Hades

4

Justin had been in similar situations often enough to know that for many people death turned the world upside down. The secure became insecure. The satisfied were suddenly morose, and the complacent were lonely. Murder took things to another, surreal level. Truths were often shown to be lies. Strength was revealed as weakness. The mundane could prove crucial. Things that seemed so impregnable suddenly crumbled at the merest touch.

His life had disintegrated when death had hit his family. His lovely little daughter had been murdered and, never being able to cope with the loss, his wife had committed suicide a year afterward. It was only now, so many years later, that he felt as if his life was being stitched back together. And Justin was very cognizant of how quickly that stitching could unravel.

Watching Abby walk up to the home she'd lived in for over four years, Justin understood that she was uncertain now about how to do something as simple as open her own front door. He took her arm as they approached the steps, and she didn't flinch or shake him off. He saw her shoulders sag just slightly in relief, and her muscles relax, grateful for any support. When they got to the door, she stood frozen. She didn't know if she should reach for her keys or knock or just go right in. He'd noticed that, although she hadn't said a word, her eyes had narrowed at the gate to her driveway, in recognition of the fact that it was open and that it was unnecessary to use the various security precautions that normally kept people off the property. Invasion was not normal for her. She was used to controlling her surroundings, dominating her environment. But things were no longer normal. Even walking into her own house had become disorienting. She didn't know who'd be inside. She didn't know the protocol. She didn't have any understanding of the world she'd just entered so unwillingly.

"It'll be open," he told her. And when she didn't move, he took the door handle and pushed. When it swung open and she still didn't move, he said, "I'll be with you every second you want me to be with you. Okay?"

Abby nodded, and Justin acknowledged the briefest of grateful smiles, and then she stepped forward. Death brings things to a grinding halt, he thought. But life starts moving around you again pretty damn quickly.

As they stood in the Harmon foyer, Justin saw that Gary Jenkins was waiting nervously in the living room. His leg was jiggling and his right hand was flapping against his thigh. With him was a man Justin didn't recognize. He looked to be about forty, rail thin; his hair was cropped close, probably to hide the fact that he was losing it. The man's face was angular, almost gaunt, but at the same time there was something soft that shone through. He had a runner's body, and Justin, sizing him up quickly, couldn't help but think that he was running away from some kind of weakness. He glanced over at Abby, saw that she most certainly did recognize the man. And wasn't all that crazy about him.

Gary made his way quickly over to meet them. He turned to Abby, shifted his eyes so he could look everywhere but directly at her, and mumbled that he was sorry for what had happened. She nodded graciously. Justin touched her elbow lightly and guided her forward until they and Gary were back in the living room with the thin man.

"Forrest," Abby said. She did not do a good job of disguising her distaste.

The gaunt man took one step toward her, holding out a hand and saying, "I'm so sorry," but he had to stop because he was tearing up and could no longer speak.

Justin gave him a few moments to compose himself. The man tried to stop his sniffling but wasn't having much luck. Shaking his head, embarrassed by his lack of control, he put out his hand to shake Justin's, and Justin saw just how badly the hand was trembling. "Forrest Bannister," he said. "I-I-"

"He found the body," Gary said. "It's upstairs." He saw Abby's expression and immediately said, "I'm sorry. He's upstairs. Jesus, I'm really sorry. It's just that-"

"Gary," Justin said to the young cop.

"What?"

"Shut up."

"Right. Sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be saying I'm sorry. I'll-I'll just stop talking."

Justin shook his head and let a small sigh escape from his lips. "Why don't you sit down, Mr. Bannister," he said. And to Abby: "Do you want some water?" She shook her head, but he followed up his question by saying, "I need to go upstairs to see Evan's body. I'd like you to come with me and identify him." When she managed a deep breath and a nod, he followed it up with, "Are you sure you don't want water?"

