THIRTY-FIVE

I parked and circled the house to the front. Rain soaked my clothes and hair and ran down my face. I reached the porch, slowed, and went noiselessly up its rain-slick steps.

Cade and Kris Ann were framed in the living room window, close together on the couch, their backs to me. Cade talked urgently, index finger jabbing his palm. Kris Ann’s face in profile was strained and attentive. Their lips moved, but on the other side of the glass I heard only rain beating on the canopy and the steps and the leaves of trees. I moved to the front door, opened it, and walked inside.

Cade stood quickly. Kris Ann turned pale. “I know about New Orleans,” I told her.

Her mouth opened. Cade moved between us, eyes hooded and watchful. I looked past him. “We’re going to the police, Krissy.”

Her glance moved between us. “For what, Adam? Why?”

“Lydia Cantwell’s murder.”

She shrank from me in horror. Cade was still, almost expressionless, watching me with his back to the mantel where Kris Ann’s revolver was. “We have to go,” I told her softly.

Cade’s voice was tight. “I can’t let you do that, Adam.”

I shook my head, speaking to Kris Ann. “I’ve got no choice, Krissy. Maybe you can explain to Rayfield why you got home so late the night Lydia was killed. But now I know that Henry never left Anniston, and that the black Mercedes Joanne Mooring thought she saw in the Cantwells’ drive was a navy blue Audi like yours.”

“Adam, that’s not right—”

“I wish it weren’t. From the time I started looking into Lydia’s murder you tried to stop me—for Roland’s sake, you said. And when I wouldn’t, I found your picture on my windshield. You’re an artist, after all.”

“You can’t believe that.”

“I can’t believe you. When I asked you to leave town you refused and tried persuading me to quit. The night I was shot at, you’d switched off every light in the house, your revolver was missing, and you were out. When you came home the revolver was in your purse. This partnership finished it. You hid that from me, damn you, and now Henry and Lydia are dead. I’m giving you to Rayfield.”

I moved toward her. Cade’s face as he stood between us was hard, determined. “I won’t permit this. They’ll try Kris Ann for murder.”

“They’ll do that anyhow. The news people know about Napoleon.”

Cade stared at me. “Then you sent the Culhane woman.”

“That’s right. By nightfall Rayfield will be here looking for Kris Ann. It’s already done.”

Kris Ann looked to Cade, pleading. He stepped forward. “You’ve ruined everything, Adam. I always knew you would. God, how I hate you.”

“For what, Roland? Finding Lydia’s murderer?”

“You’re such a fool.” He shook his head. “Sweet Jesus, to have lived through this for seven years and remained so stupid.”

“Not quite so stupid.”

A strange smile of contempt turned the ends of his mouth without touching his eyes. “But you are. You see, Kris Ann didn’t kill anyone.”

I stopped to face him as he awaited my answer. After a moment I said simply, “I know.”

Cade stared at me in the long silence that followed. I broke it, speaking softly. “I counted on you, Roland. You do love her, in your way.”

Cade’s eyes widened as if admitting light. Kris Ann bolted up, staring wildly at both of us and backing away until we formed a triangle, the couch between us, Cade to one side. The mantel and gun were still behind him. “How did you know?” he finally asked.

“Bayles came to see me.”

“I wouldn’t have thought that.”

“Love is strange. But then you know all about that. It all comes back to the three of us: you, me, and Kris Ann.”

Cade’s head tilted. “How long have you wanted me for this?”

“I suppose since the beginning, on some level.”

“Why so soon?”

“I started sensing the connections. You’ve hated me ever since Kris Ann brought me home. At first I tried believing you were a protective father. I didn’t want to face the fact that we were rivals. The job offer, the house, the talks with me—all these were ways of keeping Kris Ann for yourself. She knew that, inside. I didn’t, or didn’t want to.” I turned to Kris Ann. “I never wanted to be a lawyer, so how I did it never really mattered. Maybe I was dazzled by things I’d never had. All the time you wanted me to take you away from him. You sensed how unhealthy it was. Instead I used you as an excuse and kept you here. God help me, it was you I wanted, not the rest.”

Her face was blank and wounded. She shook her head, over and over. “But look at what you’ve done—”

“Please, Krissy, understand what he did. Roland meant to destroy our marriage. Over time he planned to cut me down in front of you and then wean you with money until you didn’t respect or need me. But he invested badly. Another man would have given up. Your father is a different sort of man. He learned Napoleon was in trouble and promised them financing in return for a share in your name. He didn’t have that kind of money himself. But Henry had the bank’s money and Lydia’s, and Roland knew that he was homosexual. My guess is that he put detectives on Henry until he found his lover. Then he threatened to expose the other man unless Henry arranged a loan. The details aren’t important. What I have to know is why you took that partnership.”

