by Susan Calder
“Do you—?”
He raised his hand, palm toward her, not looking up. His brow creased. Was it possible that, unlike Vincelli, he could see the value in pursuing this?”
To occupy her hands, she fished the music box out from under a pile of papers. His souvenir from New Orleans, a city she’d love to visit someday. The day was golden Felix’s story began. She tried to picture a young Hayden beneath the graying hair, filled-out jowls, and deepening facial creases. Like the rest of them, he had once been a student, with hopes and dreams. He had known Kenneth at university.
The discard pile was growing. Over halfway through, he would have reached the shooting of the boy. His forehead was pale, his reading pace snail-slow.
She set the paperweight on his desk. “It’s hard to believe—”
He seemed stuck on the last page; the paper wavered in his hands.
“What’s the matter?” She hadn’t seen him shake like that since Sunday, when he came to her house and picked up the monkey-shaped candle. “Monkey in the middle,” she had thought he said. In the story, the circle closed in on the boy in the middle. The character she assumed was Kenneth later became a lawyer. If Samantha was a composite of Sam and Anne, that other character might be a composite of Kenneth and—
Hayden’s forehead glowed with sweat.
“You were there,” she said.
He took off his glasses. Fear, resignation, everything but denial rushed over his face. The morning of Callie’s death, they both had come to their offices alone. The cops had questioned him, checked for an alibi. She and Hayden had joked about it. When Felix died, she was with Sam and Hayden was—?
Hayden pushed back his chair. She grabbed her purse. He sprinted around his desk and caught her at the door, thudding it back to the wall. His arm shot out to block her exit.
“Let me go.” Paula pushed her shoulder into his rigid arm. She tried to duck the other way. Hayden’s right arm wedged her to the door. His chin scraped her nose. She breathed in his odor of sweat along with the onions he must have eaten for dinner.
“Come back and sit down,” he said.
“I’m not crazy.” She had to get herself down that corridor, past the empty workstations, to the elevator, out the building door.
“I want to explain,” he said.
“And then kill me like you murdered Callie and Felix?” This was surreal. Not Hayden, her Hayden couldn’t be Callie’s killer.
“You’re safer here than anywhere else tonight,” he said.
She raised her purse to shove him away. He squeezed it between them. The clasp dug into her chest.
“If I wanted to kill you, which I don’t, it wouldn’t be here,” he said. “The cops would link it to me in a minute.”
Was there a gun in his desk drawer, on his belt? Would he press it to her back, lead her out of the office, and kill her on some anonymous street? His beard stubble grated her nose. How could she have been with him for six months, shared his bed, and missed this whole side of him?
“Who are you?” she said.
“Don’t you see? The cops have the original of Felix’s story. If you’re found dead anywhere tonight, they’ll make the connection and investigate to the limits, starting with me, your jilted ex. I’d be insane to murder you knowing that.”
“Are you insane?”
“You shouldn’t need to ask.”
“Were you there when the boy was shot?”
“Yes and no.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” None of this did.
“I’ll let you go, if that’s what you want.” His grip didn’t slacken. “But if you call the police, I’ll deny everything and make up a story to explain your accusations against me. I imagine they’ve pegged you as someone hysterical and obsessed.”
She shoved his arm. How could she escape when he was stronger than her?
“I’ll tell you what I know because it might save your life,” he said.
“How?”
“By preventing you from poking your nose into things you know nothing about.”
“Things that happened in Felix’s story?”
His dark eyes studied her face. “You were right. There’s a conspiracy going on. It will block the cops from solving the case.”
He dropped his arms. She froze to the door. He turned and walked toward his desk, shoulders slumped, looking so normal, so Hayden, behind his cluttered desk. The insane could look normal. So could sociopaths.
She held her purse like a shield. “Who’s involved in this conspiracy?”
“Kenneth, Anne,” he counted them off on his fingers, “Sam, his son, me and, I’m hoping, you.”
“Was Sam there when they shot the boy?”
Hayden crossed his arms. “It’s always about Sam.”
He wasn’t reaching for a gun. Paula could make a clear break down the corridor to her car and home, where she would bolt the doors and stay light years away from anyone connected to this case. Sam would be definitely out of her life, as would Anne, her friend. She would send Isabelle packing to Montreal. With luck, she would return to her life from before, aside from the absence of Hayden and a nagging wish to know exactly what had happened.
Hayden looked up at her, like a friend, not a lunatic or cold-hearted killer. “You’ll have to swear to keep all I tell you a secret. No spilling it to the cops or Isabelle or Sam.”
“If Sam’s a conspirator, isn’t he already in the loop?”
Hayden raised an eyebrow, his sign he wouldn’t say another word unless she came back to the chair. She was free to run down the hall, but this was Hayden. She had to believe he wouldn’t kill her.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Hayden moved the folders and papers to the side table. His penholder, jazz music box, and Felix’s manuscript were the only objects on the desk between Paula and him. She reconsidered the option of running down the corridor to her car. His jaw shaded by five-o’clock shadow, which she had once found attractive, now felt threatening. He squared the manuscript corners to form the sixteen pages into a solid block.
