by French, Tana
Him watching me, amused, the way he used to seven years back, big dog watching feisty puppy. Seven years is a long time.
“I know it’s nothing to do with our case, but it’s going to keep at me. So I’m asking.”
Mackey said, “Out of curiosity. Man to man.”
“Yeah.”
“Bollix. You’re asking detective to suspect’s father.”
Unblinking, daring me to deny it: God, no, she’s not a suspect . . . I said, “I’m asking.”
Mackey examined me. Did some kind of maths behind his eyes.
He found his smokes again. Flipped one into the side of his mouth.
“Let me ask you this,” he said, through it. Cupped his hand around the flame. “Just offhand, how much time would you guess Holly spends with my side of the family?”
“Not a lot.”
“Good guess. She sees one of my sisters a couple of times a year. On Olivia’s side there’s a pair of Christmastime cousins, and there’s Olivia’s ma, who buys Holly designer shite and takes her to poncy restaurants. And, since Olivia and I were split up or splitting for most of the relevant time-frame, Holly’s an only child.”
He leaned back in the doorway, flicked the lighter and watched the flame. He was smoking this one differently, taking his time on every drag.
“You were right about how we picked St. Kilda’s—well done there: Olivia’s alma mater. And you were right about me not being into the boarding idea. Holly asked at the beginning of second year, I said over my dead body. She kept begging, I kept saying hell no, but in the end I asked why she wanted it so badly. Holly said it was because of her mates—Becca and Selena were boarding already, Julia was running the same campaign on her folks. The four of them wanted to be together.”
Flipped the lighter spinning into the air, caught it.
“She’s smart, my girl Holly. The next few months, any day she had one of her mates over, she was a holy angel: helping around the house, doing her homework, never a complaint about anything, happy happy joy joy. When she wasn’t having a mate round, she was a raging pain in the hole. Trailing round the house like something out of an Italian opera, giving us these accusing lip-trembly stares; ask her to do anything and she’d burst into tears and fling herself into her room—don’t get overexcited there, Detective, they all throw drama fits, it’s not a sign of juvenile delinquency. But after a while, Liv and me were dreading the days it was just the three of us. Holly had us trained like a pair of German shepherds.”
“Stubborn,” I said. “Must get it from your wife.”
Wry sideways look. “Stubborn would’ve got her nowhere. If it was just that, I would’ve kept taking the piss out of her till she dropped the act; would’ve been a pleasure. But one evening Holly’s throwing a full-on teen-queen strop—I can’t even remember why, I think we’d said she couldn’t go over to Julia’s—and she yells, ‘They’re the only people I trust to be there no matter what. They’re like my sisters! Because of you guys, they’re the only sisters I’m ever going to have! And you’re keeping me away from them!’ And off she ran upstairs, to slam her door and sob into her pillow about how unfair it all was.”
Another long drag on his ciggie. He tilted his head back, watched the stream of smoke spiral out between his teeth, up into the soft air.
“But the thing was, the kid had a point. It’s a bitch when that happens. Family’s important. And Liv and I haven’t exactly done a bang-up job of providing Holly with one of those. If she’s doing a better job of making her own, who am I to stand in her way?”
Fuck me. I would’ve bet a few pints that Frank Mackey only knew the meaning of guilt from the outside: something that came in useful for arm-twisting other people. Holly had him twisted into a reef knot.
I said, “So you decided to let her go for it.”
“So we decided she could try boarding during the week for one term, see how she got on. Now we’d have to hire a tow truck to drag her away. I don’t like it on principle, and I miss the little madam like hell, but like you said: when it’s your kid at stake, everything else goes out the window.”
Mackey slid his lighter back in his jeans pocket. “And there you go. A heart-to-heart with Uncle Frankie. Wasn’t that fun?”
It was true. Maybe the whole truth, maybe not, but true.
“Does that answer all your questions?”
I said, “One left. I don’t get why you’d tell me all that.”
