“Apologizing?”
“For what he did to your father.”
“What are you talking about? McKnight was in Texas when my father was killed, wasn’t he?”
“I don’t think McKnight was talking about the robbery, Syd.”
“Then what?”
“Becky Lynn said that someone was blackmailing McKnight about something that happened when he and your father were in the army together. Something to do with a big banking scandal way back when.”
“What do you mean someone was blackmailing him? Did Hatcher ask him about it?”
“He couldn’t. McKnight killed himself first. Hatcher thought he was drunk when he was talking to him on the phone, mumbling about sending you some letter that explained it all. Next thing he hears a gunshot. Hatcher called a field agent to drive out to McKnight’s to check on him, but he was already gone. Police were already there. Apparently a neighbor heard the shot, too, and called.”
She tried to think about her father’s friends. She had a vague remembrance of a few of them coming over to their house in North Carolina, sitting around, drinking beer… and talking about fishing. Her father’s big dream was to retire and spend every winter at some fishing villa in Baja California. In fact, that seemed to be a common dream among them, talking about beer and fishing and boats, but for the life of her, she couldn’t picture names or faces. And what preteen kid would? She was too busy worrying about more important things like pimples and boys, even after her father was injured, left his job, and they picked up and moved back to California. Her father’s military career was something he rarely spoke about. Even when Sydney asked him about his time there, what he did for the army, he always put her off with some response about taking photographs for posters, making the army look good.
But that didn’t explain any of this. “I don’t understand what this has to do with my father?”
“Hatcher thinks your father was the blackmailer.”
Syd stared mutely, then shook herself, tried to think past the hurt, the betrayal she felt at Scotty for imparting such lies about her father. “He’s wrong, Scotty.”
“I don’t think so, Syd.”
“My father was a good man.”
“Look at what your father sent to McKnight,” he said, pointing to the yellowed letter she held.
“This could mean anything. He was not blackmailing anyone.”
“There are indications that your father might have been involved in more than just that. That he might have been doing the same to-”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Sydney dumped everything back in the manila envelope, then tossed it onto the coffee table. When he tried to reply, she interrupted with “I have no idea why you felt it necessary to fly across the country to ruin my father’s name.”
“Sydney.”
It was that voice he used when he needed to impart bad news, though in her experience, it had been news such as why he couldn’t come home that night.
She hated that voice, but waited for him to finish.
“The stuff McKnight sent you,” he said, nodding at the manila envelope. “I need to take that.”
“Why?”
“Evidence of a crime.”
She picked it up, started to hand it over, but then thought better of it. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Sydney, listen to me.”
“No, Scotty. Unless you tell me exactly what that crime is, it stays with me.”
“I told you. It involves McKnight’s suicide. The blackmail.”
“And he mailed it to me before he killed himself. And the statute of limitations ran out on anything my deceased father did a long, long time ago.”
“Syd-”
“Get a warrant.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you should know. In case anything leaks out.”
She said nothing. And he stared at her a moment longer, his expression filled with apology, embarrassment, and something else she couldn’t define. Finally he leaned over, kissed her on her cheek, and she jerked back, wanting nothing to do with him.
“I’ll be in town for a few days if you need to get in touch with me.”
When she didn’t answer, he let himself out. Sydney glanced at the envelope, then ran to the door, opening it, as she called out for Scotty to wait.
Midway down the steps, he stopped, looked back at her.
“What do you mean, ‘in case anything leaks out’?”
“McKnight left a suicide note before he died. I don’t have all the details; I don’t even know if it mentions your father. The cops got the note before Hatcher did, and they booked it. But he was being investigated for a political appointment, and you know how those things make it to the press. Especially during election years.” He waited on the steps a moment, perhaps looking for some reaction from her.
She closed the door, leaned against it, not willing to believe any of what he told her. She glanced at the envelope, but couldn’t even force herself to touch it again. Scotty was wrong, and that was all there was to it. Her father was good, just. He’d been cut down in the prime of his life. If McKnight was the one who mailed this to her, he did it simply as a memory. Nothing else.
And with all that she told herself she should put off going to the prison. The thought of facing her father’s killer after Scotty’s news was not something she could deal with.
But she knew she’d go, and it made her wonder if her day could get any worse.
Apparently it could.
Calling her mother to inform her that she was on her way to visit the man who killed her father wasn’t the best of ideas.
She knew this. Clearly she was delusional when she’d punched in her mother’s phone number at precisely 2:32 that afternoon, but she wanted some reassurance she was doing the right thing. Or maybe she just wanted to speak to someone who knew her father was a good and just man, no matter what Scotty had said. The contents of that envelope could have any number of explanations. It proved nothing.
“Hi, Mom,” she’d said when her mother answered the phone.
“Sydney. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t tell me nothing. I can hear it in your voice.”
“Dad was a good man, right?”
“What’s going on?”
“Mom, I’m really sorry, but I’ve done a lot of thinking about going to San Quentin. I heard he has new attorneys working the case. That means he could get out.”
“Not again. I can’t imagine how you ever came up with such an idiotic idea to go there.”
“Mom-”
“Trying and doing are two different things. I don’t want you near that man.”
At least Sydney was smart enough to have waited until she was pulling up to the prison gates before she’d called. “I need to know why he killed him.”
“Jake!” Her mother shrieked her stepfather’s name. “Jake! Will you come here and try to talk some sense into Sydney!”
“Mom. I have to go,” she said, not wanting to talk to Jake at all. He always took the day off on the anniversary so that her mother wouldn’t be alone, which only served to intensify her guilt for driving out to San Quentin on this day of days.
“You promised to be at Uncle Don’s campaign rally tonight,” her mother said. “What am I supposed to tell him?”
“You don’t need to tell him anything. I’ll be there.”
“Sydney-”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Jake!”
“Sydney?” Her stepfather’s voice was calm, quiet. “What’s going on?”
If anyone could talk her out of this, Jake could. Her father’s best friend after he moved them out to California, Jake had stepped in to help her mother after her father was killed, and almost a year later, they’d married. He’d always been the calm one, taking charge when her mother’s emotions got the best of her, which, thanks to him, was less and less as the years went on. But he’d also been a strict disciplinarian, and even now that Sydney was grown, no longer living under his well-ordered roof, she hesitated, not wanting to incur his anger.