She was looking wobblier by the second. She didn't nod or shake her head at his second question. She just went to a cabinet beneath an ornate mirror at the far end of the living room. Abby opened the cabinet door to reveal a bar and she reached in to grab a bottle of vodka.

Justin thought about telling her she should stay sober, that she had important decisions to make, and then he decided what the hell difference did it make; she needed a drink and she should have it. He waited for her to pour a long one, then he motioned to Gary to step into the foyer with him. There he asked a few questions about the condition of the body, about any disturbance of the crime scene, about anything he should know that might await him upstairs. Gary gave him a solid, professional briefing, and Justin thanked him. He told Gary what he wanted him to do next-call one of two stations within an hour's drive that could put together a crime scene unit, get another officer from the East End station over here as quickly as possible, get an ambulance to come take the body when the CSU was done. Then Justin stepped over to the archway, looked into the living room, and nodded at Abby. She walked toward him, continued past him, drink tightly clutched in her hand; and he let her lead him upstairs.

At the top of the landing, she stopped.

"He's in the master bedroom," Justin said. Before she could step forward, he took her hand. "It's not going to be pleasant," he said. "He was beaten to death."

Confused, trying to comprehend: "Beaten how? Punched?"

"No," Justin said softly. "It was with some kind of implement. A club, a bat, I don't know. Gary said his face is… well… like I said, it's not going to be pleasant."

"I can do this."

"Are you sure?"

"No. But stop asking me questions, 'cause I won't even think I can do it for very much longer."

"All right. Let's go."

He walked in ahead of her, his body momentarily shielding her husband's corpse. He took in the sight of the mangled and bloody body of Evan Harmon. Justin had to close his eyes for a moment, but that didn't cause the horrific image to go away. He knew the image would now be fixed in his memory forever; this was not the kind of picture one could remove merely with wishful thinking. Every bone in Evan Harmon's body seemed to have been crushed. His face was particularly gruesome. Even his eye sockets were shattered, and his nose was flattened and formless. Under his light brown hair, part of his skull was visible where the skin covering his forehead should have been. His teeth were scattered on the floor near him, looking as if they'd tumbled from a collector's jar. On his neck and forearms were round, deep burns. Justin heard Abby moan behind him, turned to see her eyes widen in shock and horror and the excruciating awareness of the pain her husband must have endured before his life ended.

"That's Evan?" he asked, his voice low and hoarse.

"His face," she said. "His face…" Her breathing was heavy now, coming in short, heavy bursts. "What are those burns? Why does he have all those burns?"

"Is it Evan, Abby?"

She nodded. Made a coughing noise and a thin stream of vomit escaped from her tight lips. She immediately wiped it away with her hand.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," she said. "His hands. Our wedding ring. Those shoes… he just bought those shoes yesterday. No, two days ago. Maybe yesterday… I don't know…"

"It's all right," he said softly. "It doesn't matter."

She was breathing quickly now, unable to tear her eyes away from the devastating scene. "And his sweater," she wailed. "Oh god, I gave him that sweater."

The glass of vodka dropped from her hand, landing softly on the thick carpet. She looked down, watched the liquor spread into the fibers, but made no move to pick it up.

"It's his favorite sweater." Abby looked up at Justin in bewilderment. It was what murder did. She understood that her husband was dead. She understood that some sick fuck had been in her house and committed an unspeakable act of violence. She understood that life as she'd known it had now changed forever. She didn't comprehend how a favorite sweater had somehow been defiled. Didn't see how something so delicate and beautiful had become a part of the tragedy, had been changed into something ugly and unusable. Something repellent.

"His favorite sweater," she said one more time.

"I know," he told her. And then he said, "Let's go back downstairs."

After getting Abby settled onto the living room couch, and putting another glass of vodka in her hand, Justin went back to the bedroom, and spent twenty minutes there, alone. At one time, he had considered himself a truly good homicide cop. Not now. His skills had been dulled over the years. But certain memories remained, memories that told him he had to trust his instincts and his feel for the crime. So for the first few minutes he just stood there, forced himself to look at the violence that had been inflicted upon Evan Harmon, made himself take in the aura of the room, the sense of space, some kind of physical feel for what had occurred.

