Part 29 (1/2)
”I never thought of it that way, Zander. You're right. Small children are pure of heart. Life hasn't broken them yet. That comes later, doesn't it?”
Zahn frowned as he considered the question. Looking inward, Vince thought.
”You know, Zander, I'm dying of thirst here. Would it be all right if I came in and got a drink of water?”
”Come in? Come inside? Come inside my home?”
”Yeah. I mean, I know you're a very particular sort of man, and you don't want people touching your stuff. I get that. But I'm thirsty and I'm not feeling too great to tell you the truth,” Vince said. ”You know I had something terrible happen to me. Did you know that?”
”No. I'm sorry, Vince. I don't know.”
”Yeah, well, I got shot about a year and a half ago. Someone tried to kill me.”
”Oh my goodness! That's terrible. How terrible.”
”Anyhow, I survived, but sometimes I still don't feel so good. I need to sit down and have a gla.s.s of water. Would that be okay? I mean, I think of us as friends now, Zander, going through this whole murder thing together.”
Zahn looked caught. He didn't want anyone coming into his sanctuary, but neither was he a man with many-if any-friends.
Slowly, and with no small amount of anxiety in his expression, he took a step back from the door, then another.
”Thanks,” Vince said, slipping inside. ”Thanks a million.”
The entry hall was crowded with unopened boxes of Christmas ornaments and decorations of all descriptions-artificial trees and wreaths, b.a.l.l.s and tinsel, Santa Claus figures, angel tree toppers. Immediately, Vince took a seat on a bench along a wall to minimize his size and not physically intimidate Zahn in his own home.
Zahn seemed to hold his breath for a moment, as if he were waiting for something catastrophic to happen now that he had let someone breech his boundary.
”I'll get you a drink,” he said at last. ”Please wait here, Vince. I'll bring it here.”
”No problem.”
He kept his seat, figuring Zahn might duck back around the corner to make sure. From his vantage point he could see an office crowded with bookshelves that were absolutely packed tight with books. There was a desk, spotless, devoid of clutter.
One wall was entirely covered in whiteboard where Zahn had scribbled math equations that might as well have been Sanskrit as far as Vince was concerned. He could figure his odds at the racetrack. That was as much math as he cared to keep in his head.
In the other room he could see from the bench were file cabinets of all descriptions-metal, wood, new, antique-lined up against the walls and in rows across the floor, stacked as high as five feet with no more than two feet between them. Zahn would know exactly what was in each and every one of them.
”That's quite a collection you have there, Zander,” he said about the filing cabinets as Zahn returned to the hall with a gla.s.s of water. Vince accepted it and took a long drink. ”You keep a lot of paper doc.u.mentation?”
”Yes. Yes, I do. I keep every paper filed accordingly.”
”You know, Tony tells me computers are the way of the future. You remember Tony, don't you? He's all about the high-tech. He says pretty soon we won't need paper. Everything will be on computers.
”It's starting already. Even in law enforcement. Old records are getting converted into computer files. Fingerprints are going into databases,” he went on. ”Now me, I'm an old-fas.h.i.+oned kind of a guy. I'm a people person. I like to talk to people. Face-to-face if I can. But if I can't-say if the person I want to talk to is in Buffalo, for example-I don't hesitate to pick up the phone and call.”
At the mention of Buffalo, Zahn blinked as if he'd been hit in the face with a drop of water.
”Why don't you have a seat, Zander?” Vince suggested, moving down to one end of the bench.
Zahn sat down on the opposite end and began rubbing his palms on his thighs, fretting.
”It's okay, Zander,” Vince said softly. ”I don't judge, either. I understand sometimes people have to do what they have to do in order to save themselves. It's okay. It isn't always easy to be kid.”
Zahn said nothing. He had gone inward. He started rocking a little and kept rubbing his hands against his thighs-still trying to wipe the blood off all these years later.
Vince sat quietly, not wanting to push, letting Zahn absorb and process what he was saying. Nor did he want to wait so long the silence became uncomfortable.
”I know your story, Zander,” he said, in that same soft, nonthreatening voice. ”I know about your mother. That was a tough time for you. She was hard on you. You were just a boy, trying to be good. I bet you tried really hard, didn't you? You weren't a bad kid. You're just not like everybody else. You couldn't help that.”
Zahn rocked a little harder and made a tiny sound in his throat, like a small, trapped animal.
”n.o.body blamed you, Zander. It wasn't your fault.”
Shaking his head, staring at the floor, Zahn said, ”I don't want to tell this story, Vince.”
”You don't have to. I know what happened. She tried to hurt you. You protected yourself. Right?”
”I don't want to tell this story, Vince. Stop telling this story. Stop it.”
”Being the one to find Marissa,” Vince said. ”That had to be a pretty terrible shock. It probably brought back some bad old memories, huh?”
Zahn rocked harder, muttering to himself. ”No more. No more.”
”All that blood,” Vince said, watching Zahn rub his hands harder against his thighs.
”You could imagine what happened to her, couldn't you? The knife going into her body again and again. But Marissa was a friend. She didn't have that coming to her, did she? She couldn't have made someone so angry they would do that to her, could she?”
Zahn was perspiring now. His skin had taken on a waxy translucence, and his respiration had become quick and shallow.
Suddenly he stood up. ”You have to go now, Vince,” he said quickly. ”I'm terribly sorry. So sorry. You have to go now.”
Vince got up slowly. ”Are you upset, Zander? I didn't mean to upset you.”
He tried in vain to make eye contact with the man. Zahn shook his head, looking away, looking at the floor.
”No more. No more,” he said, his breathing picking up one beat and then another. ”You have to stop. Stop now, Vince.”
”I'm sorry if I upset you, Zander,” he said. ”I just want you to know that I know your story now. I understand why you had to kill her. I don't judge you.”
That was it. In that instant Zahn went over the tipping point.
Vince watched as his eyes changed, his face changed. He seemed to suddenly get bigger, stronger, and dangerous. The rage erupted from him in a huge, hot explosion of emotion so big it seemed impossible that it had been contained within him.
Screaming, he lunged at Vince like a wild animal.
45.