“Not another step!” Maggie said, and then again screamed, “Patrick!”
Up the street, Patrick stepped out of the bar to see what was going on. Scott threw his hands up in the air as Patrick came toward them.
Patrick had a way, like some animals do, of drawing
himself up and out to look even bigger than he already was when preparing to defend his territory. He did that, with menace, as he walked towards Scott.
“Now, Patrick,” Scott said, holding one hand out as if to say ‘hold it right there’ and gesturing toward Maggie with the other. “You know I would never hurt your sister.”
Patrick considered them both, hands on his hips, and then held out a hand to Maggie, saying, “C’mon, Sis.”
Maggie took his hand and he led her down the street, like a child, back to the Thorn. Maggie heard Scott curse and go back in the station, but she didn’t look back.
She looked up at Patrick and said, “I love you sometimes.”
He shook his head and s
aid, “I wish you two would get a room.”
Maggie jerked her hand away from his and socked him on the arm.
“Ow!” Patrick complained. “What was that for?”
Maggie stalked off down the street towards home in response.
“You’re welcome!” Patrick called after her, and then went back in the Rose and Thorn.
When she got home Maggie e-mailed Sean to tell him she had the letters Theo was “keeping for him,” and she would send them with Scott. She also wrote she loved him and hoped he would visit soon. Although she was tempted to read the letters, she decided not to.
A noise on her balcony frightened her, but when she turned she saw it was only Duke, and let him in.
“I don’t have anything to feed you,” she told the big cat.
Duke made himself at home, curled up on the newspapers in the recycling box. She left a bowl of water out for him and went to bed. Scott called later as she lay awake, unable to sleep.
“I can’t go to sleep knowing you’re mad at me,” he said. “Let me come over and we’ll talk about it.”
“I’ve had enough police brutality for one day, thank you.”
“Don’t be like that.”
“I’ll be however I want, Scott Gordon. You’re not the boss of me.”
“You can’t break the law and then expect me to turn a blind eye, Maggie. I can’t do that.”
“I didn’t break the law.”
“There was yellow caution tape across the front door, wasn’t there?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Of course not. Tell me what really happened.”
“I’m not telling you anything. You might be recording this conversation.”
“You’re making me crazy, you know that?”
“Sounds like a personal problem to me. Perhaps you should seek counseling.”
“I’m trying to keep you out of trouble and do my job. You don’t make it easy.”
“Then stop trying, and leave me alone.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can. I’m easy to leave. It’s been done before.”
“I’m not Gabe.”
“No, and you never will be.”
As soon as the words were out Maggie regretted them, but could not bring herself to apologize. After a long silence Scott finally spoke.
“I would never leave you like he did.”
Another silence grew, although she could hear him breathing. She knew she should say something, but she couldn’t. Finally, with a sigh, he did.
“C’mon Mary Margaret, don’t be mad. I’m sorry I tried to arrest you.”
“I don’t want to jeopardize your job, and I don’t want to go to jail.”
“I promise to calmly hear everything you have to say about the contents of the room in question. I am hereby giving you complete amnesty in the matter.”
“Not tonight. It’s late, and I’m worn out,” Maggie said. “This has been a really long day.”
“You won’t stay mad,” Scott said softly. “You don’t really hate me so much.”
“Stop by the café in the morning and I’ll give you some coffee for your drive,” she said. “But don’t expect me to tell you anything. I have something I want you to take to Sean.”
Maggie hung up the phone and stared at the ceiling in her dark room. She heard Duke scratching on the balcony doors, so she got up, let him outside, and watched him make his way down to the ground. After she closed the door she rubbed a clear circle on the frosted glass, looked out at the snow flying sideways, and thought about Gabe. She wondered if it would ever stop hurting.
Scott was glad to see Sean, whom he hadn’t seen in almost fifteen years. The youngest son of Fitz Fitzpatrick looked like a more refined, compact version of his brother
, Patrick. His dark curly hair was cut short. He was polished and sleek, and much thinner than his brother, who although muscular and strong, had gone a little soft as he approached middle age.
Sean greeted Scott warmly with a handshake, and invited him into his glass-walled office, which featured a panoramic view of the famous convergence of the three rivers. Once seated, Scott asked him what he knew about Theo’s death and Sean said Maggie had told him the details. Scott gave him the envelope Maggie sent, saying they were retirement fund forms, and detected a defensive wall sliding smoothly into place as soon as he did so. Scott had debated the whole way there whether or not to open the envelope, but in the end had decided to trust Maggie.
“I’m hoping there is something you know about Theo that might help me,” Scott told him.
He took a seat in front of the wide expanse of smoky glass which served as Sean’s desk. He took out the photocopy of the threat card and photo and handed it to Sean. Sean looked at it, took a deep breath, and seemed to age about ten years as he exhaled. He handed the photocopy back to Scott and put the envelope from Maggie in his briefcase and locked it. He was silent for a long moment, and seemed to be weighing something in his mind. He considered Scott carefully before he spoke.
“My sister Maggie thinks a lot of you. How do you feel about her?”