He knew that CSU would have to go over everything with a fine-tooth comb. But still, those were just facts. And selective facts. He wanted to remember everything. There had been too many times when something supposedly unimportant had been overlooked or ignored, but his memory had come into play and dredged up a solution. There was one case up in Providence. He had been a young cop, working on one of his first murders, and he wasn't the lead detective. A twelve-year-old girl had been battered and beaten to death. Her hands had been cut off and placed next to the corpse. The parents were suspects, but their grief seemed real and there was nothing to tie them to the murder or to any sort of motive. But Justin remembered, at an early interview, that he'd noticed something odd: he'd been in several rooms-the kitchen, a bathroom, the living room, a front porch-and every single room had an ashtray with a nail clipper in it. CSU had paid no attention to that, neither had Justin-it just seemed like a quirk. But at a second interview, the mother of the girl had begun to bite her fingernails and her husband had suddenly and violently swatted her hand away from her mouth. The woman had shrunk back in fear when his hand had moved. Justin realized the nail clippers were no longer on view, so he went to the lab, had them blow up one of the photos that had been collected of the dead girl's hands, and he saw that the girl had bitten her fingernails down until her cuticles had bled. He went back to the house, arrested the parents, and at the station he separated the man and woman, eventually got the woman to talk about the fury that erupted from her husband whenever she or their daughter bit their nails. She saw her husband repeatedly hit the little girl when she bit her nails in his presence, knew that this last time she'd put her hands in her mouth he'd hit her hard enough to knock her unconscious. That's when her husband had banished her from the room. Later, he'd told her that the girl had run away. But she knew that was a lie. She knew he'd killed her…

Justin could still picture those nail clippers, sitting in their ashtrays. Unassuming, unimportant items that held the key to a deep-rooted sickness and to death.

Looking around Evan Harmon's bedroom, he didn't see anything that struck him as an oddity. The splatters of blood on the walls, the carpet, and the bed had to be seen as normal, considering the brutality of the murder that had taken place. Everything in the room was extremely ordered. The bed was made, the bathroom spick-and-span, the clothes in the closets undisturbed. It looked as if the room had been tidied and made pristine by a maid prior to the murder. There was no sense that the room had been lived in that night. No shirt tossed on a floor, no book laid aside, no speck of toothpaste spit onto the side of the bronze bathroom sink. It looked like a hotel room.

He reached into the dead man's right pants pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. Justin flipped through it, over two thousand dollars in hundreds. So much for robbery. He shifted Evan's body, pulled a wallet from the back pocket. Driver's license, two different American Express cards, one MasterCard, all platinum. An ID card for Harmon's money management company, Ascension-it looked like one of those treated IDs that allowed you to open lobby doors and pass through turnstiles so you could get into the right elevator bank of a large building.

Justin spent two minutes just crouching over the body, staring at it. The strange, multiple burn wounds on the arms and legs and torso. The bloody sweater. The bloodstained pants. The highly polished black loafers, worn without socks. Two minutes was long enough for what he needed. He had the mental picture in his head. From here on in, the CSU guys could come in and gather their facts. And he was happy to let them do so.

Justin was a big believer in facts. But he knew that facts were only part of what composed any kind of final truth. He wasn't sure he could define what the rest of the composition was. Only that, like those damn nail clippers, it was, on the surface, usually unimportant, overlooked. But underneath that surface, it was usually the key. And the key fit a door that led to places most people would never want to go.

Downstairs, in the living room, Abigail was sipping another vodka. A dull glaze was starting to cloud her eyes.

