He swallowed, visibly and audibly.

“Tell us about Cleveland Jones.”

Pat Jr. let go of the small measure of courage he’d been clinging to. His misshapen face contorted with his effort not to cry. His marred lower lip began to tremble.

Britt could hardly bear to watch his meltdown. Raley had shared with her his theory on Pat Jr.’s involvement, how the whole sordid mess began with him. It wasn’t a pretty story, and what they were doing to him now was as cruel as holding a mirror up to his disfigured face. But it was also necessary. Raley had cautioned her not to let her compassion for the man’s plight soften her determination to wring the truth from him.

“He’s pathetic, yes. But he might also be the key that will open up everything,” he’d said. “We’ve got to get from him as much as he knows, and it probably won’t be easy. It for sure as hell won’t be pleasant.”

“I don’t look forward to it.”

“Neither do I,” Raley had said.

Now, no doubt feeling as rotten as she did about this ambush, Raley said, “Along with all his other crimes, Cleveland Jones was into gay bashing.”

Pat Jr. nodded.

“And you were one of his victims.”

Another nod. A sniff. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “He and two others.”

“Where?”

“Hampton Park.”

“Tell us what happened.”

“I…I’d…gone to the park. Actually, I was riding my bike. But I was…I stopped at the men’s room.”

“You and another guy had sex in the restroom,” Raley said. “Was this a date, like the guy tonight?”

“No. I went in. He was there. Older guy. We…” He shrugged self-consciously. “After, I left ahead of him. When I came out of the restroom, they were there. Three of them. They jumped me. Jones-”

“Did you know him?” Britt asked. “Had he done this to you before?”

“No. But I knew the type. I’d been warned, you know, by guys I hooked up with. Charleston is a fairly gay-friendly city now, but this was five years ago and there had been several recent attacks. More than the standard name-calling. Brutal, physical attacks. A bunch of local skinhead types had decided we weren’t fit to live,” he said bitterly.

“But you went out cruising anyway. In a public park, for godsake.” Raley sounded angry over the other man’s carelessness.

“I didn’t have a choice!” Pat Jr.’s ragged cry reverberated in the car. For a moment nobody said anything, then he repeated, “I didn’t have a choice. I hadn’t come out. My dad was a cop. He’d worked vice. He’d arrested guys like me who met in public restrooms, parking lots, whatever.

“At the dinner table, he and George McGowan would laugh about the homos they’d caught blowing each other. I laughed with them, knowing that’s what was expected.”

Watching him in the rearview mirror, Britt could see tears forming in his eyes.

“Then one day Dad caught me and one of my friends in my bedroom. I think he had suspected, but when the truth was right there…” He paused, shuddered. “He went berserk. He actually drew his pistol. I think he might have killed us if Mom hadn’t stopped him.”

Britt could only imagine this scene and the chasm it must have created between father and son, between husband and wife. The whole dynamic of the family would have changed after that. Gently she prodded him to continue. “Cleveland Jones and two others attacked you.”

He stirred, drew a breath, expelled it slowly. “I never got a good look at the other two. But Jones swung a baseball bat at my shin and broke the bone. Once I was down, he and the others kicked me. One got my nose with the toe of his boot. Pulverized it. I couldn’t breathe out of it for months.

“Before I passed out, Jones grabbed me by the hair and forced me to look up at him. He was grinning. ‘Suck this,’ he said, then used the end of the bat like a pile driver on my mouth.” He looked at Raley, then at Britt and, almost apologetically, added, “The surgeons put everything back as well as they could.”

“The man with you in the restroom, what happened to him?”

“While they were working me over, he ran away. I’d never seen him before, never saw him again. I lay there for almost an hour, but it seemed like ten. Some kids doing dope happened on me. They called 911, then split, too.

“The ambulance took me to the hospital. My folks were notified. I was barely conscious, about to go into surgery, but Dad leaned over me and said, ‘I told you it was dangerous to ride your bike at night.’ That was his way of clueing me in to the lie we’d tell. I’d had a biking accident.”

Another car pulled into the parking lot, sweeping its headlights across them. Two well-dressed young men got out and walked along the alley toward the entrance of the club. “Nice place?” Raley asked.

Pat Jr., surprised by the question, replied, “I hear it is. I’ve never been inside. I’m still not out. Officially.”

Raley picked up the story. “Pat Senior covered your beating with a lie, but privately he wanted to catch the guys who’d done it.”

“Right,” Pat Jr. said. “I guess he still loved me. I was gay, but I was his son. Maybe it was more of an honor issue with him than love. Anyway, when they’d reduced the dosage of painkillers so I could think straight, Dad brought several books of mug shots to my hospital room. He promised they were going to get the guys who’d done this to me and make them sorry.”

“‘They’?”

“Dad, George McGowan, and Jay Burgess.”

“He admitted to his best friends and fellow detectives that you were gay?”

“I suppose. He must have. George McGowan has barely spoken to me since. His contempt is plain. Jay never paid much attention to me one way or the other. I was beneath his notice even before this happened. I saw through him, and I think he knew it. Anyhow, Dad enlisted him and George to help flush out my attackers. I could only identify Jones, and did so as soon as I saw his most recent mug shot.”

“How long before they found him?” Raley asked.

“Couple of days. Dad called my hospital room and told me they had him in custody. He said Jones had copped an attitude, denied the attack, said he wouldn’t go out of his way to bust a queer, but Dad was certain they’d get a confession out of him by the end of the day, and that, if they didn’t, he’d get Cobb Fordyce to throw the book at this little Nazi. His exact words.”

“What day was that?” Britt asked.

He looked at them in turn, then reluctantly said, “The day of the fire.”

Raley leaned toward him, and Britt was struck by the difference between the two men. Raley’s superior size and physicality would cause Pat Jr. to feel threatened even if that weren’t Raley’s intention. The younger man recoiled, leaning as far away from Raley as he could.

“Did they get a confession out of Jones?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did your dad mention that Jones had two skull fractures when they arrested him?”

“No.”

“Did he call you with progress reports?”

“No. I didn’t hear from him again. Just that once when he told me they would be interrogating Cleveland Jones until he cracked.”

“What happened while they were interrogating him?”

“Nothing!” Then he repeated it with a firm shake of his head.

“But you suspect-”

“I don’t suspect anything.”

“That’s bullshit, Pat,” Raley said, with heat.

“I was in the hospital for weeks. I was on painkillers. Groggy. My recollections of the fire aren’t even clear, so how would I know what took place before it started?”

“You don’t want to know.” Raley’s accusation struck hard. The other man lowered his head to avoid Raley’s piercing gaze. “You don’t want to know, because then you’d have to acknowledge that seven people died because you got blown in a public men’s room.”

“Raley.” Britt’s softly spoken chastisement went unheard because of Pat Jr.’s harsh sob. His shoulders shook. The raw, choppy sounds of his weeping were heart-wrenching.