Leaving Donny in the kitchen, Scott and I met them at the elevator. Hiram was taller than Scott’s six foot four by at least five inches. He also weighed at least 100 to 150 pounds more than Scott. His wife, Cynthia, bulged out of her clothes. She had a high forehead with hair pulled back in a modified bun.
Hiram’s first words were “Where’s my son? I want to see him right now.” He delivered the words with more snarl in his tone than his son had used in everything he’d said so far.
This was the first time Hiram and Cynthia had been to the penthouse. His words and the tone they were delivered in didn’t strike me as an auspicious beginning. When Scott remained silent an uncomfortable amount of time, I said, “Welcome to our home. While you are here, you will observe the rudiments of civility. Nor will you make any demands outside the bounds of welcome guests.”
Hiram turned red.
I continued, “Your son came to us. We’re willing to help you and him, but we’re not going to put up with any verbal abuse. I’m curious, though. In what way do you think being officious and demanding is going to help?”
Scott finally spoke. “Tom is right.”
Cynthia put a hand on her husband’s arm. “It’s their home. You promised.” She turned to us. “We’d like to speak with our son as soon as possible.” Scott had always described her as a milquetoast, Baptist, obey-your-husband type.
Scott said, “There’s a good chance if he’s not supervised he may try to run again. He just got done telling us he was scared. He didn’t have time to tell us of what.”
Hiram and Cynthia exchanged confused looks, then stared at us. Cynthia asked, “What’s he been saying?”
I said, “Why don’t we listen to him?”
The four of us met the kid in the kitchen. Donny stood up as we entered the room. His mom hugged him, but Donny’s hands remained slack at his sides. His dad approached, but Donny flinched back. Cynthia had a tearful reunion. Hiram glowered angrily. The boy did not look at his father. We all moved to the living room and sat down.
From running away, to blatant lies, to attempted theft—if the kid wanted attention from his parents, he’d certainly gotten it. Or maybe he was trying to gain power or assert independence, or a combination of all of the above? I didn’t know what he wanted. Maybe he didn’t know himself.
Hiram asked, “What the hell is going on?” He banged his fist on a glass-topped table. It rattled but didn’t break.
Not a bad question, and I was close to feeling as frustrated as he sounded.
Cynthia gripped Hiram’s arm. “Stop it! Now! How is pounding and demanding going to help!” She began to sob. Hiram sat with his mouth hanging open. Even Donny’s eyes were misty.
I found some tissues and handed them to her. As Cynthia’s tears subsided, Hiram reached out a hand to her. She brushed it away. Hiram frowned. I debated us leaving and letting the family resolve its own problems, but by his actions Donny had made us a part of his and their lives. And I didn’t trust him to tell the truth, or even the same lies he had told us. I prefer teenagers who tell consistent lies. That’s the kind of guy I am. And he was connected to the murder. That had to be dealt with.
I handed the parents Donny’s wad of money, the stolen credit card, and the receipt from the plane ticket.
Cynthia Carpenter said, “Donny, why?”
“That’s my money!” His voice squeaked. Donny pointed at us. “They took my stuff. They made me walk around in my underwear.”
Very softly, Cynthia repeated her question.
Donny’s eyes shifted from adult to adult. I sensed evasion tinged with guilt. He said, “You don’t understand me.”
I thought this was a weak countergambit. A universal teenage complaint, but hardly worth traipsing over a quarter of the continent for. He said nothing yet about being gay.
“What don’t we understand?” his mother asked.
“Everything.”
“That’s not an answer,” Hiram snapped.
“It’s as good as your going to get,” Donny snapped back.
Silence. Cynthia started crying again. Hiram softly beat the palm of his hand against the chair arm.
Scott said, “Here’s what he told us.”
At significant points in his narrative the parents reacted. It was Hiram who said, “We never caught him having sex.” Cynthia said, “He’s dated girls. They call him all the time.” About abuse Hiram said, “We are strict, but we aren’t animals. He hasn’t even been spanked once since he was four or five.” Cynthia said, “I could count on one hand the times he was spanked.” And even later Hiram said, “We never forced him to play sports. He loved being outdoors. He was a champion from the start. People said he could be as good as Scott.” And later still, “We never found pot in his room.” And finally, “We have no idea what he could be afraid of.”
The mention of suicide stunned them.
“He’s never said such a thing to us,” Cynthia said. She reached out and touched her son. “We would never want to lose you.”
The kid yanked his arm away. I wanted to belt him one.
Donny had squirmed during all these revelations, especially the bit about suicide. I couldn’t tell if it was discomfort at the truth—unlikely as that seemed—or because of guilt for lying. Or because he didn’t want his parents to know secrets about him. Or simple unease in the face of such raw emotion, or what. The kid was a liar and had told us some whoppers. It didn’t take a team of psychiatrists to figure out something was seriously wrong here. With each new bit of information that Scott had revealed, the boy seemed to sink further into himself. I suppose the parents could have been lying, but at that moment I was in their corner.
Cynthia asked, “Donny, what are you afraid of?”
The kid was trapped in his lies, but his teenage defiance trumped any fear or common sense. He stood up and shouted, “Fuck you all!” and stormed from the room.
We four adults looked at each other for several moments.
Finally, Cynthia said, “I don’t know why he would tell such lies.”
“Why would he come to you?” Hiram asked.
Scott said, “If the gay stuff was true, it would make some sense.”
“I swear,” Cynthia said, “we never caught him having sex with a girl or a boy. We have no reason to lie to you about that.”