Forrest Bannister sat where Justin had left him, the color still drained from his face. He kept making the effort to sit up straight but didn't seem to have the strength, so he'd move, without warning, from a rigid position, staring straight ahead, to slumped over, head in hands. Occasionally, he made a sound that was somewhere between a sad, lonely sigh and a strangled sob.

"Mr. Bannister," Justin said. He thought the man might be nearing a state of shock, so he spoke firmly, trying to get him to snap to attention.

Bannister slowly turned to face Justin. For a moment, he registered confusion, as if they'd never met, then he seemed to remember where he was and who was speaking to him. He nodded as a response, an indication that he was able to understand that his name had been spoken aloud.

"Mr. Bannister, I'd like to know what you're doing here."

"Excuse me?"

"Why are you here?"

The man didn't seem to understand the question and shook his head as if to clear it. "Because Evan told me to come."

"Told you to?"

Bannister seemed to realize how the phrase must have sounded so he emended it. "He asked me if I could."

"What time was this?"

"What time did he call, you mean?"

"Yes."

"I guess around seven. Maybe a little earlier than that. A quarter to. Six-thirty."

"And what time did you get here?"

"Around ten."

"Why the delay?"

Bannister seemed even more confused. "What delay?"

Justin cleared his throat and twisted a crick out of his neck. "What were you doing for the three hours in between the call and the time you got here?"

"I was driving. I took a shower and had to change my clothes, then I had to get the car-"

"Where were you driving from?"

"The city."

"Manhattan?"

He nodded. "The Upper East Side."

"What was so urgent or private that Mr. Harmon couldn't discuss with you over the phone?"

"Nothing. He just wanted me here."

Justin glanced over at Abby. The look on his face said, What the fuck is going on here? The look on her face gave him nothing in return.

"Forrest," Justin said, "were you in the habit of dropping everything and driving a hundred miles just because Evan Harmon asked you to?"

"Yes, I was."

"And why do you think he wanted you here tonight?"

Forrest Bannister allowed a thin, sad smile to curve his lips only after he gave a long, hard look at Abigail Harmon. "I think he was just lonely," Bannister said.

"You're a heartless prick," she told him.

"And you're a selfish bitch," he spat right back.

In the silence that followed, Abby put her drink down on the table. "Jay," she said slowly. "Excuse me… Chief Westwood…" Now her voice betrayed the tiniest slurring of words and syllables. "Forrest worked for Evan. He made a lot of money off Evan. So he, like many people, was at Evan's beck and call. Also," she said, picking her drink back up, "he was a little bit in love with Evan."

Bannister swiveled to stare at Abby. "More in love with him than you were, that's for damn sure!"

Abby ignored Bannister now. She was staring at Justin, giving him an answer to his what-the-fuck-is-going-on-here look.

Bannister realized that his outbursts were inappropriate. He did his best to look dignified, and said, "I'm Evan's CFO. We've worked together for over ten years. Starting at Merrill Lynch. I didn't go with him to Rockworth and Williams. But when he started Ascension, his hedge fund, he called and I came."

"Do you think there was a reason he wanted you here tonight? Other than loneliness? A business reason?"

"Maybe. He was very concerned about Ellis St. John."

"Who is…?"

"Ascension's prime broker. He's at Rockworth. He may have wanted to talk about Elly."

"And what was the problem with… Elly?"

"I don't know. I just know that Evan was unhappy with him. I believe he was thinking of making a change."

"Changing brokers?"

"Changing his primary broker. We use quite a few different brokers."

"But you have no idea why he'd want to change?"

"I don't know for sure that's what he wanted. It's just a guess on my part." He shrugged in a strange kind of false modesty. "An educated guess."

"He never discussed this unhappiness or this desire to change?"

"Not in any great depth. Just hints. Bits and pieces."

"How about giving me some of the bits?"

"It wasn't anything major. Evan felt Elly was a tad… well… ambitious."

"And that's bad?"

"It was a question of personal ambition compared to ambition for the good of the company."

