Grain of Truth

by V. J. Chambers

  “But you did talk to him.”

  Iain was quiet.

  “Hudson?”

  “Yes,” he said softly.

  “Then it’s not his fault. It’s yours,” said Elke.

  He was quiet.

  “Isn’t it?” Her voice had lowered too.

  “Yes,” he breathed.

  “Never talk to the press again,” said Elke. “Never.”

  He looked at his shoes. He wanted to run again. It was taking all of his power to stay in one spot and take this.

  “Go,” she said. She turned to Frankie. “Both of you. I need to be alone.”

  * * *

  Elke stayed in the conference room, sitting at the table, still shaking.

  Maybe she’d been too hard on Iain. After all, he wasn’t good at talking to people in the first place. If some reporter had tried to manipulate him, he might not have been able to protect himself from that. But screw that. Iain was a grownup. He knew better.

  Still, she shouldn’t have lit into him like that. It wasn’t the way she wanted to conduct her unit. She didn’t want to be that kind of boss.

  Andrews had been out of line, that was what had started this. And the things he’d said about Felix had stung.

  He hired her as a favor? Really?

  She shook her head. Had Bernadette wanted her out of her hair so badly she’d felt she needed to call in a favor to get rid of her? God, how mortifying. She drew in several deep breaths.

  Her phone made a notification noise.

  She told herself to ignore it. Honestly, she kept meaning to go through all those apps and change the settings so that she wasn’t constantly getting interrupted by something or other. But she never got around to it, so whenever she heard that notification noise, she grabbed the phone and looked.

  And truthfully, at this moment, she was glad of the distraction.

  She whipped out her phone.

  It was an email. She didn’t recognize the sender. She touched the notification and her email app opened.

  The message was from afriend@lmail.com. It read, You already got the murderers locked up. Leave well enough alone with the Mukherjee case. Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.

  Oh, great. Just great. So, this article runs in the paper and now random crazies felt the need to weigh in on what she did?

  She deleted the message.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Amos picked up the phone. “CRU, Amos Bradley speaking. Can I help you?”

  “Hi there, Amos, this is Karen over at the lab,” said a woman’s voice. “You sent us some samples from the Mukherjee case to test?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Amos. “We did. Is there a problem?”

  “Well, not exactly, but we’re just a little confused. Are you sure that you didn’t mean to send us some different samples?”

  “As far as I understand, those are the only samples associated with the case.”

  “I mean, samples from a different case.”

  Amos was taken aback. “No, that’s the case we’re investigating. Did you see the paper this morning?”

  “No, I haven’t seen the paper. What’s in the paper?”

  “Never mind,” said Amos. “Point is, we’re investigating the Mukherjee case.”

  “But that doesn’t seem like the kind of case your team should be investigating,” said Karen. “It’s a sound case. It doesn’t need review. The right people are in jail. There’s no doubt of that.”

  “Obviously there is doubt,” said Amos. He was beginning to feel a little unsure of how to handle this. When it came down to it, he hadn’t been consulted in the selection of the case, but from what he understood, there were solid reasons why the Mukherjee case needed review. He wasn’t sure if this Karen person was calling to be an ass or if she truly was curious. “Listen, maybe you want to talk to my boss? She maybe can talk about her process for choosing this case.”

  “No, no, that’s fine. You can pass my message on to her, though.”

  “You’re going to test the samples, aren’t you?”

  “Sure, sure. We’ll test them. But it’s a damned waste of taxpayer money, if you ask me.”

  No one did, Amos thought to himself. “Thanks for your help,” he said. He hung up. He got up from his desk and went looking for Elke, who was still in the conference room, looking down at her phone with her eyebrows furrowed.

  He hesitated in the doorway and then rapped on the door lightly.

  She looked up. “Oh, it’s you, Amos.”

  “Sorry to bother you. I know things are tense in here this morning.”

  She sighed. “Things are fine. We’re moving forward. What can I do for you?”

  “I just got an asinine call from the lab,” he said.

  “What? Is everything all right with the samples?”

  “Someone named Karen wanted to make sure that we really wanted those samples tested and that we hadn’t sent them by mistake. She thinks we should be investigating a different case.”

  Elke pressed her lips together and looked back at her phone.

  “She said she’d test the samples, but that it was a waste of taxpayer money.”

  Elke looked up at him. “I wonder if Karen’s been sending me emails too.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, I got a note from someone telling me to keep my nose out of the Mukherjee case,” said Elke.

  “Man,” said Amos, folding his arms over his chest. “Who knew this case was so controversial?”

  “All the more reason to keep digging,” said Elke, squaring her shoulders.

  * * *

  Elke shook hands with the woman who’d shown her the apartment. “I’ll let you know, but I do like it a lot.”

  “Sure thing,” said the woman.

  They were standing at the elevators, chatting after the tour. The apartment was in a building close enough to her new office to walk. It had a nice open floor plan, the kitchen dining room opening out onto the living room. There was a big master bedroom with a walk-in closet and its own bathroom. The bathroom had a big soaking tub. There was another bathroom, too, and a second bedroom. Elke thought she could use the other room as an office or maybe for exercise equipment.

