Beyond the Shadow of Night(106)

“Oh, yes.” Now Diane forced a smile. “Yes. I’m sorry. I’ve had reporters coming here ever since . . .”

His face cracked. He knew. It was understandable that he might have been curious. After all, he was emptying the very house where the event had taken place. He’d probably already loaded most of the contents into the truck; even the chair Diane’s father had been sitting in when the bullet had trashed his brain and distributed a good proportion of it onto the opposing kitchen wall.

“Well, I’m no reporter,” he said. “But we found this.” He handed her an envelope. It was thick and obviously contained something more than paper. “I know you said to remove everything from the house, that you’d taken all you wanted, but this has your name on it. We found it underneath a kitchen cabinet.”

Diane took the envelope. “Oh, it’s probably not important, but it’s kind of you all the same. Thank you.”

“Part of the service.” After a flat smile and a forefinger salute he turned and walked back to the truck.

Diane went inside, her fingers pressing into the envelope, feeling something rectangular and less than an inch thick, but also almost weightless.

Then something occurred to her that made her lay the envelope down very carefully on the hall table. She was the daughter of a man suspected of being a war criminal. Yes, the allegations might have been made four years ago and no charges were ever brought, but now her father had been murdered, what about those people who could put two and two together? Did her father have enemies from the past? And was the man she’d just seen really from Big Steve’s? There were some very unforgiving people out there.

She took a few careful paces backward and swiftly spun herself into the living room. Her purse was on the coffee table. Good. For some reason—probably that yappy old dog her physician called insecurity—she’d kept the card with Detective Durwood’s direct line.

She grabbed her purse, opened it, and ran her fingers around the little pocket on the inside.

There. Got it. Reading glasses too—get them. Three paces to the sideboard and she placed the card down next to the phone. Next to the bright red card with Big Steve’s number on it.

Big Steve.

She thought for a moment. Was she being realistic here?

She called Big Steve. It got forwarded to his cell.

“It’s Miss Peterson.”

“Oh, hi, Miss Peterson. We’ll be another two hours, I figure.”

“No, it’s not that. Did you send one of your men around here with an envelope?”

There was a long pause before he replied.

“Is that okay? We found it on the floor behind that big oak kitchen cabinet. It seemed the right thing to do, having your name on it and all.”

Diane let out a calming sigh and secretly cursed her father.

“That’s fine, Steve. I’m sorry I called. It’s not a problem.”

She put the phone down, letting it drop the last inch.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered.

It was her father. He’d been on edge all his life. The doorbell had always made him fidget, and more often than not he would ask Diane to get it. She’d always put it down to laziness. Now she had other ideas. She loved him; he’d been a good father overall. She just didn’t like the fact he’d passed his paranoia on to her.

Of course the man had been from Big Steve’s. The goddamn truck had been across the street. If anyone knew the truth and had intentions of revenge, there were much easier ways to satisfy that urge.

But more importantly, her name on the envelope was written in her father’s distinctive handwriting. She shook her head at her own stupidity. Then she headed back into the hallway, and within seconds the envelope was in two pieces, both fluttering to the floor.

She held the contents in the palm of her hand.

It was a cassette tape—one with her name scrawled on it in more of that spidery handwriting. Only in the last two or three years had the arthritis stopped him writing. He’d always joked that the son-of-a-bitch disease had more control over his fingers than he did. His daughter’s name he could manage to write; a sentence, possibly; anything more was just not physically possible.

Diane went into the spare room, where she’d been sorting through the cardboard boxes representing her old life. She shifted two of them to get to the one she wanted. She’d given up telling her father to buy CDs: he always preferred his cassette tapes.

And here was his player. Which was also his recorder.

Fear of not knowing dried her throat to flypaper. She needed to hear it now.

Back into the living room, sit down, player on coffee table, slot the cassette in, press play, clench hands.

The tape hiss gave way to a cough, then a little breathless gasping. And then there were words, delivered with the trembling voice of a child about to take a beating. It was unmistakable. This was Father. It was Father in a frame of mind Diane had never known before, but it was unmistakably Father.

She listened, her eyes locked on to the tape player.



My dearest Diane. I’ve come a long way in my life, and had plenty of hard times. But leaving you this message is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I wish I could tell you this to your face, but my stupid pride won’t let me—just like my gnarled, useless fingers won’t let me write it down. I’m sorry.