by J. D. Barker
He downshifted again and swung around a taxicab slowing for a right turn, then yanked the wheel hard to the left to avoid a minivan pulling out from a Burger King.
“Maybe we should put the light on,” Watson suggested. “Or I can drive, if you want.”
Porter wiped his eye on his shirtsleeve. “No, I’m okay. I’ll be fine. I guess I should have warned you before you got in the car. All of this should be coming out in therapy, not on a rookie CSI. You didn’t sign on for this.”
“You need to talk to someone. That’s how we heal. Keeping it bottled up isn’t healthy. It’ll grow in you like a cancer if you keep it all inside.”
Porter chuckled. “Now you sound like a shrink. That may be the longest spiel I’ve heard you string together since we met.”
“One of my degrees may be in psychology,” Watson said sheepishly.
“Are you serious? Wait, one of your degrees?”
The kid nodded. “I’m working on my third right now.”
Porter blew through a very yellow light and swerved to avoid a Volkswagen Bug merging into traffic.
Watson’s knuckles were white as Porter dropped the Charger into third and made a right-hand turn from the far left lane, nearly clipping a red Buick. “I think I should drive. The captain wanted me to drive.”
“We’re almost there.”
“I’m not even sure going there is the best thing for you.”
“Not going isn’t an option. If it’s him, I need to see.”
They turned onto Fiftieth Avenue and skidded to a stop at the station. Porter negotiated the Charger into a handicapped spot and put his police placard on the dash. Reaching into his shoulder holster, he pulled his Beretta and slipped it under the seat. He eyed the watch in Watson’s hand. “Where did you say your uncle’s shop was?”
“It’s called Lost Time Antiques and Collectibles, on West Belmont.”
“Let me hold it,” Porter said. “I don’t want to leave evidence unattended.”
Watson handed him the watch, and he dropped it into his pocket.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Watson asked.
“I think it’s a horrible idea, but I need to see this kid.”
51
Diary
I woke to a loud knock.
My neck and back ached from sleeping in a sitting position on the cold wood floor. I forced myself to stand and tried to stretch the pain from my limbs. My fingers still clutched the butcher knife. They were wrapped so tight around the handle I practically had to pry them apart with my free hand.
I set the knife on my nightstand. I still wore the clothing I had on the previous day. The sun was out and I had no idea of the time.
Another knock, heavier than the first.
It came from the front door.
I pulled the chair out from under my doorknob and pushed it aside, opened the door a crack.
Father (and the empty bourbon bottle) were both gone. At the other end of the hall Mother and Father’s bedroom door stood open, the bed made. If anyone had slept there, they were gone now too. The house felt oddly quiet.
“Mother? Father?”
My voice seemed louder than I intended against the stark silence.
Was Father at work? I’d lost track of the days. Today felt like Monday, but I wasn’t sure.
The knock again.
I went to the door and pulled the curtain aside at the side window. A heavyset man of about seventy stood on the porch in a beige trench and rumpled suit. He looked down at me and raised a badge in his left hand so I could clearly make out the shiny silver.
I released the curtain, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
“Morning, son. Are your parents home?”
I shook my head. “Father is working, and Mother set off to the store to get fixings for dinner.”
“Mind if I wait for her to return?”
Considering I had no idea where either of them went, it didn’t seem wise to say yes. Mother could have been in the basement, doing who knew what to (with?) Mrs. Carter. How would she react if she came upstairs and found a stranger in the house? A stranger with a badge?
“I don’t know how long she will be,” I told him.
He sighed and wiped at his forehead with the sleeve of his coat. I found it strange he would wear not only a suit jacket but a coat atop it while he was clearly hot. Perhaps it was to hide his gun? I pictured a .44 Magnum tucked under his meaty arm in a shoulder holster, ready to be drawn and fired at the drop of a pin like the one Dirty Harry carried in those old movies. Didn’t all cops secretly want to be Dirty Harry?
This particular cop didn’t resemble Dirty Harry in the slightest. He was severely overweight, and his hair had deserted him some time ago, leaving nothing but a large head covered in wrinkles and age spots. His eyes had probably been blue at a younger age but now appeared the color of diluted Windex. He had a several chins, the skin rumpled like that of a shar-pei or an apple forgotten in the sun.
“Maybe I can help you with something?” I made the offer knowing full well he would turn me down. Adults rarely accepted help from kids. Many adults didn’t notice kids at all. We were lost to the background of life, much like pets and old people. Father once told me there was a sweet spot to life between the age of fifteen and sixty-five when you were fully visible to the world—any older and you fade from sight, dimming to obscurity. And the young? Well, the young started out invisible and gradually took form, solidifying till those mid-teen years when we joined the rest of the world in the visible spectrum. Poof! One day you were there and people held you accountable, people saw you. I knew that day was coming for me, but it hadn’t quite arrived yet.
