Trust Me When I Lie

by Benjamin Stevenson

  “What about her fingers, then? People don’t carry around pliers just in case. They could have rummaged in her garage, I guess.”

  Beep. Beep. Scratch. Scratch.

  “Good point. We were never able to match Eliza’s wounds to a weapon.” Jack’s researchers had tested all kinds of weapons on replica silicon hands. None had matched Eliza’s fingers: mangled stumps like the chewed end of a cigar, a glint of white in the center. “So what you’re saying is if Alexis’s wounds match Eliza’s”—Jack finished Liam’s imagined sentence for him—“it could tie the murders together.”

  Beep. Scratch.

  “I need to see the coroner’s report. You’re a genius, Bro.”

  Peter cleared his throat loudly. Jack’s time was up. There was some kind of stopwatch always running in this family.

  “Dad’s wrapping me up. I’ll see you soon.” Then to Peter: “Thanks, Dad.”

  “I know he can’t hear you, but I don’t like you telling him those things.” Peter’s voice was slightly thick in the air. “He’s peaceful.”

  “You don’t have to sit in.”

  “Part of me hates it. And the other part of me…if I shut my eyes and listen”—he breathed—“it’s just like you’re brothers again.”

  They paused on that misuse of tense—Liam was still alive; they were still brothers—but Jack knew what his father meant. They murmured goodbye.

  Right, Jack thought immediately, the coroner’s report. He only had one option there, damn it. He texted McCarthy.

  Finger wounds. Coroner’s report. Help me out?

  Then quickly added a second green bubble below.

  Last favor, promise.

  He’d reached the Royal now. A blackboard out the front promised counter lunches. He knew he had to. Being here on his own—dark thoughts and dead women swirling through his head—was harmful enough. The longer he went without eating, the harder it would be to keep it down later.

  He stepped inside. Framed posters—ALCOHOL: AUSTRALIA’S MOST EXPENSIVE DRUG and GAMBLING: KNOW WHEN TO STOP—ringed the room uselessly. Immediately, the air changed. Dampened. As if the very atmosphere was laden on an atomic level with an extra ion or two of beer, latching itself between hydrogen and oxygen. A new molecule, brewed and bonded here: shit-faced dioxide.

  Jack took a seat at the bar. The bartender who’d told him to fuck off yesterday was behind the taps talking to the motel owner, Brett Dawson, who was ignoring a parmigiana. Two younger blokes in their midtwenties were standing on either side of him, leaning on the bar. They were both handsome (Alexis’s type? Jack wondered), with blond hair darkened from sweat and dirt-browned hands curled around their glasses. A yellow vest was folded on the counter. Trade workers. As well as running the motel, Brett ran some construction around town. They’d helped on Curtis’s new restaurant. Knocked down the old one for Whittaker too, the previous owner, who, out of spite, had filled his cellar with concrete to deaden the land for the new owners. Jack had seen the invoice for the concrete fill. TV research was not all glamorous confrontations with potential murderers; sometimes it was just sifting through receipts. Not a bad side gig—thirty-five grand for pouring concrete into a hole. One of Brett’s buddies snuck a fry off his plate. The bartender looked across at Jack, and Jack gave a noncommittal wave and plucked a menu from the stack.

  The menu had nothing he felt he could order. He snuck another glance in Brett’s direction; the chicken looked enormous. He wanted it. Wanted to walk over there and tear it apart with his hands and cram it in his face. But he knew if he got that, he’d eat it all. And then he’d feel it festering inside him for the rest of the day. It would be all he could do to keep it down. Eating was always a tightrope walk inside his stomach; too much and he’d want to purge, too little and he fed the other side of his disease. Every meal was trying to flip a coin and land it on its edge. He frowned. The menu was all burgers and fries and schnitzels. He wanted something benign. He considered leaving, flipped the menu over. On the back there were the kids’ meals. Smaller portions. Spaghetti Bolognese. Better.

  He placed the menu upside down in front of him in what he hoped was a clear enough sign he’d finished reading it. While waiting, Jack noticed a TV hanging from the cornice across the room. Daytime TV was playing. Nothing interesting. But in a newsbreak, Ted Piper popped up in his familiar blue two-piece, spouting sound bites. So Alexis still qualified as news. It took a few more moments for the bartender to catch on; he held a finger up to Brett, excusing himself, and waddled over.

