I said, “We didn’t know him. I’m sorry. If you want to know what we found, we’d be happy to tell you.”
“Yes, please,” he murmured.
I told him about the circumstances of the death as I knew them. I finished, “The police can probably tell you more.”
“The police won’t tell me anything. I’ve tried using my fame to get me answers. It hasn’t helped. What was the connection between this Gahain person and my son?”
“All we know is that they were business partners. I don’t think they were lovers. I don’t know if your son was gay. Is that why you were estranged?”
“Cormac never told me that he was a homosexual. When he was a teenager, he dated women. For God sakes, he was married to a woman. All the media are saying that he was a homosexual. That’s what all the homosexuals are saying, too. That my son hung around locker rooms taking pictures of men, so what else could he have been?” Macintire shuddered. “Where did I go wrong?”
I said, “I suspect every parent asks that at some point in their lives no matter what their child’s sexual orientation.”
“But few of them ask it after their child has been murdered, or after they learn their child was a pornographer.” Macintire sighed. “I knew nothing of my son’s life. I knew none of his friends.”
“Would your wife have known?” I asked.
“I’m divorcing my third wife. Cormac’s mother died ten years ago of breast cancer. They were reasonably close. He barely knew any of my other wives. The last time I saw Cormac was at my first wife’s funeral.” Macintire gave another big sigh. “I’m sorry. My lack of closeness with my son is going to be a great burden to me for the rest of my days.”
“How did the estrangement start?” I asked.
“When he was growing up, we disagreed about politics and religion. He thought I was a lousy father. I thought he was a terrible son. He didn’t think I was attentive enough during his mother’s final illness. He would never listen to me just as I would never listen to him. Now it’s too late.” Macintire bowed his head and stared at the top of his desk.
After several moments of silence, Scott asked, “If we find anything out, would you like us to call you?”
Macintire met Scott’s gaze. “You would be willing to do that?”
Scott said, “I understand the difficulties between fathers and sons. Yes, I’d be willing to do that.”
“Thank you,” Macintire whispered.
We drove out to Barrington to meet with Ethan’s parents. To avoid the media, they were staying with one of Ethan’s uncles. My parents were there when we arrived. We met in an elegantly appointed living room. Mr. and Mrs. Gahain looked awful.
Mr. Gahain asked, “Is all that we’re hearing in the media true?”
“I don’t know what you heard,” I said. “Let me tell you what we found.” I told them everything. What was the point in lying or holding back? They might hear much worse. Better the appalling truth than the awfulness of wild rumors and media speculation.
They listened to my recitation stoically. When I was done, Mrs. Gahain said, “Why would he do that? Why would he take pictures?”
“I don’t know.” I wasn’t about to speculate in front of the Gahains or make flippant comments about making money. “Do you have any idea how long Ethan had the condo on the lakefront?”
“Ernie called a few minutes ago,” Mr. Gahain said. “It seems like he bought the condo a while ago. I think maybe he was making trips to Chicago and stayed there. Trips he didn’t tell us about. Obviously we didn’t know our son as well as we think we did. We didn’t know anything about it. He just came to town Friday and asked if he could go to the wedding.”
“He knew about the wedding already?”
“Yes. We’d mentioned it to him,” Mrs. Gahain said. “We were a little surprised he hadn’t been invited. I know you weren’t as close as you once were. I hope there hadn’t been a quarrel.”
I gave as neutral a response as I could. “We weren’t as close as we had been as kids.”
“Who killed him?” Mr. Gahain asked. “Did this Cormac Macintire lead our son astray?”
I didn’t say I thought their kid was plenty old enough to be making decisions of his own without having to rely on the old falling-into-bad-company defense.
We talked about Ethan for a little longer and then left. In the car I phoned the answering service.
Detective Rohter had left a message for us to call. He said, “One of the fingerprints we found in that bathroom stall was your nephew’s.”
“How’d you know it was his?” I asked.