Scott was taken aback at this question, but decided to be brutally honest.
“She drives me so crazy sometimes I want to wring her neck. She has an awful temper, and she says exactly what she thinks no matter how bad it bites her in the ass later. I continually disappoint her with the stupid things I do and say, but I never quit trying, because she is the person I enjoy being with more than anyone in this world. I would do anything to make her happy, and anything to protect her.”
“That’s good to hear,” Sean said. “I’m counting on you to protect her.”
“What does Maggie have to do with it?” Scott asked.
Sean straightened some items on his desk, and shut down the laptop which was sitting front and center.
“Maggie knows part of this story, but not all of it,” Sean said, giving Scott a pointed look, “and I’m not sure I’m ready for her to know all of it; do you understand?”
Scott was perplexed, and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t.”
Sean rose from his seat and motioned for Scott to follow him. From inside a cupboard by the door Sean removed and then put on an expensive looking wool coat, wrapped a scarf around his neck, put on some gloves, and gestured to the door.
“I’ll tell you everything, but I don’t want you to share what I tell you with Maggie or anyone else.”
Scott hesitated at the door, shaking his head, “If it’s related to Theo getting killed, I can’t make that promise.”
Sean turned the knob but held the door closed, considering Scott. Finally he spoke.
“It might be a relief to tell someone,” Sean said. “I think Maggie would tell me to trust you.”
“Then let’s go,” Scott said.
Once the elevator doors were closed and they were alone, Sean said, “Up until now I’ve been able to keep my private and public lives completely separate. I’m reluctant to tell you about the one while in the other. It might matter here or it might not, but I would rather not have to find out just yet.”
Scott was still perplexed but shrugged his assent.
Sean in his elegant, charcoal gray overcoat, black gloves and scarf, and Scott in his jeans, hooded sweatshirt, and parka made an incongruous pair walking down the city street. Sean greeted and nodded at many people. They stopped at a coffee bar on the corner and purchased hot drinks, then crossed the street to walk along the path by the river. The wind off the river was bracing, and Scott wished he’d thought to wear long underwear.
After some small talk and a long silence, Sean spoke.
“Brad and I were close, had been close for a couple of years by the time he died. We spent all our free time together, and developed, I don’t know any other way to put it but bluntly, a romantic relationship.”
He looked at Scott for a reaction, and although Scott was shocked, and by nature a little more homophobic than he cared to admit, he was also a “live and let live” kind of person and Sean was an old friend.
“I had no idea,” was all he said, and he looked Sean square in the eye as he said it.
“Brad had learning disabilities and I, being an egghead, volunteered to help him with his school work. We grew closer, and as they say, one thing led to another. We met wherever we could: the room over the garage at grandma’s house, the gardener’s shed at the college, the wine cellar at his house. There were plenty of places to hide, and the risk itself was exciting, but we got careless. One of those times was in the boathouse, and Theo walked in on us.”
As he spoke, Sean’s face changed from tender remembrance to grief and regret.
“The summer that picture was taken, Theo being home made everything we did ten times riskier and a hundred times more exciting. You know how it is when you’re fifteen; you have to have exactly what you want the minute you want it, and you don’t think anything bad can happen to you. Theo had been to enough boarding schools to suspect our relationship was more than platonic, and began to tease us about it. Brad decided he needed to prove him wrong.”
Some people passed them and Sean paused in his narrative until they were out of earshot.
“Brad started running around with some of the girls who were hanging out at the lake so Theo would think he was interested in girls. Brad was, actually, inter
ested in girls. He also happened to be in love with me.”
They had come to a little riverside park and Scott swept the snow off a bench there, facing the water, so they could sit.
“One of the girls was Phyllis Davis; is she still around? She was a wild thing that summer. He got drunk with her one night and they had sex. He told me everything. He said he liked it, which seemed to reassure him but devastated me. He tried to make both of us happy for a few weeks, but she finally got tired of it and dumped him. He was conflicted about his feelings, and alternated between rejecting me and begging me to come back. When we finally got back together, Theo caught us in the act.”
Scott was breathing and listening, but was afraid to move or do anything that might interrupt what felt very much like a confession.
“It was a nightmare. I’m ashamed to say I got out of there as soon as I got my clothes on. I’m not proud of that.”
“You were just a kid,” Scott said.
Scott’s ears were numb, and his nose was running, but his attention was riveted on Sean.
“I thought we’d reconnoiter later and figure something out, maybe even run away together. But I didn’t get the chance. I didn’t even get to talk to him again.”
Sean’s wept then, and removed a folded silk handkerchief from his suit coat pocket to wipe his eyes.
“I ran along the edge of the lake to the bait shack, and got a ride back to town with one of Dad's friends. When I got home, I told everyone I was sick and went to bed. I didn’t sleep all night. I kept waiting for the phone to ring, to find out Theo had told and everyone knew.”