  “Well, I’ll wait to hear from you then,” said the woman. “I’ll just head back to make sure everything’s locked up?”

  “All right,” said Elke.

  The woman left, and Elke faced the elevator alone.

  The elevator stopped and the door opened. Elke climbed inside. There was a man in there with a garbage bag. It was Iain.

  “Lawrence,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  The elevator doors closed.

  “Hudson,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Taking out the garbage,” he said, gesturing to his trash bag.

  “You live here?”

  “I do,” he said.

  “Well, I’m looking at an apartment here,” she said.

  “Oh,” he said. “We’d be neighbors.”

  “Yeah,” she said. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. She might want some space between her work life and her private life. Of course, she didn’t think Iain was the type to come over and to say hi.

  She really did like the apartment. She cocked her head at him. “Do you like it here?”

  “Sure,” he said. He looked down at his feet. He seemed even more closed-off than usual.

  Then she remembered that the last time she’d talked to him, she’d bitten his head off. She cleared her throat. “Look, about earlier. About the journalist and the story and everything—”

  “We don’t have to talk about that,” he said briskly.

  “I’m sorry if I came off too strongly.”

  “Really, it’s fine,” he said.

  “I think you’re doing great work. I’m happy to have you on the team. I think you’re an asset to the unit.”

  It was quiet.

  He shifted on his feet. “Thank you,”
he murmured.

  And then she didn’t know what to say.

  They rode to the bottom floor together in silence.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Iain wasn’t sure what he thought about the prospect of Elke living in the apartment building. He supposed it would be fine, unless Elke was the type who’d knock on his door and bring by beer or something and want to come in and hang out. He hated that. He always felt awkward. If people showed up at your door, it seemed as though you had to invite them in. Was there a polite way of getting rid of impromptu visitors? He didn’t know what it was.

  But he thought it was unlikely that she’d do that. After all, she was the boss, and she’d want to make sure there was a line between herself and the others. It would probably be fine.

  When he got back upstairs, he got some ground beef out of the refrigerator and made himself a hamburger, which he fried up on his stove. He buttered a bun and fried it up afterward. He put on mayonnaise and pickles and made a mound of greens next to it on the plate, which he drenched in ranch.

  Dinner.

  After that, he poured over the case files for a while, looking for anything he’d missed. When the words started to swim in front of him, he gave up and watched some TV.

  Around 9:00, his phone rang.

  It was Harley.

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t have time to deal with Harley tonight. If she’d already gotten herself arrested this early in the evening, he couldn’t help her out.

  His phone beeped a moment later. Voicemail.

  Don’t listen to it, he told himself.

  He listened to it.

  “Hey, Iain,” said Harley’s voice. She sounded as though she was crying. “I need you. Can you come to my place, please?”

  He sighed. She needed him, huh? Sure. She always needed him.

  Let her take care of herself for once. He turned his attention back to the television.

  People on the screen talked and laughed and moved around.

  He couldn’t focus. What did she mean she needed him? What if something actually bad was happening to her?

  No, he couldn’t let himself think that. Because if something actually bad were happening, then Harley wouldn’t have simply left a voicemail. She would have kept calling until he picked up. In a real emergency, she would have been desperate. So there was no reason to—

  His phone was ringing again.

  Damn it, it was Harley.

  He picked up. “What?”

  She sniffled. “Did you get my voicemail?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just come to my house, okay? Please?”

  “You got it cleaned this time, or will I have to steer clear of the upstairs again?”

  “Iain, I mean it. I need you.”

  He sighed. “Fine. I’ll be right there.” He hung up.

  He took the elevator downstairs to his car and drove to Harley’s house. His car was cold inside and it took a while for the heat to start working. His headlights barely seemed to cut through the darkness.

  Harley lived outside of town in the suburbs. Her house had belonged to her mother, who’d died of cancer when Harley was only twenty. Harley had the house free and clear, which was a good thing, because she could never have kept up with a mortgage. The house was at the end of a cul-de-sac and the yard was surrounded by trees, so it felt isolated out there. Even so, the neighbors were fairly close.

  It was a miracle that no one had called the police when Dale got shot.

  Iain really hoped he wasn’t walking in on some kind of situation like that again. If that was the kind of help she needed, she could damn well get it from someone else. He was done with that.

  Iain pulled into Harley’s driveway and noticed that the garage was open and an unfamiliar pickup truck was parked inside.

  What was that all about? It wasn’t looking good thus far.

  Harley was on the porch, smoking a cigarette. Her eye makeup was smudged, making her look like a raccoon. “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  He climbed up the steps to meet her. “What’s this all about?”

  She shook her head, sucking hard on the cigarette.

  “Harley?” he said. “I’m here. If you want my help, you’re going to need to tell me—”

  “Who’s out there?” called a voice from inside the house. A male voice.

  “Shut up!” Harley called over her shoulder, her voice full of fury. “You just shut your mouth, Otis.”

