Free Bad Moon Rising by Ed Gorman Page A

the same way my sister had always cried when our parents had played gladiators over the body of their oldest son.
    Then he suddenly stepped on the concrete stairs. His weight was enough to make them wobble. I backed down to the ground. He reached back and jerked the door shut. That was when I noticed the tic in his left eye. Kids respond differently to parental warfare. The big tough football player had developed a tic. He’d probably developed other problems, too, ones less obvious.
    He blushed. Blood went up his cheeks like a rising elevator. “They’re just havin’ a little disagreement.” The tic got worse. Heavy fingers pawed at it as if they could destroy it.
    â€œHow about walking over to my car? Maybe it’ll be easier to talk there.” It wouldn’t be—not with this battle going on—but at least we wouldn’t be right next to it.
    â€œI don’t know what you’re doing here.”
    â€œI’m trying to find out who murdered your friend Vanessa.”
    â€œYou know who murdered her.”
    â€œI know who people think murdered her. That doesn’t mean they’re right.”
    The baby face sagged in the brutal light of a ninety-two-degree day. For all his power, he looked drained. I doubted he’d slept much. “You stick up for the hippies. I always told her not to go out there. I told her there’d be trouble. Neil Cameron was crazy. You should read some of the letters he wrote her. He belonged in a bughouse.”
    â€œTell me about the letters.”
    The tic had slowed some. I had to give his parents one thing—they had the strength of boxers who could go fifteen rounds easy. If anything, they were louder than ever.
    â€œI only read a couple of them. But they were nuts.”
    â€œThat doesn’t tell me anything about the letters.”
    â€œJust the way he said stuff. That he’d kill himself if she didn’t come back to him. And that they had this sacred bond that couldn’t be broken. And that sometimes he stood on her street late at night staring up at her bedroom window and that he thought about just getting a ladder and kidnapping her.”
    His father shouted a particularly ugly word at his mother. Delaney glanced over his shoulder. When he turned back to me he resembled a little boy who had just heard something terrible but mystifying. Maybe his father had never used that particular word before. The tic got bad again.
    â€œSorry you have to listen to that.”
    â€œYeah, why would you give a shit?”
    â€œMaybe because I heard things like that for a while myself when I was young.”
    â€œYeah, well—” He swiped his hand across the tic again. But for the first time agitation left his eyes.
    â€œYou know the Mainwaring family.”
    â€œNot for much longer. I think Mainwaring’s going to tell me he doesn’t want me there anymore. He liked the idea of a football hero hanging around his place but I think the novelty’s worn off.”
    He was smarter and shrewder than I’d given him credit for. “Were you in love with Vanessa?”
    â€œWhat the hell kind of question is that? It’s none of your damned business.” Then: “For your information, I thought I was but when I saw how she treated me and every other guy around her, I just enjoyed the free ride and let her go her own way.”
    â€œWhat free ride?”
    A smile loaded with malice. He angled himself toward the house where the spiritual murder was taking place. “The free ride of staying in a mansion where there was peace and quiet and eating better than I ever had. They even have a maid. All you have to do is say you want a Pepsi or a piece of pie and she goes and gets it for you. They even have guest rooms. It’s like staying in a nice hotel. Mainwaring let me stay overnight any time I wanted to, and I wanted to a lot.”
    I waited a moment before asking my next question. We just