you are now responsible for this little person. But there was something else there too. I couldn't put my finger on it exactly. Not then anyway. Not until Brandon's first day of school."
Something caught in the old man's throat. He coughed a bit and now Larry could see more tears. The piano music seemed softer now. The crickets hushed as though they were listening too.
"We waited together for the school bus. I held his hand. Brandon was five years old. He looked up at me in that way children do at that age. He wore brown pants that already had a grass stain on the knee. I remember the yellow bus pulling up and the sound the door made when it opened. Then Brandon let go of my hand and started climbing up the steps. I wanted to reach out and snatch him back and take him home, but I stood there, frozen. He moved inside the bus and I heard that noise again and the door slid closed. Brandon sat by a window. I could see his face. He waved to me. I waved back and as the bus pulled away, I said to myself, "There goes my whole world." That yellow bus with its flimsy metal sides and its driver I didn't know from Adam charioted away what was in effect everything to me. And at that moment, I realized what I had felt the day of his birth. Terror. Not just apprehension. Cold, stark terror. You can fear illness or old age or death. But there's nothing like that small stone of terror that sat in my belly as I watched that bus pull away. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Larry nodded. "I think I do."
"I knew then, at that moment, that despite my best efforts, something bad could happen to him. I wouldn't always be there to take the blow. I thought about it constantly. We all do, I guess. But when it happened, when-" He stopped and finally faced Larry Gandle. "I still try to bring him back," he said. "I try to bargain with God, offering him anything and everything if he'll somehow make Brandon alive. That won't happen, of course. I understand that. But now you come here and tell me that while my son, my whole world, rots in the ground... she lives." He started shaking his head. "I can't have that, Larry. Do you understand?"
"I do," he said.
"I failed to protect him once. I won't fail again."
Griffin Scope turned back to his garden. He took another sip of his drink. Larry Gandle understood. He rose and walked back into the night.
* * *
At ten o'clock, Carlson approached the front door of 28 Goodhart Road. He didn't worry much about the late hour. He had seen downstairs lights on and the flicker of a television, but even with out that, Carlson had more important worries than someone's beauty sleep.
He was about to reach for the bell when the door opened. Hoyt Parker was there. For a moment they both stood, two boxers meeting at center ring, staring each other down as the referee reiterated meaningless instructions about low blows and not punching on the break.
Carlson didn't wait for the bell. "Did your daughter take drugs?"
Hoyt Parker took it with little more than a twitch. "Why do you want to know?"
"May I come in?"
"My wife is sleeping," Hoyt said, slipping outside and closing the door behind him. "You mind if we talk out here?"
"Suit yourself."
Hoyt crossed his arms and bounced on his toes a bit. He was a burly guy in blue jeans and a T-shirt that fit less snugly ten pounds ago. Carlson knew that Hoyt Parker was a veteran cop. Cute traps and subtlety would not work here.
"Are you going to answer my question?" Carlson asked.
"Are you going to tell me why you want to know?" Hoyt replied.
Carlson decided to change tactics. "Why did you take the autopsy pictures from your daughter's file?"
"What makes you think I took them?" There was no outrage, no loud, phony denials.
"I looked at the autopsy report today," Carlson said.
"Why?"
"Pardon me?"
"My daughter has been dead for eight years. Her killer is in jail. Yet you decide to look at her autopsy report today. I'd like to know why."
This was going nowhere and going there fast. Carlson decided to give a little, put down his guard, let him wade in, see what happened. "Your son-in-law visited the county M.E. yesterday. He demanded to see his wife's file.