“You know Kenneth and I were on the debating team at university,” he said, pushing the top sheets out of alignment. “One day, at the start of our final year, we got to talking about chess. He invited me to his place for a game on Saturday night. I wasn’t doing anything.” His voice trailed. “I could use a coffee.” He stared as though he expected her to fetch it for him.
“Get it yourself.”
His heavy eyebrows shot up.
“What do you expect after you brutalized me?”
He rolled back his chair to stand. She held her breath, half-expecting him to grab the music box and attack. His walk to the thermos on his legal bookcase seemed slower than normal. Was that a wobble in his leg? She hoped so. Even with the door ajar, she felt claustrophobic. She asked him to open the blinds.
As Hayden carried their coffee mugs back, he described his arrival at Kenneth’s house. His recollection was that Kenneth answered the door and took him downstairs without introducing him to his roommates. Hayden and Kenneth played chess in the basement rec room while music, laughter and the scent of patchouli and marijuana wafted from the main floor. Here he was on Saturday night playing a nerd game. “I wished Kenneth would suggest we join the fun,” he said with a wan smile.
Paula realized why her coffee tasted too heavy and sweet. Hayden had mixed up the mugs. He continued his story, not appearing to notice his coffee contained only milk.
Shouting upstairs distracted them from the game; they heard a loud blast. He and Kenneth ran up to the living room full of people shrieking and running around. “The smoke lit up what I thought was a scarlet blanket crumpled on the floor. Then, I realized it was a body covered in blood. My stomached heaved. I ran out to the yard and puked. Got to the bus stop and home and didn’t tell anyone anything. Ever.” He spilled coffee onto the manuscript.
“Why not?”
He blotted the coffee with his handkerchief. “Kenneth stayed in
there, mopping up the mess. I suppose I felt incompetent, in comparison.”
“Are you telling me you and he weren’t involved in the shooting? Felix’s story placed Kenneth, a law student like you, there.” Her hand shook. She glanced at the dark sky outside his windows. How did she know he wasn’t lying?
“Kenneth took control of the cover-up,” Hayden said. “As an accessory, he could be charged along with the rest of them.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I think, from all he said, he was secretly in love with Callie and did it for her.”
“Said when? Have you talked to him recently?”
Hayden realigned the manuscript. He rolled the corner of the top sheet, which was covered with damp, brown smudges. “I met Kenneth a few days after the shooting, at the debating club. He said they took care of it. I didn’t ask questions. I think we both wanted to avoid the whole thing. We avoided each other from then on, too.”
“I hadn’t known you played chess until Kenneth mentioned it at the funeral.”
“I don’t. To this day, the sight of a pawn makes me nauseous.” Hayden added that he assumed, or convinced himself, that taking care of it meant they had called the police, who judged the incident an accident, which he’d thought it was.
“Wasn’t it?” Paula said. “They didn’t know the guns were loaded.”
“They knew.”
“In Felix’s story—”
“The boy told them he’d loaded the guns.”
“Why?”
“Who knows? He was a troubled kid. Probably self-destructive.”
“I mean, why would the others fool around with loaded—”
“Young people can be stupid, especially in groups when they’re doped on drugs.”
“I can’t believe Callie—”
“That’s why she never told you about it, Kenneth thinks. She was so ashamed she could barely discuss it with him.”
Paula banged her mug on the desk. “The day after Callie’s murder, the cops questioned you, in this very room. Did you tell them any of this?”
“I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“Had they known, they would have grilled that whole group. Felix, for one, might have caved. It would have saved him.”
“Don’t you think I feel guilty about that?” His jowls quivered. “I swear to God, it didn’t occur to me this old event was connected to Callie’s murder until two days ago, when I saw that monkey-shaped candle at your house. It reminded me of a game . . .”
Monkey in the middle, he had said. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. His body had been shaking. Why hadn’t she clued in? She got up and tottered on rubbery legs to the corner windows. Fourteen stories down, street lights fanned south and west through blackness. They tapered at the suburban fringe. She heard Hayden’s footsteps behind her.
“When the cops were here, it did cross my mind to tell them.” His low tones flowed with his onion breath to her ears. “To be honest, I was ashamed, too, by my weakness and not doing anything. I knew there was something fishy about Kenneth’s ‘take care of it’ remark.”
“Your response was normal.”
“Would you have puked and run away?”
She pictured Felix dead on his recliner chair. “I might have puked at that young age.”
“And told your parents or someone about it, or more likely, marched back into the house and helped deal with the mess.”
“I don’t know.” Even at twenty, she couldn’t imagine herself not getting involved. “My way’s not the only way.”
“You do give that impression sometimes,” he said.
Her stomach knotted. Hayden’s words echoed her daughters’ complaint that she expected everyone to live up to her standards. Paula had always answered, “What’s so wrong with that?” What was wrong was that Hayden had withheld information from the cops and Callie had kept the grubby crime secret for thirty-one years because Callie and Hayden believed, if Paula knew, she would judge them harshly. And she might have. Wasn’t she judging them now? What if one of her daughters got into a jam some day and, fearing her judgment, didn’t come out in the open or turn to her for help?
