“You wouldn’t get a muzzle mark similar to a contact gunshot wound, and it’s not possible,” I reply. “The injuries I saw in photographs are hammer marks, and just because there was no evidence of a struggle doesn’t mean the boy wasn’t somehow coerced or coaxed or manipulated into cooperating. It sounds to me as if certain parties are choosing to ignore the facts of the case because of what they want to believe. That’s extremely dangerous.”
“I think Fielding is the one who might be ignoring the facts of the case. Maybe intentionally.”
“Good God, Benton. He might be a lot of things…”
“Or it’s negligence. It’s one or the other,” Benton says, and he has something in mind, I believe he does. “Listen. You did the best you could these past six months.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I know what it means. It means exactly what I’ve feared every single day that I’ve been gone.
“Remember when he was your fellow in the dark ages, in Richmond?” Benton is getting close to an area that is off-limits, even though he couldn’t possibly know it. “From day one, he couldn’t stand doing kids, that’s absolutely true, as you’ve pointed out. If a kid was coming in, he’d run like hell, sometimes disappearing days at a time. And you’d drive around, trying to find him, going to his house, his favorite bar, the damn gym or tae kwon do, drinking himself into a stupor or kicking the shit out of someone. Not that any of us like dealing with dead children, for Christ’s sake, but he’s got a real problem.”
I should have encouraged Fielding to go into surgical pathology, to work in a hospital lab, looking at biopsies. Instead, I mentored and encouraged him.
“But he took the Mark Bishop case,” Benton says. “He could have passed him off to one of your other docs. I just hope he didn’t lie; I sure as hell hope he didn’t do that on top of everything else.” But Benton thinks Fielding is lying. I can tell.
“On top of what else?” I ask as I look into my sideview mirror, wondering why Marino is on our bumper.
“I hope someone didn’t encourage him to suggest the possibility of a nail gun even if he knows better.” Benton has a way of looking in his mirrors without moving his head. All his years of undercover work, of watching his back because he really had to. Some habits never die.
“Who?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
“You sound like you do know. You’re not going to tell me.” It is useless to push him. If he’s not telling me, it’s because he can’t. Twenty years of the dance and it never gets easier.
“The cops want this case solved, that’s for damn sure,” Benton says. “They want a nail gun to be the weapon, because it’s what Johnny has confessed to and because the thought is easier to deal with than a hammer. It concerns me that someone has influenced Jack.”
“Someone has? Or you’re just guessing that someone has.”
“It concerns me that it might be Jack who is influencing people,” Benton says next, and that’s what he really thinks.
“I wish Marino would get off our bumper. He’s blinding me with his damn lights. What’s he doing?”
“It’s not Marino,” Benton says. “His Suburban doesn’t have lights like that, and he has a front plate. This one doesn’t. It’s from out of state, a state that doesn’t require a front plate, or it’s been removed or is covered with something.”
I turn around to look and the lights hurt my eyes. The SUV is only a few car lengths behind us.
“Maybe someone trying to pass us,” I wonder aloud.
“Well, let’s see, but I don’t think so.” Benton slows down, and so does the SUV. “I’ll make you pass us, how about that,” and he’s talking to the driver behind us. “Grab the number from the rear plate as he goes by,” Benton says to me.
We are almost stopped in the road, and the SUV stops, too. It backs up quickly and makes a U-turn, going the other way, fish-tailing as it speeds off in the snowy night on the snowy road. I can’t make out the plate on its rear bumper or any detail about the SUV except that it is dark and large.
“Why would someone be following us?” I say to Benton as if he might know.
“I have no idea what that was,” Benton says.
“Someone was following us. That’s what that was. Staying too close because of the weather, because visibility is so bad you would have to stay close or you could easily lose the person if they turned off.”
“Some jerk,” Benton says. “Nobody sophisticated. Unless he deliberately wanted us to know he was back there or thought we wouldn’t notice.”
“How’s it even possible? We just drove through a blizzard. Where the hell did it come from? Out of nowhere?”
Benton picks up his phone and enters a number.
“Where are you?” he says to whoever answers, and after a pause he adds, “A large SUV with fog lights, xenons, no front plate, on our ass. That’s right. Made a U-turn and sped off the other way. Yes, on Route Two. Anything like that just pass you? Well, that’s weird. Must have turned off. Well, if… Yes. Thanks.”
Benton places his phone back on the console and explains, “Marino’s a few minutes behind us, and Lucy’s right behind him. The SUV’s vanished. If someone’s stupid enough to follow us, he’ll try again and we’ll figure it out. If the point was to intimidate, then whoever it is doesn’t know his target.”
“Now we’re a target.”
“Anyone who knows wouldn’t try it.”
“Because of you.”
Benton doesn’t answer. But what I said is true. Anyone who knows anything about Benton would be aware of how foolhardy it is to think he can be intimidated. I feel his hard edge, his steely aura. I know what he can do if threatened. He and Lucy are similar if confronted. They welcome it. Benton’s simply cooler, more calculating and restrained than my niece will ever be.
“Erica Donahue.” That’s the first thought to come to mind. “She’s already sent one person to intercept us, and I doubt she realizes how dangerous her son’s charming, handsome Harvard psychologist is.”
Benton doesn’t smile. “Wouldn’t make sense.”
“How many people know our whereabouts?” There is no point in trying to lighten the mood, which is unrelentingly intense. Benton has his own caliber of vigilance. It is different from Lucy’s, and he is far better at concealing it. “Or my whereabouts. How many people know?” I go on. “Not just the mother or the driver. What did Jack do?”
Benton speeds up again and doesn’t answer me.
“You’re not thinking Jack has some reason to intimidate us. Or try,” I then say.
Benton doesn’t reply, and we drive in silence and there is no sign of the SUV with the fog lamps and xenon headlights.
“Lucy suspects he’s drinking a lot.” Benton finally starts talking again. “But you should get that from her. And from Marino.” His tone is flat, and I hear the unforgiveness in it. He has nothing but disdain for Fielding, even if he is silent about it most of the time.
“Why would Jack lie? Why would he try to influence anyone?” I’m back to that.
“Apparently, he’s been coming in late and disappearing, and he’s having his skin problems again.” Benton doesn’t answer my question. “I hope to hell he’s not doing steroids on top of everything else, especially at his age.”
I resist the usual defense that when Fielding is acutely stressed, he has problems with eczema, with alopecia, and that he can’t help it. He’s always been obsessed with his body, is a classic case of megarexia or muscle dysmorphia, and most likely this can be attributed to the sexual abuse he suffered as a young boy. It would sound absurd to go down the list, and I’m not going to do it this time. For once, I won’t. I continue checking my sideview mirror. But the xenon headlights and fog lamps are gone.