Tough Lessons Page 17
Merve’s eyes narrowed at the suggestion but, crucially, he didn’t contradict it. Joseph continued. “Do you think the cops are dumb? They’re gonna ask him who he’s been seeing and he’s going to tell them eventually. It’s the only way he can wriggle out of a murder charge. Let’s agree that the coach abused his position in order to take up with an ex-pupil he met through her younger brother, shall we? My guess is Macy met the coach when she was dropping off her brother at a game, or maybe she drove by one night when he was taking practice. She waited behind to speak to him and they ended up together, your Macy and the married guy.”
“Watch your mouth, Joseph,” cautioned Merve. “That’s my daughter you’re talking about.”
Joseph carried on regardless. “Or maybe he approached her while she was watching her brother going through his paces and the coach was walking the touchline. Who knows how it panned out but either way the end result was the same: they began a relationship.” Joseph had chosen the last word carefully. He wanted Merve to stay calm, for now.
“One of Geller’s colleagues told me he had an eye for the ladies and there is always one young, vulnerable girl in any school who might think a guy in a position of authority, a man who used to wear a uniform, who fought for his country, was an attractive proposition. She isn’t the first to look longingly at a teacher and she won’t be the last.”
“I’m warning you…”
Joseph nodded calmly. “That’s very decent of you, Merve. What are you going to do? Stab me? Huh?” Merve Williams looked visibly shaken, like his whole world just came crashing down around him. “Is that what you’re planning to do? Just like you stabbed poor, innocent Hernando Lopez?”
Merve was shaking his head repeatedly from side to side. He looked like he was trying to convince himself as much as Joseph. “I didn’t.”
“Sure you did. The only thing I don’t know is whether you actually thought your daughter was sleeping with Lopez or you came gunning for Geller and the wrong man disturbed you. I can see you are a little upset right now, Merve, so I’ll just carry on telling you what happened and then you can correct me if I get any of it wrong.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Merve weakly. He had his head in his hands now.
“Like I said, Macy was seeing Coach Geller, for whatever reason.” Joseph would never know that reason for sure but he wondered if it might not have a little to do with rebelling against an overcontrolling father. Or maybe it was a whole lot simpler than that. Joseph knew a little something about human nature after so many years as a detective and some things were the same in Highbridge as they were in Lagos. Did it make Macy feel extra naughty to be felt up in the back seat of Geller’s car, knowing his unquestioning wife was waiting at home for him? Did she get an extra kick out of sex with the guy, sensing her father would be so ashamed of her if he knew the truth? For some people it isn’t exciting unless it’s a secret, it isn’t fun unless it’s forbidden, and it isn’t good unless it’s very bad indeed.
“Of course, I don’t know how you found out but you can explain that to the police yourself. You obviously suspected she was up to something a little more serious than dating a boy her own age.” When Merve looked up again, his face was streaked with tears. “Then you found the keys to the school right here in your house and you knew there was no way Macy should have them. You worked out what was going on right there and then, didn’t you, Merve? Macy got those keys from her older, married lover. She was meeting him down at the school when everybody else had gone home. Maybe they got tired of his car. They couldn’t exactly go back to his place or yours, could they? A motel wouldn’t do, either, in case the staff got suspicious about her age.”
“Joseph, please…” He was pleading because he didn’t want to hear the details. It was amazing, thought Joseph. A man has died because this stupid girl took her clothes off and then opened her legs for some brainless teacher having a midlife crisis, but Merve still couldn’t bear to think about his precious daughter rolling around with an older guy.
“So you took that set of keys from Macy and you went looking for the man who seduced your daughter. She was seventeen, just seventeen, and he was using her, wasn’t he, Merve? You went there with just one idea in your head. You were going to get hold of that guy and you were going to make him pay for what he’d done.”
“No.”
“Oh yes. Why else would you go down there when everybody else had gone home? You didn’t report it to the principal or the police and you did go down there. Do you know how easy that will be to prove? You never go inside that building, Merve. Football practice is the only thing I’ve ever seen you at. It’s their momma who’s on the PTA. She’s the one goes to the parents’ evenings and you weren’t at the principal’s meeting, but I’ll be willing to bet your DNA is all over that corridor. It’s not like the old days. They can find fibers, tiny drops of sweat and blood. Lopez’s blood was everywhere so his DNA’s going to be on your clothes, in your car. Did you try and clean your car, Merve?”
“Fuck you,” snarled Merve and Joseph knew the realization was dawning on him. He was trapped.
“So what happened, Merve? You went into the school and there was nobody there except this one little guy—a math teacher marking books, probably setting out the homework for the next day’s schooling. Luckless Hernando Lopez, his only crime was to be a hardworking teacher. He was probably walking out of there after a long day and he bumped right into you, an enraged father. Is that how it went? Did you accuse him outright of screwing your daughter?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m not going to shut up, Merve, and you can’t go on pretending this didn’t happen,” said Joseph. “Is that how it played out? Only he probably got real scared, when this big, heavy-set guy who just wouldn’t listen to reason suddenly started to push him around. Well, you would be scared, alone in the dark like that with a strange man threatening to smash you to a pulp. I guess that’s why he made his big mistake. Lopez remembered he still had Jermaine Letts’s knife in his pocket, so he pulled it out and waved it around a little, didn’t he, shouted at you to get back, too, I should imagine. Only you didn’t step back, did you, Merve? You went right up to Lopez, snatched that knife out of his hand like you were taking a Popsicle from a baby, then stabbed him with it.”