Hayden segued to his first meeting with Callie. A few months after the shooting, she showed up to watch a debate. Kenneth introduced her as his girlfriend. “I remember wondering how a geek like him got someone so hot.” Hayden next saw Callie about five years later, at a charity ball, shortly after his marriage. She looked stunning in her off-the-shoulder dress, her hair up in a French twist, jewels dripping from her ears.
“Don’t tell me you were in love with her, too?” Paula said.
“Callie wasn’t my type. When she saw me, she turned white. It was so obvious my wife later asked if I’d dated her in university. As if I could have gotten a girl like that.”
“Thanks.”
He fluffed his gray sideburns, mock-preening. “Now that I’m older and distinguished, I got someone better; for a while, at least.”
Paula’s face warmed from his compliment and vulnerability. Hayden had withheld his information, in part, because it might have cost him her respect. Were she more forgiving of human failings, he might have come forward, preventing Felix’s death. She deserved a share of his blame for that, although she couldn’t help being who she was. Could she?
Hayden figured Kenneth had told Callie about his presence at the shooting and seeing him reminded her of the dreadful event. “It still didn’t occur to me that Callie had been there. That was probably why she avoided you all summer, so she wouldn’t have to deal with me, the ghost from her past, the witness.”
The ring of the telephone ripped through the room. Both waited for his voice mail to pick up. This would explain why Callie had chatted so intently with Hayden’s nephew the night Paula and Hayden met, at the theater. Callie’s avoidance tactic had left Paula alone with Hayden to talk and connect. Strange, how that had worked out.
The shrill rings ended and gave way to the hum of florescent lights. Hayden said Paula’s talk of wanting to poke around Felix’s house made him worry she would poke too much. Last night, he went to Kenneth’s to find out if the old shooting was related to Callie’s murder or not. Kenneth agreed to tell him the truth in exchange for his not going to the cops.
“I’m surprised he’d be so forthcoming.” She stepped back for a better look at Hayden’s face for signs he was lying.
“He views you as an old friend and wants to protect you,” Hayden said. “If Kenneth has a driving trait, I’d say it’s loyalty.”
Kenneth had been loyal to Callie to the end, even though she dumped him for Dimitri.
“You’ll be pleased to know that Sam is innocent.” Hayden stifled a grimace. “Sam couldn’t afford to live away from home with the group. Normally, he and Anne would have been out on a date Saturday night, but he was filling in for someone at his restaurant job. Lucky stiff.”
Paula’s heart relaxed. She was glad Sam had no part in the shooting. Did this mean she was still judging the others for their involvement? “I gather Callie was threatening to come out with the truth?”
“Kenneth blames Dimitri and his religion for dredging up her guilt. There was her health scare last winter.”
“A shadow on her mammogram.”
“Her big breakup with Dimitri that sent her career plans down the tube. Kenneth wonders if my sudden reappearance pushed her over an edge.”
“Good God.”
“It all prompted her to confide her worries to Felix. She remembered the boy’s name. Kenneth said none of the others did. That was thoughtful of her.” Hayden wiped sweat from his flushed forehead. “Felix did an Internet search and found a website set up by a man looking for his long lost uncle, whose details fit the boy. Callie begged Felix to fly with her to Nova Scotia to meet the family. Felix waffled. Kenneth didn’t know any of this before Callie’s murder. Felix told him . . .”
“. . . when he stopped by Kenneth’s house the night before he died.”
“So he says.”
Hayden picked up the coffee thermos, shook it, and returned it to the bookcase. “Felix and Callie talked to Anne, who said going to the family would be admitting to a crime. The family might contact the police, who would then arrest them all. Callie was confused. Kenneth agrees with you that, at the end, she was coming to you for advice.”
“I wonder what I would have said.” Paula leaned on the bookcase, toppling Hayden’s photographs. She liked to think she would have listened sympathetically and offered to fly to Nova Scotia with Callie, if that’s what Callie really wanted. But would she have taken the time from her busy life with Hayden, work, and the move to her new home? She re-set the photographs. “After Callie’s death, Felix ultimately decided to do the right thing and come out with the truth in his newspaper column.”
“And after Felix’s death, Kenneth and Anne met. I think there’s a reason Kenneth told me about this tête-à-tête and it explains the type of people you’re dealing with.” Hayden shuffled back to his desk, shoulder hunched.
Paula followed, her legs tired from standing. She sipped the remnants of her coffee: sweet, cool mud.
Hayden clasped his hands on the manuscript. “At their meeting, Kenneth and Anne agreed on a party line: Felix panicked over the old crime coming out and killed Callie. It’s possible.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“You know what? Neither do I. During the tête-à-tête, they discussed the friend who had been the boy’s lover.”
“Merritt in the story?”
“He became a doctor.”
“So that part of Felix’s story is true.”
“After university, the guy got involved in CUSO and other third world benevolent organizations. Kenneth suggested to Anne that if the doctor had murdered Callie, he would have used a medicine to cause a neater death. An injection in the arm or a few drops in a drink can cause a death that appears so natural it might pass an autopsy exam. Anne agreed that would be a smarter method than guns.”