"He steered Evan toward bad investments for his personal gain?"

"I don't know that. As I said, Evan never got that specific with me." Forrest bit his lip, as if debating whether to speak further. It was the kind of gesture a flirtatious teenage girl would have made. "Frankly, I think some of it was that he just didn't like Elly."

"Thass not true." It was Abby speaking now. Facing Justin, she said, "Evan liked Ellis. Really did." She turned to Forrest. "Liked him a helluva lot more'n he liked you."

"I'm not going to get down in the mud with you," the CFO said. "I'm just not. I know what Evan thought about me. And I know what he thought about you, too."

Justin stepped in between them. "How big is Ascension, Forrest? How large is the fund?"

"I don't think I should be giving out that kind of information."

"Almost two billion dollars," Abby said. The word "dollars" came out as "dollarsh." "Give or take a few hundred million."

Justin kept his eyes on Forrest. By the aggravated look on the man's face, Justin thought Abby's estimate was probably accurate. This was clearly a man who liked to control information. It was the only power he had. "What happened when you got here?" Justin asked the CFO. "Walk me through it."

The thin man nodded. He seemed to be regaining strength from being the sudden center of attention. "I got to the driveway and the gate was open…"

"Was that unusual?"

"Yes. I usually had to punch in the code to open it. Most people had to use the intercom, but I had the code." He was obviously proud of this access.

"That's good," Justin said quickly. He spoke up because Abby was rolling her eyes at Forrest's misplaced smugness. He wanted her to keep quiet for a bit so he could get what he needed from this strange and strangely sad man. "So the gate was open. What then?"

"I came up to the house."

"Was it unlocked?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a key? Just in case."

Now Forrest Bannister looked pained and slighted. "No," he said. He started to make some sort of explanation or excuse, stopped himself, shook his head, and just said, "No key."

"So what then?"

"Well… it wasn't normal for everything to be so… open. I had kind of a sixth sense that something was wrong. Because of the gate and the door and Evan's tone when he called."

"What tone? I thought you said he just seemed lonely."

"Yes. But it seemed more urgent than usual. More pressing than usual."

"But you didn't ask why?"

"No. It didn't matter. I figured I'd find out when I got here."

Justin nodded, then nodded a second time for Bannister to continue with his story.

"When nobody answered the door, I opened it and went inside."

"No one was here?"

Bannister shook his head.

"The couple who worked here?"

Bannister shook his head again. "No. The house was empty. At least I didn't see anyone. I called Evan's name a couple of times, then I thought that maybe he was taking a shower or something. So I-I went upstairs. And saw him."

"How long before you called the police station?"

"Immediately. Well, I don't know how long I stood there. I mean, I couldn't believe what had happened, what I saw, but I don't think it was more than a few seconds. And I didn't call the station, I called 911."

"Did you ask for an ambulance?"

Bannister looked startled at the question. "No. The police. I said there'd been a murder."

"Did you check Evan to see if he was alive?"

The same flash of confusion-Justin thought that this time it might have been embarrassment-crossed Bannister's face. "No," he said quietly. "I… He was dead. He was clearly dead. My god, it was so horrible. I couldn't bring myself to touch him, to get close. I just couldn't."

"I understand," Justin said. "What did you do until Officer Jenkins arrived?"

"Nothing. I came downstairs… I couldn't stay in that room… and I just sat. I felt dizzy-I may have even passed out for a few moments."

"You didn't move around the house?"

"No. I just sat on the couch."

"Were you planning on going back to the city tonight?"

"No. I was going to stay here."

"In the house?"

"Yes." He glared over at the ever more inebriated widow. "I stayed here sometimes when she was… out. I don't know what I'm going to do now."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd stick around until tomorrow morning, in case we have some other questions."

"But I can't stay here."

"No. Officer Jenkins'll find you a hotel in East End Harbor. I don't think it's a good idea for you to drive tonight anyway."

