The boys started bickering five minutes after Doyle picked them up at camp and hadn’t stopped since. For two cents, he’d put them on a plane to London. Let their mother deal with them.
“Why can’t we stay with Owen?” Sean asked, a demanding note in his tone.
“Because you went out his window.”
“Nothing happened. We didn’t get hurt. He didn’t mind. Come on, Dad, it was no big deal.”
“I mind. What if it hadn’t been Mattie up in the old foundation? What if it had been a ghost? Then what, huh?” He glared at Sean, then shifted to Ian. “There. You don’t have an answer, do you? You didn’t think this one through. You just got a bee up your behinds and out the window you went—”
They sputtered into giggles.
“What’re you laughing at?”
“‘Bee up your behinds,’” Ian said. “That’s funny, Dad.”
He sat back, grinning at his two sons. “What am I going to do with you? Did you tell your mother you went out Owen’s window on a bedsheet when she called?”
“No,” Sean said.
Ian nodded. “She’d worry.”
“What about me? Don’t you care if I worry?”
That just drew more laughter.
At least, Doyle thought, the rascals weren’t fighting with each other. If he heard one more squawk, whine, fake cry or whispered threat, he’d shove them both upstairs and sit and watch television by himself.
Someone pounded on the door—not a normal knock, and it was past nine o’clock. Doyle got out of his chair, pointing at the boys. “Stay put. Understood?”
He flipped on the outside light and peeked out the window, seeing Mattie Young shifting from one foot to the other on the front stoop. Doyle felt a prick of irritation. He’d resisted tracking down Mattie today and asking him about the beer and cigarettes in the old Garrison foundation—why he’d let Sean and Ian think he was a ghost. He’d had to calm down first. And it wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait a day, never mind how Abigail Browning would have handled it.
“It’s Mattie,” Doyle called to the boys. “I’ll be just a minute.”
“Okay, Dad,” Sean said, as if he were the boss. “Take your time.”
Doyle pulled open the door and stepped outside, Mattie automatically backing up, hunching his shoulders in that guilty way he had. He looked gaunt and cold, his hair hanging down his back in a greasy ponytail, his skin pocked with mosquito bites.
“What’s up, Mattie?” Doyle asked him.
“This isn’t an official visit. I mean—I’m not here on police business. You don’t have to log me in somewhere.”
“I guess that depends on what you want.”
Mattie shivered, not meeting Doyle’s eye. “I want you to tell Abigail Browning to stay away from me.”
“Why? What’d she do to you?”
“Nothing—not yet.”
“Then on what grounds?”
“You don’t need grounds. I told you, I’m not here because you’re a cop. I’m here because you’re my friend. She’ll listen to you.”
“When did you last see her?”
Mattie licked his lips and looked behind him, as if he expected to find Abigail standing there. “Just now.”
“Damn it, Mattie, are you going to make me pry it out of you? Just tell me what happened.”
“She scared the hell out of me.” Mattie turned back to Doyle, the light hitting the burst blood vessels in his face. “I was minding my own business—”
“Where?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
Doyle rocked back on his heels. “She caught you drinking out at the old Garrison foundation.”
Mattie’s mouth dropped open. “She told you?”
“No, Mattie, she didn’t tell me.”
“But you—” He stopped himself, gave a little laugh. “Did the boys see me out there? I tried not to let them see me. I figured—you know. I didn’t want them getting the wrong idea.”
“What wrong idea would that be, Mattie? That you were drinking beer and smoking cigarettes by yourself in the dark?”
“Just one beer. Honest.”
“It’s never one beer with you, Mattie. You’re a drunk. You know damn well what alcohol does to you—”
“Yeah. I know. That’s why I stay away from it.”
“Drinking beer isn’t staying away from it.” Doyle realized he wasn’t even angry. He was just sick of Mattie and his problems. “You know the deal. Alcoholism is a disease. It’s not here today and gone tomorrow. It’s here to stay. Stop running from it. Face it.”
“I have faced it. I can drink one beer. Not everyone has to go cold turkey. One beer, and that’s it.”
“No, Mattie, you can’t drink one beer and that’s it.”
He rubbed his nose with his fingers and stared down at his feet, not out of shame, Doyle knew, but irritation. Mattie liked to think he knew better.
He lifted his head. “I wasn’t on Abigail’s property.”
“No, you were on Garrison property. Did Owen see you?”