“Loren Mitchell Perry.” Becca spoke the name with no venom. “I’ve never forgotten his voice. Even as a kid, Loren spoke with that affectation, that tough drawl. Rachel’s dead son set the house on fire last night, with Jo and me inside.”
“Oh, sweet…” Patricia sagged into a side chair, but Becca kept her eyes on her uncle.
Mitchell sighed harshly. “They’ve caught him?”
“He’s in police custody,” Jo said.
“Becca, you can’t be sure about this.” A shadow of the attorney surfaced. “You’re saying this man sounded like a boy you last heard decades ago—”
“It was Loren, Mitchell.” Becca sent Jo a humorless smile. “I’ve learned to listen to voices very carefully. He told me to tell his father hello. Loren was named after you.”
Mitchell’s face was undergoing an extraordinary series of reveals. The disbelief became fear, then denial again, and something quite close to hatred.
“I always thought that was an honorific,” Becca said. “Rachel naming her son after you, to salute your friendship. But now I’m thinking that’s not true. Loren looks like you now, Mitchell.”
“I may have sired him,” Mitchell said at last. “He’s not my son.”
Mitchell went to Patricia and took her arm with an awkward tenderness. He steered her into a chair at the table and sat beside her. He clasped Patricia’s hand on the glossy surface, looking fully his age now, and waited while Becca and Jo pulled back other chairs and joined them. “This woman forgave us both, Becca. Your aunt is a more generous and loving person than you’ve ever realized.”
He released Patricia’s hand long enough to lift a delicate cup to his lips. His throat moved as he swallowed, giving him time. “Very early in my marriage to Patricia, Rachel and I were…together, for a few nights. It was a terrible mistake for us both. For all three of us.” Mitchell’s newfound candor seemed to desert him and he drifted off, staring at the table. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe he’s come back. Forgive me, Pat. You tried to tell me.”
“Of course you didn’t believe it, dear.” Patricia lifted her head and spoke clearly, with the careful diction of the drunk. “You always believe the best of the people you love. It makes you blind sometimes.” She looked at them dully. “Rachel insisted on keeping the baby. On raising him alone. Loren became addicted to hard drugs when he was still quite young.”
“The boy was a monster before the drugs, Pat.” Mitchell’s face hardened, any tenderness gone. “Rachel moved heaven and earth to help that child. Nothing reached him. He was a thief and a bully and a miscreant before he was ten years old.”
Patricia merely nodded, and they fell silent. Becca seemed content to wait them out, but Jo was less so. She had promised not to grill Becca, but that vow didn’t hold for her kin.
“So Rachel Perry, a psychiatrist experienced in treating chemical dependency, brought up a drug-addicted son.” They flinched at Jo’s brusqueness, but Becca only watched her. “And in spite of all of Rachel’s maternal efforts, Loren persisted in being a bad seed?”
“Well.” A new, subtle wave of contempt passed over Patricia’s face. “Rachel had problems of her own, back then.”
“Pat.” Mitchell’s tone was wooden, and Patricia nodded again.
Jo decided to let it pass. “Mitchell, why is there a headstone in Lake View Cemetery marking the grave of Loren Perry?”
“All right.” Mitchell sat back in his chair. “If you must hear the whole, sordid story. When Loren was fifteen, he was suspected of molesting two young girls in the neighborhood. Police were going to arrest him any day. His solution to this was to get drunk and smash his motorcycle all over Mercer Street.”
Mitchell spoke calmly as if giving a formal disposition. “Loren was comatose in Harborview for several days. I admit readily that I called in favors, pulled some strings. We had new identity papers drawn for him. He was transferred to an excellent hospital on the east coast. He lived there until he was eighteen. Then, I’m happy to say, we lost track of him entirely.”
“Not entirely, apparently,” Jo pointed out. “The grave?”
“It’s empty,” Mitchell said. “As I said. I called in favors.”
“You and Rachel arranged all this.” Becca stirred at last, sounding dazed. “She agreed to have Loren locked up in some hospital for three years? To lose track of him, as you put it, for thirty years?”
“Do you know what having a son convicted of child molestation would have done to Rachel professionally?” Mitchell scrubbed his napkin across his lips. “She had no husband to support her. Not that she considered the impact on her career, mind you. I did. I was the one who cared that this creature was ruining Rachel’s life. All she cared about was saving Loren from arrest, giving him a fresh start.”
“What kind of hospital houses a mental patient for three years.” Becca wasn’t asking a question, and Jo knew she was picturing a distant facility much like Western State. “What kind of pit did you find to launch Loren on this fresh start?”
“It was better than he deserved, Rebecca.” Mitchell tossed his napkin to the table. “I don’t know why he’s come back into our lives now, unless he imagined that harassing my niece would result in some kind of payoff. That he could bleed me dry financially, to call him off.”
“Oh, you know better, Mitch.” Patricia pushed back her chair and went to a side table, her step halting. She poured an amber liquid into a small glass. “Rachel’s son never made any effort to contact us. Not the entire time he’s been terrorizing Becca.”
“Pat, don’t start again.” Mitchell’s voice lowered. “You’re not used to it, and you’ve had more than enough.”
“That’s certainly the truth. I’ve had enough of your blindness. I knew it was Loren the second Joanne told me about that fucking doll. Forgive me, Becca.” Apparently, Patricia was apologizing for either the profanity or the alcohol. She turned her back to Becca and downed the glass in one shot. “It’s time you stopped protecting her, Mitchell.”
“Patricia, I’ve told you I’m not going to entertain this paranoid delusion of yours again.”
“Becca almost died. Hasn’t that even registered with you?” Patricia spun, and her bloodshot eyes brimmed with tears. “Doesn’t it matter to you that this girl we raised almost lost her—”
“Of course it matters.” Mitchell rose sharply enough to knock back his chair. He stared at Patricia, the tendons in his jaw standing out. “But Becca is safe now. That is all that matters. And now you’ll have to excuse me, as I’m due in court.”
He walked toward the stairs, his back bent, his shoulders curved toward his chest. Jo knew of no court that held sessions on a weekend. Mitchell looked back at Patricia. “Leave her alone, Pat. You’re wrong about her. She would never have hurt me like that. The woman’s dying. Let her be.”
Jo was trying hard to listen through her exhaustion. Becca sat very still as her uncle left the room.
“It’s his career that’s over now, you know.” Patricia filled her glass again and made her way back to the table. “I don’t think that’s quite hit him yet. Once they identify Loren, this whole sad shit sack of history is going to come out.”
“Mitchell said, ‘She would never have hurt me like that.’” Jo struggled to find an inroad through this maze. “He was referring to Rachel Perry? Was he saying that Rachel wouldn’t have hurt him by bringing their son back to Seattle?”
“No, Joanne, I’m afraid not.” Patricia sipped from her glass now, rather than bolting it. “Mitch wasn’t talking about Rachel dragging Loren back into our lives. He was referring to a much older injury his darling Rachel inflicted on this family. I think Becca knows that.”