Hunter's Moon (18 page)

There was always something that felt odd to CJ about going to a library, and it had everything to do with the fact that most people had their introductions to the library when they were children, and then they went through a period where going to the library was the furthest thing from their minds. Once they finally, as adults, returned to it—perhaps with their own children—there was the feeling of stepping into a place where they no longer fit. For those who attended college, where a good library would serve as their best study partner, this process was circumvented. But that didn’t eliminate the oddness they felt when stepping back into a place where, at one time, they couldn’t see over the counter.

The smell was the first thing that struck CJ, taking him back to his childhood in the same way getting out of the car at the house on Lyndale did his first day in Adelia. Still, that was the only thing similar. The library had undergone a renovation at some point, and it looked modern now, with an extra wing to accommodate new rows of books, another wing set aside for children, with chairs and couches punctuating the décor. They’d obviously gotten a grant of some kind and had made good use of it.

CJ wasn’t sure why he was here, except that it was to do some research on the county prison system. This morning at Maggie’s had convinced him that he was more likely to find something useful here with all of the archived newspapers and microfiche. He could probably use the Internet to look up most of what he needed, of course, but libraries did something to him; they stoked his creativity.

He quickly found a table and set to work, locating a thick book about New York prisons, as well as an
Adelia Herald
from 1998 that talked about the first prison built and the hiring blitz that had filled more than a hundred positions.

He had spent maybe an hour researching when a voice that was etched in his memory pulled him away from the book he was reading.

“Charles Jefferson Baxter, what on earth are you doing here?”

The small jump he did in his seat was purely a reflex, and he belatedly hoped she wouldn’t take offense to it, but it was definitely warranted. Ms. Arlene had always had a gnomelike appearance, but after the passage of so many years she looked like one of those garden gnomes that had suffered under the elements for a very long time. In all other respects save one, though, she looked exactly the same, which gave CJ the impression that he was a boy again, lighting up in the library bathroom. The difference today, however, was that she was smiling, and that was such an odd image it made him wonder if he’d ever seen her smile before.

“Hello, Ms. Arlene,” he said, trying to keep astonishment regarding her continued existence to himself.

“My goodness,” she said. “A famous writer, right here in my library.”

“If you remember,” CJ said, immediately realizing that her decades-long prohibition was no longer in effect, “you kicked me out of here when I was in high school and told me never to come back.”

Ms. Arlene touched her hand to her chest and
tsk
ed.

“I did, didn’t I?” She giggled, and the sound was much too similar to a schoolgirl’s for CJ’s liking. “Smoking, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She laughed again, and her eyes took on a conspiratorial twinkle. “I was a two-pack-a-day smoker myself back then,” she confided. “Virginia Slims.”

CJ laughed, then offered a tidbit of his own. “You know, that was the first cigarette I ever had. When you caught me, it turned me off of smoking for years.”

“Then I performed a public service,” she said.

When she finally left his table, after proudly directing him to the local author section, which was comprised solely of his books, he dove back into his research, focusing primarily on the
Adelia
Herald
. It was little more than a small-town rag, but it had an authority lent by the number of years it had been in circulation. With its first edition published in 1834, it held the distinction of being one of the oldest dailies in the Northeast. But that did nothing to make up for the fact that most of the news was pure provincial stuff. The initial article on the prisons was pretty good, though, and CJ was able to glean a fair amount of information about the social and political climate that had paved the way for their coming.

If he’d heard correctly, Richard worked as a prison guard—a career choice that suited him. He’d hate to be a prisoner on his cellblock. He wondered if the injuries Dennis had inflicted on him were of the visible variety and what, if anything, the prisoners would say when they saw them.

He decided not to travel too far down that path. Richard was a man deserving of everything that was bad in this world, and sooner or later people ended up getting what they deserved.

He worked for another hour before returning the book and the newspaper to their places, stopping by the desk to say goodbye to Ms. Arlene, and then heading off to meet Dennis at the house.

Dennis wasn’t around when CJ arrived, so he started where they’d left off the night before, which involved more electrical work. When his cell phone rang he was more than ready for a break, even if it meant listening to Janet berate him some more, and since she hadn’t resumed calling him, she probably had more than her usual share of angst stored up. But it wasn’t Janet. He didn’t recognize the number, except to see that it was a local call.

“Hello?”

“H-hey, CJ.”

“Hey back. Where are you?”

Dennis had to say it twice before CJ got it.

“What are you doing in jail?”

“Your c-cousin filed an assault ch-charge.”

CJ could scarcely find his voice to reply, but he managed.

“Have they set bail?” he finally asked, understanding that his anger wasn’t going to help his friend.

“Yeah, and I was hoping you c-could call my p-parents and let them know,” Dennis said. CJ heard someone on Dennis’s side say something, but he couldn’t make it out, and Dennis responded with what must have been a hand over the mouthpiece. Then he was back. “I have to go.”

“What’s your parents’ number?”

Dennis gave it and then hung up, leaving CJ standing in the middle of someone else’s kitchen, nursing a level of anger he hadn’t felt in recent memory. And since he was making a habit out of making bad decisions, he decided to add another one to the list.

It took him a while to find Richard’s house—a nice, maybe three-thousand-square-foot place in a new subdivision. He parked at the curb, and as he walked to the door he saw movement by the front curtain. The door opened on the first knock.

“You must be Abby,” CJ said.

Even though his cousin’s wife greeted him with a smile, it was appropriate to call her a timid creature. CJ noticed that she was trying to keep the right side of her face obscured by the partially open door, but he’d seen enough to know that Richard had hit her hard—and that he was left-handed.

