Paternity Case

by Gregory Ashe

  From the looks of it, most of the party had drifted into the family room, mingling in clusters around the tree, the buffet, the fireplace—complete with a real fire—and, of course, the bar. The normal congregants made up tonight’s celebration: middle-aged men and women of a certain social standing and a certain degree of prosperity, universally white, with the exception of Jeremiah Walker. Walker, a professor of economics at Wroxall, was one of the few people of color who had penetrated the inner circle of Wahredua’s elite. He’d had a son, an illegitimate child with a white co-ed, and the mother and child had hung around Wahredua. The boy had even gone to school with Somers. Hollace Walker. Hollace, who had bought the coke that one night, all those years ago.

  There was Hazard. And there was Somers’s mother, running her finger down Hazard’s arm like she wouldn’t mind eating him up in two bites. Perfect. Tonight was just going perfectly. Somers shot across the room, ignoring those who called his name or tried to catch his attention.

  Grace Elaine Somerset was pretty, but Somers had grown up under the impression that she was beautiful: there were so many pictures of her, so many goddamn mirrors, so many pots and creams and powders and pencils, so many versions of Grace Elaine. There was the doting mother, the doting wife, the philanthropist, the church lady, the PTO president—on and on. A different Grace Elaine for every day of the week, plus two on Sundays. And Grace Elaine had aged with the same purposefulness and planning that marked everything she did. Now, with perfectly ashen hair and surgically smooth skin, she looked like she inhabited some middle ground between thirty and fifty—like a butterfly, impossible to pin down without killing the effect.

  By the time Somers reached them, Hazard had gotten to his feet. He was holding what looked like two plates and an ungodly amount of pie, which he juggled as he tried to shake Grace Elaine’s hand. Grace Elaine, for her part, studied Hazard with chilly rigor. When Hazard tried to let go of her hand, Grace Elaine’s fingers tightened.

  “Detective Hazard,” she said in a kitty-cat voice. “You’ve really been a very naughty boy, you know. When John-Henry told us that you’d come back and that you were partners, we expected at least a courtesy call. After all, we’re such very old friends.”

  Hazard’s natural pallor gave way easily to a flush. “Hello, Mrs. Somerset. We’ve never met before.”

  “Don’t be silly. You went to high school with John-Henry. I’ve seen you hundreds of times. At school. Around town.” She paused, and the kitty claws came out. “At John-Henry’s football games.”

  “That’s enough, Mother.”

  “John-Henry, darling. I didn’t think you were coming.”

  “I wasn’t coming. Father pitched a fit.”

  “You really shouldn’t say those kinds of things about your father.” Grace Elaine still hadn’t released Hazard’s hand. She leaned towards Hazard now. The cut of her ashen hair swept across her shoulders. “Detective, you won’t listen to all the horrible things John-Henry says about us, will you?”

  Hazard risked a glance at Somers, and Somers was surprised to see panic in his partner’s eyes. “Somers—I mean, John-Henry—”

  With a ringing laugh, Grace Elaine cut him off. “Oh, dear. I know what you call him, Detective. There’s no need to change on my account.”

  “Mother, leave him alone.”

  “Leave him alone? A guest in my home, who doesn’t know anyone? That’s not very hospitable, John-Henry.”

  “Leave him alone.”

  “We were just talking about old times.”

  “Drop it, Mother.”

  “You know. About your football games. Emery—I may call you Emery?—Emery just adored those football games, didn’t you?”

  “That’s enough,” Somers snapped. He seized his mother by the wrist and hauled her away from Hazard. When they were a safe distance away, Somers said, “I expected this from Father, but not from you.”

  Massaging her wrist, Grace Elaine pulled free from Somers’s grip. Her smile could have blasted a hole in a steel plate. “Darling, you’re acting sensationally. He’s an old friend. We’re just catching up.”

  “You don’t have any friends, and even if you did, Hazard wouldn’t be one of them. You’re playing with him, Mother. I don’t know what you’re planning, but I know you’ve got something that will hurt him. You wouldn’t be talking to him if you didn’t.”