“I’m establishing interdepartmental cooperation, Detective. Showing the love, in a professional kind of way.” Mackey flicked his smoke onto the ground, crushed it out in one heel-twist. “After all,” he said over his shoulder with a great big grin, as he pushed the door open, “we’re working together.”
Holly was sitting where we’d left her; Conway was at the window, hands in her pockets, looking down at the gardens. They hadn’t been talking. The air in the room, the fast turn from both of them when we came in, said they’d been listening hard to each other instead.
Mackey shifted his spot, keep us on our toes: sat on a table behind Holly, found himself a stray chunk of modeling clay to play with. I pulled Selena’s phone towards me. Turned the evidence bag in circles on the table, between my fingertips.
“So,” I said. “Let’s go back to this phone. You say you found it on the foyer floor, the morning after Chris died. Let’s stick with that for now. You’d seen Selena’s secret phone; you knew what it looked like. You had to know this was it.”
Holly shook her head. “I thought it was Alison’s. Selena kept hers down the side of her bed; how would it get to the foyer?”
“You didn’t even ask her?”
“No way. Like I told you, I didn’t want to get into that with her. If I even thought about it—and I don’t remember if I did—I would’ve figured, if it was somehow Selena’s phone, then she’d rather go get it out of the lost-and-found than have to talk about how I knew it was hers and all that crap.”
Smooth as butter. No one, not even Frank Mackey’s kid, comes up with that kind of good stuff off the top of her head. Holly had been thinking this through, stuck in that common room with wild things zapping the air. Methodically going through everything we could know, working out her answers.
Some innocent people would do that. Not a lot.
“Makes sense,” I said. Behind Holly, Mackey had flattened the clay into a disk, was trying to spin it on his finger. “Here’s the thing, but. The way our witness tells the story, you didn’t find the phone in the foyer. You had it tucked down your waistband, wrapped in a tissue.”
Holly’s eyebrows pulling together, baffled. “No I didn’t. I mean, I might’ve had a tissue in my hand, everyone was crying—”
“You didn’t like Chris. And you’re not the type to fake a crying fit for someone you didn’t like.”
“I never said I was crying. I wasn’t. I’m saying I might have been giving someone else a tissue, I don’t remember. But I do know the phone was on the floor.”
I said, “I think you took Selena’s phone out from behind her bed and found a good way to ditch it. The lost-and-found bin, that was smart. It worked well. It almost worked for good.”
Holly’s mouth opened, but I held up my hand. “Hang on a sec. Let me finish first, before you tell me if I’m right or wrong. You knew there was a chance we’d search the school. You knew if we found the phone, we’d be talking to Selena. You knew what police questioning is like; let’s face it, there’s better ways to spend your day. You didn’t want Selena put through that, not when she was already traumatized about Chris’s death. So you binned the phone. Does that sound about right?”
It was an out: an innocent reason why she would have wanted the phone gone. Never take the out. It looks safe as houses. It takes you a step closer to where we want you.
Mackey said, without glancing up from his new toy, “You don’t
have to answer that.”
I said, “No reason why you shouldn’t. You think we’re going to press charges against a minor for concealing something that might not even be evidence? We’ve got a lot more on our minds. Your da can tell you himself, Holly: if you’re after something big, you’re happy to let the small stuff slide. This is small stuff. But we need to clear it up.”
Holly watched me, not her dad. Thought, or I thought she did, about that moment when she had seen me understand.
She said, “Selena didn’t kill Chris. No way. I never worried that she did, not even for a second. She doesn’t work like that.” Straight-backed, straight-eyed, trying to shove it into my head. “I know you’re thinking Yeah, right. But I’m not just being naïve. I know with most people you don’t have a clue what they’re capable of. I know that.”
Mackey’s piece of clay had gone still. It was true: Holly did know that.
“But with Selena I do. She wouldn’t have hurt Chris. Ever. I swear to God, it’s totally impossible.”
I said, “Probably you’d have sworn to God that she wouldn’t go out with Chris, either.”
