Murder Scene Read online

  9

  If the week rushed by in a blur, Friday dragged on and on. Will had two lectures that morning, bookended around a meeting of the department sub-heads.

  At one o’clock he grabbed a takeout lunch and ate in his office, multitasking between reading papers, answering email, making notes on both his rather anemic ideas for a follow-up book to A Flicker of Madness, and a syllabus for the next semester.

  He managed to sneak away after his last class of the day, just after 3 p.m. As a fast rule, if a professor was on the tenure track, he or she could not have a rigid door, that being unavailable to drop-by students.

  Will left anyway. He’d deal with the fallout on Monday.

  On the way off campus he played back the voicemail messages on his phone. One was from Anthony Torres:

  ‘Hey. It’s Anthony again. This phone is the bomb, man. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a Galaxy or an iPhone or anything, but it’s cool. I’m kidding! Just so you know, I had to move your speed dial number to 9 so I could make room for the ladies. Not kidding about that one. Okay. Well. I’ll talk to you later. Give me a call, okay?’

  Will made another mental note to call the boy back.

  Amelie was a small bistro on West 8th Street between Fifth and MacDougall. The restaurant was recommended by a colleague of Will’s, a handsome and athletic thirty-year-old bachelor who knew his food and wine, as well as economy of scale when it came to romance.

  When Will arrived, ten minutes early, he saw Amanda sitting at the crowded bar. It was, and had always been, her modus. No matter how early Will was, she was there first. Even Bernadette was born two days early.

  Tonight, Will took it as a good sign.

  Amanda looked stunning in an emerald green dress. Her deep auburn hair was down to her shoulders. She had never looked better to him. He’d thought for a fleeting moment it might have been her absence from his life, but he was wrong. She was, and would always remain, the most beautiful woman he had ever met.

  And, as always, men were swarming around her.

  Will had gotten much better with his feelings of jealousy of late, more out of the necessity than any kind of personal growth or maturity.

  He took a deep breath, crossed the room. When Amanda looked up, she smiled, and Will’s heart danced.

  Detta was right. He was sweating.

  ‘Sorry I’m so early,’ he said.

  Amanda turned to the man next to her, the now disappointed junior executive in the gray Brooks Brothers suit.

  ‘This is my husband, Dr William Hardy,’ she said.

  Husband and doctor in the same sentence, Will thought. This was also good.

  Without introducing himself, the man shook hands with Will and, perhaps thinking better of leaving his business card on the bar in front of Amanda, scooped it up and made a hasty retreat.

  After they were seated they made menu small talk, weather small talk, political small talk. Everything but Will and Amanda small talk. Finally, when Will ran out of words, he said:

  ‘You look . . . ’

  Amanda raised an eyebrow, waiting.

  ‘Spectacular?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Will said. ‘That.’

  ‘You too,’ she said, winking. ‘Love the jacket.’

  Will had taken his daughter’s advice and worn his blue Zegna. Detta was also right that Amanda would see right through it.

  ‘It was a gift.’

  The waiter brought their salads. Will made elaborate work of cutting his kale and chicken into much smaller bites than needed. He’d talked to hundreds of patients in therapy, maybe a thousand students about their grades, had more than a dozen times visited the Clinton Correction facility and counseled low-risk inmates about their problems, but had never once in his life found conversation so daunting.

  When the moment drew out into a minute of silence, he just started talking. He told Amanda about Anthony Torres. He gave her the basics regarding the boy’s most recent infraction and interaction with the law.

  ‘How old is he?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘He just turned fifteen.’

  As a social worker, Amanda knew it meant that there was virtually no chance that Anthony Torres would find a permanent home and a loving family. He would scratch and claw his way to eighteen and then become part of the adult system in some way or another. The time for shaping and forming a productive life was rapidly slipping by. It probably already had.

  ‘Are you going to see him again?’ Amanda asked.

