Briefly and baldly, Colin told him, finishing, “That’s just the way I got it from Sergeant Schneider. Now you know as much as I do. I am sorry. I wish like anything I didn’t have to give you news like this.”
“Dad. Oh, my God. Dad.” Darren believed him now, all right. Tears ran down his face. “What’s Mom gonna do now? What am I gonna do now?”
Colin had no idea what Caroline Pitcavage would do. Darren Pitcavage would probably do seven to ten, with time off for good behavior and prison overcrowding. That, he didn’t say. Darren would have to find out for himself.
XXII
When Bryce Miller waited at the campus bus stop for the ride back into the town of Wayne, it was twenty-one below zero. It was the late afternoon, to be fair. The day’s high hadn’t been anywhere near so frigid. It had only been eleven below then.
Not much snow was falling. The air couldn’t hold much moisture when it got this cold. But every flake that touched his cheeks and nose-the only skin he showed-burned as if it were dipped in battery acid.
“Hope the bus comes,” said a woman standing there with him. “Can’t wait around real long in this. Gotta go inside and warm up.” It wouldn’t be hot inside, either. It would be above freezing, though. No matter how many layers you had on, you’d turn into an icicle pretty damn quick in this. Bryce had known it would be cold here when he left SoCal. He hadn’t dreamt it could get this cold.
He was thinking hard about retreating to a building when the bus grumbled up. “Extra blankets on the seats,” the driver said. She was using one. Bryce gratefully swaddled himself as the bus pulled away from the curb. It helped-a little. Nothing could help much, not in this, hellfire probably included.
He didn’t want to unwrap and get out when the bus got to his stop in downtown Wayne, such as downtown Wayne was. Only a couple of blocks to his apartment. He counted himself lucky not to be devoured by a polar bear before he made it.
It was above freezing in the apartment. Not a lot, but it was. Susan wore almost as many clothes as he had on. “Brr!” he said. “That’s just brutal out there.” She hugged him and kissed him. When they both had on so many layers, the hug seemed hardly more than virtual. The kiss was fine, though.
Then Susan said, “Colin Ferguson still works for the San Atanasio Police Department, doesn’t he?”
“Sure,” Bryce said. “How come?” It wasn’t as if Susan brought up Vanessa’s dad very often-or at all, if she could help it.
“Because the chief of the San Atanasio PD just killed himself. It was on CNN. Michael Pit. . Pitsomething. Something weird.”
“Pitcavage,” Bryce said, and Susan nodded. He went on, “That’s awful! Did they say why? Colin didn’t like him a whole bunch, but you wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”
“They said his son’s in jail on drug-dealing charges, but they don’t know if that’s what made him do it or not. It sounds like they don’t know. He didn’t leave a note, they said.”
“Holy crap,” Bryce said, and then, “Do you mind if I call Colin?”
“After this? Of course not. It’s not like you’re calling to dish about Vanessa,” Susan said. Bryce chuckled uneasily. She knew he wasn’t a hundred percent over his ex. She knew he wouldn’t be any time soon, either, too. As long as she also knew he had zero intention of doing anything about it (assuming Vanessa wasn’t over him, which she totally was), that was. . pretty much okay with her.
He got out his cell and pulled up Colin’s number. On the second ring, the familiar voice said, “Hey, Bryce” in his ear. After a beat, Colin went on, “So you heard even back there, huh?”
“’Fraid so,” Bryce answered. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. Everybody’s saying that a lot today. Listen, let me call you back in five minutes, okay? I want to walk out into the parking lot.”
“Sure. ’Bye,” Bryce said. Colin wanted to talk without fifty people listening in on his end, but he didn’t want to say so while they were listening in.
“What’s going on?” Susan asked when he took the phone away from his ear. He explained. He’d just finished when the opening chords of “Came Along Too Late” came from the phone. Hey, how many Hellenistic ring tones could you find?
“I’m here,” he said, raising it again.
“Yeah, and I’m here, which is more than Mike Pitcavage can tell you right now,” Colin replied. “I always knew he cut his rotten kid too much slack. If Mike hadn’t, Darren never would’ve turned into a dealer, and he damn well did. The evidence we’ve got, not even the dumbest jury in the world’ll acquit him, and that’s saying something. But Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, Bryce, I never dreamt Mike would go and do anything like that.”
“I believe you,” Bryce said. Colin sounded plaintive, almost pleading. Those were notes his voice almost never struck. The last time Bryce could remember hearing them was when Louise left him. Colin had never dreamt she would go and do anything like that, either.
Of course, Bryce wasn’t sure how reliable his own memories of that time were. Vanessa had just traded him in on a new-no, actually on an older-model, so he also hadn’t been at his own dynamic best.
“I know you do. It means a lot to me.” Colin hesitated, then went on, “Means a lot to me right now that anybody believes me. Some of the people here, it’s like they think I drove Mike to it on purpose when I set it up so we went after Darren and dropped on him.”
“Oh, Lord!” Bryce hadn’t thought of that. He realized he should have. “Talk about blaming the messenger!”
“Yeah, well, that’s how it looks to me, too.” Colin sighed. “But it sure doesn’t look that way to everybody. Funeral’ll be in three, four days-after the coroner’s office finishes the autopsy and releases the body. All the crap you have to go through to make sure what looks like a suicide isn’t a homicide. This one looks as cut-and-dried as they ever do, but you still have to connect the dots.”
“Sure,” Bryce said. The Hellenistic kingdoms had had their bureaucratic rituals, too.
Colin sighed again. “Not too long before you called, my landline rang, and it was Caroline Pitcavage. She uninvited me-disinvited me? whatever the hell-from the funeral. Said she was sorry and everything, but seeing me there would only remind her of what I’d done to their family.”
“Ouch!” Bryce wished he could have found something more consoling than that, but it was the best he could do.
“Ouch is right.” This time, Bryce judged, Colin’s pause was for a nod. “I’ve known Caroline Pitcavage. . gotta be twenty years now. Yeah, Mike beat me out for chief. Doesn’t mean I want to see him dead. Doesn’t mean I’d try to make him dead, either. She’s known me twenty years, too. If she doesn’t get that, she’s never known me at all.” Plaintive was the word, sure as the devil.
“She can’t be thinking straight right this minute.” Coming up with that made Bryce feel a little better. He hoped it helped Colin some, too. Whether it did or not, it was bound to be the truth.
“I know she can’t. I understand it. In my head, I understand it,” Colin said heavily. “In my gut. . She might as well’ve kicked me in the gut when she said that. And she’s not the only one who feels that way, either. I don’t know what I can do about it. I don’t know if I can do anything, this side of quitting the force.”
“Don’t!” Bryce exclaimed. “If you do, they win.”
“I know. But if I don’t, they’re liable to win, anyway. Too damn many of ’em. Happy day, huh? Listen, good to talk to you and everything, but I’ve got to go back in there and make like I’m useful,” Colin said. “Take care.” Bryce started to answer, but found himself talking to a dead line.