“It was a present from Daddy,” she burst out bitterly.

I shook my head. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“It was between me and Daddy. I thought maybe it would hurt your pride. I didn’t know about Henry—”

“It was ours,” Cade cut in. “You don’t need to explain anything.”

I turned. “Then you can, Roland. You can tell her about Jason.”

Cade turned to her, face suffused with blood. I went on. “Ask him, Krissy. Ask him if you have a brother.”

They faced each other in terrible silence. Then Cade nodded mutely, and reached toward her. She recoiled, crying out, “Why, Adam? Why do this now?”

“Because we have to face the truth or there’s been no point to any of this. Your father was young when his family lost their money. It humiliated him. He despised Henry for his ‘weakness,’ and for what he had. So piece by piece he took what was Henry’s: his father’s affection, his place at the firm, and then Lydia. Roland wanted her and had her, and she had a son. But they couldn’t marry because of the scandal it would cause and perhaps for fear he’d lose you. After your mother died he proposed. Lydia refused and denied him Jason, but it was you who paid the price. He became fixated on you, pouring all his hate and disappointment into keeping you his—”

“Stop.” Cade’s face and voice filled with torment. “How can you know anything of me?”

I turned to him. “Before Henry died you told me that I couldn’t think like someone else. You were wrong. I’ve learned to think like you. You’d taken Henry’s place but now he had your son. At first you tried to reach Jason through Lydia, forcing her to buy Jason presents. But Jason grew up warped. When he tried to rape Kris Ann the conflict tore you apart: your son, touching the daughter you wanted for yourself. It ate through you until you hated all of them. Did you ever tell Henry, Roland?”

“Why should I have? He was our son. Henry was a weakling—”

“So you destroyed him.”

“I warn you, Adam.”

I shook my head. “Krissy has to see what you are. You blackmailed Henry for more than just money. You enjoyed it. When Broussard’s loan was reduced you forced him to use Lydia’s money to cover the difference. You hoped she’d never find out. But she was in love with Mooring. She must have despised coming to you. But you knew the Cantwells’ finances and could minimize the involvement of outsiders. In a way she began her own murder. The will is a fake, isn’t it, Roland?”

He nodded reflexively. “How did you learn that?”

“It has to be. When Lydia came to your office you must have found out she’d fought with Jason and that only Mooring knew she was asking for a divorce. You would have asked when she intended telling Henry and learned she wasn’t expecting him back that night. You knew a divorce would uncover your blackmail of Henry. Everyone would learn what you are—me, your partners, even Kris Ann. You couldn’t let that happen. So when Lydia left, you had your secretary type a new will to cover Lydia’s reason for coming. But you had a second purpose. You could use it to revenge yourself on Jason.

“Late that night you called on Lydia. She let you in: after all, you were Jason’s father. But she was set on Mooring. All the years of hate and jealousy overwhelmed you. I wonder what she felt when she realized you meant to kill her, and how—”

Kris Ann’s hands clutched her throat. In one continuous motion Cade leaped to the mantel and whirled on me with the revolver. “No,” Kris Ann screamed.

Cade turned to her. “He means to put me in prison. I can’t let him live to see that.” His voice became rhythmic, compelling. “Please, baby, you have to choose. How can you think he loves you? He used you to get my money, left you here alone when he thought you might be harmed. Now he’s accused you of killing Lydia to get at me. He knew I loved you. Everything I’ve done was for you. He used you—”

“Tell her the rest, Roland.”

“Stop,” she screamed.

“Please, baby—”

“Tell her how you strangled Lydia.”

Cade started toward me with the revolver. “She’ll choose, in time. She’ll understand what I did—”

“She’ll understand what you are. You took Lydia’s picture and mutilated it with her dead at your feet hoping the police would think her killer was insane, like Jason. It was no deception. You’re more psychotic than Jason ever dreamed of. You liked killing her.”

“No.” Cade’s voice was anguished. “She looked so new. All those years I’d wanted her, her elegance, even her distance, and then she says she’s free at last—free of Grangeville and all of Henry’s secrets, and ours—”

“Maybe she was just happy, Roland. She’d almost made it.”