  Will had not told Amanda about giving Anthony a cell phone, or the boy’s unanswered voicemail messages. He knew that his wife would give him The Look, the one she reserved for his monumental therapeutic blunders.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Will said. ‘If he calls me and wants to continue, I’ll consider it.’

  Amanda smiled. ‘There’s that marshmallow center again.’ She raised a wine glass. ‘“Let us go forth with fear and courage”.’

  ‘“And rage to save the world”,’ Will finished. It was the Grace Paley quote they’d used on each other since the day they’d chosen their respective professions, always at moments when they questioned the wisdom of their selections.

  They stopped a few doors down from the steps of their building. It was a moment Will had been dreading, one for which he had been hoping. The next thing he said, or didn’t say, could impact the rest of his life.

  Amanda said it for him.

  ‘I miss you, Dr Hardy.’

  Will wondered if it was the wine talking. He hoped it wasn’t. ‘You do?’

  Amanda nodded.

  ‘I miss you, too.’

  She wrapped her arms around his waist, brought her face to within a few inches of his.

  ‘Come home, Will.’

  Will felt the world fall away.

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘You do.’

  ‘I don’t know, I’m pretty booked. After all, I do have the number thirteen hardcover in the Times.’

  ‘The new list is out,’ Amanda said. ‘It’s at fifteen.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Just saying.’

  ‘Then I might have an opening. When are we talking?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  ‘Okay.’

  His wife kissed him. Will remembered what outer space kisses were all about.

  Amanda reached into her bag, removed the key fob with the two keys on it, the very one Will had left on the hall table ninety-three days earlier. She handed him the keys.

  ‘I’ve got to get a few things for the morning,’ Will said.

  ‘Don’t keep me waiting, sailor.’

  Will watched her walk up the steps, and disappear into the lobby. He thought about jogging back to Brian’s loft, but it would have taken too long.

  He hailed a taxi.

  As the cab eased into traffic Will wondered if it would ever be the same for them. If it could be the same for them. He wanted it to be the way it was those first, giddy years when Detta was a toddler, when money was tight, when they’d just moved into their first real apartment: lamps on the floor, books in stacked milk crates, frozen microwave meals for dinner.

  Will turned on his phone, put in his earbuds. Within seconds he heard the tone that signaled new voicemail. He scrolled through the calls. Five messages total.

  It was the most recent one, from just an hour earlier, that caught his attention.

  ‘Ah, shit.’

  The call was from Anthony Torres. His sixth of the week, his second of the day. Will had not returned a single one. He hit the button to play the message. This time, Anthony didn’t bother to announce who he was.

  ‘They call it Pride. I never knew what it meant. I always thought it was a good thing, you know? Like when you do something, and you’re proud of it. But it isn’t a good thing at all.’

  Anthony sounded manic, unsteady. Will glanced at his watch. It was almost ten-thirty. He knew that the curfew at the group home was nine o’clock; lights out at ten.

  ‘But
it’s all good, you know?’ Anthony continued. ‘In the end, it’s all good. I know you’re busy, Dr Hardy.’

  Dr Hardy, Will thought. He had gone from man and bro back to Dr Hardy. Anthony was distancing himself, putting back in place the boundaries. And who could blame him? Will suddenly felt as if he had failed the young man, another grown-up in a long line of adults who had made and broken a promise. More than one.

  ‘I read something today. From Marcus Aurelius. “Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.” How about that, huh? Makes you think about whatever it is you’re going to do. Pride. If you want to counter it, you feel hope. Hope, man. Her name was Eva. You’ll see. After tonight you’ll understand everything.’

  Without really knowing why, Will pressed the button to save the voicemail. He then hit the call back button. A few moments later he got the generic voice of the robot woman telling him that the user was currently unavailable. Anthony had never programmed his own greeting.

  If you’d called him back after the first voicemail, you’d know that, Will.

  He clicked off, redialed. He listened to the choices, hit the number to leave a message.

