Cemetery Road

by Greg Iles

  “Max told you I was Kevin’s father, didn’t he?” I say softly, trying to steer his anger away from Jet.

  In the roaring silence of Paul’s shock, the back door opens. Max Matheson walks through it, a pistol in his hand. The upper left quadrant of his face and skull is a Pollock painting of purple and blue, and his left eye is so swollen I can barely see it.

  “What the hell happened?” he asks. “Paul? I heard a shot.”

  I back away from the door until the island stops me, and Jet follows. I have a feeling Max’s life is now measured in seconds. Then again . . . I thought that last night, on Parnassus Hill. All I know is this: I need the gun from the drawer.

  Chapter 52

  Paul takes a step toward his father, partially blocking my view. But as Paul speaks to Max, and Max meets his eyes, I move left and slide open the drawer that holds the .32 automatic that Nadine insisted I take this morning.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Paul demands. “How did you get out of the hospital?”

  Max steps deeper into the kitchen and says, “The way you stormed out of my room, I was worried you might do something crazy. So I yanked out my IVs and got down here as fast as I could. I nearly passed out near the county line, but I made it.”

  Paul’s back is to me, but I can see skepticism in his posture. “What did you drive? Your truck was here in Bienville.”

  Max doesn’t miss a beat. “I went down to the employee lot and found a guy dropping off his wife for a shift. I waved two hundred-dollar bills in his face and asked if he could get me to Bienville in thirty minutes.” Max touches the wrecked left side of his face. “I think this got me the ride. The guy felt bad taking my money. He drove eighty-five all the way to my house, and I got my truck there.”

  While Paul digests this, Max sweeps his eyes over the room, taking in the scene with military efficiency. He and Paul are on the far side of the table, Jet and I between the table and the island. Max looks surprised to find us alive.

  “I thought for sure you’d shot this Jody bastard,” he says, waving his gun at me. “Did you show them the video?”

  Paul answers without looking at him. “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  I slide the pistol a little farther behind my leg.

  “And what?” Paul says.

  “What did they say about it?”

  Paul shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Max’s eyes narrow. “Doesn’t matter? What are you talking about?”

  “I been thinking, Pop. I think the best thing is to get a DNA test on Kevin. I won’t tell him what it is. Just routine blood work for a sports physical.”

  Max’s face betrays astonishment. “Why the hell would you do that? I told you where that’ll lead. Them taking Kevin from us. From you. They’re playing you, son. A DNA test is a bell you can’t un-ring.”

  Paul nods as though he understands, but his voice remains firm. “Still . . . I think it’s the best thing. Just to be sure.”

  I take a chance by speaking to bolster Paul’s position. “A DNA test is the only thing that can settle this beyond doubt. And it will prove Jet and I are telling the truth.”

  “Of course he’d say that,” Max argues. “He’ll tell any lie he can think of to get out of this room. And remember, the DNA test tricks you into proving Kevin belongs to him. You’ve got to end this now. If you don’t have the sand for it, I’ll do it for you.”

  Paul faces his father with surprising grit. “Two minutes ago, I was an inch from killing Marshall. If it turns out he’s been lying to me all this time—if he’s Kevin’s father—I’ll kill him. But I want to be sure.”

  Anxiety bleeds into Max’s face. He’s shifting his weight from foot to foot, and his eyes flit from Paul to me and back.

  “What about you, Pop?” Paul asks in an eerily calm voice. “You fine with a DNA test?”

  Max stops shifting. “I’ve told you how I feel about that.”

  “I mean a DNA test on you. You and Kevin.”

  Max Matheson was always the coolest customer I ever knew. But in this moment, his legendary composure deserts him. The truth in his eyes is beyond concealment. He has wanted his illegitimate son for so long that he can’t hide what he feels—and it’s not the emotion of a grandfather. Tallulah’s words come back to me in a rush: You can’t hide the sun behind a candle—

  “What the hell have these two been saying?” Max demands.

  Paul shrugs again. “I’m just asking a question.”