He shook his head. “She insulted me. When I began moving toward her she started to beg, told me she’d do anything to please me as long as she could have Mooring. It was all for him. She was crying when I touched her.” His arm raised until he faced me over the sight of the revolver.

“It’s no good. You can’t believe Kris Ann will forget watching you kill me. You’ll go to the electric chair.”

Cade’s mouth was a harsh line. “I’m going either way. You’ve seen to that. At least now you’ll die first and I’ll have time alone with Kris Ann, to explain—”

“Daddy—no.” Kris Ann ran to him, grasping his free arm and falling to her knees. “Don’t do this.”

She looked up. Cade reached to stroke her hair. “Do you choose me, baby? I want you to choose me.”

“Don’t touch her, Roland.”

Kris Ann’s eyes closed. Her face was white and frozen. Cade kept the gun on me as he stroked her hair and the back of her neck. “She’s mine, Adam. There’s nothing you can do to stop me now.”

I moved toward him. “Let her go.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Not again.”

“Then let her hear first. You can’t be afraid, not the way you’ve maneuvered me.”

The gun didn’t move. Only the keenness of his look disclosed interest. “So you understand that, too.”

“I understand it all. You gave me the will so that I’d be the one to find Lydia. You knew I’d give it to the police to protect Henry. The will provided them Jason as a suspect and you an excuse to force yourself on Henry and control me. You counted on that: you’d run my life for seven years. And you wanted one last contest with Krissy as the prize.”

Kris Ann covered her face. A close volley of thunder exploded, rattling the windows. I talked through it. “It began falling apart when Henry came home. You knew he would be gone that night, but you must have been sick to find out where he had been, and with whom. So you helped him lie, knowing—as he did not—that Bayles’ exposure would reveal you as the murderer.

“Rayfield made it harder. He hated you and knew Henry was gay. Then they discovered Mooring’s semen. Rayfield didn’t know whose it was, but you must have. You were almost caught. But your interest and Mooring’s were identical: he didn’t want to be uncovered and although he didn’t know why, you couldn’t withstand it. For twenty-eight years since, you changed the course of his life, and he never knew.

“When I uncovered Mooring I wanted to protect Henry. So like a fool I hid what I knew from Rayfield and protected you instead.”

Wind and rain began howling on the porch behind me. Kris Ann wept at Cade’s feet. His stare over the gun sight was filled with rage and loathing. I spoke faster. “Henry and you were locked in a terrible contest. Henry didn’t want Bayles exposed and you’d concealed the link between your blackmail and the murder by covering her divorce plans with the fake will. But he had enough suspicion to ask me to investigate and enough guts to insist on that to you. It wasn’t my favor to him. It was his favor to me. We were friends—”

“Likes attract,” Cade said contemptuously. “The weak and the envious.”

“I don’t envy the strength it took to mutilate Krissy’s picture.” Her face raised from her hands. “That was him, too,” I told her. “All through this he’s tried to make me afraid of losing you to a murderer, or to him. I didn’t know that they were the same man.”

Cade looked down at Kris Ann. His gun wavered slightly. I calculated the distance between us. “Please,” Cade was saying. “He never cared for you. I proved that with the picture.”

She rose, looking from Cade to me. Reason—cold and certain and unforgiving—came into her face. “You bastards.” She turned to me. “Both of you. I’ve been the battlefield where you could prove who was the biggest man—”

“Baby, I had to show you he didn’t care—”

I began moving toward him. “Bullshit, Roland: by then I’d found Mooring. You were trying to save yourself. When I talked to Joanne Mooring, I began closing in on you, except that I didn’t understand what she was telling me. Instead I suspected everyone: the Moorings, Otis Lee, and finally Jason. You were willing to sacrifice Lee and I was caught between Lee and Henry. But when Rayfield told me about Henry’s arrest and then Henry admitted what had happened I was closer yet. How did you find out fast enough to shoot at me?”

Cade still watched Kris Ann. “Coincidence,” he said absently. “I called Kris Ann right after you did and found out where you were.”

“And then you waited in the vacant lot the way you told me Henry did.”

He nodded. Kris Ann stared at him. “But people’s lives. Lydia’s and Henry’s. Ours.”

“Baby.” Cade’s voice was soft, crooning. “You’re the only one who mattered. The rest …” He looked back to me.