  “Decided?” He was gruff but not impolite. Perhaps he’d accepted that they’d failed to drive Jack away. Or perhaps, like the B and B owner who’d put Jack’s financial utility above her dislike of him, the bar owner had realized there were only four people in the bar and only one of them was currently eating. He needed every customer he could get. As long as Jack was spending, he’d earned himself a begrudging courtesy. Brett Dawson was the only one with a horse still high enough.

  Or maybe the bartender wanted to make Jack eat something he’d rubbed his balls against.

  Jack introduced himself, extending his hand over the bar.

  “I know who you are. Alan Sanders.” He wiped his hands on the front of his apron as if about to take Jack’s hand. He didn’t. Was Jack imagining Alan’s furtive glance to where Brett and company were? “Decided?” he asked again.

  “Spaghetti Bolognese, please.”

  Alan made a show of leaning over the bar, peering at the floor beneath the stools.

  “You got a kid?”

  “Huh? No.”

  “Spaghetti’s for kids.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s for kids. Only. You have to order an adult meal.”

  “I’m not that hungry.”

  “Does this say ‘Under Twelve’?” Alan picked up the menu and jabbed a finger on the spaghetti. “Or ‘Not That Hungry’?”

  “Mental age,” called Brett, and the lads beside him laughed. “Give it to him.”

  “Are you on one of those city diets?” Alan asked. “Or are you just a cheapskate?”

  “Neither,” said Jack. “I just want the small spaghetti. I’ll pay full price. Charge me for the parma.”

  “If you’re paying.” Alan shrugged, then said almost to himself, “Sydney wankers. It’s not gluten free, if you’re wondering.”

  Jack ignored him. Next time, he was going to the bakery.

  The meal was out suspiciously faster than you could even microwave it. A boy in a white T-shirt and a black apron scanned the room and brought it over. He was young, twelve at the most. Child labor laws didn’t apply in small towns, apparently.

  “You order the kid’s meal?” he asked. Jack nodded. The kid placed it down in front of Jack and then said, completely without irony, “In all my years as a chef, I never seen that before.”

  If the kid was even a year older, Jack would have insulted him. So much material to work with. Instead, he thanked him and twirled a forkful while examining the bowl. No pubes. Not from that chef, anyway. He took his time eating, feeling each bite slide down his throat. Surprisingly, it tasted quite good—real mince and tomatoes—and by the end, he wanted more. Looking down at the empty bowl, he was glad to have eaten it. Mission accomplished. That never changed, whether he was doing well or not, that small feeling of victory. The coin successfully flipped. His internal acrobat straightened on the tightrope. Bowed.

  What next? He needed to talk to Andrew Freeman, but he didn’t know how to make that introduction. Until meeting Lauren tomorrow night, he had nothing to do. But something was circling in his head. Lauren in the driveway. She had a pretty laugh, he recalled. But that wasn’t what he was thinking of. It was her, glancing back to the house. Chewing her lip.

  “Help us,” she’d said.

  Not “Help me.” Not “Help him.”

  Help us.<
br />
  Chapter 15

  There was someone sitting on the step when Jack got back to the house.

  Jack’s next thoughts came in rapid succession. The first, that he’d recognize the straight-backed posture of an off-duty policeman anywhere. The second was to wonder if anyone within two hundred kilometers wasn’t keeping tabs on him. And the third, that Andrew Freeman looked happy to see him.

  Which was odd, seeing as he’d refused every single interview request during filming and because Jack had made him out to be, at worst, a conspiratorial murderous prick and, at best, just a regular one.

  “Andrew.” Jack nodded in greeting.

  “Is Mary-Anne treating you well?” Andrew said, standing, and Jack realized he’d never gotten his hostess’s name. She was an uncredited extra. Andrew was in his sixties and country skinny, which meant he was thin but tightly wrapped in sinew, a skeleton wound in rope and dipped in skin. He was wearing bright-blue shorts and had a cyclist’s calves, overstuffed like a sock full of doorknobs. “Thought I’d come and welcome you to Birravale.”

  “You missed the welcome parade,” Jack said.