“Well, maybe you can,” the man said, much to my chagrin. He raised his sleeve to the side of his head and blotted a trickle of sweat inching down his ear. He nodded toward the Carters’ house. “When was the last time you saw your neighbors?”
I turned toward the house with as much disinterest as I could muster. “Couple days ago. They said they were going on a trip, and I promised Mrs. Carter I’d water her plants.”
This was a good story. A plausible story. There was a flaw, though. As soon as the words left my mouth, I couldn’t help but wonder: Does Mrs. Carter own any plants? Although I hadn’t been looking, Father taught me to capture my surroundings with my mind’s eye, and I didn’t recall any plants, not one.
“Are you a budding botanist?”
“A what?”
“A botanist. It’s someone who studies plants,” he replied. More sweat dripped down the side of his head, and I tried not to stare. I tried not to look at all.
“No, I don’t study plants, I just water them. Not much science in that.”
“No, I suppose not.” His eyes flitted past me into the small living room.
Was Mother there? Had she been in the basement after all and come up?
“Can I trouble you for a glass of water?”
The sweat dripped from his jaw, rolled down all his chins, and fell to his shirt. I felt a sudden urge to reach up and wipe the salty trail of yuck from the side of his head before it dripped again, but I did not. “Okay, but you should stay outside,” I said. “I’m not allowed to let strangers into the house.”
“That’s very heedful of you. Your parents taught you well.”
I left the man standing at the door and went to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. Before I reached the sink, I realized I hadn’t closed the door. I should have closed and locked it tight. He could walk right in if he wanted to. After such an egregious trespass, he would surely go down to the basement, where Mrs. Carter eagerly waited to tell him all about everything that had happened over the past few days.
What if she screamed?
Don’t let her scream, not now. He would hear her from the door for sure.
I don’t want to have to hurt him. But I would. If I had to, I knew I could.
I fought the urge to turn and look back. If I did, he would surely read th
e worry in my eyes. Father taught me to hide such things, but I wasn’t sure I could. Not well enough to fool a police officer, not even this one with the beady eyes and pudgy belly.
I plucked a glass from the drying rack, filled it with cold tap water, and walked back toward the front door, doing my best to hide the relief I felt when I found him still standing on the porch, writing in a small notebook.
“Here you go, sir,” I said, handing him the glass.
“So well-mannered,” he replied, taking the glass. He pressed it against his forehead, rolling it gently against his rumpled skin. Then he lowered it to his mouth, took the slightest of drinks, and smacked his lips. “Ah, just what I needed,” he said, handing the glass back to me.
Did he really need a drink, or had he taken the opportunity to get a better look at the inside of our house?
“Did they say where they were going?”
I frowned. “I told you, Father is at work and Mother went to the store.”
“No, your neighbors. You said they went on a vacation. Did they say where?”
“I said they went on a trip. I don’t know if they went on a vacation. I guess they might be on vacation.”
He nodded slightly. “Right you are. I suppose I shouldn’t jump to conclusions like that.”
That is right. I read a lot of Dick Tracy comics, and I knew a good investigator never jumps to conclusions. He follows the evidence. The evidence leads to facts, and facts lead to the truth.
“You see, we got a call from Mr. Carter’s employer. He didn’t make it to work and didn’t call, and he’s not answering his phone . . . They’re worried about him, so I told them I’d come out here to check things out, make sure everyone was okay. Doesn’t seem to be anyone home, though. I took a quick peek in a few of the windows and didn’t see anything worthy of sounding the alarm, nothing out of the ordinary, really.”
“They went on a trip.”
He nodded. “They went on a trip. Yeah, you said that.” He peeled off the coat and folded it over his arm. There were large sweat stains under his arms. No gun, though. “Thing is, seems a little odd to me they would ask you to water their plants but not pick up their mail or their newspapers. I couldn’t help but notice their mailbox is overflowing, and there are two papers in their driveway. When people go away, that’s usually one of the first things they take care of—find someone to pick up the mail and the paper. Nothing tips off thieves to an empty house faster than correspondence piling up.”
“Their car is gone,” I blurted out, not sure why. “They left in their car.”
He glanced back at their empty driveway. “Did they now.”