“He had his hands all over the top of the table when we interviewed him. It might not stand up in court, but he was in that rest room. He told you he didn’t go in, but we figured we’d better be as sure as we could. Turns out he had.”
Scott said, “Maybe he used it before the murder.”
“The print was on top of the blood. The print smeared the blood. The print happened after the killing. It was Ethan Gahain’s blood. We want to find this kid, and we want to find him now.”
“I think everybody does,” I said.
“Have you talked to Donny’s parents?” Rohter asked.
“Not today. The kid can’t have gone far. We have his money. He doesn’t know anyone in town.”
Rohter said, “None of Mr. Carpenter’s relatives at the hotel admitted seeing him. I want to talk to them again, especially the cousins near his age. One of them could be harboring him.”
Made sense. We’d put everyone up at the Hotel Chicago. We set up a time to meet at the hotel the next morning.
Back home we called Scott’s sister Mary. We spoke with her over the speakerphone. She was closest to Scott of all his siblings. We filled her in on what had been happening and Donny’s possible role in the murder.
Her first reaction centered on Donny hitting his mother: “My God, I don’t believe it. A child hitting his mother. That is an outrage.”
“Has he done that kind of thing before?” I asked.
“Not that I know of.”
Scott asked, “Does Hiram hit Cynthia?”
Mary paused to think for several moments. “I have no proof that he does. Daddy was never violent with us. He was gentle. I don’t know where Hiram would have gotten it. Aren’t abusers simply repeating what happened to them? Daddy never raised a hand to me.”
“Me either,” Scott said.
“Yes, but you were always the Goody Two-shoes in the family.”
“Sometimes I just can’t help myself.”
Mary said, “I’m not aware that Hiram ever did such a thing. Cynthia never mentioned Donny being violent. My kids went to school with him. They never reported him being the class bully or anything, although he did run with a rough crowd.”
I asked, “Do you think Donny could kill someone?”
“I can’t imagine why he would. The family dynamic must have been far worse than anyone ever let on. Hiram always was close-mouthed.”
Scott asked, “What the hell is going on in that family?”
“We get together for holidays. They don’t seem to fight any more or less than anyone else. I kind of like Cynthia. She’s very much in that Baptist adore-and-obey-the-husband tradition, but she’s got a good sense of proportion. She knows what is best for her kids. She fights for it. She’s no fool. She recognizes Hiram for exactly what he is. The Carpenter men from Georgia can be a stubborn lot.”
I knew this to be true.
“When our kids were younger, she was always willing to sit for them, especially on short notice. I did that for her as well. My husband and Hiram don’t get along much, but who does get along much with Hiram, except Cynthia? I’m not sure Hiram gets along with Hiram. Donny’s older brother, Darrell, is another story. He has been in all kinds of trouble. I would believe any report of violence done by him. Hiram and Cynthia have had to go to court several times about Darrell.”
“How come I didn’t know this?” Scott asked.
“They didn’t talk about it much. Cynthia would confide in me sometimes. I don’t think she’s got a lot of friends outside of the house. She goes to church a lot, but that’s about it. She’s usually so quiet.”
“We’ve seen her near raving,” Scott said.
“It’s her child. Her youngest. Undoubtedly she’s got powerful feelings. Maybe she believes Hiram has ruled the roost long enough, and she’s finally willing to put her foot down.”
“What kind of kid was Donny?” I asked.
“He was always very polite to me, very Southern gentleman. Then again, maybe he knew I wouldn’t put up with his crap. He used to sit for my kids. We came back early one time and found him talking to some girl on our porch. It didn’t seem important at the time. It wasn’t like he was trying to have a mad, wild party.”
Scott said, “But Donny and the older brother were close?”
“I’m not sure
close
is the right word. The younger brother adored the older. He emulated him. Wore the same kinds of clothes. Tried to hang around with the same friends. In fairly typical sibling fashion, the older boy sometimes permitted the closeness, sometimes pushed him away. Those two boys had some horrible fights.”
