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“Yes, of course.” He sat, and as Peabody engaged her recorder, mechanically poured the tea. He listened without glancing up as Eve recited the traditional caution.
“Do you understand your rights and obligations?”
“Yes. Would you care for sweetener?”
She looked down at her tea with some impatience. It smelled suspiciously like what Mira insisted on serving her. “No.”
“I’ve added a bit of honey to yours, Officer.” He sent Peabody a sweet smile. “And a bit of…something else. I think you’ll find it soothing.”
“Smells pretty good.” Cautious, Peabody sipped, tasted home, and smiled back. “Thanks.”
“When’s the last time you saw your father?”
Caught off guard by the abruptness of Eve’s question, Chas looked up quickly. The hand holding his cup shook once, violently. “The day he was sentenced. I went to the hearing and I watched them take him away. They kept him in full restraints and they closed and locked the door on his life.”
“And how did you feel about that?”
“Ashamed. Relieved. Desperately unhappy. Or perhaps just desperate. He was my father.” Chas took a deep gulp of tea, as some men might take a gulp of whiskey. “I hated him with all of my heart, all of my soul.”
“Because he killed?”
“Because he was my father. I hurt my mother deeply by insisting on attending his trial. But she was too battered emotionally to stop me from doing as I chose. She could never stop him, either. Though she did leave him eventually. She took me and left him, which was, I think, a surprise to all of us.”
He stared down into his cup, as if contemplating the pattern of the leaves skimming the bottom. “I hated her, too, for a very, very long time. Hate can define a person, can’t it, Lieutenant? It can twist them into an ugly shape.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
“Nearly. Ours was not a happy home. You wouldn’t expect that it could be with a man like my father dominating it. You suspect I could be like him.” Chas’s sensual voice remained calm. But his eyes were swirling with emotions.
It was the eyes you watched during interview, Eve thought. The words often meant nothing. “Are you?”
“‘Blood will tell.’ Is that Shakespeare?” He shook his head a little. “I’m not quite sure. But isn’t that what all children live with, and fear no matter what
their parents, that blood will tell?”
She lived with it, she feared it, but she couldn’t allow herself to be swayed by it. “How strong an influence was he on your life?”
“There couldn’t have been a stronger one. You’re an efficient investigator, Lieutenant. I’m sure you’ve studied the records by now, run the discs, watched them. You would have seen a charismatic man, terrifyingly so. A man who considered himself above the law—any and all laws. That kind of steely arrogance is in itself compelling.”
“Evil can be compelling to some.”
“Yes.” His lips curved without humor. “You’d know that, in your line of work. He wasn’t a man you could…fight, on a physical or emotional level. He’s strong. Very strong.”
Chas closed his eyes a moment, reliving what he was constantly struggling to put to death. “I was afraid I could be like him, considered giving back the most precious gift I’d been given. Life.”
“You attempted self-termination?”
“I never got as far as the attempt, just the plan. The first time, I was ten.” He sipped tea again, determined to soothe himself. “Can you imagine a child of ten pondering suicide?”
Yes, she could, all too well. She’d been younger yet when she had pondered it. “He abused you?”
“Abuse is such a weak term, don’t you think? He beat me. He never seemed to be in a rage when he did. He just struck out at unexpected moments, snapping a bone, raising a fist, with the absent calm another man might display while flicking away a fly.”
His fist was clenched on his knee. Deliberately, Chas opened his hand, spread his fingers. “He struck like a shark, fast and in utter silence. There was never a warning, never a gauge. My life, my pain, was totally dependent on his whim. I’ve had my time in Hell,” he said softly, almost as a prayer.
“No one helped you?” Eve asked. “Attempted to intervene?”
“We never stayed in one place very long, and were allowed to form no attachments or friendships. He claimed he needed to spread the word. And he would snap a bone, raise a fist, then take me into a treatment center himself. A concerned father.”