  ‘Yeah, Anthony, this is Will. Dr Hardy. I got your messages. Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you sooner. Crazy week. I’ll tell you all about it when we see each other next. Anyway, I know it’s late, and you’re probably asleep with your phone off. In case you’re still up, give me a call. I’ll be up for a while. Got my phone in hand. If not, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Thanks.’

  Will hesitated, finding no other words to say, none that would right the ship he had all but scuttled. He ended the call.

  He got out of the cab about five blocks early, made a search on his phone for the number of the group home where Anthony lived. He dialed it. After navigating the menu, he reached the supervisor on duty, made his inquiry.

  ‘Anthony isn’t here,’ the woman said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean he didn’t make curfew. He’s not here.’

  Will felt his heart plummet. He knew that, with the misdemeanor assault charge hanging over Anthony’s head, every infraction was going to weigh heavily on the disposition. ‘Any idea where he might be?’

  ‘Are you his case worker?’ she asked.

  It was going to be too complicated to explain. ‘Yes,’ Will said. ‘Dr William Hardy.’

  ‘To answer your question, we have no idea where he might be. I’m sorry to say that Anthony took a car belonging to a woman who is on the dietary staff here.’

  ‘What do you mean took?’

  ‘I mean her car is gone. Video from the parking lot shows Anthony taking it. It appears that he stole the keys from her purse.’

  Will closed his eyes and asked the question. ‘Did you call the police?’

  ‘I’m afraid we had no choice. The staff member did not give Anthony permission to borrow her car. I’m afraid it’s now been reported as stolen.’

  Will used his best therapist voice, calm and reassuring. ‘I’m sure it’s all a big misunderstanding. When Anthony returns, and I’m sure he will, could you have him call me? It doesn’t matter what time.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, sounding anything but convinced.

  Will gave the woman his number, made as graceful an exit from the conversation as he could. A few seconds later he called Trevor Butler, got his voicemail, left a message.

  Will walked quickly down Fifth, through Washington Square, something he had done thousands of times before, but not with this sick sense of foreboding building inside him.

  As he rounded the corner onto Prince Street he looked up, saw that the lights were on in the living room and the bathroom. Amanda’s room, and Detta’s room, were dark. It seemed to take forever to get the keys out of his pocket, and the key into the front door.

  When he got to the top of the stairs, it all came to him in a blinding fury. He recalled the smell as if it were yesterday, the harsh redolence of accelerant at his father’s workbench.

  Gasoline.

  10

  There was no sound coming from the front room; no television, no radio, no music. Just a still and deathly silence.

  In that instant Will flashed on the hundreds of times he had walked through this door, how he would often hear his wife’s voice singing along to one of her Broadway CDs.

  ‘Amanda?’

  Nothing.

  Will fully opened the door. What he saw was horrifying beyond measure. He took it all in within one numbing second.

  The living room furniture had been pushed to the walls. Anthony Torres was sitting on a dining room chair in the center of the room. On either side of him were five-gallon gas cans.

  Amanda sat in a chair next to him, unmoving, slumped forward, her skin pallid, her eyes closed.

  Around the room were small puddles of gasoline. The couch looked to be soaked in it. At Amanda’s feet was a propane tank.

  Will glanced at Anthony. The boy’s eyes were red. His feet were moving up and down with frenzied energy.

  ‘Dr Hardy,’ Anthony said. ‘It looks like our time is almost up.’

  Will opened his mouth, but no words came out. Fear had parched his ability to speak. He swallowed hard.

  ‘You don’t have to do this, Anthony,’ he managed. ‘It’s not too late to walk away.’

  The boy said nothing.

  ‘Please talk to me. We can—’

  ‘Talk? I don’t think so, Dr Hardy. I called you.’

  Will tried to make sense of it all. How did this boy know where he lived? How did he know anything about his life?

  He knows where you live because you let him into your life, Dr Hardy. He stole your -Day Timer that day in the office, and now he is here to settle his bill.

