I was comfortable in gyms, and comfortable with guys who hung out in gyms. Colm and I probably had a lot in common, under the surface. It could so easily have been pleasant.
But Colm was scowling. He executed a powerful front kick, pushing hard through his heel. It was supposed to rock me backward, off my feet, and nearly did. It was only because I saw him set his feet, preparing for a powerful strike, that I knew what he was going to do and had leaned my full weight against the bag so he didn’t dislodge me.
Colm shifted tactics and spun a high roundhouse kick into the bag, hitting my right hand, up where I thought I’d positioned it out of reach. It wasn’t a hard strike. If he’d wanted to, he probably could have broken bones, since I wasn’t wearing gloves. He was just showing me what he could have done, a point he underscored by not meeting my eyes afterward.
“You’ve got amazing flexibility,” I said. “Have you thought about ballet instead?”
Irritated, he shifted back, to launch a kick even higher and strike my hand again. This time, I caught his heel and yanked. He lost his balance and fell.
“What’s your problem?” Colm glared up at me.
“Do you ever think about what your father did to Aidan, when he was living here?” I asked, without preamble. “The way he used to hurt him?”
Colm scrambled to his feet. “Maybe Aidan deserved it!” he said. “It didn’t happen to any of us, just to him! Don’t you think that’s kind of weird? Don’t you think he did something to deserve it?”
“Like what?” I said. “Tell me what he did.”
A muscle worked near Colm’s jaw; above that, his face was mottled with exertion and anger. “I don’t want to talk about this,” he said. He stalked to the door and out of the garage.
Another triumph by Sarah Pribek, the great communicator. Well, I’d started this. I couldn’t leave it unfinished.
I found Colm sitting under the magnolia tree. He’d already taken his boxing gloves off and was starting on the flesh-colored wraps around his knuckles when I reached his side.
“If there was a Hennessy family crest,” I said, sitting down next to him, “the motto on it would be, ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’ ”
Against his will, a small, wry smile began to play at the corners of Colm’s mouth. I realized how handsome he was when he smiled, and how rarely I’d witnessed it.
“Back there, in the garage,” I said, “you were off-balance physically, and I knocked you over pretty easy. You were also off-balance emotionally, and I got you to walk out on me with two questions.”
Colm let the last of his right-hand wrap fall to the earth.
“You were off-balance because you were angry,” I said. “Few things make us angrier than our own guilt.”
The half smile fled Colm’s face, and there was a guarded light in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“When your brother and sister were hiding Aidan out in the garage, you were the one who turned him in to your father,” I said. “You got him exiled back to Georgia. Before that, you let him take the blame for a window you broke. And when Liam and Marlinchen were expressing reservations about my arresting Aidan, you went and got my handcuffs.”
“I get it,” Colm said bitterly. “I’m the asshole here.”
“No,” I said. “But sometimes the hardest thing to forgive other people for is the wrongs we’ve done them. To protect yourself, you have to tell yourself that there must be something wrong with Aidan.”
Colm pulled up a handful of grass, which made a low thrrip sound as it came up, exposing black, loose soil.
“Something else, too,” I said. “I think you’re angry at Aidan for letting you down.”
Colm pulled up another small handful of grass. “Saint Aidan?” he said sourly. “The hero who came home to bring in another income and help Marlinchen take care of everyone? What could he have done?”
“He scared you,” I said.
Colm gave me a quizzical look.
“Years ago, you idolized him; he was everything you wanted to be. Then you saw him powerless before your father’s rages. That was frightening. You couldn’t blame your father; Hugh was the only parent you had. So you switched sides. You agreed with your father on everything and aligned yourself with him, and you told yourself that there must be something wrong with Aidan, that your father treated him that way. Because if what was happening to Aidan wasn’t his fault, then it could happen to anyone. Maybe to you.”
I saw the muscles of Colm’s throat work. I wasn’t expecting tears, but that uncomfortable stiffness in the throat, that was promising.
“Then you made yourself into a caricature of toughness,” I said. “You wanted to be stronger than you’d ever thought Aidan was. But that wasn’t the point. Aidan couldn’t have solved the problem by being taller or stronger or faster or tougher. You know that.”
I tore up my own handful of grass, uncomfortable in the role of armchair psychologist. Between the two of us, Colm Hennessy and I would defoliate the whole patch of ground under his mother’s beloved tree.
“I like fighting,” Colm said. “Wrestling and boxing and weightlifting, I like those things for themselves, as sports.”
“I believe you,” I said. “But they have their limits. If you want to feel better about Aidan being here, I think you need to go talk to him, instead of retreating into your gym with your heavy bag.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Yeah, okay.”
I felt relieved. I’d done what I’d come out here to do. Now I wanted out, before I said the wrong thing and undid it all. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go up.”
30
Dr. Leventhal, the department psychologist, was an approximately ninety-nine pound woman with lovely iron-gray curls and a very faint British accent long eroded by life in America. I’d never had the chance- or rather, the requirement- to work with her. So I was mildly surprised that she knew my name when I stuck my head in her door.
“Detective Pribek,” she said. “You can come all the way in; I’m not busy.” She was impeccable in a pale-rose suit and a small gold Star of David around her neck, and even though I was in clothes and boots suitable for the job, I suddenly felt as rumpled as a bloodhound.
“I only wanted to ask you a quick question,” I said. “I don’t really need anything.”
“Please go ahead,” she said. “I’ll help if I can.”
“Let me run a hypothetical situation by you,” I said. “If someone was told repeatedly, from the age of three or four, that he’d been badly bitten by a dog at that age- even if it never happened- could he develop a vivid memory of the incident? One that’s almost visual?”
Since she was a psychologist, I was expecting a wordy and inconclusive answer. I was wrong.
“Yes,” Dr. Leventhal said. “It helps that the child in question is so young. Age three to four is generally accorded to be the threshold of recall. But even adults have been known to fabricate memories when psychologists encourage them to.”
“Why would a psychologist encourage that?” I asked.
“For a study,” she said. “Sometimes a subject’s brother or sister is called upon to prompt the subject to remember a ‘childhood event’ that never happened. Under those circumstances, the individuals being studied tend to agree the event took place, and some even add details that they ‘remember.’ ” She paused. “A subject’s likelihood of doing this depends somewhat on how imaginative or credulous they are. Significant also is who’s trying to convince them: an older sibling’s word is more likely to have the ring of authority than a younger sibling’s. Who’s doing the persuading in your case?”