  “You’re wasting time is what you’re doing! Marshall’s got a gun right there behind his leg. He’s just waiting for his chance.”

  In what may be the last risk I’ll ever take, I toss Nadine’s pistol onto the floor near the table. “I don’t want to hurt anybody,” I say evenly. “All I want is the truth to come out. And I don’t think we should have a conversation about paternity while everybody’s armed.”

  “What do you think about that, Pop?” Paul asks. “You gonna drop your gun, too?”

  A nervous laugh from Max. “Hell, no. Marshall’s probably got another pistol in one of these cabinets. You’re not thinking straight, boy.”

  I take a step toward the table. “Why don’t you own up to what you did, Max? For once in your life? Thirteen years ago you raped Jet in the guest room of your house, while Paul was passed out in the den.”

  Max blanches. “That’s a goddamn lie! Is that what she said? It was rape?”

  “You’re damn right,” Jet says with unalloyed hatred.

  Max knows we’re lying, and that knowledge has driven him to rage. But by responding instinctively, he’s acknowledged that he had sex with Jet. I need to keep pushing him in that direction. On the other hand, if Paul’s not ready to defend us, pushing Max could get us all killed.

  Paul is staring at his father the way a bull once stared at me when I slipped through a fence and tried to sneak past him to a pond. I’m not sure Paul caught the full implication of what Max said, but he senses that his father has been lying to him.

  “I hate to say it,” Paul says, “but I can see that happening. I’ve seen you watch Jet’s ass while she walked, concentrating so hard you don’t even know where you are.”

  Max turns up his hands. “She’s got a great ass. So what?”

  Paul rocks back and forth like a man who wants to pace but has no room to do it. “Jet says you raped her,” he intones, not taking his eyes from Max’s face. “Marshall says the same thing.”

  Max shifts his gun to his left hand, then holds up his right as though taking an oath in court. “On your mother’s name, Paul—it’s a lie.”

  Truth has its own power, and Max spoke it with a prophet’s conviction. But while our accusation of rape is technically a lie, the truth of Max’s obsession with Jet is not. Max is consumed by a hunger—a sort of blood greed—to possess both Kevin and his mother. Paul may not know this at a conscious level, but the most primal region of his brain is pulsing with new awareness. He studies his father for a while longer, then looks back at Jet.

  “That was either a damn good performance, or he’s telling the truth.”

  Jet’s face has regained some color, and her dark eyes move from man to man. When her gaze finally settles on Paul, she holds her hands out before her, almost like an enchantress casting a spell.

  “Think about our life together,” she says. “Think of everything you know about me. Then think about your father. Who’s the liar, Paul?”

  His bloodshot eyes betray deep conflict. “Until tonight, I’d have said Pop. But you’ve lied from the beginning about Marshall.”

  “Damn right she has!” Max exults. “She’s been whoring for him ever since high school. Junior high, probably.”

  Paul’s gaze remains on Jet. “You still say he raped you?”

  “Think how Max treated your mother,” she goes on. “There aren’t many ladies like Sally left in this world. But Max screwed every woman who’d lie down for him, even her close friends. And think how he treated
you. Always tearing you down, cutting your legs out from under you—”

  “Don’t listen to that!” Max roars, and his gun rises as he glares at Jet. “I won’t apologize for being a man. But I loved your mother, goddamn it. You know that. Sally knew it!”

  “He killed her, Paul,” Jet says with pitiless conviction. “He either shot her or drove her to suicide. Whichever it was, he had the same motive—to silence her forever. Sally had figured out the truth about Kevin. I hate to admit that to myself. It kills me. But she knew Max had fathered Kevin. She saw that he wanted Kevin to raise as his own, and he wanted me for a wife. Sally would never let that happen. That’s why she created that cache everybody’s after. She couldn’t bring herself to kill Max in cold blood, so she did the next best thing. She protected you and Kevin the only way she knew how. She gave her life to protect you, Paul.”

