“So he wants someone else to tell them.”
“No,” he said, suddenly raising his voice. A splash of rose seeped from under his shirt collar and climbed to his earlobes, vivid as a port-wine stain. “He definitely does not want that, that is not the issue. Helping them through the process is. I—he needs someone to tide them over until things settle down.”
“He expects things to settle down,” I said.
He smiled. “Circumstances dictate optimism. So, do we have an understanding of the issues at hand?”
“No knowledge provided to the kids, holding their hands until their father is out of trouble. Sounds like high-priced baby-sitting.”
The flush darkened his entire face, his chest heaved and his eyes began to bulge. The surge of color made me draw back defensively. It’s the kind of thing you see in people who have a serious problem with anger. I thought of Eric’s outburst in the victims’ room at the station.
New side of Richard. Before this, he’d been unfailingly contentious, sometimes irritable, but always cool.
He worked at cooling off now, placing one hand on the arm of the sofa, cupping a knee with the other, as if hastening self-restraint. Ticking off the seconds with his index finger. Ten ticks later, he said, “All right,” in the tone you’d use with a slow learner. “We’ll call it babysitting. Well-trained, well-paid baby-sitting. The main thing is the kids get what they need.”
“Until things settle down.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “They will. The funny thing is, despite his poor judgment, he didn’t actually do anything.”
“Soliciting murder’s not nothing—hypothetically speaking.”
His eyelids drooped. He got up, stepped closer to my chair. I smelled mint on his breath, cologne, putrid sweat. “Nothing happened.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Nothing. This person learned from his mistake.”
“And didn’t try again.”
He aimed a finger gun down at me. “Bingo.” Easy tone, but the flush had lingered. He stood there, finally returned to the sofa. “Okay then, we have a meeting of the minds.”
“What exactly do you want me to tell your kids, Richard?”
“That everything’s going to be fine.” Making no attempt to steer it back to third-person theoretical. “That I may be … indisposed for a while. But only temporarily. They need to know that. I’m the only parent they have left. They need me, and I need you to facilitate.”
“All right,” I said. “But we should also be looking for other sources of support. Are there any family members who could—”
“No,” he said. “No one. My mother’s dead, and my father’s ninety-two and living in a home in New Jersey.”
“What about Joanne’s side—”
“Nothing,” he said. “Both of her parents are gone and she was an only child. Besides, I don’t need meddling laymen, I need a professional. Not a bad deal for you. I’ll start paying you the way I pay Safer—driving time, thinking time, every billable second.”
I didn’t answer.
He said, “Why do we have this thing, you and I, everything turns into a push-and-pull?”
Lots of answers to that one, none good. I said, “Richard, we have a meeting of the minds on one point: my role is helping Stacy and Eric. But I need to be honest with you: I have no magic to offer them. Information’s my armament. I need to be equipped.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” he said, “what do you want from me, confession? Expiation?”
“Expiation,” I said. “Eric used that word, too.”
His mouth opened. Shut. The flush drained from his face. Now he’d paled. “Eric has a good vocabulary.”
“It’s not a topic you and he have discussed?”
“Why the hell would it be?”
“I was just wondering if Eric had some reason to feel guilty.”
“What the hell about?”
“That’s what I’m asking,” I said, feeling more like a lawyer cross-examining than a therapist easing pain. He was right, this was our script, and I was as much a player as he.
“No,” he said, “Eric’s fine. Eric’s a great kid.” He slumped, rubbed his eyes, half disappeared into the couch, and I began to feel sorry for him. Then I thought of him passing cash to Quentin Goad. In the name of closure.