“Nothing. I’ve never told anyone.” Sudden, harsh laughter. “Can we draw this to a close? I’ve got a ton of work.”
“Why did you flinch when I mentioned Tanya’s study groups?”
“I did?”
“Noticeably.”
He hunched, scratched his head. “Please don’t tell Tanya but I know for a fact that there are no study groups. When she claims to be hanging with other students, she’s really sitting by herself in the library. When she’s not in class, she’s in the library doing work-study. She sticks around long after shift’s over, goes into the stacks. Sometimes she’s the last one to leave. She walks to her car alone, in the dark. It scares the hell out of me but I can’t say anything because I don’t want her to know that I follow her.”
Milo said, “Ever think of detective work?”
“Don’t tell her. Please.”
I said, “All these secrets, Kyle. Sometimes it’s easier just to go straight from point A to point B.”
“Great theory, but I haven’t found it helpful in real life. I’ve been open with you, don’t betray me. I can’t risk having Tanya think I’m a weirdo.”
“Fine, for the time being,” said Milo, “as long as you continue to cooperate.”
“What else is there to cooperate on? I’ve told you everything I know.”
“What made you suspect there was no study group?”
“She never mentioned the names of any other students. I’ve never seen her with anyone on campus.”
“Just like the old days,” I said. “Playing under the trees.”
He said, “Old days, but not necessarily good old days. I was lonely as hell and she was, too, but we never got together. Now we’re friends. I’d like that to continue.”
Milo showed him pictures of Robert Fisk and Moses Grant.
Head shake. “Who are they?”
“Friends of Pete Whitbread.”
“This one looks nasty.” Pointing to Fisk.
The Internet shot of Whitbread/De Paine evoked a nod. “He’s punked himself up, but that’s him.” Pointing to the pretty faces surrounding De Paine’s narrow, bland countenance. “Looks like he does okay with women.”
“No accounting,” said Milo, rising.
“Are you confident you can keep Tanya safe?”
“We’ll do our best, son. Here’s my card, call if you think of anything else.”
“I won’t. My brain feels leached.”
He walked us to the front doors. “What are the parameters, Lieutenant?”
“Of what?”
“The rules of engagement with Tanya. I don’t want to get in the way but I do care about her. And you can’t be everywhere all the time.”
“You’re planning to guard her?”
“At least I can be there.”
“Be there, but don’t do anything stupid and don’t impede the investigation.”
“Deal.”
We stepped out in the warm, dark silence of Hudson Avenue.
Kyle called out, “So I can still see her.”
“I just said that, son.”
“I mean socially.”
“Go do some calculations, Kyle.”
CHAPTER 33
We got back in the car, sat shadowed by the mansion’s haughty face. I watched as a second-story light went off. Miserly moon; the rest of the block had receded into mist. An easterly breeze ruffled stately trees. Hudson Avenue smelled of oranges and wet cat and ozone.
Milo said, “Young love. So much for Tanya being discreet. Did I screw up by allowing Kyle to be Mr. Protective?”
“Could you have stopped him?”
He rubbed his face. “You trust him?”
“My gut says he’s okay.”
“And if he’s telling it right, she could use a friend. Lying about having a social group. You wondered about that.”
“Would’ve been nice to be wrong,” I said.
“I can’t even imagine going it alone at that age.”
From the little he’d told me of his childhood, he’d felt alienated by age six, a big, fat Irish kid who looked and acted like his brothers but knew he was different. The few times he’d talked about his family, he could’ve been an anthropologist describing an exotic tribe.
I said, “Yeah, it’s tough.”
“But you think she’s doing okay?”
“As well as can be expected.”
He laughed. “Dr. Discreet. Anyway, be nice if we could clear all this up and watch the two of them waltz into the sunset…not that kids waltz, nowadays.” Flash of teeth. “Not that I ever waltzed…so where do we stand on Cuzzin Petey?”
“Kyle’s diagnosis seems right-on.”
“Animal guts on his weenie goes beyond basic sociopath, Alex.”
“Plus-four sociopath,” I said. “He was giving out some serious danger signals early on and no one bothered to care.”
“Glommin’ Mommy’s photos.”
“His entire childhood was eroticized. Sex and violence could’ve gotten blended. That makes me wonder if Patty’s ‘terrible thing’ was related to a lust crime. What if she really did kill someone-a bad guy she considered a threat to Tanya?”
“Some scuzzy pal of Pete’s?”
I nodded.
He said, “Scary pedophile crosses Tanya’s path and Mommy uses her little.22. Why tell Tanya now?”
“Maybe she was frightened because she hadn’t finished the job.”
“Sparing De Paine,” he said. “Years later she runs into him at the E.R. and he makes a threatening comment. But if he’d collaborated with another lowlife on something unspeakable, why would Patty off his buddy and give him a pass?”
“Because he was young,” I said. “Eighteen years old when Patty and Tanya lived on Fourth Street. He was also the son of a man she’d cared for. And possibly cared about.”
“Everyone else despises Jordan but she had a soft spot for him?”
“She watched over him as if she did. It’s also possible killing once traumatized her and she didn’t have the stomach to repeat it. It can be like that for good folk.”
The breeze blew harder.
“Okay,” he said, “for whatever reason she doesn’t shoot little Petey. Why not report him to the cops?”
“Because she’d eliminated his accomplice and didn’t want any contact with the cops.”
“Theoretical accomplice,” he said. “Given your logic, someone older. Now all we have to do is conjure this phantom out of the ether. And unearth some unspeakable sex crime no one’s ever heard about. Also, if Patty was worried about De Paine hurting Tanya, why not come out and warn her explicitly?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible the disease did affect her thinking. Or she didn’t want to terrify Tanya-or have Tanya go it alone. By being ambiguous and directing Tanya to me, she hoped Tanya would get help from both of us.”
“I guess.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
He put his hands behind his head. “Imaginative, I’ll grant you that.”
I said, “When Tanya told me she felt Patty was trying to protect her, I put it down to romanticizing her mother. But maybe she had it right.”
He closed his eyes. The dash clock said one forty-six.
“It also fits Lester Jordan’s murder, Milo. What if Jordan knew Patty had spared his son? We come by asking about her, he gets jumpy, wonders if Junior’s finally going to pay. Or if Junior’s into something new. He calls Junior, maybe warns him to stay away from Tanya. Or sends the warning through Mary. Either way, De Paine wonders if Jordan can be trusted to keep his mouth shut. That tops off the rage he’s felt toward his father his entire life. He pays a social call on Dad in the guise of bringing over product. Jordan fixes up, nods out, De Paine lets in Robert Fisk.”
“Oedipus wrecks,” he said.
“You don’t need to be Freud to see it in this family. One of De Paine’s earliest sexual charges was looking at his mother’s movie stills. Feeding his father’s habit put him in the power chair.”