  My God, I think. She’s finishing what she started with that hammer—

  “Don’t let her poison you like this!” Max pleads, and for the first time I hear fear in his voice. “This is what women do. They turn us against each other. She’s poison, Paulie. Remember that video? She’s humped your best friend a hundred times in this house. Right in this kitchen.”

  “Paul?” Jet says in a voice as soft as a prayer. “If I’ve committed a sin, it’s that I never told you he raped me. I was terrified of what would happen. I thought you might kill him and end up in prison. That would have killed Sally and destroyed the family. So I kept silent. But as horrible as what Max did was . . . I loved Kevin.” Jet’s face softens with undeniable love. “He’s my precious baby, no matter how he came to be. So I can’t look back and say I wish it never happened, no matter how bad it sounds. He’s our son, Paul. Max was nothing.” Her face hardens with implacable fury. “But he can’t let go of me. He’s obsessed. It’s Max who poisoned this family—Max who’s a threat to Kevin. I think that’s what drove me to Marshall in the end. I can’t live with your father’s sickness anymore. Not another day.”

  Paul’s face is terrible to see in this moment, but he believes her. Jet looks back at Max with perfect serenity, knowing she has won.

  What will he do? Max stands at the threshold of violence. Could he shoot Jet before Paul reacts? No. He’d shoot Paul first. He’d have to.

  His gaze moves from Jet to Paul, to me, then back to Paul once more. Survival instinct burns like phosphorus behind his blue-gray eyes.

  “Come here, Paul,” he says in a paternal tone. “I need to tell you something these two can’t hear.”

  “Don’t, Paul!” I say sharply, surprising myself. “He can say anything he wants from right there.”

  Max’s eyes cut to me for a furious instant.

  “Something’s wrong,” I think aloud. “Get your weapon up.”

  “Fucking drama queen,” Max mutters, his eyes finding Paul’s again. “I hoped I’d never have to tell you this. But they’ve left me no choice. You want the truth? All right, yes—Kevin’s my son. Anybody with eyes can look at that boy and see it. I never told you because I knew it would break your heart.”

  Paul’s mouth is hanging open. “How do you know he’s yours?”

  “I had a DNA test done when he was a baby. On a hair from that baseball cap I gave him. He’s mine, Paul, same as you are. Kevin’s your brother.”

  “Half brother,” Jet corrects him. “You son of a bitch.”

  Paul’s face has gone slack with horror.

  “But,” Max goes on, “I never raped her. That part’s a goddamn lie. I never stole pussy off a woman in my life, and Jet’s no different.”

  Every atom of Paul’s being resists this claim. “You’re telling me Jet slept with you because she wanted to? She had an affair with you?”

  Max shrugs. “That’s not how it started. At first I was doing you a favor, strange as that may sound now. You and Jet, both.”

  “A favor?” Paul just looks at him. “Tell me about this favor you did me.”

  Max rakes his left hand over his stubbled chin. “It’s not complicated. Jet told me how much trouble y’all were having conceiving a child. She was worried you might kill yourself. I was too, I won’t lie. I know what war does to men. And your mother was a nervous wreck, worrying about you. Those were tough times in the Matheson house. Jet told me you wouldn’t get your plumbing checked by the medics and you didn’t want to adopt. Which I totally get, by the way. These days they wanna give you a Mexican baby or even a nigger. We figured the only way to pull you out of your tailspin was to give you a son. Your own son. A blood descendant. A reason to live. Best one there is. And we did.”

  Listening to Max now, it’s tough to imagine Jet deciding to sleep with him to get pregnant. But that was thirteen years ago, and Max has probably changed a lot since then. A lot of friends I grew up with have begun to become their parents as they age: Gen X slackers morphing into racist xenophobes they would have hated in their twenties.

  “It was that easy, huh?” Paul says, avoiding the third rail of this conversation. “One roll in the hay, and you did what I couldn’t do in four years?”

  Max struggles to portray an emotion he’s never actually felt: compassion. “There’s no fault to that kind of thing, Paulie. It’s just medical. Like who gets cancer and who doesn’t. There’s no reason to it.”

