember anything, except that we were living in Boston, though I don’t remember moving there, or how or why. Mom was gone, and that was really hard, but my father said it wasn’t our fault she died, that he expected me to be a good, strong, young man.

“After a while I didn’t really ask about her anymore or think about her, accepted that my father and I were in Boston, and I went to school and made friends like any other kid.

“Like I said, I didn’t know anything about how my mother died until I was eighteen. About two months before I graduated high school, I began having nightmares—really violent dreams about people having their throats cut, people being stabbed in the chest—horrible dreams, blood everywhere, and I’d wake up screaming.” He paused, shuddering with memory. “I remember my father came in once. He didn’t say anything, even when I gasped out the dream I’d had. He stood there, stared at me like I was a freak, like he was afraid of me. Then he left, and he didn’t come back when I had the other dreams. I woke up alone and I stayed alone.” Martin looked at Savich. “It was around that time I realized something was really wrong.”

Martin’s father hadn’t said anything about this to Sherlock. Hadn’t Townsend Barrister realized what the dreams meant? Of course he had.

Savich sat forward on the sofa, his hands clasped between his knees. “Later, did you talk to your father about the dreams?”

Martin shook his head. “I couldn’t, and besides, I knew he didn’t want to know. I’d look at him and my two little bratty and normal stepsisters at the dinner table, and I’d think,
I could dream tonight that someone is stabbing Cassie through her neck and cutting Tammy’s throat.
And I could see their blood, their surprise, the looks on their faces and then they’d be dead.

“It wasn’t something I could talk about. They wouldn’t understand. My father behaved as if he’d rather not even have me there, as if he’d rather I didn’t even exist. It was like he was afraid of me.”

“Then what happened? Did you tell your father anything?”

“Yes, I asked him one day how my mother died.”

“Out of the blue? For the first time since she was murdered in 1973, you thought to ask him?”

Martin nodded slowly. “Yeah. It came to me, probably because of my dreams, I’m not sure. But it came out. Suddenly I had to know.”

“What did your father say?”

“He told me there’d been a terrible accident on the day of my sixth birthday. My mother had slipped and fallen on a kitchen knife, and she’d died. And he’d brought me here to Boston, so we could both recover, start over again. He called her death an accident. Can you believe that?”

“I gather you didn’t believe him?”

“No, I could see in his eyes he was keeping something back. I realize now he didn’t want my half-sisters or my stepmother, Jenny, to find out, and be afraid, maybe be afraid of him.

“So I went off to search on my own. I looked up the Barristers in old newspaper files. Remember, this was before the Internet, back in 1984. But it was enough to point me back. I remembered a road sign clear as day—Blessed Creek. I knew it was a little hick town in the Poconos, in northeastern Pennsylvania. I drove out there. It didn’t take me long looking through archives from that time to learn that she’d been murdered, that my father had taken me away to Boston right after the funeral.”

“Is that why you disappeared after your high school graduation? Did you think your father had something to do with it?”

Martin wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Listen to me, Martin. You were only six years old when she was killed. Kids have an amazing ability to block things out that could harm them. And that’s what you did. You saved yourself by repressing everything that happened until you were older, more ready to face up to what happened.”

“I know, I know.” He was twisting his hands together, and Savich knew that for the moment, they’d accomplished enough.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, Martin. Show me how that remote works. It looks pretty fancy.”

F
IVE MINUTES LATER
, Janet Thornton came into the living room to see her husband showing the FBI agent how to work a remote that she hadn’t yet figured out. She was carrying a colorful wooden tray, coffee, tea, and a small plate of cookies on top of it. She poured Savich some tea, arched a questioning eyebrow as she handed it to him.

“Straight is fine. Thank you.”

The tea was delicious. He hadn’t realized how cold he’d been. This was so mundane, so normal, sitting here learning about a remote, drinking tea, and knowing he’d find out soon enough why Martin had left the day after he’d graduated high school. For now, drinking tea was just fine. He drank, felt the warmth all the way to his belly, and thanked God he was still alive. “My wife, who’s also an FBI agent, is outside with the police and your neighbors. I’d like to call her, tell her that everything’s okay. Also, I don’t want the cops to worry, maybe fire something in here. Okay by you, Martin?”

Martin drank his coffee, said nothing, only nodded.

“That’s a very good idea,” Janet said as she sat herself on the other end of the sofa, as close to her husband as she could get without climbing into his lap.

Sherlock answered before the second note sounded in
Bolero.

“Sherlock, it’s me. Martin is disarmed, we’re talking, everything’s under control. He’s calm and rational, telling me what’s happened to him. Please tell Chief Gerber and Joe Gaines, the hostage negotiator, they can stand down, at least put away their weapons. There’s no reason for anyone to get hurt now.”

He heard her speaking, then she was back on the cell. “Chief Gerber won’t go for it. You need to tell him yourself, Dillon.”

Savich did, slowly, easily, making certain Chief Gerber knew he wasn’t under any duress.

“Yes, I’m sure of it. In fact, I’m drinking an excellent cup of tea at this very moment. There’s a plate of chocolate chip cookies in front of me. Janet Thornton is fine, as are the girls. I think it would be best if you dispersed the neighbors, told them that everything is all right. I don’t want them looking at Martin like he’s some sort of freak who will flip out when he walks out of here.”

