I looked atAmanda. She said, "Mr. Parker, if you don't sign the waiver you'll stay in Bend, but you'll be in prison until they prove your identity. It could be weeks, months.
And that's before any sort of trial. And trust me, you won't be doing yourself any favors with the judge assigned to the case. They will take you if you make them."
"This can't be right," James said. " Goddamn it I shouldn't be here! Henry, you know me, you know this isn't right."
I knew him, but I didn't. I'd seen the depths of his anger, his rage. It was up to me to believe he wasn't capable of reaching another level.
"Dad…" I began. "Why do they suspect you?"
Without hesitating, James said, "They told me there's evidence linking me to the crime. They said they found it in Stephen's apartment."
"In New York?" I said. "How is that possible?"
He looked down at the floor, his whole body seeming to sag into nothing. "They said they found my finger prints on the gun that killed him."
"Wait, step back," I said. It took me a moment to regroup, to process what my father had just said. "How could they possibly have found your fingerprints on the gun that killed Stephen?"
"I don't know," my father said. He said it unconvinc ingly. There was more to this. Amanda looked at him with incredible frustration. She had a great legal mind, but I could already tell that she was thinking about
James Parker's chances during a murder trial. Even if he was innocent-which he had to be-this man would never do himself any favors with his lawyer or a judge.
He was already refusing easy extradition, and he was lying-or at least hiding the truth-from the only people here who gave a damn.
Sadly, I knew what it felt like to be accused of a terrible crime you didn't commit. I knew just how lonely it could be, and how much a friendly hand meant. Amanda had been that for me. If not for her,
I'd either be dead or in prison. She'd reached out, offered a hand, and I'd smartly accepted. My father, meanwhile, was dangling from the edge of a cliff, slapping our hands away in the misguided belief that he couldn't fall.
"Mr. Parker," Amanda said. "You need to tell us what happened. All of it. You know why they arrested you.
Even if you're innocent, you don't seem surprised.
Shocked, maybe, but not surprised. I can see it in your eyes. You're thinking about the circumstances that led to this. How events could have been misconstrued. We need to know this so we can understand what hap pened."
My father looked at Amanda, confused. She'd il luminated a path for him and his reluctance to see it was waning.
"I was in New York," James finally said, the words coming out in a rush like air that had been compressed.
"The day Stephen died. I was there."
"You were in the city?" I asked, incredulous.
"Why?"
James looked at me, then Amanda. He stayed quiet.
I got the picture. He wanted to talk to her. She was im partial. A lawyer. I was his son. And I would judge.
"Mr. Parker," she said. "Why were you in New
York?"
"I saw him," James said. His eyes had grown wide, for the first time fully beginning to piece together the circumstances. There was terror in those eyes. They ripped a hole through me because right then I knew he understood why he'd been accused of the crime. "Helen called me."
"Helen Gaines?" Amanda said. "Stephen's mother?"
James nodded. "I hadn't spoken to her in, God, almost thirty years. After she had Stephen, I wanted nothing to do with either of them. I had a family. A wife.
I told her that," he said, slamming his fist on the table.
"From the beginning, I told her this won't go anywhere.
It wasn't my fault the crazy bitch lied about being on the pill."
"How did she get your number?" Amanda said.
"It's called the phone book," James said drily. "Last
I checked I'm not the president."
"Why did she call you after so long?"
James leaned over again, chewed his thumbnail. He ripped off a ragged piece of white, spat it across the room. I saw a small line of blood well up from where he'd ripped.
"She said she was in trouble. That she needed money.
That Stephen was in trouble."
"Did she say what kind of trouble?"
"She said Stephen had a drug problem. She needed to get him help before it was too late. She couldn't afford treatment."
"So why did you come all the way to New York?"
"I hung up on her. She called back. She said if I didn't help them, she would sue me for child support and make sure my name was in every newspaper as one of those deadbeat dads. She said technically I owed her thirty years' of payments, and that if she hadn't wrecked my marriage thirty years ago she'd make it her mission to do it now. I couldn't afford thirty years back payments for the life of me. I told her I could give her some money, a little, but that's it. She said she needed to see me. That maybe meeting his father would snap some sense into
Stephen."
"And you agreed to go?"
"Not at first," James said. "I told her I could send it
Western Union. She said those two words again, 'child support,' and I was on a plane the next day." He looked at me and grinned. "Sorry I didn't call."
"Where did you tell mom you were going?" I asked.
"I don't know, just said I was going fishing or some shit. She didn't ask many questions."
"They say your fingerprints ended up on the gun that killed Stephen," Amanda said. "That means two things. One, they found the murder weapon. And two, your prints were on it. Can you explain how that happened?"
"Helen," he said, shaking his head slightly. "When I got to their apartment-a real rats' nest. Ugh, just dis gusting. Cockroaches everywhere, food left out.
Anyway, I hadn't seen Helen in almost thirty years. I had some money with me. Not much, I ain't Ted Turner in case you haven't noticed. Stephen wasn't there.
Helen told me he was working. It was late, and I didn't care much. I'd gone that long without seeing the boy."
"The gun, Dad," I said.
"I'm getting to that. So I give her some money, two grand. It's all I can do without biting into my 401k. Of course, Helen tells me it's not enough. Rehab centers cost tens of thousands of dollars. I tell her if she kisses my ass, she can keep whatever money she finds in there."
"And then what?" Amanda said.
"Then…Helen goes to the closet. I have no idea what she's doing. And suddenly out she comes holding this…this cannon. Then she pointed that thing at me and told me she needed money. Of course I've handled a gun or two, and I notice the safety's off. But she's holding the thing all awkward, and even though I didn't think she'd shoot me on purpose, the way she was holding it-both hands on the butt, two fingers in the trigger guard-that thing could have gone off by accident and blown my head off."
I looked at Amanda. She was thinking the same thing
I was. If Helen Gaines didn't know how to handle a gun, chances are the gun she pointed at my father belonged to Stephen. He was killed with his own gun. But if my father never saw Stephen, how did his prints get on the gun? And who did kill him?
"So I go up to her, slowly. And before she can move
I grab it out of her hands."
"Slick, Pop," I said.
"How did you take it from her?" Amanda asked.
"Just like this, I guess." My father mimicked grabbing the barrel of a gun and yanking it away, the chains holding his wrists preventing much of a visual demonstration.
"The cops say your fingerprints are on the murder weapon. If your prints were just on the barrel, and not on the trigger, they wouldn't immediately think you killed her." Amanda and my father met gazes. Then he looked down. We both knew he was lying.
"So I might have held it normal," he said.