Page 81 of Shame the Devil
What hewasdoing was sitting in the kind of room he’d only seen in the movies. The kind with scuffed paint that must once have been white but now just looked dirty, with a white table bisected by a ceiling-to-floor Plexiglas divider, and a telephone receiver mounted on either side of it.
The door opened on the opposite side of the barrier, and he tensed. The figure who came through it was nothing like the hale, hearty, red-faced salesman he would’ve been yesterday. He looked shrunken, his graying blond hair wispy and unkempt, the traffic-cone-orange shirt and pants loose around him.
If that was supposed to make Harlan feel sorry for him, it wasn’t working. He waited, his hands held loosely in his lap by an effort of will, until his father sat down at the table and picked up the receiver. And then he picked up his own.
His dad said, “Hi. Thanks for coming.”
Harlan said, “You said you needed to see me. You said it was urgent. I’ve got Annabelle, and I’ll be taking her home with me, so if you’re worried about her, you don’t have to be. I’ve got her.” His body felt heavy with unsaid words, his hands and mouth clumsy with restraint.
His dad said, “That’s good. But I need you to get me a lawyer.”
Harlan had been blessed from birth with the kind of reflexes that got you chosen for fighter-pilot duty, and he’d honed those reflexes with twenty-five years of hard work. He was a quick thinker, a quick talker, and a quick actor. Right now, though, he was sitting in a bolted-down plastic chair, looking at one of the first faces he’d seen in his life, and he was blank.
Finally, he said, “They must be letting you use the phone. Get a lawyer yourself.”
“I tried. They want twenty thousand just as a retainer. It could be a hundred thousand, in the end. Two hundred. All up front.”
Harlan picked the words up like stones. “You have a house. You have a business. You probably have a retirement account.”
“I’d lose them. I’d lose everything. It could take two years. And how do I work with this hanging over me? How do I make a living?”
“Guess you’d better go with the public defender, then.”
“Son.” His dad never called him “son.” Never. “It’s more than that. I need bail, too. It could be a million bucks. How am I going to pay that? I can’t.”
“There’s such a thing as a bail bond.” This was actually happening. His dad was asking him to bail him out for killing his mom.
Whodidthat?
“Another hundred thousand,” his father said. “A hundred fifty, even.” He tried a smile, a ghost of his great-guy persona. “What’s that, a quarter of a game for you? Ten minutes, with that new contract?”
“It’s five minutes,” Harlan said. “Which doesn’t mean I’m spending it on you. And they don’t always grant bail for murder. So cheer up. Maybe you won’t have to worry about it.” A question he’d asked the detective yesterday.
“It’s a mistake,” his father said. His face entreating now, sincere. The face of a salesman who was telling you that he’d be losing money on this deal, that he had kids to feed. That this was his very best effort, because he was scraping the bottom of the barrel for you. “You don’t understand, son. This is all a big mistake.”
Harlan looked down at his hand, which was lying on the table now. He had to, because he had to make sure it was there. He couldn’t feel his body anymore. “Yeah?” he said, when he could. “How?”
“You think I killed your mom?” his dad said. “That Iplannedto kill her? I loved that woman.” The tears filled his eyes. “Why would I do something like that? I need your help to prove it. Please. I can’t stay here.”
Harlan asked, “What are you saying? Somebody else did all that? Who?”
“Anybody else could have done it.” His dad was leaning forward now, urgent with it. “Listen. They break into the office, take the keys. Get a Bobcat, put it on a trailer. That land wasn’t fenced. All they’d have had to do was drive back behind the trees where they’d be out of sight, and then dig the hole. They had all night to do it. Who’s going to see them out there in October?”
Harlan’s scalp was prickling, the hair standing up on his arms. He said slowly, trying to sound confused, “Why would somebody kill Mom?”
“Why do you think?” His dad laughed, the sound harsh and jarring, and Harlan had to control himself not to leap forward and … what? Maybe the barrier wasn’t just there to keep the prisoner in. Maybe it was also to keep the visitor out, because if it hadn’t been there, he’d have been across the table.
“You saying somebody else was sleeping with her?” he asked. “And that he killed her? Who?”
“That bookstore guy,” his father said. “I’ve always known that was who she went off with. Looks like I was right after all, except that she didn’t go far, did she? Right there under my feet the whole time. Maybe she wanted to go with him, and he didn’t want to take her. Maybe she told him she was pregnant. Or maybe she told him it was over. Maybe they were fighting about it, and he lost his temper and was, I don’t know, shaking her. He probably grabbed her neck just to shut her up. He probably didn’t even mean to do it. How the fuck do I know why?”
Harlan was going to be sick. He said slowly, “She was pregnant?”
“No. I don’t know. Whatever. It wouldn’t be the first time she used that line, though, would it? You’ve got to believe me, Harlan. It wasn’t me.”
Inside Harlan’s mind, pieces were starting to fall into place like the wooden blocks in a Jenga game. Click-click-click-click-click. He said, “If you want a lawyer, hire one. Maybe you’ll have to choose between that and the bail bond, I don’t know. I guess that’s your choice. Like you always say, it’s your money. You worked for it. Spend it however you want.”
“Harlan.” His dad had his hand on the Plexiglas now, was leaning forward like he was trying to get through it by sheer force of will, and it was everything Harlan could do not to lunge forward himself and shove him back. Which he couldn’t do, because he couldn’t get through.
