Point Blank

life, Dix, ruined it!”
    Gordon stuck out his hands. “So arrest me, find yourself a grand jury to indict me. You know it’s impossible because I didn’t kill Helen and so you can’t have any proof that I did. You think I’m stupid and weak or you wouldn’t even have come here.
    “Damn you both. Get out of my house. Don’t come back unless you come to arrest me.”
    It was as if he’d yelled out all his passion. He slumped forward, looking ineffably weary. He whispered, not looking at them, “Please leave. I want to be alone to mourn Erin, and Walt and Helen. I’m tired to my soul. I want to go to bed.”

CHAPTER 38
    TARA MAESTRO, VIRGINIA MONDAY MORNING
    RUTH AND DIX sat facing Tony and Cynthia. Chappy sat in his big winged patriarch’s chair, his fingertips tapping.
    Dix looked around at Christie’s family, who were utterly silent. He didn’t think he’d ever been in their company when one of them wasn’t insulting or complaining about one of the others. He sat as silently as Ruth, tapping his foot, waiting for one of them to speak about Gordon. Of course they knew everything. It was all over Maestro.
    But no one said a word.
    Dix finally said, “So which one of you is going to tell me where Gordon went off to?”
    Chappy shrugged. “Can’t imagine why you’d think any of us would have a clue, Dix.” Chappy sat back and folded his hands over his belly. He chuckled, shook his head. “So old Twister’s gone into the wind, has he? Milt at the post office called me this morning, said your deputies were banging on doors trying to find him, but it seems he’s a ghost. How did you let that happen, Dix? Didn’t you have a deputy watching his house?”
    “We know a driver with Flying Cabs picked Gordon up on the street behind his house and drove him to Elderville. He was dropped off in a residential neighborhood. No one we’ve spoken to in the area knows him, no one saw him. Someone else must have picked him up from there.”
    “Good for him, I say,” Cynthia said, and toasted all of them with her last bite of muffin.
    “Uncle Gordon was free to go, Dix. And you don’t really have any proof against him, do you?” Tony asked. He sat forward, clasped his elegant hands between his knees. “Who cares if he took off? If you find out where he is, you still can’t bring him back.”
    “He left because there wasn’t anything here for him anymore, Dix,” Cynthia said. “He was ruined. He couldn’t face the humiliation, so he left.”
    Dix said, “That’s certainly putting the best face on it, Cynthia. The fact is, though, Gordon is no more accomplished a criminal than Helen Rafferty was. He knows he’s left tracks. That’s why he snuck off while he could.”
    The silence returned, none of them meeting Dix’s eyes.
    Dix looked at Tony. “I find it interesting that you didn’t bother to tell me all of Gordon’s accounts were closed out. I don’t suppose you helped him with that, Tony? I certainly can’t imagine Chappy doing it.”
    “It isn’t against the law to give a man his own money,” Tony said.
    Dix looked at each of them, wondering if there were words that would convince them. He didn’t think so. They were finally together on something, not set against one another. He gave it a try anyway. “I know Gordon wouldn’t have had the knowledge or the wherewithal to plan something like this.”
    Chappy chuckled. “Evidently old Twister’s got unplumbed depths. Who would have thought it possible?”
    Tony asked, “Who cares if someone helped arrange transportation, money, ID, whatever, for him, Dix?
    It’s not against the law.”
    Chappy grinned. “Hey, maybe I did it for old Twister.”
    Dix shook his head. “Chappy, you’re the only one I wouldn’t suspect of that. You can’t be in the same room with Gordon without your tearing into each other. I wouldn’t have thought you’d do anything for Gordon except visit him in jail, joking about a file in a cake.”
    Chappy rose slowly to his feet. He shook a finger at Dix. “Are you nuts, Dix? Gordon and I are brothers. All we’ve ever done is have some fun with each other.”
    Ruth said, “You know where he is, don’t you, Chappy?”
    Chappy smiled down at her. “He was going on about killing himself, the little pissant. I wasn’t going to let my own brother do that, not after we lost Christie, Dix. And he’s not going to spend the last years of his life rotting in prison, either. Not unless you can prove what he