excuse.”
“He never stopped loving you,” I told her.
“I know. He told me.”
“In the note,” I affirmed.
“No.” A small smile through her tears. The first time I’d seen her lips curl upward. “On the phone. About a month ago.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I couldn’t take it anymore. I’ve been a stupid, frightened woman, but I was getting stronger. A few months ago, my husband came home with brochures from church. For a ‘conversion camp.’ ”
“I know,” I said. “Richie told me about it.” Another bending of the truth. It was Lucas who’d relayed that story to me. But you figure out how to describe Lucas’s role in all this. Tell me a good way to explain Richie’s adulterous relationship with a guy he met while shooting skin flicks. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
“I always suspected Ellen-his sister-was in touch with Richie. My husband had warned her not to be, of course, but she’s a grown woman now. Living on her own. And she is strong. Stronger than me. She confronted me about the camp. How could I even consider such a thing? she asked. She called it ‘torture therapy.’
“She was right. I told my husband the idea was off the table. It was the first time in a long time I’d said no to him. But I insisted. I told him if he even called them, I’d leave and move in with Ellen. I used a word I’d heard on Judge Judy’s show. I said it was ‘non-negotiable.’
“He spent a few days yelling, slamming doors, and grouching even more than usual. But eventually, he promised me to drop it.
“I got Ellen to give me Richie’s number. She’d told me she warned him about the possibility of being abducted by the camp’s ‘counselors,’ and I didn’t want him to worry anymore. No, more than that. I wanted to be the one to take that burden off his shoulders.”
The tears continued to stream down her face. The front of her robe looked like she’d spilled a glass of water on it, soaked as it was in her sadness. But her voice was even and clear.
“I’d given him so little,” she said. “I’d failed him so. Having this one thing to offer him, this tiny piece of good news, was a start, I hoped. A chance for me to begin making it up to him.
“We talked for hours. Hours. He was so happy to hear from me. So happy. As if I weren’t to blame. As if he didn’t have every reason to hate me.
“But he didn’t hate me. I don’t know why, or how, but he said he understood. I’ve never been prouder.
“He told me all about how he was trying to make it as an actor. About the temporary jobs he took to keep himself afloat. The office positions, the sales work. But his dream was to be on screen.”
Of course he told her that. I used to tell my parents I made my living as a computer consultant. It seemed easier, and kinder, than telling them I earned my wages as a rent boy.
You can only get away with that for so long, though. Like snow in the city, the lies start out white but get dirtier and uglier over time. Soon, you’re standing up to your ankles in nasty slush, your feet wet and cold. What you save in convenience you lose in integrity.
It was a lesson Richie didn’t live long enough to learn.
Mrs. Dawson’s call to Richie explained why he’d told Lucas he was no longer worried about his parents trying to “deprogram” him. I wondered if it also hadn’t been the catalyst in his telling Lucas he needed to take a break from seeing him for a while-at least until he made a decision about Charlie. Nothing like a call from your mother to get the guilt train running down the track. It was also around the time Richie was talking about getting out of the jizz biz. Maybe he was reevaluating everything.
Which, as far as I was concerned, made it even more unlikely he’d killed himself while all doped up-whether by accident or on purpose.
Mrs. Dawson encouraged me to talk. How did Richie look? Was he content with his life? Had he found friends? Did he have someone… special? Was it me?
I stuck as close to the truth as I could. She accepted any evidence of Richie’s happiness with the joy of a person dying of thirst receiving a glass of water.
She brought out pictures. Richie as a baby. Richie in the tub with his sister. Richie dressed like Batman for Halloween. Richie’s high school yearbook, where he appeared as a freshman.
Wait.
I looked at the cover of the yearbook.
For a moment, it seemed to come alive, wriggling in my grasp like a magical tome in a Harry Potter novel.
My hands were shaking.
With excitement. With fear. With the shock of discovery.
Tony was right.
People kill for one of three reasons.
Money.
Sexual jealousy.
Thrills.
Now I knew which one got Richie murdered.
“This may seem strange,” I told her, “but can I take this?”
“My lord,” she said. “After all you’ve given me? The gift of your coming here? Showing me that Richie had friends who cared enough to reach out like this? You can have them all. Hell, you can have the whole fucking house!”
Her eyes flew open in shock and she made a sound that scared me. A startled, staccato bray than soon turned to laughter. A lovely laugh at that, musical and joyous, which had me laughing, too, although I didn’t know why.
“I’ve never,” she said, trying to get the words out between laughs, “used the… ‘F word’ before. In my whole… life! It feels… it feels like…” She couldn’t find the word.
I could. Another “F” word. It felt like freedom. Freedom to do and speak as she pleased.
But she’d have to figure that one out on her own.
Mrs. Dawson had a lifetime of subservience and suppressing her feelings to put behind her. I had the impression that before the year was over, that god-awful recliner, along with its toxic occupant, would be living somewhere else.
39
In the past, this is when I’d have done something stupid. Namely, gone after the killer myself. That kind of thing has gotten me in trouble before.
It turns out that most murderers aren’t particularly friendly when confronted with their crimes. Go know.
This time, though, I wasn’t about to make the same mistake. I had a cop living right here with me-one who was already on the case. When the right time came, I’d tell him my theory about who’d killed Brent and why. I might as well let him do the confronting-after all, he got paid for it. Plus, as I may have mentioned before, he carried a gun.
It wasn’t the time, though. First, there was another victim I had to get out of harm’s way. The poor guy had been through enough, recently. I had to warn him.
“It’s good to see you,” Lucas said, giving me a warm hug. Unlike the first time we met, though, this hug was meant for me, not Brent. “Thank you for coming.”
“Thanks for having me over,” I said. “We have to talk.”
“Sure,” Lucas said, looking a little nervous. “About what?”
“Brent.”