"Yes. I mean no. I mean, yes, I'll stay and, no, I don't want to drive back."

"An ambulance should be here soon. So will another officer who works with me. And I'm going to get a crime scene unit over here as quickly as I can get one. As soon as the officer arrives, Officer Jenkins will get you settled. I'd appreciate it if you'd come to the station by nine tomorrow morning so we can see if there's anything else you might be able to help us with. It's possible that the media'll get hold of this story very quickly. They'll probably want to talk to you. I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk to them. At least not yet."

Bannister nodded. He'd used up whatever strength he'd regained and looked ready to slump over again. Justin stepped over to Abby, touched her lightly on the elbow, quietly said, "Let's go. I'll get you settled, too." But before he could steer her to the door, Gary Jenkins cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable.

"Um," the young officer said, "could I just talk to you for a second, Chief?"

The two men walked over to the foyer and Justin waited for whatever Gary had to say, but the younger cop just looked more and more on edge. Justin finally had to say, "What is it?" and Gary turned a slight shade of red.

"I'm trying to learn, you know? Learn what to do, I mean. Although, Christ, I hope I never have to deal with anything like this again."

"What do you want to know?" Justin asked.

Gary lowered his voice, almost to a whisper. "Taking Mrs. Harmon upstairs… to see the body… couldn't that have waited? Until he'd been cleaned up, I mean. Did she have to see him like that?"

Justin scratched under his chin, felt the stubble that had grown back since he'd last shaved. "No," he said. "She didn't have to see him like that. It could have waited."

Still speaking just a shade above a whisper, Gary said, "Then… Jesus… why'd you make her do it?"

"Because I needed to see how she'd react."

"You think she killed him?"

"No. But she might've. So I wanted to watch her when she saw the body, see if she was calm or surprised or sickened."

The two men faced each other. Gary nodded his understanding. Justin turned to return to the living room, but Gary reached out and grabbed his arm.

"It was kind of a cruel thing to do, what you did." It wasn't a statement, more like half a question. The younger cop knew the answer but wanted to hear it said.

"I thought it was necessary," Justin told him.

"And you like her, don't you? I mean, you-you know…"

"Yes, I know. And, yes, I like her. I like her very much."

Gary didn't say anything else, but Justin knew he wasn't quite through. There was still another question hanging in the air and Justin decided to deal with it before it could even be asked.

"You want to know what I think my job is?" Justin asked. "And your job? What a cop's job is?"

Gary didn't even nod this time, but his eyes answered yes.

"It's to find out what happened," Justin said. "That's all. Everything else after that-justice, lack of justice, punishment, revenge, everything else-all depends on us doing our job, finding out what happened, finding out the truth. Without that there's nothing."

"But-"

"There's no but. There's only the truth."

"And once we know the truth?"

"Then we're on our own. Then it's every man for himself."

"I understand."

"Do you?"

"Pretty much."

"Then you want to ask the question you really want to ask?"

"What's that?"

"If I could do something that cruel to someone I like, what could I do to someone I don't care about? Is that your real question?"

"Yeah. More or less."

"You want me to answer it?"

"No," Gary said. "I don't think so."

"Good," Justin said. "Make sure that skinny little creep gets put to bed and get him to the station by nine tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."

"I'll see you in the morning," Justin said.

And with nothing else to say, he took Abigail Harmon out to his car and drove her back to his house. As he made his way around the circular driveway, he saw her peering out the window at a black Lexus.

"Evan's car?" he asked. When she nodded he said, "His only one?" And she nodded again.

He didn't say anything else to her during the ride, let her fall asleep in the silence, her head resting on his shoulder as he drove. The only thing he made sure to do was not look in the rearview mirror. He didn't want to see his own eyes. Not because of the Bobby Short song. Not because there was a party going on inside his head. It was because of something else someone once said: that the eyes were the mirror to the soul.

If that was true, that was the one place he definitely did not want to peer at.