Blow Out

“Like I said, I didn’t know anything about how my mother died until I was eighteen. About two months before I graduated high school, I began having nightmares—really violent dreams about people having their throats cut, people being stabbed in the chest—horrible dreams, blood everywhere, and I’d wake up screaming.” He paused, shuddering with memory. “I remember my father came in once. He didn’t say anything, even when I gasped out the dream I’d had. He stood there, stared at me like I was a freak, like he was afraid of me. Then he left, and he didn’t come back when I had the other dreams. I woke up alone and I stayed alone.” Martin looked at Savich. “It was around that time I realized something was really wrong.”

Martin’s father hadn’t said anything about this to Sherlock. Hadn’t Townsend Barrister realized what the dreams meant? Of course he had.

Savich sat forward on the sofa, his hands clasped between his knees. “Later, did you talk to your father about the dreams?”

Martin shook his head. “I couldn’t, and besides, I knew he didn’t want to know. I’d look at him and my two little bratty and normal stepsisters at the dinner table, and I’d think, I could dream tonight that someone is stabbing Cassie through her neck and cutting Tammy’s throat. And I could see their blood, their surprise, the looks on their faces and then they’d be dead.

“It wasn’t something I could talk about. They wouldn’t understand. My father behaved as if he’d rather not even have me there, as if he’d rather I didn’t even exist. It was like he was afraid of me.”

“Then what happened? Did you tell your father anything?”

“Yes, I asked him one day how my mother died.”

“Out of the blue? For the first time since she was murdered in 1973, you thought to ask him?”

Martin nodded slowly. “Yeah. It came to me, probably because of my dreams, I’m not sure. But it came out. Suddenly I had to know.”

“What did your father say?”

“He told me there’d been a terrible accident on the day of my sixth birthday. My mother had slipped and fallen on a kitchen knife, and she’d died. And he’d brought me here to Boston, so we could both recover, start over again. He called her death an accident. Can you believe that?”

“I gather you didn’t believe him?”

“No, I could see in his eyes he was keeping something back. I realize now he didn’t want my half-sisters or my stepmother, Jenny, to find out, and be afraid, maybe be afraid of him.

“So I went off to search on my own. I looked up the Barristers in old newspaper files. Remember, this was before the Internet, back in 1984. But it was enough to point me back. I remembered a road sign clear as day—Blessed Creek. I knew it was a little hick town in the Poconos, in northeastern Pennsylvania. I drove out there. It didn’t take me long looking through archives from that time to learn that she’d been murdered, that my father had taken me away to Boston right after the funeral.”

“Is that why you disappeared after your high school graduation? Did you think your father had something to do with it?”

Martin wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Listen to me, Martin. You were only six years old when she was killed. Kids have an amazing ability to block things out that could harm them. And that’s what you did. You saved yourself by repressing everything that happened until you were older, more ready to face up to what happened.”

“I know, I know.” He was twisting his hands together, and Savich knew that for the moment, they’d accomplished enough.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, Martin. Show me how that remote works. It looks pretty fancy.”

CHAPTER 30

FIVE MINUTES LATER, Janet Thornton came into the living room to see her husband showing the FBI agent how to work a remote that she hadn’t yet figured out. She was carrying a colorful wooden tray, coffee, tea, and a small plate of cookies on top of it. She poured Savich some tea, arched a questioning eyebrow as she handed it to him.

“Straight is fine. Thank you.”

The tea was delicious. He hadn’t realized how cold he’d been. This was so mundane, so normal, sitting here learning about a remote, drinking tea, and knowing he’d find out soon enough why Martin had left the day after he’d graduated high school. For now, drinking tea was just fine. He drank, felt the warmth all the way to his belly, and thanked God he was still alive. “My wife, who’s also an FBI agent, is outside with the police and your neighbors. I’d like to call her, tell her that everything’s okay. Also, I don’t want the cops to worry, maybe fire something in here. Okay by you, Martin?”