“The next morning I pretended to still be sick so I could stay in bed. I wanted to be near the phone in case someone called to tell my parents. Just before noon, Brian came home looking for me. He told me Brad had drowned, said someone had stopped by the station and told him. He saw my reaction; I fell completely apart. I don’t know what he thought, and he didn’t ask me any questions, he just said, ‘don’t let Dad see you like this. Come back with me to the station.’ So I pumped gas and washed windshields the rest of the day, and everyone who saw me said what a shame I had to work on a holiday.”
Sean’s voice was full of emotion, and when he wiped his face with his handkerchief Scott could see his hands were trembling.
“Theo called me the next day and told me he had the letters I wrote to Brad. He said if I said anything bad about him he would show them to my parents. Jesus, can you imagine? I was fifteen.”
He wept some more, and Scott had an urge to put an arm around him, but felt a new self-consciousness. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to embarrass Sean, but the truth was he felt awkward now that he knew Sean was gay. He waited until Sean composed himself before pressing him with further questions.
“How much of this does Maggie know?”
“I don’t think she knows about the relationship unless she read the letters Theo had. She doesn’t know about Theo threatening me, or about me being with Brad the night before he drowned.”
Scott cursed himself for believing Maggie’s lie about the envelope he had delivered to Sean. He had no doubt it actually held the letters in it; evidence of blackmail which could be connected to Theo’s death; evidence he had handed over to a suspect. Scott didn’t think Sean had killed Theo, but he also didn’t think Ed or Patrick did. He was making these kinds of snap decisions at a pace that was starting to scare him.
“I want to ask you something that may upset you, and I apologize in advance,” Scott said.
“Please, what could be more upsetting than talking about your first love drowning?”
“If it was suicide,” Scott said
“I’ve thought of that,” Sean said. “He was confused about his sexuality, and I’m sure he was worried about everyone finding out about us. It might have been enough ...”
“But?”
Sean turned and looked at Scott with tortured eyes filled with fresh grief.
“Except he loved me so much, I know he did. He would have at least talked to me again, or sent me a message.”
They sat quietly for a while, until Scott realized he’d lost all feeling in his butt cheeks. He stood up to get the blood flowing and Sean took this as a signal to start back.
“Do you think I sent Theo the card with the photo and then sneaked into town to kill him?”
“Do you have an alibi?”
“It would have been hard to do from Los Angeles. You can ask my secretary if you have to and talk to the people I met with in California.”
“Had you heard from Theo or seen him since that summer?” Scott asked.
“No,” Sean said. “I made sure our paths never crossed again. I left the past behind when I left Rose Hill, and Theo represented the worst part of the past. I sacrificed my relationship with my family so they would never find out about me and be hurt, and I ended up hurting them all anyway.”
He looked miserable and Scott felt sorry for everyone.
“Why didn’t you confide in Maggie about what happened?” Scott asked. “She wouldn’t have judged you harshly.”
“You know our Maggie,” Sean replied. “What would she have done to Theo?”
A chill ran up Scott’s spine, and not because of the cold air.
Scott hadn’t seen any reason to check on Maggie’s whereabouts on the night of Theo’s murder. She had been home when he called right after 3:00 a.m., and had spent the next hour with him in the station, waiting for Mitchell to wake up. She was certainly tall and strong enough, and hated Theo with a passion. Scott couldn’t picture himself interrogating her. It wasn’t a conversation he could see their relationship surviving.
Sean seemed to read his mind.
“Good luck with that,” he said with a sad smile.
Back in front of the bank building, Scott shook his friend's hand and then impulsively gave him a brief hug. Sean looked embarrassed, but Scott decided he was not going to worry about what anybody thought. He didn’t want to be that kind of guy.
“Now that Theo’s gone, will you come back to visit?”
“I don’t think the welcome mat is still out for me,” Sean said, as they stood close to the bank building, out of the steady stream of sidewalk traffic.
“We were in the same Sunday school class, Sean. Don’t you remember how the prodigal son got the fatted calf killed for him when he returned?”
“I’m not sure they could handle knowing who I really am,” Sean said
“Don’t underestimate them. You Fitzpatricks tend to stick together.”
Sean smiled but just said, “Maybe.”
“And speaking of prodigal Fitzpatricks, have you heard from your brother Brian?”
“No,” said Sean. “I don’t know where Brian is, and I really don’t care. He was pretty much always a selfish bastard to me, other than the day Brad died.”
“Thank you for telling me all that, back there,” Scott said. “I really think you should come home soon.”
“We’ll see,” Sean said.
Scott stopped by the medical center to see Knox’s wife, Anne Marie, before he left town. He ran into her sister-in-la, Sandy, in the parking garage. Her face was red and blotchy from crying. She said her husband Trick was waiting, but Scott talked her into going to the cafeteria with him for a few minutes.
He bought her some coffee, and they sat at a table farthest away from the other visitors and staff members. She was nervous and overwrought. Scott, who knew she didn’t get along with Anne Marie, thought the reaction a bit extreme. Sandy seemed like kind of a silly woman. She was apt to talk nonstop, say tactless things and ask stupid questions, and as a result, no one took her seriously.