“You mean physical confrontations.”
“Knock-down-drag-out. Darrell sent Donny to the emergency room after several fights.”
“Isn’t that abuse?” I asked.
“By my definition it is, but nobody stepped in to stop it. I tried to talk to Donny about it, but he denied Darrell ever hurt him.”
“How do you know it happened?” I asked.
“My boys talk to him. They’re about the same age. They told me.”
“When was all this?” Scott asked.
“A couple years ago. Then Darrell got sent to that work-farm program for an accumulation of offenses.”
“Work farm?” Scott asked.
“It was the juvenile home when we were kids. Now it’s a ‘work-farm program.’ It’s kind of a boot-camp version of juvenile hall. You’ve heard of those.”
“Was either one of them involved in drugs or pornography?” I asked.
“I have no hints of anything like that. I think my kids might have told me that kind of thing, but I’m not sure.”
“Where’s the older brother now?” I asked.
“As far as I know, serving another term at the work farm.”
“I don’t get a lot of family information,” Scott said.
“You moved away. You were never close to Hiram. He’s been jealous of you since he was in first grade. You were older. You were always better than him athletically. He didn’t like that. You always got so much attention. He felt slighted. Even when he got older and got physically bigger than you, it didn’t help. Your coordination was better, your reactions faster. Your muscles might not have been bigger, but they were stronger or you were able to use them more effectively.”
“But we never had fistfights,” Scott said. “He never sent me to the emergency room.”
“Was that pure luck or just never getting caught?” Mary asked.
“It didn’t happen,” Scott averred, then asked, “Why would Donny have run away to us?”
“I don’t know. The logical explanation would be that he was a gay kid running to somewhere that he thought would be supportive.”
“He told us that,” Scott said, “but I think he may have been lying.”
“I sure have no indication that the kid is gay. Certainly, Cynthia never said anything to me about his sexual orientation. I never caught him naked with another boy.”
I asked, “Do you think Donny would have the wherewithal to get himself up here on his own, or would he have had some help?”
“I suppose in this day and age it isn’t that tough to get tickets, especially with the Internet. I think he’s a resourceful kid. He has an exaggerated sense of his own cleverness, but he’s not stupid.”
We called his parents at the Hotel Chicago. I left the room to let Scott talk to them. I nuked a few leftovers in the microwave for us to have a bite to eat. Scott joined me about ten minutes later.
He flung himself onto a kitchen chair. “They warned me about seven times to be careful. They suggested several times that we just go on our honeymoon.”
“That sounds kind of liberal of them.”
“I don’t think it means they approve of what I’m sure they don’t think about. It’s more, if we were out of town, nobody would try to harm us.”
“I couldn’t possibly leave before the funeral.”
“I reminded them about the familial connection. I think they kind of understood, but their concern for me, their kid, outweighed that.”
“But we haven’t been in particular danger.”
“Somebody broke into our hotel room in St. Louis and into our car in the parking lot of both universities.”
I asked, “Have they seen Donny or your brother and sister-in-law?”
“Hiram and Cynthia were there earlier. They were out hiring a private security firm that specializes in looking for missing kids. Nobody thinks Donny was kidnapped, so nobody’s worried about him being molested and killed. He ran. No one knows why.”
“Did you tell them about the bloody fingerprint?”
“Yep. They were real quiet after I told them that. I don’t think they wanted to believe it. That fact changes a lot of things.”
“Where the hell could the kid go?” I asked. “You can’t survive in this town by random chance. He’s got to be sleeping somewhere. How could he find those places he could afford? Why isn’t he afraid of being in those kinds of places? He grew up in rural Georgia, but very comfortable and safe rural Georgia. There can’t be a lot of crime down there.”
“As long as you were a white, male Protestant, it was generally very safe.”
“Yeah. You know we’re starting to turn into our own little crime wave.”
“Don’t start that amateur-sleuth crap again. I’m tired of hearing about how the Miss Marples of the world are oneperson death squads.”