Mystic River

"Why?"

"Why'd they do it? They don't even know. They were playing with a gun. They saw a car coming, and one of them lay down in the middle of the street. The car swerves, clutch kicks out, and O'Shea runs up to the car with the gun, says he just meant to scare her. Instead the gun went off. Katie hit him with the door, and the kids say they snapped. They chased her so she wouldn't tell anyone they had a gun."

"And the beating they gave her?" Jimmy said, and took another drink.

"Ray junior had a hockey stick. He wouldn't answer any questions. He's mute, you know? Just sat there. But O'Shea said that they beat her because she'd made them mad by running." He shrugged as if the utter wastefulness of it surprised even him. "Little fucking kids," he said. "Afraid they'd get grounded or something, so they killed her."

Jimmy stood. He opened his mouth to gulp some air and his legs gave way and he found himself right back on the step. Sean put a hand on his elbow.

"Go easy, Jim. Take a few breaths."

Jimmy saw Dave sitting on the ground, fingering the slice Jimmy had drawn from one end of his abdomen to the other. He heard his voice: Look at me, Jimmy. Look at me.

And Sean said, "I got a call from Celeste Boyle. She said Dave's missing. She said she went a little crazy the last few days. She said you, Jim, might know where he is."

Jimmy tried to speak. He opened his mouth, but his windpipe filled right up with what felt like damp cotton swabs.

Sean said, "No one else knows where Dave could be. And it's important we talk to him, Jim, because he might know something about a guy who got killed outside the Last Drop the other night."

"A guy?" Jimmy managed before his windpipe closed up again.

"Yeah," Sean said, something hard finding his voice. "A pedophile with three priors. Real piece of shit. The theory at the barracks is that someone caught him in the act with a little kid and canceled his fucking ticket. So anyway," Sean said, "we want to talk to Dave about it. You know where he is, Jim?"

Jimmy shook his head, having trouble seeing anything out of his peripheral vision now, a tunnel seeming to have formed in front of his eyes.

"No?" Sean said. "Celeste says she told you that Dave killed Katie. Seems to think you believed the same thing. She got the feeling you were going to do something about it."

Jimmy stared through the tunnel at a sewer grate.

"You going to send five hundred a month to Celeste now, Jimmy?"

Jimmy looked up and each of them saw it at the same time in the other's face? Sean could see what Jimmy had done, and Jimmy could see that knowledge appear in Sean.

"You fucking did it, didn't you?" Sean said. "You killed him."

Jimmy stood up, holding on to the banister. "Don't know what you're talking about."

"You killed both of them? Ray Harris and Dave Boyle. Jesus, Jimmy, I came down here thinking the whole idea was nuts, but I can see it in your face, man. You crazy, lunatic, fucking psycho piece of shit. You did it. You killed Dave. You killed Dave Boyle. Our friend, Jimmy."

Jimmy snorted. "Our friend. Yeah, okay, Point Boy, he was your good buddy. Hung with him all the time, right?"

Sean stepped into his face. "He was our friend, Jimmy. Remember?"

Jimmy looked into Sean's eyes, wondered if he was going to take a swing at him.

"Last time I saw Dave," he said, "was at my house last night." He pushed Sean aside and crossed the street onto Gannon. "That's the last time I saw Dave."

"You're full of shit."

He turned, arms wide as he looked back at Sean. "Then arrest me, you're so sure."

"I'll get the evidence," Sean said. "You know I will."

"You'll get shit," Jimmy said. "Thanks for busting my daughter's killers, Sean. Really. Maybe if you'd been a little faster, though?" Jimmy shrugged and turned his back on him, started walking down Gannon Street.

Sean watched him until he lost him to the darkness under a broken streetlight right in front of Sean's old house.

You did it, Sean thought. You actually did it, you cold, cold-blooded animal. And the worst part of it is that I know how smart you are. You won't have left us anything to go on. That's not in your nature, because you're a detail guy, Jimmy. You damn prick.

"You took his life," Sean said aloud. "Didn't you, my man?"

He tossed his beer can into the curb and walked to his car, called Lauren from his cell phone.

When she answered, he said, "It's Sean."

Silence.

He knew now what he hadn't said that she'd needed to hear, the thing he'd refused to say in over a year. Anything, he'd told himself, I'll say anything but that.

He said it now, though. He said it seeing that kid pointing the gun at his chest, the kid reeking of nothing, and seeing, too, poor Dave that day Sean had offered to buy him a beer, the spark of desperate hope he'd seen in Dave's face, the guy probably never believing, truly, that anyone would want to have a beer with him. And he said it because he felt it deep in his marrow, a need to say it, as much for Lauren as for himself.

He said, "I'm sorry."

And Lauren spoke. "For what?"

"For putting it all on you."

"Okay?"

"Hey? "

"Hey? "

"You go ahead," he said.

"I?"

"What?"

"I?hell, Sean, I'm sorry, too. I didn't mean to? "

"It's okay," he said. "Really." He took a deep breath, sucking in the soiled, stale-sweat stench of his cruiser. "I want to see you. I want to see my daughter."

And Lauren answered, "How do you know she's yours?"

"She's mine."

"But the blood test? "

"She's mine," he said. "I don't need a blood test. Will you come home, Lauren? Will you?"

Somewhere on the silent street, he could hear the hum of a generator.

"Nora," she said.

"What?"

"That's your daughter's name, Sean."

"Nora," he said, the word wet in his throat.

* * *

WHEN JIMMY GOT HOME, Annabeth was waiting up for him in the kitchen. He sat in the chair at the table across from her and she gave him that small, secret smile he loved, the one that seemed to know him so well he'd never have to open his mouth for the rest of his life and she'd still know what he meant to say. Jimmy took her hand and ran his thumb along hers and tried to find strength in the image of himself that he could see in her face.