Liar

by Campbell, Jamie

  “Harley, down boy.” Leo lunged for his collar but missed. The dog helped himself to Amelia’s lap and settled down, looking up into her eyes like he already loved her. “I’m sorry, he should be out in the backyard.”

  “He’s fine.” Amelia grinned as she petted him. She always liked dogs, they never lied. “How old is he?”

  “Three. But he still thinks he’s a puppy.”

  “Typical male, never grows up,” Amelia teased, a grin twisting her lips. She rubbed behind his ears, sending the dog swooning. “So did the autopsy report say anything else besides the breathing thing?”

  Leo flicked through the file, having to move Harley’s tail out of the way to see properly. He found the report and held it out for her to take. She read through it quietly.

  “It’s very detailed,” Amelia commented when she had finished. She wasn’t expecting it to be so graphic, it was difficult to get through it all. The moment she remembered it was about a child, she wanted to stop.

  “It’s not meant for the public to read,” Leo said, feeling guilty for giving it to her without any warning. “Nothing is really helpful except for the finding on cause of death.”

  “Suffocation,” she read from the report. “Do they know how?”

  “We only have theories but the medical examiner found traces of minute fibers in the boy’s mouth. We think someone held something over his nose and mouth to cut off the airway. He inhaled some of the material as he struggled.”

  There was something deeply troubling about that but Amelia tried to focus on the facts. She was there to help find the killer, losing it over every detail wasn’t going to achieve that.

  “It says here Jordan had Hemochromatosis. Isn’t that where there’s too much iron in their blood or something?” She asked, changing the subject.

  “That’s right, it’s a genetic condition that alters the body’s ability to regulate iron absorption. It’s treated by regular blood withdrawals. The M.E. said Jordan had no symptoms. It wasn’t making him ill or anything, it’s just something he had. It’s pretty common.”

  Amelia nodded, the five year old probably didn’t even know he had anything wrong with him. At that age you think you’re invincible, you never expect anything bad to happen to you. And you certainly wouldn’t expect your life to be so short.

  “I don’t know why people have kids,” Amelia sighed. “They’re just too innocent for this world.” She patted Harley absentmindedly, staring ahead at the crime scene photographs.

  Leo didn’t know what to make of her comment. “You can’t stop having kids just because there are bad people in the world. That would be like saying you shouldn’t eat anything because of a few rotten pieces of food.”

  “You see the most horrible of society and you still think it’s a good world to live in?” She faced the detective, almost challenging him to disagree. But he wasn’t going to be dissuaded.

  “We can’t live in an utopia, it doesn’t exist. We can’t just give up, we have to make the most of what we have and try to give our children the safest and happiest upbringing possible.”

  “In a world full of liars.”

  Leo’s next words caught in his throat, refusing to come out when he saw the sadness creep over her expression. He had never heard such a cynic speak with such conviction before. He’d stumbled across many jaded people but there was an earnest truth to her. She really did believe in what she was saying, she wasn’t just being contrary.

  Amelia could see him staring at her and it was starting to feel uncomfortable. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

  “You didn’t offend me.”

  “Then why are you staring at me without saying anything?”

  “I’m trying to work out how such a young woman developed such a jaded view of the world,” Leo said sincerely. She knew he was telling the truth, there was no lie unspoken in his words.

  “I guess I’m realistic.”

  “I’m guessing there’s more to it.”

  Now Amelia knew she felt uncomfortable. She spent her life trying to avoid having deep and meaningful conversations with people. They would only lead to questions and questions would lead to answers that only she could hear. She tried to change the course, steering them back to safer territory.

  “I’m guessing there is more to Blake Turner than we realize,” she said, silently crossing her fingers and hoping he got the hint. Detectives spent their lives figuring things out, she really didn’t want Leo to figure out her secret. It was bad enough he thought she was psychic.

  “Does your sixth sense tell you anything new about him?” Leo asked, making a mental note of the deflection. It would be something he would shelve… for now.

  “I don’t know yet. I know he didn’t do it and that’s it.”

  Leo had come to the same conclusion himself. “My buddy at the station slipped me his financial records before I left the place. How are you with bank statements?”

  Amelia smiled, that was something she could handle. “I look at my own statements every month. Does that make me qualified?”

  “Good enough for me.”

  Leo coaxed Harley off her lap and set the records on the dining room table. He made them more coffee as they settled in for a few hours of numbers and dates.

  After an hour and twenty minutes, when the lines on the pages started to swim together, Amelia couldn’t help but sigh. “Turner is so far in debt it’s hard to believe he could ever get out of it. Even if he was paid to take the fall for the murder.”

  “I haven’t found any repayments on his loans for the last seven months. Have you?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. It’s like he just decided not to pay anything anymore.”

  “So what happened seven months ago?”

  “Isn’t that when he lost his job?”

  “No,” Leo consulted his notebook. “That was about a month before he was made redundant. He would still have income coming in for another month before he was cut off.”

