She led them around the house along an uneven cement walk. It was dim away from the porch light; the two men stepped carefully, but those iridescent eyes of hers seemed to see without light and she didn’t falter.
They got around to the back, a scrap of a yard half cemented over and a patch of lawn that already needed mowing. Three wooden steps led up to a tiny back porch.
She went up and they followed, but there wasn’t room for all of them on the porch and Lucci stopped one step down. The window in the back door and the windows along the back of the house were lit.
She looked through the glass, then hissed to them. “What’d I tell you, passed out on the table. Now tell me what you want to know, Lieutenant. And tell it straight or we’re gonna waste a lot of time.”
“Where Adam Fuller went,” Latovsky said.
“Want to know what he was doing here at the wrong time of month in the first place and who that woman is?”
“We know who she is and I don’t care why he came here. I just want to know where he is now. And fast, Ida. As fast as you can.” She opened the door, which was not locked, and went into the kitchen. Latovsky watched through the window; Lucci edged up into the small space and watched with him as the old woman tried to rouse the old man, whose upper body was sprawled across the table. The man’s head lolled and a faint gleam of eyeball showed between the lids. He looked dead and Latovsky and Lucci looked at each other, then Latovsky put his hand on the doorknob and the old man’s eyes flickered. The old woman disappeared, water ran and stopped, then she came back with a wad of wet paper towel and laid it gently across the back of his neck. He shivered and tried to raise his head, but couldn’t. She kept the pad pressed to his neck and he tried again and made it this time. Bleary eyes looked at her, he tried to smile; at least that was how it looked from where they were. Then his face seemed to come apart and he started to cry. Thin, harsh sobs came faintly through the door and the old man’s face looked like a sheet of paper being crushed by an invisible hand.
His sobs faded and Latovsky reached for the knob again because this was taking too long. Lucci put his hand on his wrist.
“No, Dave,” he whispered, “you’ll just screw it up. Let her do it.”
He was right. Latovsky dropped his hand and waited. His mouth was dry; he raised some spit to swallow, afraid he’d cough and the old man would hear him and know someone was out there.
The old man finally stopped crying and he and the old lady murmured together a while. She got more wet towels and he took them from her, wiped his face, and she got a beer from the refrigerator. She opened it, gave it to him, and he swigged and talked some more. His eyes looked as brimming with blood as poor Pete Bunner’s had the night his father died.
It felt as if they’d been out on the porch in the cool, damp evening air for hours, but it had only been a few minutes, not much more than five, Latovsky thought. He didn’t want to look at his watch, afraid the old man would see movement through the window.
Finally the old man slumped forward again. Ida Van Damm waited a second, then came to the door. Lucci slithered down the stairs and Latovsky followed to give her room to get out. She stepped out on the porch and waved them farther away, then came down to them and whispered, “Pine Ridge. It’s the Protestant cemetery north of town—the only cemetery. We don’t hold with papists and I don’t know what the three or four Jews in town do with their dead. He’ll be on the North Ridge, up the hill from Barb Fuller’s grave. God knows why.”
“Thank you.” Latovsky whirled away, but her skinny gnarled fingers caught his sleeve. “Don says Adam’s got a gun, so don’t come on like gangbusters. I’ve known Adam all his life. He was a sweet little boy to start with, then he turned into the kind’a kid that pours gas on cats and sets ’em on fire to see ’em run. You must’a come across the type.”
He nodded.
“Point is, he ain’t any nicer now,” she said, “even if he is a doctor. If you rush him, he’ll do what I figure you’re scared he will to that woman and not turn a hair.”
The inscription was worn but still legible: Edna Janecki, November 2, 1932—May 16, 1956. And an epitaph the old man must have composed, Too good for this world.
The plot was derelict, choked with weeds, and long grasses grew around the base of the stone. The stone had been badly set and had settled so the top sloped and it looked like it had been there for centuries.
“Cheap piece of shit he put up for her,” Adam said. He stood on one side of the stone. Eve on the other. The gun was in his hand, hanging at his side, but he’d raise it any minute now.
“All he got for all his trouble,’” he murmured.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s something I heard once, can’t remember where.”
As he talked, Eve looked around. It was almost dark; but the moon was up and his face and hands were dark gray blobs, the gun almost invisible. Flat black patches spread across the grounds with one at the foot of the rise that looked as thick as velvet. If she could get to it, lie flat in it, she might disappear. Her clothes were dark, he wouldn’t be able to see her, and she could crawl away to the next patch and the next, then run through the gates to the road they’d come on. It had looked well traveled; she would flag a car.
“It goes, All he got for all his trouble was a hatful of rain.’” He said, “I feel like that a lot. All I got for all my trouble...”
She edged toward the impenetrable-looking shadow a few yards away.
“You got a lot for your trouble.” She raised her voice slightly to hide the distance growing between them. “You got what you said you wanted.”
“What I needed, or thought I did”—he stared at his mother’s tombstone—“but it didn’t change anything. Bunner said it would. Said the truth’s down there, like a secret door only you could find. Pretty trite even for a shrink.”
She edged away a little more; the black patch was close, but not close enough to make it in a single leap.
“I asked what I’d find behind the door,” Adam said, “expecting some bullshit about the inherent satisfaction of self-awareness and knowledge being its own reward. But Bunner was honest, he said he didn’t know.”
“Bunner...”
“You met him, you were in his office. He was the one who told me about you.”
“At the party?”
“Party? You mean the dance.” He looked up, saw how far she’d gotten, and raised the gun. It was now or never. She tensed to leap the last couple of yards, and the grounds’ lights came on in response to some signal that it was dark enough. The dense black patch turned into a softly rolling expanse of gray green that wouldn’t hide a squirrel.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His thumb slid up the gun butt to the lever at the top. “I really am because you tried to help and it’s not your fault you couldn’t. Maybe knowing isn’t enough, maybe you have to be ready for what you know. I thought that meant taking the trouble to find out whatever it is, and Lord knows I’ve taken trouble, haven’t I?”
He cocked the gun. “I’d’ve had to kill you no matter what, Eve, because you’re the only one who knows for sure and there’s still a chance I’ll get away with it. Wouldn’t bet the farm on it, but there’s a chance. I’ve been careful, I don’t think they’ve got anything that’ll stand up in court, and you’ll be the last, if it’s any consolation. I never killed for fun, I did it to transform myself. But I can’t and I’ll have to live with it, if they let me. I’ll still be a good doctor.”