Scott said, “Then I’m not sure what’s going on. Did he imagine we wouldn’t talk to you about the accusations and claims he made? I guess based on how often we’ve talked in the past, maybe it wasn’t an unreasonable assumption.”
I said, “He may have convinced himself of anything. Teenagers have odd delusions about their powers of persuasion, their invulnerability, and the belief that the response of the universe to their often inept machinations will be benign.”
Scott said, “Tom teaches teenagers. He knows them pretty well.”
“There’s more to the story than what Scott has told you. Things have happened up here.” I told them about the murder at the wedding, and Donny’s possible involvement. “The police want to talk to him. He refused to speak unless you were present. The police were waiting for you to get here.”
“Murder!” Hiram exclaimed.
“They don’t think he did it?” Cynthia asked.
Scott said, “You need to decide how truthful a kid you think he is. Certainly I can’t think of any motivation for him to kill Ethan Gahain.”
I said, “Maybe you should ask him without us present.”
They decided to try having a conference with just the three of them. Scott and I returned to the kitchen. The kid had found time to wolf down the rest of his omelette and leave his dirty dish and utensils on the table. “Now what?” Scott asked.
I said, “We let them settle this themselves. They go talk to the cops. We go to St. Louis. Todd said he would talk to the cops. We’re not suspects, and it’s only a few hours down the road. I’ve already got the week off. We certainly can’t go on our honeymoon with Ethan dead. I want to go to the wake and the funeral.”
The intercom beeped again. Scott said, “This place is turning into Grand Central Station.”
I said, “We’ve had one of the most reported murders since O.J.’s wife. It’s gonna be nuts for a while.” We hadn’t been inundated with calls from reporters because we have an answering service screen all of our calls.
This time it was Jack Miller, the private investigator. We let him up. He wore the exact same outfit as yesterday. Today’s T-shirt in full light looked newly ironed. We talked in the living room. His eyes roved over the view, the trophies, and the stuffed Eyores. The notion I got was that he wasn’t being impressed, but that when he entered any room, he was always totally aware of his surroundings. He made no comment about what he saw.
Miller said, “My sources in the police department say you’ve got a kid who may know something about the murder.”
“We only told them that around two hours ago. You must have good sources.”
“They’re excellent. I can give you some information if you’re willing to share what the kid told you.”
“If your sources are so good,” I asked, “why didn’t they tell you what he told us? For that matter, why didn’t the police pay more attention to you?”
“I didn’t say that I was best friends with people in the department. The regular detectives on this investigation would check me out, I’m sure, but otherwise they wouldn’t have the faintest notion of who I am. I have connections that give me information. They know about the kid, but not what he said.”
Scott said, “It’s my nephew Donny. We’re not sure how much of his story is true.”
“I’ll take my chances. I’m willing to give you what I’ve got. I talked to Josh Durst again. I told him about Ethan’s death. He was pretty shook. He told me some more. He claimed he was Ethan Gahain’s Web master and business partner. According to what he told me just a few minutes ago, Ethan Gahain was up to his neck in shady if not downright illegal activities. Mr. Durst says he was in charge of the nakedathletes jack-off tapes. Their main Web site hints about other sites, but there are no links. He claimed he didn’t know about any others. The impression he left with me is that they must have had really kinky sexual stuff.”
“Which isn’t illegal,” I said.
“It is in some jurisdictions depending on the kink.”
I know in some jurisdictions anything but the missionary position is still illegal. Not enough people are aware of the number of states with those silly sodomy laws still on the books.
Scott said, “Legal or not, was it a motive for murder?”
Miller said, “Right now, I don’t know. They could have been into all kinds of stuff: pirated books, tapes, and movies.”
“Kiddie porn?” Scott asked.
“The Web site had none of that.”
I asked, “Are you sure Cormac’s not in Chicago? Maybe he followed Ethan and killed him. Maybe your source is the killer.”
“At this point anything is possible,” Miller said. “Cormac could also be in Tahiti on vacation.”
I told him what Donny had told us.
When I finished, Miller asked, “You think he’s lying?”
I shrugged. “It would be nice to assume he isn’t, but I don’t trust him.”
Miller got up to leave. He said, “Let’s keep in touch.” We all agreed to do so. He left.
We went to pack for the trip to St. Louis. We only needed overnight bags so it took but a few minutes to throw a toothbrush, deodorant, and a change of clothes together. All this time we’d heard no sounds from the guest room where Hiram, Cynthia, and Donny were talking. I was nearly done packing when I heard slamming doors and shouts. In the hall I saw the results of fractured domestic tranquillity. Donny was kicking a wall, leaving scuff marks and at least one dent so far. His father stood five feet away and glowered. I heard sobs coming from inside the guest room.
The kid bashed the wall several more times.
I said, “Doesn’t that hurt your foot?”
He gave one more extra-hard kick that produced another nasty dent. He squealed, “Ouch!” He tried to put weight on that foot. As toe touched the floor, he gave a loud yelp. He rested the foot on his heel. He spoke through clenched teeth. “I won’t talk to the cops.” He felt the need to repeat this numerous times.
Hiram strode over to us and said, “How do we get hold of the police?”
The detectives were called. Two uniformed cops showed up a few minutes later to escort the three of them to the nearest police station. Scott told his brother and sister-in-law that we would probably be leaving. He told them they were welcome to stay in the penthouse, but they refused our hospitality. They would stay at the Hotel Chicago.
Along with his limp, Donny managed a monumental sulk from living room to elevator. He had completely refused treatment for his foot. By the time they left, Hiram had turned less red, and Cynthia had stopped crying.
Before we left, our lawyer called. Todd said the police didn’t care for the idea of our leaving town, but that they weren’t going to stop us.