  Otis? Really? There were people who actually had that name? Iain was getting a pretty clear picture of what this was. And he wasn’t the least bit pleased. Sometime, just once, he’d like Harley to pretend that she thought he might actually get jealous or angry. Because, hell, he didn’t lay a claim on her or anything, but the thought of her with some other man, especially one named Otis… He grimaced. “Can I have a cigarette?”

  She dug out her pack and handed it over.

  He popped one out. “This isn’t cool, Harley. I don’t want to be in the middle of whatever—”

  “He won’t leave.” She handed him her lighter.

  He lit his cigarette. “Did you ask him to come here?”

  “That’s irrelevant,” she said. “Did you bring your gun? You can scare him.”

  He sucked on the cigarette, smoke invading his lungs. He had stopped smoking in college. (Just up and stopped. One day, he’d decided he didn’t want to do it, and then he hadn’t after that. He’d expected it to be hard, but it really wasn’t. It was all about making up your mind, at least that was what he thought.) Now and again, he’d bum a cigarette, but they always tasted kind of gross now. “I’m not threatening your one night stand with a gun.”

  “That’s not what he is.”

  “Oh, okay,” said Iain, ashing over the porch railing. “I see. I guess you asked him over for a rousing game of Monopoly.”

  “Just… I want him out.”

  Iain sucked in another lungful of smoke and then stubbed the barely-smoked cigarette out. It tasted disgusting. He pushed past Harley and went into the house.

  The sound of the television wafted out from the living room, so that was where Iain headed.

  He found Otis sitting on the couch. He wasn’t wearing shoes and his white-socked feet were propped up on the coffee table. He was watching basketball. When he saw Iain, he set down his feet and sat up straight. “Who the hell are you?”

  Iain gazed at him blandly. “Harley wants you to leave.”

  Otis smirked. “Yeah, we got in a fight. But that happens. I ain’t going anywhere.”

  Iain smiled tightly. “I think you are. This is Harley’s house. If she wants you out, you need to respect her wishes.” Fight? Fight implied something longterm. Was Harley bringing this guy back here on a regular basis? Iain got a brief, but pleasant, flash of wrapping his hands around Otis’s neck.

  Otis picked up a can of beer off the coffee table and took a slug. “Respect her wishes, my ass. Who the hell are you?”

  “He’s a cop,” came Harley’s voice from behind Iain.

  Iain shot her an annoyed look and then he turned back to Otis. “I’m not here in any official capacity.”

  “The hell you saying that for?” demanded Harley.

  Iain gritted his teeth. “You want the police to get an intruder out of your house, you call 911. I’m here as your…” He fumbled for a word. “Friend. That’s all.”

  Otis looked him over. “You’re Harley’s friend, huh?”

  Iain’s jaw twitched. “Something like that. You need to leave.”

  Otis stood up. “You the one who brought her home the other night? Tucked her in on the couch like that?”

  Iain narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about that?” Like Otis had seen Harley on the couch. Like he’d been here.

  Otis turned to Harley. “You’re a fucking whore, aren’t you?”

  “Hey,” said Iain. “Calling her names is probably not your best play here.”

  Otis turned back to him
. “Well, I’m not wrong. That’s all she is.” He turned back and sat down. He shoved his feet into a pair of boots and began tightening the laces. “You want me gone, fine. I’ll go.”

  “I think that would be a good idea for everyone,” said Iain.

  “Shut up.” Otis tied his shoes and got to his feet again. He glared at Iain. Then he turned to Harley. “Not in our bed, you whore.”

  Our bed? Iain shot Harley a confused look.

  Otis’s nostrils flared. “I can’t believe you just bring him here. Right in front of my face.” He shook his head. His voice lowered. “How could you?”

  “Just go, Otis,” said Harley. “Just go.”

  Iain folded his arms over his chest. Oh, this was starting to make sense. Yeah, the pieces were coming together just fine.

  Otis pointed at Harley. “This isn’t over. I’m not giving up on this without a fight. You’re mine, Harley, and don’t you forget it.” He stomped out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

  Then Iain heard the engine of the pickup truck starting, and the vehicle screeched out of the driveway and into the night.

  Harley collapsed on the couch. “Oh, thank God,” she sighed.

  Iain walked out of the living room. He started up the stairs.

  “What are you doing?” Harley called after him.

  “He’s why you didn’t want me to go upstairs,” said Iain, still climbing. “It wasn’t because of the mess at all.” At the top of the stairs, there were two bedrooms and a bathroom. Iain could see inside the bathroom and saw men’s shaving cream sitting on the sink. “He was here that night.” He stalked into the bedroom and yanked open the closet. There were rows and rows of men’s jeans and flannel shirts.

  “Jesus, Iain,” said Harley.

  He turned.

  She was in the doorway to the bedroom.

  “He lives here,” said Iain.

  “Not anymore,” she said. “I just kicked him out. With your help. Thank you very much.”

  Iain dragged a hand over his face. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I don’t know. All kinds of things.” She glared at him. “But you know that already. We know that about each other. Both of us are pretty screwed up.”