This was not going well. This was not going well at all. I slipped my hand into the pocket of my jeans searching for the familiar hilt of my buck knife, but it was not there. If I had it, I could slash this man across the neck. I’d cut right through all his chins and let his blood loose as if from a faucet. I was fast. I knew I was fast. But was I fast enough? Surely I could kill him before this overweight waste of a man could react, right? Father would want me to kill him. Mother too. They would. I knew they would. But I didn’t have my knife.
He leaned in close. “Do you have a key?”
“To what?”
“The Carter place. You need to get inside, right? To water the plants?”
I felt my stomach roll. “Yes, sir.”
“Think you can let me in? Just for a second, to poke around?”
I supposed I could. Wasn’t that what Father wanted? Wasn’t that the reason we’d staged the place? Only one problem—I told him I had a key, and I didn’t. I was putting the cart before the horse, as Father would say. Talkin’ without thinkin’ is a surefire way to dig a hole waist-deep.
“People are worried about them. What if something happened?”
“They went on a trip.”
He nodded. “As you said.”
“You’re a cop. Why don’t you bust the door down and go on in?” I asked him.
The man tilted his head. “Did I say I was a cop?”
Had he? Now that I thought about it, I didn’t think he had. “You look like a cop.”
He reached up and rubbed his chin. “Do I now.”
“And you said someone called because Mr. Carter hadn’t been to work. Who would somebody call, if not the police?”
“Looks like you’re a budding botanist and detective.”
“So why don’t you bust the door down?”
He shrugged. “We cops, we need probable cause. Can’t go in without probable cause. That is, of course, unless you let me in. If you let me in through your own volition, we’re all covered and nobody gets in trouble. I take a quick peek, and I’m on my way.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” He winked. The sweat had stopped, though his face was all blotchy red.
I thought about it for a second. It was a sound offer. A prudent offer.
If he was a cop, why wasn’t he carrying a gun?
“Can you show me your badge again?” Now that I reflected on it, the thing he’d produced looked like a badge, the right color and shape, but how could I know it was real? I had never seen a real-life police badge before, only the ones they used on television. Usually they’re in a spiffy wallet with an identification card. His badge had not been in a wallet. His badge might have been real, or it might have been one of those toy badges you can pick up at the five-and-dime.
He cocked his head, his lip curling up at the corner. He reached for his back pocket, hesitated, then dropped his arm to his side. “You know, I think I’m gonna come back a little later, when your parents are home, and have a little talk with them. Find out where the Carters went on their . . . trip.”
Something changed in his expression. His face hardened, his eyes went a little darker. I fought the urge to step back. “That may be for the best.”
He gave me a quick nod and started back toward his car. An old Plymouth Duster. Emerald green. Not a cop’s car, my mind pointed out. A classic car though, for sure, one of Detroit’s finest.
Halfway across the Carters’ lawn, he stopped and called back over his shoulder, “Best you pick up these newspapers and check their mailbox. Wouldn’t want the wrong element to stumble upon this place and realize they’re not home. Worse yet, they might realize you’re home alone right next door. There’re some nasty people out there, my little friend.”
I closed the door and locked it tight.
52
Clair
Day 2 • 9:23 a.m.
From behind the one-way mirror, Clair watched Talbot shuffle nervously in one of the interrogation room’s aluminum chairs. He tried to pull closer to the table, but the chair was bolted to the floor. Clair had often wondered if the designer did that on purpose—placed the chairs a little farther back from the table than would be comfortable to add to the unease of being locked in the small room. Louis Fischman, the attorney Nash and Porter had met the day before out at Wheaton, sat beside him. The golf clothes were gone, replaced with a crisp dark gray suit that probably cost more than her Honda Civic on its best day. Talbot wore a white dress shirt and khakis along with one of the shiniest Rolexes she had ever seen.
“Porter should be here for this,” Nash said beside her, his eyes fixed on Talbot.
“Yeah.”
Fischman leaned over and whispered something to his client, then glanced up at the one-way with a wary eye.
“Think he knows why he’s here?” Nash asked.
Clair shrugged. “All the shit a man like that is probably guilty of? I bet he’s running a laundry list through his head right now. His attorney is salivating over the future legal bills. He’s probably already picked out a new summer house on Lake Geneva.”
At a table crammed into the small observation room, a tech gave them both a nod. “We’re recording. Ready whenever you are.”
Nash nodded back and turned to Clair. “How do you want to play this?”
“Same as usual—good
cop, crappy cop,” she replied, pointing a thumb first at herself, then back at him. Before he could respond, she picked up a large file box and carried it through the doorway into the interrogation room.
Talbot and his attorney both glanced up at her.
“Gentlemen, I appreciate you coming in on such short notice,” Clair said, setting the box down on the table before taking a seat across from them. Nash sat down beside her.