you that?”
“She was too busy teaching me not to steal and murder. The way I figure it, you and Kyle saw Carl Stipe’s bike outside Ronny Bishop’s house. You knew he would take the shortcut through the woods to get to his house. What a scalp that bike would be, and from the mayor’s kid, no less. It was close to Halloween, right? So you two got your masks and went into the woods to wait for him. How’m I doing.”
“It’s all very fascinating, so far.”
“So Carl comes riding by and one of you shoves a stick through his front wheel and he topples over, headfirst. You should’ve just taken the bike and split, but, of all things, one of you is worried the kid might really be hurt. So Kyle or you go to check on him. A fatal mistake. When you get close, he rips off your mask and sees who you are. Then he starts screaming and struggling. He threatens to tell. You threaten him back. If he doesn’t shut up, you’re going to kill him. Now he’s panicked and struggles harder, screams louder. You ask Kyle to help hold him down, but the kid still won’t shut up. One of you reaches for something to shove into his mouth to quiet him-the stick you used to knock him off the bike.
“You shove it in to scare him, but it’s gone too deep. It snaps. Now the kid’s gasping for breath, struggling even harder because you
He actually started laughing. “If you knew where the bicycle was, you’d have more than supposition and circumstance, wouldn’t you? We couldn’t have that.”
“Okay, all right,” I relented, “you can’t give me any physical proof. I didn’t suppose you would. But I want to know who killed the Stipe kid. You don’t have to say a word. Was it you?”
He shook his head no. He was shrewd. He knew that if he asked me the same question, my reaction would be much the same. It would hold no water in court, but I wasn’t worried about the rules of evidence at the moment.
“I know you were a bright and ballsy kid, Brightman,” I moved on, “but I was confused about the statement you and Kyle made to the cops afterward. Even if you had thought to do it, to go to the cops and feed them a story about a drifter leaving the woods on a bicycle, I couldn’t picture any fourteen-year-old clever enough to know just exactly what to say. Most kids would have given themselves away, saying too much or too little. You and Kyle, though, gave just the proper amount of detail to throw suspicion away from you, but not enough to point at any one person in particular. Then I realized that had to be your father’s doing. He would know what to say, how to say it, and to whom. He would know how to keep your names out of it, how to get the cops to shield your identities. He knew, huh? All these years, he knew.”
Again, Brightman was silent, but his fists were clenched so tightly I thought his nails must be biting into the skin of his palms.
“Then that poor schmuck Martz got picked up by the cops. You and Kyle would probably have gotten away with it without him, but he made it a done deal. When he was unlucky enough to drown, you guys were home free. Your dad waited a respectful amount of time and then got you the hell out of Hallworth. I’m curious, did you and Kyle ever talk about that day? Did you two keep in touch?”
“So you don’t know everything,” he chided. “There’s holes in that bag of yours.”
I ignored him. “Well, did you two talk?”
“Not ever, not once from the day I moved. I put Hallworth behind me.”
“You mean you thought you did, until about two years ago. Then something happened. And here I’m only guessing, but I think I’m pretty close. Kyle must’ve found out he was dying. That fucks with a man’s mind, you know, knowing he’s about to die. It’s bad for a young man, especially one who has murdered a little boy. Maybe that’s why he turned to a life of drugs in the first place. Who knows these things?
“Then I remembered how weird my mom started acting when she found out how sick she was. Suddenly, she remembered the shitty things she’d done to people over the years. There weren’t many, but what few there were ate her like the cancer. She made a list of people she felt she needed to apologize to and either called or wrote to everyone on the list who was still alive. But when you’ve committed murder, who do you apologize to?”
Brightman looked a bit puzzled. “Are you asking me?”
It was my turn to laugh. “Don’t waste your energy on it now. You’ll have to ask yourself that question eventually, unless you plan on living forever.”
“Get on with this or I’m leaving.”
“So Kyle knows he’s dying,” I picked up. “He writes you a letter. Something about how guilty he’s felt all these years since what happened in Hallworth in ‘56 and how he needs to unburden himself before he dies. When people find out they’re dying, they get religion chop-chop. He suggests you do the same before it’s too late. But you two were close when you were kids, so he says he’ll keep your name out of it. You don’t panic. You did that once and it cost a kid his life. No, you’re working on some sort of plan to prevent or delay Kyle from going to the authorities. Then Kyle has the good form to drop dead a little sooner than expected. You think you’re off the hook. Unfortunately, Moira Heaton’s seen the letter or overheard the phone call. I know this for a fact.”
“How would you know that?”
“HNJ1956. It’s a notation I found in Moira’s checkbook under a check she’d written to a research firm. You know that already. Sandra Sotomayor told you all about it. It’s why I got offered reinstatement. It’s why you had Sandra call me up and offer me some bullshit story about the meaning of HNJ1956.”
“She’ll never testify against me.”
“No one’s asking her to testify to anything,” I said. “This is between you and me, remember?”
“Yes, a little chat about compensation.”
“Exactly. You know the funny thing about Moira, Brightman?”
“Was there something funny about her? I hadn’t noticed.”
“That’s my point. By all accounts, she was unfunny, unattractive, and unexciting. But she was a bulldog. When she was curious about something, she wouldn’t let it go. The way I see it, Moira didn’t confront you about the letter. She figured she’d do a little research first. She probably made the mistake of confiding in someone like Sandra, or maybe she asked one too many questions and word got back to you. Once again, you didn’t panic. This time, however, the person on your ass didn’t have a terminal disease. You waited her out, hoping she’d lose interest. Eventually, though, she forced your hand. She was making progress, getting close. That’s why she started asking around about the statute of limitations. You had to get rid of her.”
“Did I?” he said smugly.
“I have to admit, this is the thing I had the most trouble with and the thing I’m still most iffy about. At first, I thought you might actually have paid Alfonseca or somebody else to do it, but that would have been too risky. You would have been far too exposed. No, you did it yourself. You were the only one you could trust to do it right.”
“And how did I accomplish this miraculous feat? Through the use of prestidigitation? There’s the issue of my alibi, you remember.”
“That alibi works only if you accept other facts. Once you open up your mind to alternative notions, you, Senator, become a very obvious suspect. The cops assumed all along that it was Moira that witnesses saw leaving the office that night. But I looked at those witness statements very carefully. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously inaccurate. None of the witnesses got a look at Moira’s face that night. The closest witness was in a passing car. The others were fifty to a hundred yards away. And by the time these witnesses came forward, the papers had already tainted the information.
“Witnesses are suggestible. If you tell them they should have seen a five-foot-seven woman leaving an office at around eight p.m. that’s what they see. That wasn’t Moira leaving at all. It was either you wearing her coat or someone like Sandra or maybe even your wife. Moira was already dead by then, neatly wrapped in plastic. Then early on that Thanksgiving morning, you went jogging before the sun came up. No one would question that. You do it every day. You got in your car, drove to the alley behind the office, loaded Moira’s body into the trunk, and disposed of her. You got home when you were expected, sweaty as usual, but not for the usual reason. Dead weight is always harder to handle than people expect.”
“Bravo! Bravo!” Brightman applauded. “You’re wasting your time in the wine business. You should take up writing fiction. You have quite a flair for it.”
Again, I ignored him. “One problem solved. But for every problem solved, there are two lurking. You
