“Disgusting,” said Milo. Meaning it.
Kyle placed his palms on the rug, braced himself, as if ready to levitate. “I’m screaming and barfing, begging him to let me out. He keeps advancing on me, then he stops, leans against the fridge. Opens his fly and whips it out and takes a gob and puts it there. And touches himself. It didn’t take him long. He was turned on.”
He excused himself to go to the bathroom, came back with damp hair and raw eyes.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
I said, “How’d you get out of the garage?”
“He finished, let me out, ignored me for the rest of the day.”
“How much contact did you have with him after that?”
“None. I never saw him again.”
“Family obligations never got in the way?”
“What are you talking about.”
“You don’t know?” I said. Wondering if he really didn’t.
“Know what?”
“Lester Jordan-”
“Is his father, yeah, yeah, technically he’s my cousin, but not functionally. There was absolutely no contact. And I didn’t find out about the relationship until years later. Hell, with all of Dad’s running around, I could have cousins all over the world.”
“When and how did you find out Lester was Pete’s father?”
“I was already living in Atherton, it was a couple of years later. I came down to spend time with Dad and he wanted to go see one of his girlfriends. This time I asserted myself and said if he didn’t care about spending one-on-one time with me, I’d go to a museum. He got really apologetic, started beating himself up about being a shitty dad. So of course, I consoled him, told him he was a great dad. Somewhere in the midst of that, the subject of Lester and Pete came up. I believe he’d gone off on a speech about bloodlines, how any good genes I’d gotten were from his side because Mom’s side was a bunch of losers. After the divorce, both of them were doing that to me-bad-mouthing each other.”
I said, “He used Lester as an arguing point.”
“Exactly. Then he dropped in the nugget about Lester being Pete’s father. Made an apple-not-falling-far kind of comment.”
“Sounds like he knew Pete had problems.”
“I guess so.”
“But he didn’t ask if Pete had ever mistreated you.”
“No,” he said. “Dad’s curiosity only extends so far.”
I said, “How’d you find out about Pete’s learning disabilities?”
His eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
I said, “You told Tanya you had a cousin who’d been put on medication to little avail. Or were you referring to someone else?”
“I…no, that was him. I guess I did call him that. But not because I really consider us kin. Tanya and I were having a theoretical discussion. I didn’t think I was going to be parsed.”
“How’d you find out Pete was on meds?”
“He showed me his pills. Mary let him keep the bottle on his nightstand and take them unsupervised. He told me he popped when he felt like having energy.”
“Ritalin?”
“I never read the label, he just called them energy pills, said they’d been prescribed because his school was trying to control him. He said they made him feel good but he still wasn’t going to do any work because school sucked.”
Milo said, “Ever see him take any other drugs?”
“He had a Baggie of weed right out in the open, next to the pills. I saw him roll and smoke a few times. He was also into wine, whatever he’d steal from Mary’s stash.”
“All that and animal guts.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Why’d you contact Tanya?”
“When Dr. Delaware dropped in here and talked to me about Ms. Bigelow, it got me remembering.”
“Remembering what?”
“That whole period of my life, Lieutenant.”
I said, “Seeing Tanya in the garden.”
“I wasn’t spying, it was nothing weird, she was just there. Mom and Dad were still married but living apart and I was being shuttled back and forth from Atherton. Grandpa was pretty much vegetative. No one had time for me except Patty Bigelow. She’d ask me how I was doing, fix me a sandwich. Tanya and I never spoke a word. She says she noticed me but I couldn’t tell. After you came here, I looked her up on Facebook, saw how pretty she’d become. I copied down her class schedule and pretended to bump into her on campus. I know it sounds like crazed stalking, but I was curious, that’s all. I wasn’t even planning to talk to her. I’m not exactly a player. As if you haven’t guessed.”
I said, “You managed to talk to her.”
“She was eating a sandwich. By the inverted fountain-right where you found us. Right near the physics building, that seemed…providential. I brought my lunch out, we started talking, she was easy to talk to. I came right out and told her I’d looked her up. She remembered me, it didn’t freak her out, she didn’t make me feel like an utter dork. It’s as if we’ve known each other for a long, long time. As friends-I have not touched her. I don’t think she sees me that way.”
Staring at us, craving contradiction.
I said, “Now you’re worried about her.”
“How could I not be? You go talk to Lester and the next day he’s dead?”
Milo said, “Who do you think did it?”
“How would I know?”
“Make an educated guess.”
“Pete.”
“Why?”
“He hated his father.”
“He told you that?”
“He never mentioned Lester by name but he always said his old man was a useless junkie and he couldn’t stand him.”
“It just came up in conversation?”
“This was years ago, Lieutenant.”
“Try to remember.”
“If I had to guess I’d say it came up as a comparison. ‘Your dad’s cool, mine’s crap.’”
“What’d he like about your father?”
“That he was rich. That he was a ‘stud.’”
“What else did he tell you about Jordan?”
“Nothing, it wasn’t as if he was preoccupied. If he was obsessed with anyone it was his mother.”
“How much contact did he have with Jordan?”
“What’s that, a trick question? I already told you Lester wasn’t a part of my life and once I stopped going to Mary’s, I never saw Pete.”
“You had no contact with Lester because your dad couldn’t stand him.”
“No one could. Mom’s his sister and she would have nothing to do with him.”
“Your dad gave him free rent and hired Patty Bigelow to look after him.”
“So?”
“Nice treatment for someone you hate.”
“Mom probably did that to keep Lester out of her hair. Back when they were married, Dad gave her anything she wanted and she looked the other way when he fooled around. Model family, huh?”
I said, “Why was Lester killed?”
“How would I know?”
“Think it was related to Patty Bigelow?”
Silence.
Milo said, “Tell us what you know, son. Now.”
“Tanya told me what her mom said before she died. Please don’t come down on her. She needed someone to talk to and I just happened to be there.”
“What exactly did she tell you?”
“That her mom felt she’d done harm to a neighbor.”
“Felt?”
“Neither Tanya nor I believe Patty was capable of actually hurting another human being. I’m sure her being terminal had something to do with it. At the worst, she was witness to something that she didn’t report and felt guilty about.”
“Something related to Pete Whitbread?” I said.
“That’s the logical conclusion, right? He’s a sociopath, Tanya and Patty lived a few houses away. Patty probably saw something.”
“What have you told Tanya about Pete’s proclivities?”