I stopped six feet from him. “The rest were expendable, like Henry. When Clayton told me that Rayfield had found eight hundred thousand dollars gone from Lydia’s account, all I needed was to lean on Henry until he told me who Bayles was and what you’d done. You knew how close I was: when you talked about Henry—how trapped and desperate he must feel—you were talking about yourself. I swear it, Roland, even if I could forgive you the rest I can never forgive what you did next. You maneuvered me into giving you time to think while believing I’d bought time for Henry. Then you went to work. You implied that he had no lover. You blamed everything you’d done—Lydia’s murder, Krissy’s picture, your shots at me—on Henry. You had to break my faith in him for just a few more hours. You succeeded. I didn’t return his call that night. God damn you, I could have saved him.

“The appointment you made wasn’t for eight the next morning. It was for eight that night. You made sure he never called again. It wasn’t suicide, Roland. You killed him.”

“No, Adam.” Cade’s smile flickered eerily. “You killed him, by not calling. When I put the gun in his mouth he just looked at me. He wanted to die.”

“But you’re insane.” Kris Ann’s voice was broken. “To kill Lydia and Henry. To think that was for me—”

“There’s more, Krissy. Roland planned to use Henry’s murder to have you for himself. He meant to burden me with guilt and have me fired. He was in the clear now and had the partnership to give you. I was to be the irrational ex-partner. That was the choice he meant to give you. You were going to be his.” I began moving toward Cade. “You killed my friend, Roland, but I survived. I’m taking you in.”

“No.” Cade raised the gun, bracing his shooting wrist with his left hand. “That’s one thing you will never do.”

Kris Ann reached toward him. “Daddy—”

“I have to.” Cade straightened with an insane ravaged dignity. “Perhaps it’s better that you know what I’ve done for you. Now you can truly choose.”

“Don’t make me.” She reached out for him. “Please.”

“There’s nothing else left.” Cade squinted, aiming at the center of my face as I moved closer. “You have to choose now.” His finger tightened on the trigger.

Kris Ann lunged as he fired.

The gun jerked upward. Cade stared at me, astonished, amidst falling plaster. Kris Ann fell past him in the bullet’s echo. I jumped.

My head drove into his stomach and knocked him against the mantel. He bounced back, cracking his gun on my skull. I doubled, stunned, hugging his waist tightly as his momentum pushed me backward and my knees collapsed and I pulled him down on top of me. As we fell my arm lashed up at his wrist and knocked the gun to the floor, and then Cade landed on me with his full weight, fingers grasping my windpipe.

They tightened, shutting off air. There was ripped tissue in my mouth and the taste of blood. Rhythmically, he began smashing my head on the floor. My skull exploded. His face, intense and rapturous, broke into pieces in front of me. Then it went dark and there was only his sweat and weight and panting, the sourness of his breath, iron fingers as I choked for air. My left hand flopped on the wooden floor, touched steel, groping. The trigger curled against my finger. His thumbs pressed toward the back of my throat. My hand closed. In a blind reflex I jammed the gun between us and fired.

His fingers dug fiercely. I gagged, and then they twitched and loosened and I swallowed air, raw and tender in my throat, and retched it up. There was light. Cade’s face was inches from mine. His eyes seemed great with surprise, a last, profound disappointment. They made his expression softer, almost gentle. “Lydia,” he murmured, and then they went blank, and he was dead weight, and his face fell against my shoulder.

His body trembled. I lay down the gun and pushed him off me. He flopped on his back, staring emptily at the ceiling, a dark stain near his heart. Kris Ann was crawling toward us. I couldn’t speak. There was no rain or wind or thunder.

In the aching, awful silence I got up and stumbled toward the telephone. I turned in the hallway. Kris Ann kneeled over Cade, tear streaked, holding his head in her hands. Her hair fell across his face.

I went to the telephone and told them to send Rayfield.

When I returned, Kris Ann was chattering at Cade, crying and asking him why. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. I let her go until she wasn’t speaking or sobbing. Then I went to her side.

“They’re coming,” I said softly.

She looked up at me. Her eyes were burnholes. “You had to kill him, didn’t you?”

“Krissy, it’s time now.” I reached out.

She turned away. When I took her hand it was lifeless. She didn’t struggle, or help. I pulled her up and led her to the porch as she looked back at Cade.

It was quiet outside, and cool. The rain had stopped, and there was the shine of wetness on the grass and the fresh smell of ozone. Sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer. Kris Ann wept. I pulled her to me. She was stiff in my arms, resisting. My eyes turned wet, and then I began silently to cry, for Henry and Lydia, and for my father, for what I had done and all the things between us Kris Ann and I would have to face.

She shivered. I held her close.