Beyond the Shadow of Night(105)

“I know it’s stupid, but . . . well, yes, I do, if I listen to my heart. We’re talking about my own father. I can’t completely accept it. He was such a good man. He seemed such a good man.”

Brad sat back down and held her hand. “Just listen to your head on this one, not your heart. None of this is your fault.”

“I guess not. Thanks.”

They leaned in and held each other, their lips touching, and for a few seconds their heads rested on each other’s shoulders.

“I’m not sure it’s my father’s fault either.”

Brad pulled away and frowned.

“No, really. Asher told me what happened. Father was just a pawn. He had very little real choice. One day I’ll tell you. Not now.”

“I . . . I don’t know,” Brad said. “I trust you, Diane. It’s just that there’s too much to take in. But I can understand it’s complicated.”

“To put it mildly,” Diane said.

“So, where do we go from here?”

“There’s nowhere we can go. I swore to Asher I wouldn’t tell the authorities.”

“Should you let that stop you?”

“Oh, I can’t. It’s Asher’s story; it’s up to him to tell the authorities if he wants to.”

“Sure.” Brad thought for a moment, his frown deepening. “I don’t understand,” he said after a pause for thought. “One minute I think I understand, the next minute I’m confused again. Why wouldn’t Asher want such a thing to come out in the open? I mean, why should he care for your father so much, and at the same time want to kill him? It kind of makes sense, but equally makes no sense at all.”

“I agree. It’s a mess.”

“Unless he wants to protect you.”

“You mean, the publicity?”

“Oh, yes. If the story gets out, you’ll have reporters and all sorts to cope with.”

“You know, at this moment I really don’t care.”

“I get that. And I guess it solves one problem.”

“What?”

“You said you found it hard to believe Asher murdered your father. This sort of solves that. We know he had a good enough reason to do it.”

Diane nodded. “I guess he did.”





Chapter 33

Pittsburgh, September 2001

Three weeks had passed since Diane had listened to Asher’s version of events, and she and Brad had discussed the story at length many times. What they hadn’t discussed was where Diane was going to live. She’d arranged to visit her mother in Baltimore and stay there for a few weeks initially, and hadn’t yet made a decision on what she was going to do after that. She told Brad again that she figured her mother had lost out due to her father’s behavior, and was owed something.

Getting away from Pittsburgh was also starting to have an appeal. At first, when she’d come to accept Asher’s story about her father, she was sure only she and Asher knew the truth. But every time there was a knock on the door and every time the phone rang there was a split second when she wondered whether she would meet someone who also knew. Details of her father’s murder had been released to the newspapers, so she’d had journalists approach her about the story. That was bad enough, but Diane knew some were smart and very persistent; it was quite possible that one would investigate the case, dig deeper—specifically, into the 1997 charges—and put two and two together.

Each of those split seconds was a seed that germinated into a moment’s thought that grew into a few seconds, enough for a conscious appraisal of the risks, and soon Diane could hear a little voice on her shoulder every time she was talking to strangers. The voice was asking, “Does this person know?” and the more she ignored it, the more it spoke up for itself.

She put it down to the stress of dealing with her father’s estate. Yes, perhaps he was haunting her and perhaps it would all go away when the property was sold. The story of her father’s death would certainly die down as more news was loaded onto the conveyor belt.

The practicalities were no less stressful. Diane had originally wanted little to do with the contents of the house, so had given the clearance firm instructions to remove everything, valuable or not. It had taken Brad to point out the obvious: that most of her own clothes and personal effects were still there. So she and Brad returned to Hartmann Way before the firm turned up. As it turned out, Diane couldn’t bear to enter the house—not after the last time she’d been there and had stepped into a scene from a murder movie.

So Brad dutifully went inside and packed everything from her room into a few cardboard boxes. As he was loading them into the car, she asked him to return for a few other things, because she still wanted some reminders of her father. So he did, returning with a couple more boxes.

She’d extended her leave from work, and so, with a little time on her hands and on the other side of town from Hartmann Way, she found it easier to sort through the contents. She was doing just that the next day when the doorbell sounded.

“Diane Peterson?” the man at the door said.

Diane hesitated. “Who wants to know?”

The man took his baseball cap off and rubbed dirty sweat from his brow. “Big Steve’s house clearance. We’re doing your father’s house on Hartmann Way.” He pointed a thick thumb at the truck across the street.