There was a long pause, then Chief Gerber said, “I’ll do that, Agent Savich. Your wife said that if I don’t believe you I might as well hang it up and sail to Fiji. Not a bad idea, really. But you’ve got to know that none of my people are leaving here until I see Martin Thornton in custody and everyone safely out of that house.”

“Believe me, Chief Gerber, I appreciate that. Thank you for your cooperation. That will take some more time. Oh yes, would you please tell my wife it will be a little while longer?” He shut off the cell and slipped it back into his jacket pocket.

“You don’t pull any punches, do you?” Janet Thornton said, a dark eyebrow arched up a good inch.

“No reason to. Both of you know exactly what the score is, what’s going on outside. Chief Gerber is a good man. He’ll deal with things. As for your neighbors, I’m thinking you guys should move away from here. People don’t forget the sound of a shotgun, or police cars all over the neighborhood, not when they’ve got kids around.”

“No, you don’t pull any punches,” Martin said. “Yes, we’ll move. I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.”

“Of course not,” Savich said. “Do you feel like getting back to it, Martin?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me why you disappeared right after you graduated, without saying a word to your father.”

“When he looked me right in the eye and told me that my mother’s death was an accident, something died inside. I simply couldn’t accept who he was or what he was. I remember very clearly thinking my old man had lied to me, flat-out lied, not because of me, mind you, but because of his wife, Jenny, my stepmother, and their two daughters. I realized I had nothing to do with his new life. If he could, I think he would have swept me under the carpet or tossed me out with the trash.”

“My wife, Agent Sherlock, said that isn’t true at all. When she spoke to your father, he was frantic to know where you were.”

Martin’s clear brown eyes, very intelligent eyes, had no shadows or madness in them now, just disbelief. “It may have suited the moment. I really don’t believe him.”

Savich nodded. “You know him better than we. But tell me why you erased yourself.”

“Erased myself,” Martin repeated slowly, as if tasting the words. “Yes, I suppose I did that. I got a whole new identity. It’s not hard to do if you live in Boston, and are willing to take some chances. I approached people on the street—fences, drug addicts—until I found the people who were willing to sell me an identity. I bought my name—Martin Thornton—got a social security number, a driver’s license, everything I needed, and then I hitchhiked out of Boston, didn’t tell a single person where I was going. Actually, I didn’t know myself.”

“Where did you go?”

“I went out to Seattle at first, got a job pumping gas, started working my way through school. The dreams stopped then. It seemed that when I found out about my mother’s murder, I didn’t need to dream about it anymore. The funny thing is, I wanted to remember my mother, I wanted to know what she was like. I wanted to know who murdered her and why. But the dreams never told me that.” He stopped suddenly, stuck out his hand for Janet to take, and said, “I dated. I slept with my first girlfriend when I was nineteen. I felt like a man. I felt normal.”

“You are normal,” Janet said, and there was absolute conviction in her voice. “What happened to you, Martin—your mother’s murder, being uprooted, not having your father tell you the truth—you dealt amazingly well with all of it. If I’d started having those dreams, I would have ended up in Boston Harbor or slitting my wrists. You didn’t do either of those things. You survived.

“I don’t blame you for leaving your father, for chucking all of it. The only thing is, I wish you had told me. We’ve been married eleven years, and you never told me. What Agent Savich said about the truth—he’s right, only the truth will do. I wish you’d told me so I could have helped.”

“I couldn’t,” he said, looking directly into her eyes. “I never wanted to think about him again. I never wanted it to touch our lives. I didn’t want it to hurt you, or us.”

“Well, aren’t you a bloody fool!?”

He actually grinned, squeezed his wife’s hand. Savich held very still, knowing he was invisible to them in this moment.

A few moments later he brought them back.

“Martin, the first episode, when was that?”

Janet Thornton sucked in her breath. “What a horrible word.”

Savich shrugged. “But I think it fits, more or less, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Martin said. “Now I can say that. Six months ago, it just hit me like a hammer. All sorts of wild things careened through my head. I thought I was going crazy. It lasted only a couple of hours, but I scared the hell out of Janet. She talked me down, thank God. The girls weren’t here that time or the second time either. That was about two months ago, and that one lasted longer.”

“You were here, at home?”

“Yes, Janet and I were having dinner—hot dogs and baked beans, potato chips—all my favorites. It was the day after my birthday. Janet thought we should have our own private celebration, without the girls. They were at a sleepover at a friend’s house. I suddenly remembered this was exactly what I always loved to eat when I was little. I started crying. Janet held me, didn’t stop talking to me, and finally, after a while, everything began to fade.”

Savich looked thoughtful. “The day after your birthday. You nearly remembered something.”

“You think so?”

“Maybe. Then what, Martin?”

“I—I was going to go to a doctor, really I was, to a shrink, but I didn’t know anyone and I was, well, I was ashamed. No, I was afraid of what a shrink would say, afraid I’d end up in a padded cell and my life would be over, all except for those horrible dreams. Believe me, Janet’s been on my case, but—I didn’t go, just didn’t.”

“Doesn’t matter now. If it’s okay with you, Martin, I’m getting rid of that shotgun. I want you to promise me you’ll never as long as you live have another gun in your home.”

Martin looked over to where Janet had laid the shotgun on the floor beside the front door.

“All right. Yes, I promise, Dillon.” He rose, but Savich held out his hand.

“Let me tell Chief Gerber that I’ll be handing out the shotgun so they don’t get nervous.”