  “That bad, huh?” Andrew had crossed the lawn now. He opened the door of his Subaru Forester, tilted his head toward the passenger seat. “Hop in. I wanna show you something.”

  It was a short drive back up the hill to the Freeman winery. Jack was impressed by how steep the road became beyond the Wades’, the gradient pushing him back in his seat. He could see in his mind tendrils of thick wine bleeding down the hill, pouring into town. Andrew’s car was impeccably clean, even the floor mats vacuumed and shampooed. There was an earthy smell, though, one not easily vacuumed out: a dusty, almost-spiced tinge that he couldn’t place. Outside, a yellow sign announced they were approaching a CREST. Behind it, there was another yellow sign—STEEP DESCENT and a zigzag squiggle. Jack wondered if that was where Andrew got his calves, pumping up that hill every day.

  Andrew hooked into a driveway before they reached the sign. They passed under an arch with Birravale Creek Wines nailed up in wooden letters.

  “Where’s the creek?” asked Jack.

  “Nowhere.” Andrew smiled. “It just sounds good. Have you ever heard of a winery not named after nature? Those are the rules: landmark, plant, or animal.”

  “Maybe there was one, back in the day?” Jack suggested. “Family business?”

  “My wife’s. Yeah, maybe. Hopper’s Crossing’s as close as we get, I reckon. Doesn’t matter. We like the name. Besides, a creek means the wine’s flowing. ‘Swamp’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.” Jack didn’t laugh. “Sorry. Winemaker’s joke.”

  “What’s the Wade winery called?”

  “Vineyard.”

  “Huh?”

  “The Wades own a vineyard. They only grow grapes, don’t make the wine. Brewed off-site. Blends.” Jack could hear the distaste as if Andrew had just taken a sip of it.

  “What’s their vineyard called then?” Jack realized he didn’t actually know. He’d always just thought of it as the crime scene.

  “Wade Wines.”

  “The exception that proves the rule?” Jack said.

  Andrew pulled off the drive and onto a small square of clipped grass where there were about a dozen cars parked.

  “Nope. Like I said. Landmark, plant”—he switched the engine off—“or animal.”

  They parked, and Jack got out, followed Andrew toward two buildings. A wood-walled homestead, with a tin roof peaking steeply toward the sun. Aztecs could have sacrificed to the gods on that roof, rolled heads down that galvanized pyramid, Jack thought. On the right, toward Birravale itself, there was a less-impressive square building that was half the homestead’s height, with a flat roof. It looked like a shoebox but with windows. Jack could hear the clinking of glasses and the general hum of conversation from within. The restaurant. What made it incredible was how it sat, right on the precipice, where the land began falling steeply away. The best seats in the restaurant were literally hanging over the edge. In the middle of the buildings, the driveway turned in a loop, a circle of flowers in the middle. Farther forward, behind the homestead, the tops of the two silos glinted in the sun. One of which Curtis had split open with his ax.

  “So this is where the tourists are,” he said aloud. Realizing he hadn’t seen many in the town.

  “Well, the Wades are closed,” Andrew said, “obviously.”

  “Business is good for you, then?”

  “It’s okay. Not many weddings. No surprises there.”

  “Impressive structure.” Jack gestured to the restaurant.

  “It’s the original building.” Andrew pointed to the parking lot. “Used to be over there, but we moved it. We wanted the view.”

  “Sounds like a big job.”

  “Worth it to preserve the history. The Wades just knocked theirs down and started again up the hill. That’s why our wine has flavor.” Andrew smiled, then leaned forward conspiratorially. “Tell you what…the previous owner wasn’t too happy about being asked to knock the old one down. The Wades said they were buying the land not the buildings. Well, the old owner, he knocked it down all right, but then he filled the underground with concrete. Ha. Now Curtis can’t grow on it anyway—that bit of land’s useless. The best thing is, Curtis probably hasn’t even figured it out yet.” Andrew’s eyes sparkled with a prank well played. But there was a spite there too.

  Jack had known that the restaurant had been knocked down, the new one built up the hill, and the cellar scuttled to ruin the growth of any vines on top of it. (That last row of grapes, which Jack had always liked to imagine were dying because of Eliza, blooded into the soil, were actually wilting out of revenge.) But he hadn’t known that knocking down the original restaurant was a condition of sale. He was about to ask something, but Andrew was distracted by a small woman hurrying past, too many bottles of wine cradled precariously in her arms.