“Is your husband here?” he asked, trying to keep his voice low, even though seeing Abby rekindled the anger that had ebbed during the drive over.

“I’m here,” he heard Richard say. “Don’t just stand there, Abby. Let my cousin in.”

CJ nodded his thanks as she opened the door and stepped aside. He found Richard in the living room, holding down a recliner that was parked dead center in front of the television. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the sight of his gut, and the fact that there was a single cheese curl perched near his navel, made CJ grimace.

“I suppose you’re here about your Indian friend,” Richard said. He gestured to a sofa that was half-covered in newspapers. “Take a load off.”

“I want you to drop the charges,” CJ said, ignoring the offer.

Richard had gone back to watching TV—a Western—and didn’t respond right away. When he did, his eyes never left the set. “And why would I do that? He coldcocked me and then gave me a few more when I was down. I never even had a chance to defend myself.”

“So now you know what it’s like,” CJ said, parroting what he’d said to Julie earlier, and it was the sort of comment that could pull someone’s attention away from a good movie.

“What did you say?” Richard asked, more than a hint of menace in the words.

“I said you deserved everything you got. Actually, I think Dennis let you off easy.”

CJ wasn’t a large man, certainly not as big as Dennis, but he was bigger than Richard. Too, he was standing up, and not under the influence. He had no doubt he could put his cousin on the ground if it came to it, and he wasn’t sure yet which way he wanted things to go.

Richard knew all of these particulars; a lifetime of picking fights with the weakest prey had honed that skill for him. He would not be baited.

“Get out of my house,” was all he said, and there didn’t even seem to be much anger in the statement.

CJ ignored the directive, taking the seat he’d been offered on the sofa just a minute ago.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” CJ said. “You’re going to go down to the police station first thing tomorrow morning and you’re going to tell them that it was all a misunderstanding—a little roughhousing that got out of hand.”

Before he answered, Richard lifted the cheese puff off of his stomach and ate it, and it took a fair amount of effort for CJ not to allow his disgust to reach his face.

“I don’t see that happening, hoss,” Richard finally said. “What are you going to do—beat me up too? You’ll just wind up in the same cell as your friend.”

“No, I’m not going to beat you up, Richard,” CJ said. He leaned forward, making sure he had his cousin’s full attention, which was difficult because Richard’s eyes were drifting back to the TV. “I’m going to threaten your livelihood.”

The effect on Richard was instantaneous, but CJ pressed on before his cousin could do more than snap upright in his chair.

“I’m sure you’re aware that my brother is starting the last leg of his campaign,” he said. “And he
really
wants my help. Until now, I didn’t think I was going to be able to.” He paused then, making sure that Richard was tracking with him. “But what if I suggest to him that I’d find it a whole lot easier to show up in Albany if a certain prison guard no longer had a job?”

“You can’t do that,” Richard said, yet his voice lacked conviction.

“I can. And he can. He’s a state senator, after all. How hard do you think it would be for him to put a bug in the right person’s ear?”

He could see Richard processing the possibility that things might play out just like that. CJ turned his attention to the movie, letting his cousin know the ball was in his court.

“It’s not right to choose against family,” Richard tried.

It was a pathetic thing to say, and for some reason, hearing it made CJ’s anger build.

“You’re not family, no matter your bloodline,” CJ said, his voice hard. “You’re a bully who likes to hit women. And I’d like to see you get stuck in a jail cell without your club or Taser and let some of the people you so ably serve get a crack at you.”

When all that followed was silence, CJ added, “Without that job, you’re nothing. So if I were you, I wouldn’t take a chance.”

He didn’t wait for Richard’s answer but rose from the couch and saw himself out. As he reached the front door he saw Abby sitting in the dining room, and it seemed she was staring blankly at the wall. She didn’t move as CJ opened the door and walked out.

On the way back to his apartment he thought about her, but by the time he parked the car he’d let it go.

Chapter 13

Daniel was seldom surprised by anything, especially when it came to politics. He’d worked more than one campaign in which the candidate had a skeleton or two in the closet, and it was not his job to pass judgment. It was, rather, his job to either see that the skeletons remained hidden, or to mitigate the risks they posed. It was something he was good at.

What made Graham’s skeleton so unforeseen was that he was a friend. One expected to uncover secrets when delving into the pasts of strangers, not when investigating the childhood of a college roommate. And to make matters worse, the skeleton wasn’t the only thing they had to deal with; there was also CJ.

Daniel found Graham in the study, where he was going over his speech for the hundredth time.

“If you don’t have it down by now, you never will,” Daniel said.

“I’m voting for never,” Graham Jr. said.

Daniel hadn’t seen the boy in the comfortable corner chair— the reading chair, Graham called it—where the ten-year-old was playing a video game.

“Hey, sport,” Daniel said.

“He hasn’t done anything all day but read that dumb speech,” Graham Jr. complained. “He promised he’d play with me.”

“Is that true?” Daniel asked, giving the boy a conspiratorial wink and then frowning at his friend. “Did you promise to play with your son?”

Graham looked suitably chagrined. “You’re right,” he said, addressing Graham Jr. “I’m sorry. But this speech is very important.”

“And if you stress over it too much, you’ll screw it up,” Daniel admonished. “Relaxing a little will probably be more helpful than obsessing over something you’re going to nail anyway.”

Graham looked from Daniel to his son and back, an amused smile on his face.