PATTI HAD tried to get it all off her chest before she came. Even spoke it aloud in the car as she drove from Chicago to Terre Haute, Indiana, the federal supermax.
How could you do that to us?
How could you betray us?
We trusted you.
I trusted you.
Variations on that, over and over during the three-hour trip. The man she worshipped, the man who made everything right, in reality a bent cop, corrupt to the core.
She’d hoped to tire herself out on the ride over, have her first—and last—visit be focused on Billy.
But it all floods back, all the hurt, all the insults she wanted to hurl, all the pain she wanted to inflict.
“It’s good to see you, honey. I wasn’t sure you’d ever come.”
Dirty snow atop his head, far whiter than before. He’s lost considerable weight, sunken eyes, a skinny stalk for a neck, shoulders drawn tight. Like someone put him in a dryer and shrunk him two sizes.
He was always larger than life to her, the proud, commanding chief of detectives, the baritone voice and erect posture, the man who took over any room he entered. Now he’s a soft-spoken, stooped, broken man.
“You look slimmed down,” he says. “You’ve been running again.”
“No,” she hears herself say, steeling up. “You don’t get to do that.”
She looks at him. His eyebrows dance. “Okay,” he says tentatively. “At least tell me how you’re do—”
“No.”
“Right, right, I get it. Patti, listen, there’s so many things I’ve wanted to say—”
“No!” She pounds the table. “This isn’t a reunion, okay? You can’t just…” Her throat chokes up.
Her father gives up, crosses his arms, waits her out. The hurt on his face—so unfair that he can look hurt, that he gets to be the victim.
He coughs into his fist, a nasty sputter, deep and wet, the shackles connecting his hands jangling. He doesn’t look well. He probably isn’t well.
But he doesn’t get her pity.
“I’m here about Billy,” she says.
He clears his throat, cocks his head. “He okay?”
“He’s been talking about Val. He’s become convinced she didn’t commit suicide.”
He brings a hand to his forehead. “Oh, Jay-sus, no. Even with the autopsy report.”
“Even with that.”
“He never saw the original one, did he?”
“No,” says Patti. “I actually had a copy, but I burned it.”
“Thank Christ for that.” Her father opens his hands. “You said he’s ‘become convinced.’ So he doesn’t know?”
She shakes her head. “He doesn’t remember. He says it was all a haze.”
Her father nods, takes a deep breath. “He never told us what happened. Never talked about it. Not once, afterward. I figured, maybe the whole thing was like what you said—a haze. Or maybe he remembered it clear as day and just…didn’t wanna tell us.”
Patti had thought the same thing. She and her father talked about it all the time back then. “And even if he did remember,” she says, “he may not now. After, y’know, being shot in the head last year and having those memory issues. That ring a bell?”
He shoots her a look. “We gonna do that now? Or talk about Billy?”
He’s right. She needs to stay focused. “Well, whether the trauma back then fucked with his memory, or whether he’s blocked it out over time, or that gunshot injury from a year ago did it—as of now, he doesn’t remember what happened.”
“Okay, well, that’s a blessing,” he says. “So why the doubt all of a sudden?”
“He’s…he’s got it in his head that some sex traffickers killed her, that some case Val was working on—they had to shut her up. It’s total nonsense.”
“Better than the truth,” he says.
“Not if he’s going to hunt down the traffickers and kill them.”
Her father deflates. “That’s what he’s gonna do?”
“He says so. You ever know Billy not to keep his word?”
“Jay-sus.” His head lolls back. “Tell me about these traffickers.”
“He says they come from Ukraine. A former general, a bunch of ex–special operations thugs.”
He shakes his head. “He’s gonna get his ass killed.” He leans forward, looks at her squarely. “There’s only one choice,” he says. “You have to tell him the truth.”
She knows. Deep down, she’s known it for a long time. But no matter what else she may feel or think, he’s still her father, and maybe she just needed to hear him say it.
“But how in the hell do I do that?” she says. “How do I tell my brother that he killed his own wife?”