  “So what happened seven months ago?” Amelia parroted the detective. It was clear something must have changed in Turner’s life. He started the downward spiral for some reason. People didn’t generally give up on everything for no good reason. “Could that be when the real murderer approached him? Could it be a blackmail thing or something?”

  “I don’t think the murder was pre-meditated, those involving children rarely are. But it’s too early to rule anything out yet.”

  Leo walked over to the murder board and wrote Blackmail? underneath Turner’s mug shot. They returned to the bank statements. The finances made Amelia nervous just looking at them. If she was that far into debt, she wouldn’t be able to breathe for fear of being able to repay it.

  She watched the detective over the top of the latest statement. He was studying the pieces of paper, his brow wrinkled with concentration. If she had to admit it, he was good looking. With his intense green eyes, he engaged whomever he was speaking to in a mesmerizing way. And he hadn’t lied to her once. Perhaps spending the next two weeks solving a major crime wasn’t going to be so bad. Just as long as she could keep her secret.

  Leo caught her staring, she immediately flicked her eyes back to the bank statements. She tried to keep the blush from her cheeks and concentrate.

  CHAPTER 6

  For some reason, Amelia had an idea in her mind of what a newspaper’s headquarters was meant to be like. It should be buzzing with activity, cute rookie reporters should hurry about chasing a hot story, and stressed editors should be yelling about deadlines. And Superman would be changing in a booth somewhere.

  Yet as they were guided through the office of the Morning Times press, the reality couldn’t have been further from the truth. Rows of cubicles lined their way, the only sounds were of people tapping away on their keyboards and the occasional phone ringing. The fluorescent lights made the whole room too bright and all the editors’ doors were firmly closed. Overall, it was just another office.

  The receptionist le
d them to one of the smaller rooms by the fire escape. The cheap plastic plaque on the door showed the occupant as Bree Rowland. They were greeted by a women Amelia guessed to be in her early thirties. She was blonde and short, her hair cut in a perfect bob. Her ruby red lips dominated her face, especially when she smiled.

  “Detective Michaels, how lovely to see you.” She extended her hand and they shook before she invited them to take a seat. The office was barely big enough to contain the three chairs and desk. “When you called I was hoping it was for social reasons.” She pouted.

  Leo smiled, enjoying every moment of the outrageous flirting. Amelia, not so much. “Maybe next time, Miss Rowland.”

  “Please, call me Bree. Miss Rowland sounds so formal, like we’re strangers or something.”

  Amelia looked at them both in turn, wondering what kind of history they shared. She concluded she probably didn’t want to know. The less she knew, the better.

  “So what brings you to my office then?” Bree asked, completely ignoring Amelia and focusing all her attention on the cop.

  “I was wondering if you’ve heard any whispers about the Jordan White case?” It was a long shot, but they were desperate. As Leo had explained on the ride over, reporters had an expansive network of contacts. Sometimes they knew things well before the police caught on. If he needed to call on an old friend to get the scoop, he was willing to do it. And apparently Bree Rowland was more than just an old friend.

  “What makes you think I would know anything about that poor boy?” Bree never dropped her overly polite tone of voice.

  “People talk and you have a way of getting them to talk to you.” Leo shrugged, trying to downplay it and throw in a compliment at the same time.

  “I’m afraid I know nothing,” Bree replied. Yet very clearly Amelia heard I know something. She instantly went on alert. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  “There’s nothing on the grapevine about the murder or the guy who confessed?”

  Bree shrugged. “Nothing at all.” There is something.

  “Not one teeny bit of information?” Leo persisted, knowing he had to with the reporter. “I’m sure a popular woman like you hears all sorts of things.”

  She giggled, melting just a little. “You flatter me too much.” You never flatter me enough. Amelia had to suppress a laugh. Some people you didn’t even need to hear the truth to know what they were saying.

  “So you do know something?” He asked hopefully, waiting for her to spill the truth. He knew she always did eventually.

  “Maybe a little something.” Something big.

  “You want to share?”

  Bree looked around and leaned in closer, getting prepared to reveal something promising. “I shouldn’t be saying this because I promised I wouldn’t. But you should look into the family. They’re not exactly as they appear.”

  “What do you mean?” Leo asked, leaning in to reiterate the confidentiality of their conversation.

  “I can’t say anything more.” I can say more.

  “Yes, you can,” Amelia said without thinking. She hadn’t meant to interrupt but the words were out before she could stop them. They both turned to her, as if noticing she was there for the first time.

  “No, I can’t,” Bree stated indignantly, not appreciating the accusation. Yet all Amelia heard was Yes I can. It was frustrating arguing with someone who only told the truth in their lies. Amelia had done it way too many times before and long given up on it.

  Leo stepped in, seeing the retreat in Bree’s eyes. “What she means is that I’m sure there is so much more you can offer us. An intelligent woman like yourself, I’m sure you have some theories about the case?”

  The woman’s feathers ruffled down a little. “My hands are tied, detective. I can’t say anything else without betraying a confidence.” I can say something else without betraying a confidence.