“No way.”
“Wasn’t that how it was? What was it like then, Merve? Are you going to tell me you didn’t enjoy killing him, the guy you believed defiled your daughter? Sure you did.”
Joseph was trying to goad Merve Williams into a reaction and he succeeded. “Stop it! Stop it!” Merve was breathing hard as he got to his feet and stumbled over to the cabinets that were set against the far wall of his office. “How many people have you told this crock of shit to, Joseph?” he asked. “You ain’t been to the police yet, else they’d have been here.” He opened the largest wooden door to reveal the safe behind it and began quickly turning its dials. Surely he wasn’t dumb enough to take the cash and run for it. How far did he think he would get with everybody looking for him? “My guess is you ain’t told nobody yet.” And with that he turned back from the open safe and Joseph realized that Merve Williams was holding a gun.
“Don’t point that thing at me, Merve. It might go off.”
“Maybe that’s what I was intending.”
“You’re planning to shoot me in your own home?” asked Joseph calmly. “That’d be smart, real smart. I wonder if the neighbors would notice the gunshots and come running, or perhaps they’d just assume it was a car backfiring, though in all my years I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard a car backfiring, have you?”
“Shut up,” he snarled.
“Okay,” said Joseph simply. “You’ve got the gun.”
“I’m not stupid. I’m not a stupid man, Joseph. Do you think I’m a stupid man? Is that it?”
“No.”
“You’re coming with me, right now, in my truck and we’re getting away from here.”
“No,” said Joseph firmly. “I’m not.”
“What? I’ve got a gun, in case you hadn’t noticed,” and he waved it around a little to convince Joseph.
“Which you are not going to use. We both know that. Fire it in here and the cops will have the place surrounded in minutes. SWAT team’ll cut you down before you even climb into that fancy pickup you got parked out front. Even if they don’t, how far do you think you’d get with a handful of small bills and an APB out on you?”
“Get up,” demanded Merve, who was in no mood to listen.
“No, and it’s for your own good. If I leave here with you, you could be tempted to do something very stupid, like killing me. Think it through, Merve. If you make me leave here with you, what else can you do to shut me up? But people are going to miss me. I told my friend, the retired cop in my building, all about Macy and Coach Geller and he wondered out loud how pissed off it must have made you to hear all about it.” Joseph hadn’t bothered a convalescing Eddie Filan with his theories but Merve Williams didn’t know that. “And I mentioned my suspicions to one of Lopez’s colleagues at Antoinette Irving. What will you do? Try and find out who I spoke to and kill them, too?” Merve was breathing hard and looking around the room like he hoped a hole would suddenly open up somewhere so that he could dive into it. “I don’t think you’re the serial-killer type, Merve. Do you?” Merve lowered the gun just a little now. It looked like he had begun to realize the magnitude of his problems.
“This neighborhood’s a good one now. There’s CCTV cameras all round here,” added Joseph. “They’re all gonna show me driving down the street, parking up, and coming in here, then leaving with you. How you going to avoid the gun being seen? Once the police know it was Macy who Geller was seeing, they’re gonna put you right at the top of their list of suspects.”
“Shut up! Shut up!” screamed Merve. “Just shut up!” And this time he didn’t care that his neighbors might hear. Merve was beyond caring. Joseph could tell that by the way he had switched the gun around. He was no longer pointing it at Joseph. Instead, he pressed the barrel hard against his own head. Then he closed his eyes.
19
“It doesn’t have to end like this, Merve,” reasoned Joseph, but Merve wasn’t listening. Instead, he cocked the gun and pressed the barrel so firmly against the side of his own skull that Joseph was worried it might go off by accident. “Look at me, Merve. Look at me,” urged Joseph, and the hardware-store owner finally opened his dead eyes and then looked over at Joseph like he had forgotten he was still in the room. “Sure, you’ve got some big explaining to do but you had your reasons for going down there that night to confront Macy’s teacher. Maybe you didn’t mean to kill Hernando Lopez but if we don’t hear your side of the story it will die with you and everyone will say that Merve Williams was just a cold-blooded murderer. Think about your wife and children, Merve. Everything you’ve done for them, all your hard work in the store—it’ll all be for nothing. Do you really want Macy to go through life knowing her father killed himself because of what she did with some dumb old married guy? Imagine how that’s gonna make her feel. Think about your other little girl. You want Laura to grow up knowing everybody thinks her daddy was a killer without you explaining yourself. That kind of thing can send a girl right off the rails. Just imagine how it could affect her. Both those girls are going to need their daddy, Merve. You know that.”