  Grace Elaine didn’t answer, but the corners of her smile sharpened.

  “I’m telling you right now: stay away from my partner.”

  “John-Henry, you never could tell me what to do. I owe the pretty detective a debt. Don’t you remember? It’s been such a long time, but I do plan on paying him back.” The smile sharpened even further. “With interest.”

  Before Somers could respond to the threat, Grace Elaine waved at Walker and drifted towards him, and they passed together through the kitchen door. Somers stood there, unwilling to stare after her, unwilling even to look at her. That goddamn party. He rubbed at his eyes. Why had he let everything go to shit at that goddamn party? And why had he let Emery take the fall for it? Bing had been such an asshole about the whole thing, and—

  “You want to tell me what all that was about?” Hazard asked, his low, rumbling voice breaking through Somers’s thoughts.

  Somers scrubbed at his eyes once more and then opened them. “How much pie did you eat?”

  Hazard, his eyes flashing to the half-eaten meal, lowered the plate. “Your mom looked like she wanted to eat me for dinner. Or carve off my skin. Maybe both. What the hell was that?”

  That? Somers wanted to laugh. That was a nice family evening at the Somerset home. That was nothing. It the icing on a cake the size of the Eiffel Tower. “Nothing,” he finally said. “It was a misunderstanding.”

  “Sure. She looked like she was just about to misunderstand me out of my clothes.”

  “Jesus, man. That’s my mom.”

  “I’m gay. What the hell are you worried about?”

  “Nothing. It’s just. I don’t know, just shut up, will you?”

  “Where’s the coked-out Santa?”

  Somers jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I left him in the TV room.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s just a name.”

  “You call that enormous space at the back of the house the TV room?”

  “Can we please talk about this another time?”

  To Somers’s relief, Hazard obliged him by falling silent. Around them, the party had picked up momentum: another Ella Fitzgerald song was rolling over the stereo, and several couples had taken to dancing at the center of the family room. Laughter punctuated bright bubbles of conversation. Somers realized that his initial impression of the party had been somewhat skewed: yes, much of the crowd was the traditional set that appeared at all of his parents’ dinners and parties, but there were a few younger people. Three of them, in fact, looked strangely out of place this evening. And one of them—

  “That girl is touching your dad a lot,” Hazard muttered as he shoveled another piece of pie into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, and pointed with his fork. “A hell of a lot.”

  Somers ground his teeth, but Hazard was right. The girl—and sweet God, she really was a girl, not more than eighteen—was practically wrapped around Glenn Somerset. Glenn had penned the girl between the Christmas tree and the picture window, but it didn’t look like the girl needed much penning. She seemed pleased—eager, even—to have his attention. He spoke; she laughed. He spoke; she cocked her head with earnest interest. He spoke; she beamed like someone had flipped a switch on sunrise. Her hands, as Hazard had noticed, rarely left Somers’s father. His arms, his chest, his cheek, his shoulder, his hands. Over and over again, his hands. They might as well have been playing patty-cake.

  “They might as well be playing patty-cake,” Hazard said, in a dangerous echo of Somers’s thoughts.

  As though someone had called out a cue, two teenage
boys moved across the room, hooked the girl, and escorted her into the kitchen. She struggled for a moment, but not enough to draw attention. What was that about, Somers wondered. Trying to rescue her? Or trying to stake their territory? Somers didn’t have much time to decide. The boys moved quickly, trying to look natural and instead looking so pissed off they were both in danger of popping an artery.

  “Shut up, all right?” Somers said. “Just shut.” Somers ran a glance around the room, praying, but he knew it was vain: Grace Elaine stood in the Christmas tree’s shadow, a champagne flute in one hand, carrying on a conversation with Jeremiah Walker; they had come back from the kitchen. It was perfectly obvious that she could see what was happening between Glenn and the girl. It was also perfectly obvious, to Somers at least, that his mother was in a killing mood.

  “Who is she?”

  “I don’t know. Some skank that my father dragged out of the closest sorority. Can we not talk about that little—”

  “Careful there,” a man’s voice interrupted, the sound deep but breathless. “That’s my daughter you’re talking about.”