Twitch of impatience, I was losing cred again. “Like that’s the same thing? Come on. Anyway, I don’t expect you to just take my word about what kind of person she is. She actually physically couldn’t have done it. Like I told you, sometimes I can’t sleep. The night Chris died, I was having trouble sleeping. If Selena had gone out, I would’ve known.”
It was a lie, but I left it. I said, “So you ditched the phone.”
Not a blush on Holly, while she dumped the story she’d told me, all sincerity, about five minutes earlier; not a blink. Daddy’s girl. “Yeah. So? If you knew that your friend was about to get in trouble for something she definitely hadn’t even done, you mean you wouldn’t try and get her out of it?”
I said, “I would, yeah. It’s only natural.”
“Exactly. Anybody would, who has any kind of loyalty. So yeah, I did.”
I said, “Thanks. That clears that up. Except for one thing. When did you get the phone out of your room?”
Holly’s face went still. “What?”
“The only thing that’s confusing me. Chris’s body was found at what time?”
“Little after seven-thirty a.m.,” Conway said. Quietly, staying invisible. I was doing all right.
“And the assembly was when?”
Holly shrugged. “I don’t remember. Before lunch. Noon?”
I said, “Did you have morning classes? Or did you get sent back to your rooms?”
“Classes. Well. Sort of. No one was paying any attention, even the teachers, but we still had to sit in the classrooms and act like we cared.”
“So maybe you started hearing rumors around breakfast,” I said. “At that stage it would’ve been just general stuff, police on the grounds; probably everyone thought it was about the groundskeeper who was dealing. Maybe a bit later, if someone saw the morgue van arriving and knew what it was, there might’ve been some talk about a dead person, but there’s no way yous could’ve known who it was. When was Chris ID’d?”
“Eight-thirtyish,” Conway said. “McKenna thought he looked familiar, rang up Colm’s to see if they were missing anyone.”
I balanced the evidence bag on one end, caught it when it fell. “So by noon, Chris’s immediate family would’ve been notified, but we wouldn’t have released his name to the media, not till the family got the chance to tell everyone who needed to know. You couldn’t have heard it on the radio. The assembly had to be the first time you heard what had happened, and who the victim was.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So how did you know this phone could get Selena in trouble, in time to go get it before the assembly?”
Holly didn’t miss a beat. “We were all watching out the windows, every chance we got—the teachers kept telling us not to, but yeah, right. We saw uniforms and Technical Bureau guys, so I knew there’d been a crime, and then we saw Father Niall from Colm’s—he’s like eight feet tall and he looks like Voldemort and he wears the robe, so it’s not like you could get him mixed up for anyone else. So obviously something had to have happened to a Colm’s boy. And Chris was the only one who I knew had been wandering around the grounds at night. So I guessed it had to be him.”
Little cock of her eyebrow to me, as she finished up. Like a middle finger.
I said, “But you thought he and Selena had broken up. And you say you knew she hadn’t been out that night, so it’s not like you thought they’d got back together. What would Chris have been doing at Kilda’s?”
“He could’ve got together with someone else. He wasn’t exactly the deep type who’d spend months pining away for his lost true love. Him and Selena had been broken up for at least ten minutes; I’d’ve been amazed if he hadn’t found someone else. And, like I said, he was the only one who I knew could get out of Colm’s. I wasn’t going to wait around till we found out for sure. I said I needed something from our room, I don’t even remember what, and I got the phone.”
“What did you figure would happen when Selena noticed it was gone? Specially if it turned out you were wrong, and Chris wasn’t dead after all?”
Holly shrugged. “I figured I’d deal with that if it happened.”
“At that point, you were just focusing on protecting your mate.”
“Yeah.”
I said, “How far would you go to protect your mates?”
Mackey moved. He said, “That’s gibberish. She can’t answer a question unless it means something.”
Conway said, not invisible any more, “We’re interviewing her. Not you.”
