Nightshade

he was seeing something else. The boy’s next words confirmed it: “My dad said it was going to be my first trophy.”

Finally he looked up, and as their gazes met, Rudman felt a chill. Matt’s eyes held an expression the old man had never seen before. There was a flatness to them — an emptiness — that made him take an instinctive step backward.

“Everyone thinks I killed my dad,” Matt said, his voice dropping so low that Rudman wondered if he even knew he was uttering the words out loud. “And maybe I did,” he went on. “Maybe that’s why I want to mount it — to remind myself of what I did.”

* * *

THE SLAMMING OF the back door made Joan Hapgood’s body jerk reflexively in one of those convulsions that usually occur only at the moment when both the body and the mind are on the very edge of sleep. Except Joan hadn’t been asleep at all — she was in the kitchen, thinking about what she and Matt might have for supper. Then, as she smelled the aroma of meat loaf wafting from the oven and saw how dark it had gotten beyond the windows, she felt oddly disoriented. How had it gotten so late so quickly? And when —

Her thought died as Matt stepped through the door from the mud room and she saw the bloodstains on his shirt. For a moment she could do nothing at all — neither speak nor move — as questions tumbled through her mind.

Where had he been?

How long had he been gone?

And what on earth had he been doing?

But a moment later the paralysis that had seized her passed. She took a hesitant step toward him, instinctively reaching out as if to help him. “Matt? What happened? What…?” Her question faded to silence as Matt’s eyes narrowed and sparked with a glint of anger.

“I’m fine,” he told her, but the tension in his voice belied the words. “I took the buck’s head over to Mr. Rudman’s, that’s all.”

Joan felt dizzy. The buck? Then she remembered — the deputy who brought them home a few days ago had said something about putting it in the shed. But surely Matt couldn’t be talking about that deer.

“Dad said it was going to be my first trophy,” he said. The anger in his eyes was matched by the truculence in his voice.

Joan listened numbly, barely able to grasp what he was saying, as Matt told her how his clothes had gotten stained. Surely he couldn’t really want to have the deer’s head mounted? Just the idea of it hanging in the house made her queasy. To have it reminding them every single day of what had happened last week…

She shuddered.

And the sight of his clothes — the dark smears of blood —

“Take off your clothes,” she said, her voice trembling. “Don’t even take them upstairs. Just take them off and leave them on the washing machine.”

For a moment she thought Matt might challenge her, but then, as if he’d come to a decision, some of the anger drained from his expression. He disappeared through the door to the laundry room, and a minute later she heard him going up the back stairs. Only when his footsteps had faded did she go to the laundry room herself.

He had left the bloodied shirt and jeans on the washing machine, just as she’d asked. But eyeing the crumpled mass, she wondered if she shouldn’t just burn them instead.

Just take them outside to the old incinerator, put them in it, and burn them.

But even as the thought came into her mind, she rejected it. What had she been thinking? The clothes weren’t ruined — they only had a few stains on them. She would just put them in the washer, turn the machine on, and forget about it.

She reached for the clothes, but before her fingers could close on them, she hesitated again.

Did she doubt him? she wondered. Did she think he was lying? A chill passed through her as she remembered the doubt she felt when she found Matt in his room and he told her about the rabbit hanging on the shed wall.

The rabbit that hadn’t been there.

Stop it! He’s a good boy, and he wouldn’t hurt anyone or anything, and he wouldn’t lie. He’d never lie!

But even as she tried to reassure herself, the doubts kept flicking back at her. Flicking like so many tiny darts, picking at her, piercing tiny holes in the shield of confidence she was trying to build.

What had happened to the rabbit Bill had given Matt so many years ago?

What could have happened to it?

“No!” She spoke the word out loud, as if the sound of her voice could drive the demon thoughts from her mind. Snatching up the shirt and jeans, she opened the top of the washer and shoved the clothes inside, then added detergent and bleach.

She closed the lid and pressed the buttons to set the machine.

Finally, refusing to listen to the questions still spinning through her mind, she pulled the knob to start the machine.

CHAPTER 17

GERRY CONROE SLOWED his car as he approached the gates to Bill Hapgood’s house.

Not Bill’s, he silently corrected himself. Not anymore. Now it’s Joan’s. Joan’s and Matt’s.

But no matter how many times he reminded himself, it still didn’t seem possible. Bill Hapgood had been his best friend for as long as he could remember — they’d done everything together, from the time they were little boys right up until the night before Bill had died. They’d been as close as brothers — closer, in fact, since the only thing they’d ever disagreed on had been Bill’s decision to marry Joan Moore. His knuckles turned white as his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. Wrong! The whole thing was wrong! He’d told Bill he shouldn’t marry Joan. “It’s not really Joan,” he’d said when Bill told him of his plans. “It’s that boy of hers — we don’t know who he is — who his father was. What kind of stock he comes from.”

Bill’s expression had hardened. “We’re talking about a little boy, not a colt,” he said.

“But he’ll never be your son,” Gerry insisted. “If you ask me — ”

“I didn’t ask you,” Bill cut in, his voice taking on an edge that warned Gerry not to push the issue any further. “I asked you if you’d be my best man. And that’s all I asked you. So will you do it, or do I have to find someone else?”

That was the end of the argument, and for the last ten years Gerry had kept his misgivings to himself.

Now, ten years later, Bill Hapgood was dead.

Worse, it was starting to look like the boy would get away with it. Dan Pullman showed no signs of even arresting the boy, and the way things were going, the whole thing might be chalked up to a hunting accident.

Accident!

As far as Gerry was concerned, a direct shot to the center of Bill Hapgood’s forehead couldn’t have been an accident. And everyone knew how good a shot Matt was — Bill had taught the boy himself.

For just a second Gerry was tempted to turn in at the gates, drive up to Bill’s house, and confront Matt right now. Confront him, and get the truth out of him. But then he imagined what his wife would say: “It’s not up to you, Gerry. What you think doesn’t matter — it’s what Dan and the prosecutors think that counts, and they say they don’t have a case against Matt.” He could feel Nancy’s eyes boring into him as clearly as if she were sitting beside him. “Why are you so sure Matt killed him on purpose? What if you’re wrong?”

I’m not wrong, Gerry told himself. What happened to Bill was no accident. But still he didn’t turn in at the gates. He continued to drive on to his own house, where he