Melvin let me look at her statements once the charges were dropped. She had been paid to be with Erlacher twice. She did not know who he was, she only knew him as “John.” Sal had threatened her with the specter of Leukatov if she didn’t do it, and she never had sex for money at any other time.
Her statements reflected no sign of doubt that I was her father, and we never spoke of it until one evening, at the end of the summer, as we walked back to the apartment after dinner. She was talkative at dinner, and seemed excited about starting school. But after we left the restaurant she became quiet and thoughtful.
“I need to know some things,” she said. “We haven’t talked about it and I’m about to leave and…I need to ask you .”
“Okay.”
“How come you never asked me why I shot him?” she said.
I looked west as we approached Central Park. There was a dull pink line of sunlit horizon under a bank of clouds. In a minute it would be night. In a week she would be gone.
“We lied about it,” she said. “I said you shot him, like you told me to that night. And you never said anything about it all this time.”
“I figured you’d talk about it when you were ready,” I said.
“I heard what he said to you,” she said. “About being my father.”
“That’s what he said. Doesn’t make it true.”
“Is it true?” she said.
“I have no idea.”
“Can’t you find out? Can’t you have Melvin check our DNA or…?”
“Yes.”
“And you never had him do that?”
“I thought about it, but decided not to.”
“Why not?” she said.
I watched a duck fly up from the park, heading south. Once it cleared the trees I lost track of it.
“I guess it has to do with what makes a person a parent,” I said. “How important blood is, among other things. Why should it matter, really?”
“Because I want to know who my father is.”
“I’m your father.”
“But I want to know if he—if I…” she struggled to find words.
“I understand,” I said. I didn’t need to force her say out loud what had no doubt tormented her for months.
“I can handle it,” she said. “I’ve handled worse and survived.”
“There’s more to life than survival.”
“You know what I mean,” she said. “I’m tough enough to hear the truth.”
“There’s more to life than being tough.”
“I don’t need a lecture,” she said. “I just want to know, that’s all.”
“What if it’s not what you want to hear?”
“I told you, I can handle it,” she said. “Negative capability, right?”
“So you do listen when I lecture you.”
“Sometimes.”
“Any of my other wisdom stick with you?”
“Some,” she said. “Like what you said about be being exploited for money, and about self-respect. I talk a lot about that with Dr. Slater. She agrees with you.”
“About time somebody did,” I said. “What about you? Do you agree?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Good.”
“So…will you have Melvin check?” she said.
“Okay.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
It is five o’clock in the evening on the first Friday in October when Karen and I return to the apartment. I have brought her back to the city for the weekend. In the car she was in good spirits, and she made me listen to her music the whole way back from school, and attempted to explain it to me. I figured if I let her explain her music to me, she might let me explain Bob Dylan to her on the trip back to school Sunday night.
When we enter the apartment she heads for the coffee table and drops her gargantuan backpack and starts unloading books while I scoop up the mail from the floor by the door.
The phone rings. I go to the counter that separates the living room from the kitchen and pick up the handset and look at the ID.
Melvin.
“Hey,” I answer. “What’s up?”
“Got the DNA,” he says.
“Okay,” I say. I look at Karen. She is digging around in her backpack for something.
“Okay to talk now?” he says.
“Sure.”
“Her DNA matched Erlacher’s,” Melvin says. “He was her biological father.”
I keep my eyes on Karen, who looks up from her backpack, sensing something in my voice.
“Ran it as a blind sample,” Melvin says. “No one knows but you and me.”
“Okay,” I say to Melvin. “Thanks.”
I hang up.
“That was Melvin,” I say to Karen.
“What’d he say?”
“The DNA results are back.”
She sits very still and looks at me.
“So?” she says.
I hesitate, even though I know what I’m going to say. I knew before Melvin called.
“Are you my dad?” she says.
“Yes,” I say.
Killer In The Hills (A Jack Rhodes Mystery) Page 14