“No,” Stack said.
“Look,” Salmone said, “I blame myself. I didn’t like Brookman. I was pissed. I swear I was pissed at his behavior. And because I knew who Maudie was. But he didn’t push her in front of no car. I didn’t say he did, did I? I was suspicious.”
Stack watched the Christmas lights on Prospect Street switch on.
“I can tell you this too, Eddie. The Staties got a list of people reported their car stolen right after Maud died. Had work done on it. There’s gonna be an arrest soon. So there’s that.” He turned to Stack. “Eh, I think you went crazy and I think you got a weapon. I want it.”
Stack ignored him.
“You want to end up in the fuckin’ zoo at the end of your life? You want to dishonor yourself so much?”
Stack shook his head.
“Or,” Salmone said, “you want the garbage guys and the coroner sweeping up your fucking brains and the rest of your family thinking about that? And the sin.”
“Oh, fuck the sin, Sal.”
Salmone put his hand out. “I want the weapon. I’ll get it to you. You want a receipt? I’ll personally return it to you. Now I want it.”
So in the end Stack handed over the Glock. Salmone looked at his watch.
“There’s a train now every half hour. You’re gonna make the four-twenty. I’ll give you a ride.”
“I don’t want a ride,” Stack said. But he took it.
At the station, on the platform, Stack watched the four-twenty pull away. He was not going to miss his appointment with Brookman, he thought, even if it was just an announcement of things future. He leaned on his cheap walking cane. He was having more and more trouble getting over the distances his routines required. Also, he thought, he might find a variety of uses for it. He took out his phone and called Professor Brookman’s home.
36
“PROFESSOR BROOKMAN?”
He had never seen or heard Edward Stack, the bereaved, the famous cop, but he knew who it was.
“Yes?”
“Could I have a word with you? My name is Stack. I was Maud’s father.”
“I’m very sorry,” Brookman said after a moment. He supposed there was no way around saying that. “You know we saw her just before she died.”
Brookman did not understand what had impelled him to say it. His expensive new lawyer had been eloquent and specific on the sorts of things persons even potentially of interest in such a situation ought not to allow themselves to say. Say to anyone, let alone policemen who were members of the victim’s immediate family.
“I know that, Professor,” Stack said. “I thought it was time I reached out to you.”
“I see.”
“I think we should meet now,” Stack said.
It was strange. Just as he had heard the outer-borough inflections in Maud’s imitation of her father, so he heard Maud’s shaped schoolgirl tones in her father’s voice. It caused him a thrill of grief.
“If you would like to meet, Mr. Stack, I’ll be pleased to meet you.”
“That’s good, man.”
“You must have been,” Brookman allowed himself to say, “very proud of her.”
He listened to what sounded almost like deliberate heavy breathing on the phone. And Stack asked him:
“Why’s that?”
Brookman felt an anger rise in himself that he could hardly keep out of his voice. It had been threatening to overwhelm him since the night of her death, along with the fear, regret, disgust.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stack. Did you ask me why I think you must have been proud of Maud?”
“Yes,” Stack said. “That is what I asked you.”
“Because she was a wonderful young person. You must have known that better than anyone. Where shall we get together? When?”
“I’m in town, Professor. I’m in your town.”
“Good,” said Brookman. “Sorry I can’t ask you to the house. How about meeting in my office? I can tell you where it is.”
“I know where it is,” Stack said. “Don’t you want a public place?”
“I don’t need a public place. Let’s get together. Cortland 3A. The building’s probably locked now but I’ll open it.”
He hung up and looked out his bedroom window at the early evening. Along the parkway that ran from the Common to the football stadium the commuter traffic was light and the three streetlights that marked the first two blocks were on. He turned on the bedside lamps and went out into the upstairs hallway. Ellie was down in the living room. Sophia was in the kitchen doing homework with Brahms on her CD player. It was the kind of music she did homework to. One of the many things that made her, among faculty brats, the arch-weirdo.
He called down to his wife. She came upstairs, grim-faced.
“Was that Stack?” she asked softly.
“Yes,” he said. “How did you know?”
She shrugged.
“He’s in town,” Brookman told his wife. “He wants to meet me at the office. But he could be anywhere out there. Go down and lock up.”
She started for the steps.
“Listen,” he said to her. “I’m going up there. Lock up behind me and let nobody in here. No cop stuff or any such bullshit. Don’t open it.”
She nodded and went downstairs. Brookman went to a utility room at the end of the hall, locked himself in, turned on the light. It was the place he kept his outdoor equipment, his guns and fishing rods, his climbing gear, tents, protective clothing. One of the things he also kept there was a.38-caliber pistol, a few years old. He stuffed it in the wide pocket of an old parka and prepared to go out. When he switched off the utility room light there was a double knock at the room’s door. He opened it to Ellie. He had put on the parka in the semi-darkness. Her hand found the gun’s outline in his pocket.
“Steven! Don’t meet him with that. It’s wrong. It will destroy you. Destroy us.” She was trying to keep her voice down. They both were.
“Of course I’m taking it,” he told her. “He’ll have one. While I’m out, you should load the Mossberg. The shells are on the shelf. Oil it and load it. I’m going.”
“No,” she said. “You mustn’t!”
He seized her by the shoulder.
“Don’t be a complete fool, Ellie. He means revenge. He thinks I killed his daughter. He’s coming after us.”
Brookman hurried out before Sophia had time to come out of the kitchen.
37
IT WAS ALMOST DARK when Brookman walked across the half-deserted campus to Cortland Hall. A river fog shrouded the brick college structures and reduced the town’s Christmas decorations to a distant haze of holiday colors. The building’s hallway lights were off; Brookman switched them on, left the outside door unlocked and went upstairs to his office. He left his office door unlocked as well and sat down behind his fine oak desk.
Maud had left her paperback Doctor Faustus and a plaid scarf on one of the captain’s chairs with their emblazoned motto Lux in umbras procedet. Copies of the Gazette featuring her story were stacked in a rocking chair. For some reason there was a copy of Smith’s Recognizable Patterns of Human Malformation on his sofa.
Brookman felt guilt and bitter regret but it was not any illusion of atonement that drove him to face her father. He had a sense of debt to the man and to his daughter’s memory but he was not offering himself in reparation. For one thing, he wanted to draw Stack’s anger away from his house and his family. But it was not remorse for the most part that moved him to face Stack. Other forces inside him, old determinants of his life and fortune, drove him. Two things were foremost in his mind: his family in the house down the hill and his shame at bringing the gun along.