  Somers turned around. He’d read once—more than once—about how much blood the body held. A lot of blood, that was what he recalled. He had the vague thought that it could fill a kiddie pool, something like that, something gratuitous and horrifying like that. And right then, as his eyes came to rest on a face he hadn’t seen since—

  —that night—

  —senior year of high school, Somers felt like an artery had been slashed, all the blood pouring out of him, leaving him cold, like a red flood rushing out of him, taking his thoughts and his words and the possibility of movement. It was like that. It was exactly like that.

  “Aren’t you going to say hi to an old friend?”

  Hazard was the one who spoke, and his voice was full of dislike. No, worse than dislike. Hate.

  “Bing.”

  HAZARD WAITED FOR A RESPONSE, but the newcomer—who wasn’t really that new—ignored him, his gaze fixed on Somers. Somers, for his part, seemed to have lost the power of speech. After a moment, Hazard spoke again. “What do you want, Bing?”

  Morris Jeffrey Bingham, junior, looked like a much younger version of his father, the sheriff. On Bing, the patrician nose, the tight lines of the jaw, and the dark curls all melded into the features of a hunk hitting middle adulthood. Snow dusted his coat and hair. Hazard remembered Bing, but only like a man in a desert remembers water: his throat tight, and everything shimmering like a mirage. Back then, Bing had been the sizzling kind of hot, the kind that was dangerous to look at for too long. That had changed only slightly in the passing years.

  Bing, four years older than Hazard and Somers, had already graduated high school by the time Hazard was a freshman. The older boy had stuck around, however, attending Wroxall College and coaching the high school football team. Hazard tried to conjure up disdain for the man. He remembered that Bing had picked up a class at the high school—teaching woods? Metals? Shop, definitely teaching some kind of shop class—just so he could coach, and wasn’t that pathetic. But the scorn felt shadowy and insubstantial. Back then, Hazard remembered, it had been impossible to live in Wahredua and not know who Bing was; it would have been like living on earth and never quite catching a glimpse of the sun—in this case, a particularly deadly sun, since Bing had never missed an opportunity to make Hazard’s life hell.

  Jesus, Hazard thought, aware that he was staring at Bing. Staring at him just like that day at the lake. What had it cost him that time? Bruises on his arms, bloody knees, and a hell of a lot of humiliation.

  Bing still hadn’t responded to Hazard. He hadn’t, for that matter, so much as looked Hazard. After another pause, he gave Somers a friendly shove. “Come on, you’re going to catch a fly, Somers. What the hell? Are you having a stroke? Do I need to get a doctor?”

  “Holy shit,” Somers said. He shoved back at Bing, a wild grin spreading across his face. “Holy shit,” he repeated, drawing out the words. “What are you doing here? Did you come to spike the punch and joyride in one of my father’s cars again?”

  Bing shoved Somers again, a little harder this time. “That’s what you remember? Don’t tell me you forgot about the best part of that night.” He hesitated, as though daring Somers to answer.

  At the same time, both men said, “Jessica Riner.” They burst into laughter, and Somers clapped Bing on the shoulder.

  “Somers,” Hazard said. “We need to go.”

  “In a minute.”

  “We’ve got a—”

  “I know what we’ve got, Hazard. I’m just talking to my buddy for a minute. Where the hell have you been? Last I heard, you were in Chicago working for some big consulting firm. Are you back for the holidays?”

  “No, man,” Bing said. “Back for good. Brought the whole family, set up house, all of it.”

  “And you didn’t tell me!”

  “It’s been a crazy couple of months.” Bing rubbed at one cheek, and Hazard noticed, for the first time, that Bing’s eyes had bags, that his color was sallow. Rode hard and put away wet, that’s what Hazard’s mother would have said. “I’ve been meaning to give you a call, but one thing led to another. Anyway, here we are now.”

  “Months? You son of a bitch. What kept you so busy for the last couple of months?”

  “Buy me a beer sometime and I’ll tell you.”

  “Somers,” Hazard said.