“You’re getting two for the price of one. You don’t like it, tough shit. No one’s under arrest; piss either of us off, and we’ll walk.”
“Dad,” Holly said. “I’m OK.”
“I know you are. That’s why we’re still here. Detective Moran, if you’ve got a specific question in there, ask it. If all you’ve got is the tag line for some teenybopper summer film, let’s move on.”
I said, “Specifically, Holly: Selena didn’t tell the rest of yous that she was seeing Chris. Why do you think that was?”
Holly said coolly, “Because we didn’t like him. I mean, Becca would’ve probably been fine with it—she thought Chris was OK; like I said, she’s innocent. But Julia and I would’ve been like, ‘Are you serious? He’s an enormous tool, he thinks he’s this big playa, he’s probably three-timing you, what is wrong with you?’ Selena doesn’t like arguments—specially not with Julia, because Julia never ever backs down. I can totally see where Lenie would’ve been like, ‘Oh, I’ll tell them in a while, when I’m sure it’s going somewhere, meanwhile I’ll just try and get them to see he might not be a total prick after all, it’ll all turn out fine in the end . . .’ She’d still be doing that now, if they hadn’t broken up. And if he hadn’t died, obviously.”
Something off there, just a notch. I wasn’t one of Selena’s best mates, what did I know, but all the same: the flinch, when she remembered leaving her best mates behind, sleeping and lied-to. That had hurt. She didn’t seem like the type to do it for half a reason. Weather the argument and wait, gazing peacefully, let Julia storm herself out and Holly roll her eyes. Not squirm away, slice the others out of that crucial piece of her, just because they didn’t fancy hers much.
Why lie about that?
I said, “So you figure she didn’t tell you because she knew you’d want to protect her.”
“If that’s how you want to say it. Whatever.”
Mackey, still pinching that clay about, still lounging, but watching me now, eyes hooded. I said, “But she was wrong. When you actually found out, you didn’t feel any need to protect her after all, no?”
Holly shrugged. “From what? They were over. Happy ending.”
“Happy ending,” I said. “Only
then Chris died. And you still didn’t tell Selena you knew. Why not? You had to figure she was devastated. You didn’t think she could use a bit of protecting then? A shoulder to cry on, maybe?”
Holly threw herself back in the chair, fists clenching, so sudden I jumped. “OhmyGod, I didn’t know what she needed! I thought maybe she just wanted to be left alone, I thought if I said anything she’d be raging with me, I thought about it all the time and I couldn’t work out what to do for her. Because I’m crap or whatever you’re trying to say, yeah, you’re right. OK? Just leave me alone.”
I saw the little kid I remembered, furious with bafflement, red-faced and table-kicking. Behind her, Mackey’s eyes closed for a second: she hadn’t come to him. Then opened again. Stayed on me.
I said, “Your friendships: those mean a lot to you. Keeping them strong means a lot. Amn’t I right?”
“Duh. So?”
“So that little prick Chris was after wrecking them. The four of you weren’t acting like friends—Jesus, Holly, no you weren’t. Selena’s in love and doesn’t even tell the rest of you. You’re spying on her, but you don’t mention that to the other two. Selena gets dumped flat on her arse, her first love gets killed, and you don’t even give the poor girl a hug. Is that how you think friends act? Seriously?”
Good cop, Conway had said. In the corner of my eye I could see her leaning back in her chair, fake-easy, ready.
Holly snapped, “Me and my friends are none of your business. You don’t have a clue about us.”
“I know they’re the most important things you’ve got. You burst your bollix getting your da and ma to let you board here, because of the three of them. You hung your whole life on your friends.” My voice shoving at her, harder and harder. I couldn’t tell why: prove to Conway I wasn’t the Mackeys’ bitch, prove it to the Mackeys, get back at Holly for thinking she could waltz in with her postcard and fold me into origami, get back at her for being right— “And then Chris came on the scene, and the four of yous went to pieces. Split apart, went to crumbs, easy as that—”