Two weeks later you’d both be dead.
I study the photograph of the four of us some more. In the picture, night has fallen. Other partygoers are mingling behind us. We are all tired, I guess, a long day. Maura sits on my lap, our bodies entwined in a way only dating teenagers can achieve. You sit next to Diana. She isn’t smiling. You look stoned. Your eyes are glassy and hazy. You also look . . . troubled maybe. I didn’t notice then. I was into my own stuff, wasn’t I? Maura and hockey and making a first-tier college. Fate, I was certain, would secure my future happiness, though I had no real plan, no clue what I wanted to be. I only knew that I would be a huge success.
The doorbell rings.
I put the photo back and start to stand, but the ceiling is too low. With my back bent, I head toward the opening. As I climb down the ladder, the doorbell sounds again. Then again. Impatient.
“Coming!” I shout.
I trot down the stairs and see out the window that it’s my old classmate David Rainiv. His high-end business suit seems tailored by a higher entity. I open the door. His face is ashen and crumpled, even as his Hermès tie stays perfectly Windsored.
“I heard about Hank.”
I don’t bother to ask him how. The old saw about bad news traveling fast has never been truer than in the age of the Internet.
“Is it true?”
“I can’t really talk about it.”
“They say he was found hung from a tree.”
The sadness is etched all over his face. I remember him wanting to help when I asked about Hank at the basketball courts. There is no point in being a hard-ass here. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Did Hank hang himself,” David asked, “or was he murdered?”
I’m about to tell him again that I can’t talk about it, but there is an odd desperation on his face. I wonder now whether he came to me for confirmation or something more.
“Murdered,” I say.
His eyes close.
“Do you know something about this?” I ask.
His eyes stay closed.
“David?”
“I’m not sure,” he says at last. “But I think I might.”
Chapter Nineteen
The Rainivs live at the far end of a tony new cul-de-sac in one of those McMansions with an indoor pool, a formal ballroom, eight hundred bathrooms, and a million square feet of mostly useless space. Everything about the house screams nouveau riche. The driveway gate is an overly ornate metal sculpture of children flying a kite. It is all wanting to look too old by looking too new. It’s labored, trying too hard, tacky. But that’s my take. I’ve known David a long time. He’s always been a good guy. He’s generous to charities. He gives his time and energy to the town. I’ve seen him with his kids. He’s not one of those poseur fathers—you know, the ones who make a big production out of watching their kids at the mall or park so you think, Wow, what a caring father, but you can see it’s just an act for public consumption. That’s not David. Most of all, I see his devastated face now and I remember how he went through the timeline of his friendship with Hank. That kind of loyalty is the mark of a man. So I don’t like his or maybe his wife’s taste in houses. Who the hell cares? Get over ourselves. Stop judging.
We pull into a garage the approximate dimensions of a college gymnasium—is that judging?—and park. He leads me through a side door and down into what some homes call a basement, but this one has a theater room and wine cellar, so we need to find a new term. Lower level, maybe? He heads into a small room and flicks on a switch. In the back right corner, there is a four-foot-high old-fashioned safe with a big dial.
“You’re not the cop on the case, right?”
This is the third time David has asked me that. “No. Why is that a big deal?”
He bends down and starts fiddling with the dial. “Hank asked me to hold something for him.”
“Recently?”
“No. Eight, nine years ago. He said if he was ever murdered, I should find a way to give it to someone I trust. He warned me not to give it to anyone in law enforcement or anyone involved in the investigation.” David looks back at me. “You see my dilemma?”
I nod. “I’m in law enforcement.”
“Right. But like I said, this was eight, nine years ago. Hank was already pretty out of it by then. I figured it was nothing, just the ramblings of a diseased mind. But he was pretty adamant about it. So I made a promise to him—that if he was ever murdered, I would do the right thing by him. I never really thought of what that meant because, I mean, it was just incoherent rambling, right? Except now . . .”
He makes one last turn of the dial. I hear a click. He reaches for the handle, and as he does, he turns back and looks up at me. “I trust you, Nap. You’re in law enforcement, but I somehow think Hank would be okay with my giving this to you.”
He opens up the safe, reaches into the back, digs through whatever else is there—I don’t pry by looking—and pulls out a videocassette tape that smacks me in the face with déjà vu and sends me—pardon the pun—reeling. I remember Dad buying you a Canon PV1 digital video camcorder sophomore year. You freaked out with joy. For a while, you filmed everything. You wanted to be a director, Leo. You talked about making a documentary. The pain hits me anew at the thought.
The cassette David hands me is in a red plastic case that reads MAXELL, 60 MINUTES—the exact same kind you used. Of course you weren’t the only one who used Maxell tapes back in the day. They were pretty common. But seeing one again, after all these years . . .
“Did you watch it?” I ask.
“He told me not to.”
“Any idea what’s on it?”
“None. Hank asked me to keep it safe for him.”
I just stare at the cassette another moment.
“This probably has nothing to do with it,” David says. “I mean, I heard about that viral video of him exposing himself.”
“That was a lie.”
“A lie? Why the hell would someone do that?”
He’s Hank’s friend. I owe him something. I give him the quick rundown on Suzanne Hanson’s moronic motives. David nods, closes the safe, spins the dial.
“I assume you don’t have anything that plays this kind of tape,” I say.
“I don’t think so, no.”
“Then let’s find someplace that does.”
—
On the phone, Ellie says, “Bob found an old Canon in the basement. He thinks it still works, but it may need a charge.”
I am not surprised. Ellie and Bob throw out nothing. Even more disturbing, they keep everything organized so even something like an old video camera that hasn’t seen the light of day in a decade will be neatly labeled and kept complete with its charging cord.
“I can be over in ten minutes.”
“You’ll stay for dinner?”
“Depends on what’s on the tape,” I say.
“Right, yeah, that makes sense.” Ellie hears something in my voice and knows me too well. “Everything else okay?”
“We’ll talk.”
I hang up first.
David Rainiv is driving, both hands on the wheel at ten and two. “I don’t want to make a big thing of it,” he says, “but if there is no next of kin, could you send the body to Feeney’s Funeral Home when you’re done and tell them to send me the bill?”
“His father is back in town,” I remind him.
“Oh right,” David says with a frown, “forgot about that.”
“You don’t think he’ll step up?”
He shrugs. “The guy let Hank down his whole life. I don’t know why we’d assume he’ll come through now.”
Good point. “I’ll check and see.”
“I’d take care of it anonymously, if that’s okay. Get the guys from basketball there. Pay their respects. Hank deserves that.”
I don’t know what people deserve or don’t deserve, but I’m okay with whatever.
“It would mean something to him,” David continues. “Hank was big on honoring the dead: his mom”—his voice grows soft now—“your brother, Diana.”
I don’t say anything. We drive a bit more. I have the tape in my hand. Then I think hard about what he just said and ask, “What did you mean?”
“About?”
“About Hank honoring the dead. About my brother and Diana.”
“You serious?”