‘Shut your mouth.’ Sam gestured with the Ruger. He glanced at the others in the lobby: a woman visiting a wheelchair-bound man, both cowering by a coffee table. ‘I start shooting and maybe I don’t start with you.’
‘There’s no point in hurting anyone else. The police are on their way. Give me the gun and let’s go talk to your mom.’
‘No.’ Sam backed down the hall, keeping the gun leveled at Whit. Whit followed him, slowly.
‘Pete told you what he thought you should know about your perfect family, all to convince you to be on his side.’
Sam hurried down the hallway, residents and aides and nurses scrambling and screaming, hurrying into rooms. At the end of the hall Whit saw Gooch move out from Corey’s room, then duck back in.
‘He was lying,’ Sam managed. He bumped into a food tray trolley, shoved it over. Fish sticks and macaroni greased the floor. The gun shook in his hand. The boy began to cry.
Whit kept his voice even, his movement even with Sam’s, close but not too close. ‘Monday night he thinks he’s spending it with you, he sends Velvet away. And maybe you call, tell him you need some time to think. He’s alone. Your friend Heather goes to see him. You hide out on an empty boat nearby, maybe. Had she been befriending him for you, spying on him? They drink, she flirts. Maybe she sets up the camera for him. You sneak aboard. He strips and gets on the bed, maybe she strips, and you come into the room, shove the gun in his mouth, and fire. Or she does. Which was it?’
‘Heather didn’t do nothing,’ Sam whispered. ‘Stop saying that.’
‘He’s dead, your family’s safe, and you found a bonus: a half million in cash. You’ve also got his computer and all his notes on Corey. Heather pretends to find the body, but when your father’s other associations start producing questions, you produce a suicide note. And Pete conveniently confesses to his own brother’s accidental death. Just so no one bothers to pick up looking for Corey.’
Sam stopped. They stood ten feet away from the end of the hall, near Corey’s room. The screams had died down as the terrified clients took cover, except for one rasping old woman’s voice calling from a nearby room, ‘Nurse? Nurse?’
‘I couldn’t let him… couldn’t let him do this to us.’ Tears streamed from Sam’s eyes.
‘I know you were just trying to help your grandmother, Sam. Your mother’s on the phone, down at the office, she wants to talk to you. Give me the gun and come with me. We know how all this happened. There’s nothing to be gained from hurting Corey or anyone else.’
A shrill of sirens screamed in the parking lot. A hard light gleamed in the boy’s eyes.
Sam muttered, ‘Fuck you,’ and Gooch launched himself from the door, pile-driving the boy down, smashing a fist against the boy’s wrist. The pistol fell and Whit grabbed it.
Sam wriggled beneath Gooch, cursing, crying. Gooch yanked him to his feet, holding him with one massive arm.
‘You okay?’ he asked Whit.
Whit watched Sam’s face. ‘Yeah. Sam, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.’
Officers charged into the hall, demanding all three of them lie facedown. Whit put the gun on the floor as ordered and put his face on the cool tile. Duplessis hurried among the police, explaining, telling them Gooch and Whit were okay.
As the Deshay officers pulled Sam down the hall, he sobbed, ‘Let me call Heather. Please let me call Heather.’
Oh, God, he doesn’t know.
Whit went to go deal with the police and to tell Faith her son was still alive.
Hours later, when evening began its soft slide into Deshay, Whit returned to Corey Hubble’s room. Corey lay in the bed, eyelids like half-moons, moaning softly. A police guard at the door nodded Whit in.
Whit pulled up a chair next to the bed.
‘Well. Hello. It’s been a long while. I know you and I weren’t close, but I also don’t know… what you can hear, what you can understand. I’m gonna assume it’s more than we think.’ He touched the bone-thin arm under the sheet, remembering the smiling boy holding a proud string of redfish aloft. ‘The fishing’s been good this year, Corey, although I sure haven’t had time to go. We don’t have a prayer in football season this year. The coach doesn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground, so we’re all resigned to losing. We ought to do better in basketball next spring, one of the Lindstrom boys is six-seven. And would you believe I’m a judge? I know: a Mosley acting all respectable. But it may only be for a little while now.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I went to go see Marian Duchamp. She cares about you, you know, even if things weren’t exactly running smooth between you…’
The talk went on for another hour before Corey dozed into sleep. Whit stayed by his bed, watching the ghost breathe.
42
The one true suicide note composed that October in Encina County read as follows: I deeply regret the things I have done and left undone. I murmured that at church each Sunday for the past sixteen years and each time it felt like a bee’s sting near my heart and God knew I was a rotten liar. If I make it to heaven I’ll know He’s forgiven me. I take full responsibility for what happened to Corey Hubble and in turn what happened to Pete Hubble. I heard as a boy that love made you do great things, but I never figured good love would make you do evil. I write this not as explanation but as apology, and because regretfully Lucinda will not tell one moment’s truth. Lucinda and I became lovers before her husband died. His death from cancer was long and drawn-out, and the love between them faded long before he got sick. We were very careful and discreet, but Corey found out about us after Lucinda’s election to the state senate. I don’t know how, maybe he started following his mother and spotted us at one of the motels we used. He delivered flowers for spending money, so perhaps he saw us where we shouldn’t be. While we were staying at a friend’s house in Houston, Corey surprised us. He burst into the upstairs bedroom with a shotgun and we fought. I got the shotgun away from him, but then he grabbed for my service revolver and I grabbed it back and it fired twice, once hitting him in the head. He was hurt, but he didn’t die. Lucinda’s an RN. She stabilized him but refused to take him to a doctor because she was worried about the scandal. I began to cease to love her then. What kind of woman does that? A kiss can fool you. But I went along with her idea, scared shitless of losing my career, and we drove the boy to Texarkana, where she knew of a nursing home where she could cut a deal. She’d been doing legislation on nursing home reform, so she knew which homes were crooked and might cut her a deal and would benefit most from her protection. Lucinda greased some palms and he got care at the home. We thought he would quietly die but he didn’t. We returned to Port Leo late that Saturday, me driving Corey’s car, Lucinda driving mine. I took command of the investigation into Corey’s disappearance, and I stamped out any evidence that could point to him having fallen victim to violence. I am sorry to the people of Port Leo for betraying their trust, but I was young and foolish and scared. I have read a lot on head and brain injuries, and they are confounding, unpredictable things. Corey hovered over our lives, not alive and not dead. He haunts me even now. The administrator at the home (Phil Farr) was a goddamned crook, and he’d done Medicare fraud before, creating clients that never existed. After we took Corey there Lucinda protected this home against agency investigations. Farr and this clerk made Corey into John Taylor. This clerk was a creepy little bastard who was suspected at one point of smothering a lady patient at the home, but nothing came of that. Now we know that clerk became Buddy Beere and followed Lucinda eventually to Port Leo, and now he has killed some poor young women. I take blame for that as well. I thought Lucinda had killed Pete, or perhaps his ex-wife Faith. I did not want a murder investigation centering on the Hubbles. I behaved badly. I am sorry to the people I have hurt. I am not sorry to Lucinda Hubble, and the people of the Coastal Bend should not suffer her one moment longer. I apologize to the people who have suffered so because of my mistakes, including Claudia Salazar, who I wrongfully terminated and should have her job back. Claudia, don’t hate me. I always loved you more than a little. God forgive me my wrongs. – Delford Morton Spires