TWENTY-NINE

Cade knocked before eight, grim-faced and hostile, staring over my shoulder at Kris Ann. We drove to Henry’s without speaking.

This morning I saw clearly. Sunlight fell through the pines like yellow dust. A slow wind stirring their needles felt like wetness hovering and the dogwood were wilting or fallen and smelled faintly of decay. A bird called. No one answered when Cade rang the doorbell.

We stood with hands in our pockets, waiting. After a moment Cade began pounding the door. I went to the garage and saw the black Mercedes through the window, and Lydia’s Lincoln. Cade kept pounding as though transfixed. When I came back and said, “Their cars are here,” he jabbed angrily at the doorbell without answering.

I began circling the house.

I saw nothing through the left front window but an empty living room. Cade hit the doorbell again. I went around to the side.

Henry’s library window was level with my chin. I edged through the bushes and hydrangeas, stretched but could see only part of the room: the standing gold ashtray, the chair where I often sat, but not Henry’s chair. His copy of War and Peace lay facedown on the floor.

I went to the rear of the house, more quickly now. The lightheadedness returned.

Double glass doors led from the patio to the living room. They were locked. From the front Cade’s hollow pounding came again.

Decorative stones lay scattered in the garden. I snatched one and tossed it through the windowpane nearest the doorknob.

The sound of shattering glass made me flinch. I reached to turn the knob and stepped inside. Cade rang the doorbell with the staccato bursts of a madman.

I went to the library.

Henry slumped in his chair, staring out.

The book lay at his feet, and near that the revolver. Dried blood came from his mouth where the bullet had gone. There were blood and brains and fragments of skull on the chair and the shelves behind it and on one corner of the blue Miro. The reading glasses were in his lap and his arm had fallen over the side of his chair. He still wore his cardigan sweater.

His hand was white and cold-feeling. Time stopped as half-forgotten fragments tumbled through my mind: “Hail, Mary, full of grace … The Lord is with thee … Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”

It was quiet. Cade had stopped ringing.

I dropped Henry’s hand and stared at him. His gray eyes seemed frozen in eternal disappointment.

“Why?” I asked him.

Cade rang the doorbell again. I turned away, walked slowly to the front door, and opened it.

Cade stood back, surprised. “He’s in the library,” I said.

Cade brushed me aside. I sat on the front steps.

Time passed. Things happened that I half noticed and didn’t care about. Two police came, like before, and, like before, a team with doctor bags. They glanced at me and hurried on.

Then Rayfield came. When I followed him mechanically he looked away. But when he looked at Henry Cantwell there was pity on his face, and something like relief.

From around me came now-familiar noises: orders, doors opening, footsteps. “Just blew his fucking brains out,” someone said.

My brain began screaming.

I went back to the steps and sat. Someone stood over me. I gazed stupidly up.

Cade’s face was filled with hate. “I hope you’re satisfied, Adam.” His voice was barely controlled. “Because you as good as pulled the trigger.”

I sprang up.

From the side, Rayfield moved quickly between us, snapping. “Drive him home,” at Bast. But as Cade stared past him there was still only hate.