  Paul knows as well as I that Max doesn’t believe that. More than once I’ve heard him tell a father of only daughters: “Lemme know if you need some help getting a son over at your place.” Usually on the sideline at football practice.

  “You’ve all been lying to me,” Paul says. “For years. I want out of this goddamn nightmare. I want straight answers.” He turns to Jet. “Did he force you? Or did you give yourself to him?”

  “He raped me,” Jet says with conviction.

  Paul turns to me. “You believe her?”

  “I saw him try to rape her again last night, on Parnassus Hill.” This, I realized earlier today, is not strictly true. I saw Max attack Jet, and I later saw her ripped blouse. But I can’t be sure he was trying to rape her. He may have been trying to kill her. But the truth will not save us now.

  As Paul turns back to his father, Max restates his basic argument. “I’ve been with a lot of women in my day, Paul. You know that. But I’ve never forced one yet. Not once. I damn sure never raped your wife. And I can prove it.”

  How the hell can he prove that?

  “You shouldn’t have lied about me,” Max says to Jet, who suddenly looks afraid again.

  “How can you prove it?” Paul demands.

  Max lowers his head like a priest preparing to deliver last rites. Then he looks up, his eyes hard. “How do you think? I can tell you what she likes between the sheets.”

  The room temperature drops ten degrees.

  “All right, I’ll bite,” Paul says. “Let’s hear it.”

  Max looks directly at Jet while he answers. “When you go down on her . . . she likes to open the hood herself, so your fingers are free to work up her tailpipe.”

  A shudder of recognition goes through me, leaving nausea in its wake. As Paul and I stare at each other, white-faced, Max nods with triumph. “She comes harder that way. Right? Would I know that if I raped her?”

  Jet’s face has lost all color.

  As crudely as Max spoke, he told the truth. In the first moment our eyes met, Paul and I shared the certainty that we’ve both serviced Jet in this way, and at her request. Apparently, Max has, too. What Paul feels I can only guess. But what’s devouring me from the inside is the knowledge that less than an hour ago, Jet lied to me when she “confessed” how Kevin had been conceived. The “pragmatic” transaction she described as undertaken solely to produce an heir has turned out to be something else entirely—as Tallulah intimated to me this morning.

  “My automotive analogy confuse you boys?” Max asks with a fraternal smile. “She likes to part the curtains herself so you can work on her backyard plumbing.”

  “Shut up!” Paul yells, but he’s looking
at Jet, who is crumbling before our eyes. Red blotches have appeared on her face and neck, and tears are pouring down her cheeks. It’s a reaction to what she sees in our faces, I realize, a reflection of shame and revulsion.

  “He’s lying,” she says in a tiny voice. “I mean . . . not about that. You’ve both been with me. But I’ve never done that with him. Never. How can he know that?”

  “How indeed,” Paul says in a dead voice.

  “Please,” she beseeches us. “Please believe me! He must have watched us with cameras or something. He’s been stalking me. You can’t believe him.”

  Paul looks back at her with something akin to pity. “I wouldn’t have. But there’s no other way he could know that.”

  “There has to be! This is sick. Please—”

  “Boo-fucking-hoo,” Max says in a mocking voice. “At least now we know where we stand. All that matters now is Kevin. And I know one thing: this whore is never getting custody of that boy again.”

  Jet looks wildly from Paul to me, like an accused witch in search of a champion.

  “She’s his mother,” I say quietly.

  “Lots of whores are mothers,” Max observes. “What’s your point?”

  “Help me,” Jet begs, looking from Paul to me.

  Max steps toward the back door. “Time to put an end to this bullshit. Come out to the patio, Paul. I don’t want these con artists to hear what I’ve got to say to you.”

  Alarm bells are clanging in my head. “Don’t do it, Paul. Do whatever you want about Jet, but send Max home. Something’s not right.”

  “You ain’t right, Goose,” Max says, raising his gun and aiming across the table at me. A trace of a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “The only person in here who follows your orders is Jet, and you were third in line, ace. I wonder who’ll be next. You look like you might have soured on her a little bit.”