  “I already said in a minute.”

  “Sorry to interrupt the frat boy reunion. I know you two probably want to do a keg stand and smoke a joint and bang some hot babes, but we’ve got a job to do.”

  “What’s your damn problem—” Somers began, but before he could finish, Bing stepped forward, interposing himself between Somers and Hazard.

  “Hold on, Somers. I’ve got something to say to you, Emery.” The name sounded forced, unnatural in Bing’s mouth. For the first time, his eyes fixed on Hazard. “What I did to you was really shitty. I knew it back then, and I was too big of a coward to do any different.”

  No one spoke for a moment; around them the hub of voices and music continued to rise and fall. A stray current of air brought the thick, cloying smell of eggnog.

  “Well?” Somers said. “He apologized to you. Aren’t you going to say something?”

  “He didn’t apologize,” Hazard said. “He made a statement. It happened to be a true statement, but that’s all.”

  “Jesus, Hazard—”

  “No.” Bing shook his head and stuck out a hand. “He’s right. I didn’t say it, so here goes: I’m sorry.”

  “Fine,” Hazard said, ignoring the hand. “Somers, can we go—”

  Ugly red blotched Somers’s cheeks, and he was shaking his head. “Give me five minutes. Or is that too damn much?” Hazard didn’t bother to reply, but as he walked away, he heard Somers behind him saying, “Sorry, I don’t know why he’s being such an asshole.”

  Bing said something in reply, but the noise of the party swallowed the words, and the next thing Hazard heard was Somers laughing. After crossing the room and putting as much distance between himself and the newly-reunited frat boys as possible, Hazard took up position near one of the doors. At that moment, his phone buzzed, and he took it out to find a message from Nico.

  Everything ok?

  Yeah. Somers’s an asshole.

  No joke. Where are you?

  Long story, the whole thing’s a shit-fest, got to go.

  Tonight?

  Hazard hesitated, knowing what Nico was asking but unsure of what he wanted. My place.

  Nico answered with a heart emoji, and Hazard dropped the phone back into his pocket. As Hazard raised his head, he found himself facing Grace Elaine again. Somers’s mother had returned with Jeremiah Walker, and it was clear from the frigid glances that she was shooting at her husband that she hadn’t missed any of the interaction between Glenn Somerset and the girl who had been, minutes earlier,
trying to pin herself to his lapel.

  When Grace Elaine had approached Hazard earlier, her aggressive approach—running a finger over him like she meant to strip him out of his clothes—had thrown Hazard into confusion. Now, with space between them, he could study her more carefully. It was clear that John-Henry’s good looks had come from Grace Elaine, and it was equally clear that the features that in Grace Elaine appeared pretty were more dynamic, more magnetic in John-Henry. Still, there was no denying that Grace Elaine was a very attractive woman, and judging by the way she held herself as she spoke to Jeremiah—as though she were the only thing in the universe except maybe that goddamn Christmas tree—Hazard guessed that she knew it too.

  What Hazard didn’t understand was why Grace Elaine had reacted to him the way that she had. Her sexual aggression had masked something else, and while Hazard didn’t have the same interpersonal intuition that Somers did, he had a good guess what Grace Elaine was hiding. She hated him. Like her husband, Grace Elaine Somerset held some sort of—

  —the locker room, with the steam curling up around Somers’s slender, golden perfection, with his touch raising goosebumps on Hazard’s skin, and the heat of his lips like a match on a strike strip, was that it, did she know?—

  —grudge against Hazard. What? And why?

  Lost in thought, Hazard only noticed Somers when his partner had almost reached him. Before Hazard could speak, Somers held up both hands. “I know you want to punch my teeth into the next solar system or something like that, but will you just listen to me for a minute?”

  “Why don’t you talk to Bing? He seemed happy to listen to you.”

  Somers cocked his head, as though thinking, and then his eyes widened slightly and he gave a half-nod.

  “Don’t do that,” Hazard said.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Yes, you did. You think I’m jealous of Bing.”

  “Ree, that’s—look, he and I are just friends. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him.”