  “Well, what would it take to untie those hands of yours?” Leo tried to pull off the flirting but it didn’t quite work this time. He just shifted uncomfortably.

  Bree, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice. “Who says I want you to untie them?” She arched an eyebrow, making it clear she would be happy to be handcuffed by the detective.

  Leo cleared his throat, not sure what to do or say next. It was usually the time when his partner would step in and play bad cop. He didn’t have him watching his back at the moment. “So there is nothing I can do to convince you to tell me more?”

  “Like I said, look at the family,” Bree replied as she sat back in her chair, resigned to the fact she wasn’t getting anywhere with her visitor. She glared at Amelia, certain she was the reason for it.

  When it was clear she wasn’t going to say anything further, Leo thanked her and left. Amelia trailed after him. They waited until they stepped out into the sunshine before discussing what just happened, talking while they weaved their way through the streets.

  “She’s a complete liar,” Amelia said flatly. “I don’t think she could tell the truth if she was given truth serum.”

  “You don’t believe her?”

  “She knows so much more than she says.”

  Leo stopped, making the people walking behind grumble as they steered around him. “What is your sixth sense telling you?”

  Amelia was growing frustrated with the whole day. “I told you, she knows more than she says. She is just choosing not to tell you. All she has to do is talk and it would be so much easier.”

  “People like Bree Rowland see information as power. If she was to tell us everything then she would lose that,” Leo tried to explain. For a veteran cop like himself, he saw the personality type all the time. However, he could see how she was getting frustrated. “Bree likes to hold on to whatever power she can.”

  “Even if it means a child killer goes free?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  They started walking again, trying to move past the woman’s ethics deficiency. You couldn’t force a leopard to change their spots, they were going to be spotty until they decided to do something about it. Leo placed his hope in Bree deciding to do the right thing in the near future. She had done it before.

  “I thought you ruled out the family,” Amelia said, breaking the silence and changing the subject in one swoop. “Bree said they had something to do with it.”

  “We had ruled them out,” Leo replied. “The mother is a nurse, the father works in middle management. There is nothing remarkable about them. For all intents and purposes, they were the average working class family.”

  “What about grandparents or extended family members?”

  “All clean. They had no criminal backgrounds, no feuds, no unusual problems. Everyone appeared as devastated as they should be about the crime.”

  Amelia shook her head sadly. She knew Bree meant it when she said look into the family. If she was prepared to give that morsel of truth, it had to have some significance. Which meant the family weren’t entirely innocent in their child’s death. The thought sent a shiver down her spine.

  “Why would a family endanger the life of their child?” She asked. “What could possibly be worth it?”

  “Maybe it comes back to money again?” Leo offered, thinking of Blake Turner and what they suspected he was prepared to do for cold, hard cash.

  “Are we going to go speak with the parents then?”

  “We can’t. As far as they know, we’ve caught the killer. If I go around there asking questions, they’re going to be upset-”

  “And upset parents will call your boss,” Amelia finished for him. “How are we going to look into the family if we can’t even speak with them?”

  Leo ran through the options in his head. He could try and pull their financial records, speak to those that knew the family, or look into their history. But all that would be a hundred times easier if he was actually authorized to do so.

  They were going to need to be creative in their methods. Thankfully, this was something Detective Leo Michaels
was used to. He didn’t have the highest closure rate in the state for nothing.

  He grinned, looking at Amelia. “We’re going to need to take some risks. You up for it?”

  “As long as it doesn’t require talking to Bree Rowland again,” she tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice but didn’t quite pull it off. She wasn’t entirely sure if it was just the woman that annoyed her or the way she was so obviously flirting with Leo. All she knew was that there was something seriously annoying about her.

  * * *

  Amelia didn’t particularly like children. When they weren’t lying, they were being too honest. There never seemed to be a middle ground where they were just good. Unless they were asleep anyway. She had a young niece and a nephew but she rarely spoke with either of them. Mainly due to the fact she rarely spoke with her family.

  Standing in the corridor, watching dozens of the horrible things running around, only reiterated her dread of them. She tried to focus on the conversation Leo was having with Jordan’s teacher but the kids were distracting. With every raised voice was a lie that only she could hear and she wanted to yell at them all just to shut up already.

  “How was Jordan as a child?” She heard Leo ask and tried to tune the noise out. She was there for a reason and it wasn’t to hear the deepest, darkest secrets of the kids.

  The teacher seemed to think it over, her long ponytail bobbing away as she nodded before speaking. She introduced herself as Miss Penny, she could possibly be the most patient woman in the world. “Jordan was a lovely child. He was nervous about starting school at the beginning of the year but he quickly made some friends and settled in.”

  “Did he ever seem quiet or distracted?”

  “Only at the beginning. Like I said, he settled in.”

  Leo shifted his weight to the other foot, trying to determine if it was time to ask the real questions he wanted to. Miss Penny seemed amicable enough and she wasn’t likely to run to the parents. He decided to take the risk. “Did you have much to do with his parents?”