When The Bough Breaks

"Yes. Exactly. Think! What if McCaffrey hoaxed you - you didn't kill Willie. You injured him, but he survived. What kind of damage, what kind of symptoms, could be caused by trauma to the right hemisphere in a developing child?"

"Right hemisphere cerebral damage - the right brain controls the left side," he recited. "Right brain damage causes left - side dysfunction."

"Perfect," I urged him on. "A severe blow to the right brain could bring about left - side hemiparesis. A bad left side."

"Earl…"

"Yes. The body was never found because the child never died. McCaffrey felt his pulse, found one, saw you in shock over what you'd done and exploited your guilt. He wrapped up both bodies, with a little help from your buddies. Lilah was put behind the wheel of the car and dumped off the Evergreen Bridge. McCaffrey took the child. Probably got him some kind of medical help, but not the best, because a reputable doctor would have had to report the incident to the police. After the funeral he disappeared. Those were your words. He disappeared because he had to. He had the child with him. He took him to Mexico, who knows where, renamed him, changed him from your son into the kind of person someone raised by a monster would turn out to be. He made him his robot."

"Earl… Willie Junior." Towle's brows knitted.

"Ridiculous! Out of the way, Will! I order it!"

"It's the truth," I said through the pounding in my head. "Tonight, before you took your pills, you said Melody looked vaguely familiar. Turn carefully - don't let him out of your sight - and take a good look at her. Tell me why."

Towle backed away, kept the gun on McCaffrey, took a short look at Melody, and then a longer one.

"She looks," he said, softly, "like Lilah."

"Her grandmother."

"I couldn't know - "

Of course he couldn't. The Quinns were poor, illiterate, the dregs of society. Piss - poor protoplasm. His views on the genetic superiority of the upper class would have prevented him from even fantasizing a connection between them and his bloodline. Now his defenses were down and the insights were hitting his consciousness like drops of acid - each point of contact raising psychic wounds. His son a murderer, a man conditioned to be a night - hunting beast. Dead. His daughter - in - law, intellectually limited, a helpless, pathetic creature. Dead. His granddaughter, the child on whom he'd plied his trade and medicated into stupor. Alive. But not for long.

"He wants to murder her. To tear her apart. You heard him. The autopsy will show uncommon savagery"

Towle turned on the man in green.

"Gus - " he sobbed.

"Now, now, Will," said McCaffrey soothingly. Then he blew Towle away with the.357. The bullet entered his abdomen and exited through his back in a fine spray of blood, skin and cashmere. He slammed backward, landing at the side of the cot. The report of the big gun echoed through the concrete room. A thunderstorm. The child awoke and began screaming.

McCaffrey pointed the gun at her, reflexively. I threw myself at him and kicked his wrist, knocking the gun loose. It sailed backward, into the front room. He howled, rabid. I kicked him again, in the shin. His leg felt like a side of beef. He backed into the front room, wanting the gun. I went after him. He lunged, his bulk rolling. I used both hands to hit him in the lower back.

My fists sank into his softness. He barely budged. His hand was inches from the magnum. I kicked it away, then used my foot to smash his ribs with little effect. He was too damned big and too damned tall to be able to get a facial punch in. I went for his legs and thighs, and tripped him.

He came crashing down, a felled redwood, taking me with him. Snarling, cursing, drooling, he rolled on top of me and got his hands around my throat. He panted his sour breath on me, the lumpy face crimson, the fish eyes swallowed by fleshy folds, squeezing. I fought to get out from under him but couldn't move. I experienced the panic of the sudden paralytic. He squeezed tighter. I pushed up helplessly.

His face darkened. With effort, I thought. Crimson to maroon to red - black, then a splash of color. The kinky hair exploding. The blood bright and fresh, pouring out of his nose, his ears, his mouth. The eyes opening wide, blinking furiously. A look of great insult on the grotesque face. Gargling noises from the jowl wrapped gullet. Needles and triangles of broken glass raining down upon us. His inert carcass a shield from the rain.

The skylight was an open wound now. A face peered down. Black, serious. Delano Hardy. Something else black: the nose of a rifle.

"Hold on, Consultant," he said. "We're coming to get you."

"Your face looks uglier than mine," Milo said when he'd pulled McCaffrey off of me.

"Yeah," I said, struggling to articulate through a mouth that felt as if I'd sucked on razor blades, "but mine will look better in a couple of days."

He grinned.