He looked down at the forms. “They don’t make sense.”
“They make perfect sense. Which word’s giving you trouble?”
He slapped the back of my head. “How come she’s got two blood types?”
Angie raised her head from the other side of the table. “What?”
Bubba pointed down at Naomi’s birth record, and then her death record. “She’s O neg in that one.”
I looked at the death record. “And B positive in this one.”
Angie came over to our side of the table. “What are you two talking about?”
We showed her.
“What the hell could it mean?” I said.
Bubba snorted. “Means only one thing. The kid who was born on that day”-he stabbed the birth record with his finger-“ain’t the same kid who died”-he stabbed the death record-“on this day. Man, you guys are slow sometimes.”
26
“That’s her,” I said as Siobhan walked down the Dawes’ street, her small head and body hunched as if she expected hail.
“Hi,” I said as she passed the Porsche.
“Hello.” Her flat gaze said she wasn’t particularly surprised to see me.
“We need to see the Dawes.”
She nodded. “He spoke of a restraining order against you.”
“Just talk,” I said. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Yet,” she said.
“Yet. I understand they’re in Nova Scotia. I need an address.”
“And why should I help you?”
“Because he treats you like the help.”
“I am the help.”
“It’s your job,” I said. “Not who you are.”
She nodded to herself, looked at Angie. “You’re the partner then?”
Angie held out her hand, introduced herself. Siobhan shook it, said, “Well, they’re not in Nova Scotia.”
“No?”
She shook her head. “There right back there. In the house.”
“They never left?”
“They left.” She looked over her shoulder at the house. “They came back. I’d say your partner there, pretty as she is, could ring the bell, get them to open the door, as long as you’re nowhere to be seen, Mr. Kenzie.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t thank me. Just, for fuck’s sake, don’t kill them. I need the job.”
She lowered her head, hunched into herself, and walked away.
“That’s one hard chick,” Angie said.
“Talks cool, though.”
“‘For fook’s saik,’” Angie said with a grin.
We parked up the street, walked back to the Dawes’ house, and walked swiftly up the path leading to the door, hoping no one was watching from the window, because there was no alternative but to just gut it out and hope they didn’t spot me from inside, bolt the door, and call the Weston police.
We reached the front door and I stood to the right of it as Angie swung the screen door wide and rang the bell.
It took a minute, but then the front door opened and I heard Christopher Dawe say, “Yes?”
“Dr. Dawe?” Angie asked.
“How can I help you, miss?”
“My name is Angela Gennaro. I’m here to speak to you about your daughter.”
“Karen? Good God, are you from a paper? It was a tragedy that happened over-”
“Naomi,” Angie said. “Not Karen.”
I stepped around the door and met Christopher Dawe’s eyes. His mouth was open and his face was bone white and he held a shaky hand to his goatee.
“Hi,” I said. “Remember me?”
Christopher Dawe led us out to an enclosed rear porch that looked out upon his expansive swimming pool, expansive lawn, and a small liquid dime of a pond far off through a small stand of trees. He grimaced as we settled into the seats across from him.
Dr. Dawe placed a hand over his eyes and peered through the gaps between fingers at us. When he spoke he sounded as if he hadn’t slept that week. “My wife is at the club. How much do you want?”
“A ton,” I said. “How much you got?”
“So,” he said, “you are working with Wesley.”
Angie shook her head. “Against. Definitely against.” She pointed at my swollen jaw.
Christopher Dawe dropped his hand from his eyes. “Wesley did that to you?”
I nodded.
“Wesley,” he said.
“Apparently he knows his way around a dojo.”
He studied my face. “How exactly did he do this to you, Mr. Kenzie?”
“The jaw, I think, was a spin kick. I’m not real sure. He was moving pretty fast. Then he just went all David Carradine on me and chopped me up.”
“My son doesn’t know karate.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?” Angie asked.
“Ten years ago.”
“Let’s assume,” I said, “he picked it up. Back to Naomi.”
Christopher Dawe held up a hand. “Just one moment. Tell me how he moves.”
“How he moves?”
He spread his hands. “How he moves. Walks, for example.”
“Fluidly,” Angie said. “You could say he almost glides.”
Christopher Dawe opened his mouth, then covered it with his fingers, bewildered.
“What?” Angie said.
“My son,” Christopher Dawe said, “was born with one leg a full two and a half inches shorter than the other. There are a lot of things distinctive about my son’s gait, but grace isn’t one of them.”
Angie reached in her bag, pulled out a photo of Wesley and me on the roof. She handed it to Dr. Dawe. “This is Wesley Dawe.”
Dr. Dawe looked at the photo, then placed it on the coffee table between us.
“That man,” Christopher Dawe said, “is not my son.”
From the porch, and through the small stand of trees, the pond where Naomi Dawe died looked like a blue puddle. It was flat and seemed shriveled by the heat, as if it might disappear as you watched, be sucked back into the earth and replaced by dark mud. It seemed far too inconsequential a pockmark of nature to have taken a life.
I turned from the screen, glanced down at the photo on the coffee table. “Then who is this guy?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
I stabbed the photo with my index finger. “You’re sure?”
“We’re talking about my son,” Christopher Dawe said.