Joseph was not a gambling man but he figured there was about a fifty-fifty chance of Merve Williams leaving the building lifeless on a gurney. Merve looked like he didn’t care if he lived or died. Then his expression changed. His eyes lifted and he looked toward the door like he was pleading to someone. Joseph turned to find Macy Williams standing in the open doorway, huge raindrop tears welling in her eyes.
“Macy, honey.” It took Merve a lot of effort just to get those two words out.
“Daddy?” she asked, shocked by the scene in front of her. “What are you doing?” She meant the gun, which Merve still held pressed hard against his head but he couldn’t answer her and, when she spoke again, Joseph realized she had already heard enough of their conversation to understand it all. “What have you done?”
Merve Williams let out a long anguished moan and then his arm fell down to his side, the gun still hanging limply in his hand.
“Why don’t you put the gun down and tell us what happened. Tell Macy here what you did. Did you intend to kill Hernando Lopez that night?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Merve told his daughter softly. “You got to believe me, honey. It wasn’t like that.”
Joseph slowly got to his feet and, without making any sudden movements, he walked over to Merve and held out his hand. When Merve didn’t respond, Joseph moved it lower and he took hold of the gun by its barrel. At first, Merve continued to grip onto it but when Joseph looked him directly in the eye he finally released his grip and let go. Joseph took the gun, ejected the magazine, and put it in his jacket pocket. Then he put the gun in his belt and sat down again.
“Oh my God, I don’t believe it,” whispered his daughter.
Macy was a slim, firm-bodied young woman but somehow she still had the face of a child, at least in Joseph’s eyes. Coach Geller obviously felt differently.
“It wasn’t like that,” said Merve once again.
When Joseph spoke, the words were so calm he could have been enquiring about the price of lumber. “Okay, Merve, I believe you,” he said. “So what was it like?”
When Merve finally composed himself long enough to speak, his words weren’t intended for Joseph. Instead, his eyes never left Macy’s as he tried to reason with his little girl. “Macy, you got to believe I went down there because of you. I just wanted to reason with this guy, this married guy, tell him to leave my baby alone.”
“I don’t want to hear this,” sobbed Macy.
“How’d you find out about Macy and her teacher?”
“You changed,” he said, still addressing his daughter. “Staying out till all hours, backchatting your momma, not giving a damn what your daddy said no more, keeping secrets from us. You never used to be like that, not till you started seeing him.”
“So all this is my fault?” she asked him as if he had lost his wits.
“And then I found the keys,” he said flatly.
“Where’d you find them, Daddy?” she said, raising her voice defiantly.
“In your bag.” He held up his hand. “I know I shouldn’t have looked in there, but if it had been drugs they’d have said I done the right thing. I knew right there and then those keys were for the school. They all had the initials A.I.H.S. stamped on them and the numbers of the classrooms.”
“So you took the keys and went down there instead of Macy,” said Joseph. “So how’d you ensure that Macy wouldn’t see the keys were gone or head down there.”
“He drove me over to my gran’s. Said I didn’t spend nearly enough time with family, and it was about time I started. He drove me all the way to Newark. There’s no way I could get back in time, and my mobile—and the keys—were back in my bag at the apartment. He said we were just popping out for five minutes, and I didn’t need all that junk,” Macy answered for him, dropping her hands from her mascara-stained face.
Merve nodded. “Then you waited till evening and went down there.”
Merve nodded again. “Without her around, I thought it would be easier to make him leave the school, the city…”
“Jesus Christ, Daddy, you are such a fool.”
“Don’t talk to me like that, Macy,” her father warned her, as if the last vestiges of his authority were melting away in front of his eyes.
“But it didn’t work out like that, did it?”
“No.”
“Did you even know who you were expecting to see there?”
Merve shook his head.
“But you found Lopez walking alone along the school’s darkened corridors. A young, handsom
e, charismatic teacher with—how did you put it?—‘a way with the young ones,’ and you naturally assumed…”
Merve’s silence was admission enough. “Oh, Daddy, no!” cried Macy and she slumped onto the floor and started sobbing on her knees right there on the carpet in front of them both. “What have you done?”
“And you attacked him?” prompted Joseph.
“I…I can’t remember. I said some things…I was angry and I went toward him…I was angry and…She’s only seventeen…You’re a father, Joseph…You understand.”
“Sure,” he said, though he didn’t.
“He pulled a knife,” said Merve hopefully. Perhaps he was imagining a courtroom and some future plea of self-defence.
“Of course, he did, Merve. He was being attacked. He feared for his life. You said you were going to kill him for messing with your daughter. Lopez probably thought you were deranged. So he made his big mistake. He pulled out the knife he’d taken from Jermaine Letts and he waved it at you, told you to get back. That must have enraged you. What kind of a teacher sleeps with his students and carries a knife? And he’s telling you to go back. But you didn’t go back, did you, Merve?”
“He jabbed the knife at me, not once but a bunch of times. I remember getting so angry at this punk standing there waving his knife around. I stepped forward. He cut my hand.” He held up his hand to show Joseph a red mark on the palm, like it was a reason to kill someone. “But I managed to grab the knife and then…I don’t remember.”