  “Hold up,” Andrew called.

  The woman turned. She had dyed-blond hair with silver roots, a small, tight mouth with pursed lips, as if pulling every breath through a straw. Her brown eyes reflective, she looked as if she was about to say something. Again, Jack was struck with the feeling of knowing someone he’d never met: Sarah Freeman. Her mouth relaxed; she’d changed her mind, said nothing.

  “What have you got there?” Andrew said as she walked over to them.

  “I thought these would be nice.” She wasn’t able to hand him a bottle, so proffered the spread of them. Andrew picked one up, tossed it from his left to right hand.

  “Andrew, that’s a thousand-dollar bottle of wine,” Sarah said curtly.

  “An important dinner,” Andrew said to Jack. “Collectors.” He turned the wine over in his hand, held it to the light. Looked at the label.

  “Nope,” he said, “I think we want the ones we just got in.”

  “I really don’t think—”

  “Treat them to the new ones.”

  “You don’t have to give them those.”

  “What’s life without a few thrills, love?” Andrew flashed a grin at Jack, who had a sudden realization that Andrew’s brash business confidence was not so different from his own faux producer voice. Andrew and Sarah weren’t having a discussion; Andrew was merely repeating what he wanted until she conceded. “She thinks they’re too expensive. But there’s nothing better than seeing a man with money actually pumping through his veins.” Then, back to Sarah: “These are valuable men. Start them off with one of these, sure. But then let’s give them what they’ve paid for.”

  Sarah nodded as Andrew slotted the bottle back in her arms.

  “Jack Quick, by the way,” Jack said, gesturing to her load. “I’d shake your hand, otherwise.”

  “I know who you are,” Sarah said, and turned back to the restaurant. Jack had an image of her tripping, on her knees in a $6,000
puddle. He thought about Andrew tossing the bottle back and forth and didn’t think he’d care.

  “Right, that’ll be fun,” said Andrew. He turned. The point of his boot crunched the gravel with his pivot, as if he was grinding out a cigarette. “Come.”

  He led Jack through the gap between the buildings, and the silos came fully into view, towering more than ten meters high. Steel ladders ran up the sides of both. The closest had a gray metal sheet riveted to it at torso height—a repair job. Jack imagined Curtis up there, swinging from the hip. Red wine spurting back at him.

  Andrew walked past the silos, fumbled a key from his pocket, and stooped over. Jack thought he was fiddling with the ground, but as he got closer, he could see that Andrew had unlocked a set of butterfly doors inlaid forty-five degrees into the sheer hillside, homestead to the left, shrubbery invading the hill behind. Andrew yanked the doors open and beckoned to Jack to follow him in.

  The light thinned as Jack descended a flight of creaking stairs. The smell was musty, earthy, more like a spice rack than a cellar. There was the same tang in the air as in Andrew’s car. He heard a click and a series of fluorescents stammered into life, illuminating a huge underground cellar. Stone arches divided the room, holding up the roof, which was low but not low enough to have to stoop. The walls were brick—cladded in clay or dirt, Jack couldn’t tell. The floor began as polished concrete but turned to rock and dirt farther back. It wasn’t sloped; it had been built into the hill. The Freemans weren’t afraid of a challenge, Jack realized. They wanted a cellar built into a mountainside, a restaurant literally suspended over a valley, and that was what they got. Andrew was excited by people with money pumping through their veins. And beneath them, Curtis Wade wouldn’t replace his broken couch. Jack could see why they hadn’t gotten along.

  Jack stood at the base of the stairs, taking it all in. The arches that led to further chambers splitting off to the left and right. The series of safe-like steel doors. The oak barrels that lined each wall, stacked three high, hundreds of them. Some of the barrels on the bottom rows were two-toned in color, a redness bisecting the light-chestnut-colored oak. Of course, Jack remembered. This room would have flooded too. Curtis’s couch. Mary-Anne’s skirting. Andrew’s cellar. Everywhere he went, Jack kept being reminded the town was tainted. Stained.