The Last Child

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Hunt was late getting home. The dinner was cold in the bag, but Allen made no comment. They ate in the kitchen, together but silent, and tension came off them in waves. At the door to his son’s room, Hunt apologized. “It’s just the case,” he said.

“Sure.”

Hunt watched his son kick off grungy shoes. “It’ll be over soon.”

“College starts in three months.” He pulled off his shirt and tossed it after the shoes. Fine hairs textured his chest, rose from the hollow place at the base of his neck. His son was all but grown, Hunt realized, as close to a man as a boy could get and still have boy in him. Hunt paused, knowing that there was nothing he could say that would make this better.

“Son…”

“She never calls.”

“Who?”

“Mom,” he said, and there was nothing but boy in his face.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything.”

Hurt, angry boy.

“Allen, I-”

“Just close the door.”

Hunt could not move.

“Please,” Allen said, and the look on his face was a blow to the gut, a hammer stroke. A stone settled on Hunt’s heart and it carried the weight of a million failed expectations, the certainty that it should not be like this for his son.

“Please,” Allen said again, and Hunt had no choice.

“Good night, son.”

Hunt closed the door, then went downstairs. He stuffed cartons and paper bags into the trash, then poured a slug of scotch that he knew he would never finish. The day was all over him: death and despicable men, the lives of children cut short, and a host of still-unanswered questions. He wanted a shower and ten hours of sleep. Under his fingers, his face felt like an old man’s face. He walked into his study, unlocked the desk drawer and pulled out the Alyssa Merrimon case file. He stared for a long time at her picture, glanced over the notes, the jotted questions, but his mind was on Yoakum. He replayed the moment that Meechum had died, the smell of gun smoke and Yoakum’s steady hand, his eyes, so glassy smooth and still.

The call came at twelve thirty. “You awake?” Yoakum asked.

“Yes.”

“Drunk?”

Hunt closed Alyssa’s file. “No.”

“I am.”

“What is it, John? What’s on your mind?” Hunt knew the answer.

“How long we been doing this?” Yoakum asked.

“A long time.”

“Partners?”

“And friends.”

A silence drew out, Yoakum’s breath on the line. “What did you tell them?” he finally asked.

“I told them what happened.”

“That’s not what I’m asking and you know it.”

Hunt pictured his friend, saw him in his own small house, a glass in his hand, in his living room, staring at the ashes of a long-dead fire. Yoakum was sixty-three. He’d been a cop for over thirty years; it was all he had. Hunt didn’t answer the question.

“You’re my friend, Clyde. He was going for you with an ax. What was I supposed to do?”

“Is that the reason you took the heart shot?”

“Of course.”

“It wasn’t anger? Not payback?”

“For what?” A different anger was waking.

“You know for what.”

“Tell me, Clyde. You tell me for what.”

“For those kids. For seven graves in a patch of muddy woods. For years of bad shit in our own backyard.”

“No.”

“All this time, Yoak. All this time and I’ve never seen you do personal. Today looked personal.”

“A killer came after my partner with an ax. He came after my friend. You could call that personal, but you could call that the job, too. Now, what did you tell them?”

Hunt hesitated.

“Did you tell them it was a clean shoot?”

“We stuck to the facts. They asked for my opinion, but I didn’t give it.”

“But you will.

“Tomorrow,” Hunt said. “Tomorrow, I will.”

“And what will you tell them?”

Hunt reached for the scotch. In the low, cut-crystal glass, a small light kindled in the liquid. He replayed the moment in his mind, the ax starting down, Yoakum stepping into the room. What had his angle looked like? Did he have to take the kill shot? The computer was off to the side, but by how much? Hunt put himself in Yoakum’s shoes. He thought he could see it, the way it could have looked.

But Yoakum spoke before Hunt could. “Have you filed that obstruction charge against Ken Holloway?”

In the aftermath of Meechum’s shooting, Hunt had almost forgotten about Holloway’s phone call. “No,” he said.

“But you will?”

“I will.”

A silence invaded the line, and it was an ugly one. Hunt knocked back the scotch. He knew where this could go, and prayed that it would not.

“None of this would have gone down if we’d left Holloway out of it,” Yoakum finally said. “We’d have taken Meechum clean at the mall. No shooting. No burned discs. That was you, Clyde, your call. That was personal.”

The phone seemed to hum in Hunt’s hand. “Good night, Yoakum.”

A heavy pause. “Good night, Clyde.”

The line went dead.

Hunt poured another scotch.