  ‘I know, Anthony. It’s just that—’

  ‘Did you get my messages? Of course you did. It’s a stupid question, isn’t it? Like when you’re texting someone back and forth, and in the last text you tell them that you’re going to call them. Then you call them one second later and they don’t answer the phone. What flavor of bullshit is that?’

  As he said this, Anthony opened his right hand. In it was a lighter. He tapped it on his palm.

  No, Will thought. God no.

  ‘Want to know the funny part? I did all of it. Can you believe that? Every single thing. All the shit they said I did, and a lot more. A lot more.’

  Another tap of the lighter.

  ‘I was living with this family up in Dutchess County this one time,’ Anthony said. ‘The daddy was a big fat guy, worked for some insurance company. He owned it, I think. Nice house, nice furniture, lots of flat screens. They had this aquarium, too, this huge thing that cost over two thousand dollars, if you can believe that. The daddy he loved his fish. Some of them cost more than a hundred dollars each. Think about that. A hundred dollars for a fish.’ Anthony shook his head. ‘Never understood it. Give me a dog all day, you know? Some breed with belly fire. Pit, maybe.

  ‘One day when they were all out, I scooped all those fancy fish out of that aquarium, and put them in a saucepan with some water. I put the pan on the stove, and turned up the heat. Perfect blue flame, man, just kissing the bottom of the pan like a lover. It wasn’t high heat, you know? Just enough.

  ‘As the water warmed up, as it got hotter, the little bubbles came up, and I saw it in their eyes. The panic. They started swimming faster and faster and faster. They knew they were trapped, just like me. Nowhere to go.’ Anthony looked up. Will was chilled by the calm he now saw in the boy’s eyes.

  ‘To them it was all about the water. The hot water. They understood that. But to me it was about the fire. Just like you.

  ‘Maybe you all let me get away with it, all of you, because you have something to hide.’

  Will took a full step forward. ‘Anthony, I can—’

  Anthony turned the wheel on the lighter, three times in quick succession. Will could see the sparks jumping ever further into the air,
seeking the accelerant.

  Will froze.

  ‘Ever think about that? You people always do, but you never admit it.’ Another three turns of the wheel. A flash of flame jumped through the air, then vanished. ‘I’ve met a lot of shrinks, bro. Probably more than you. You all think you’re smarter than everybody, but maybe not, right? I mean, if you’re so smart, what am I doing here?’

  ‘Stop, Anthony.’

  ‘What did you do, Dr Hardy? What is your crime?’

  Will had to move, to do something. As he took another step forward, it brought him that much closer to the kitchen. His horror deepened. In addition to the stench of gasoline, he smelled the gas from the range. He saw that all four knobs on the stove were turned to full.

  Will looked at Amanda. She stirred.

  She was alive.

  Anthony held up a lighter, again flicked the wheel. Will instinctively brought his hands to his face. Nothing caught fire. Not this time.

  ‘He told me you wouldn’t call,’ Anthony said. ‘He knew.’

  ‘Who told you this, Anthony? What are you talking about?’

  Instead of answering, the boy reached into his pockets, took out more lighters. They were not all disposable lighters. Some were vintage, old school Zippos. He put them around the chair. There were seven in all.

  Will sensed movement to his right. It was Detta. She was standing in the doorway that led to the hall.

  She saw Will first.

  ‘Dad? What’s that smell?’

  His daughter rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and moments later took in the scene. Will saw the growing confusion on his daughter’s face. Then the fear.

  ‘Dad?’

  Will held out his right hand. ‘Come over here, honey,’ he said. ‘Come to me. Right now.’

  Detta did not move. Will saw her eyes flick between Amanda and himself, then to Anthony Torres. She glanced down, saw the gas cans at Anthony’s feet.

  Within moments she grasped the full horror of what was happening. She took a half-step toward her mother.

  ‘No!’ Will screamed. ‘Stop!’

  Anthony slowly stood up. He seemed to fill the entire room, as if his shoulders spanned wall to wall. He looked monstrous. He glanced at Detta.

  ‘You can’t be here.’