False Friend

by Andrew Grant

  Nelson picked up his menu, then threw it straight down again and turned to face Garretty. “Look. Three menus. You knew I was coming. So why did you have to follow me? Where were you? Waiting outside my house? What if someone had seen you? Those stupid-looking cars you drive stand out a mile. What are you trying to do to me?”

  “We didn’t know you’d come here. We hoped you would. But if you’re pissed, blame him.” Garretty nodded toward Devereaux. “This was all his idea.”

  “Where else did you think I’d go?” Nelson pushed the menu away.

  “Who knows?” Devereaux shrugged. “Maybe here. Maybe to an antiques store in Wenonah…”

  Nelson didn’t respond.

  “Your wife didn’t know anything about the fire, did she?” Garretty leaned in closer.

  Nelson shook his head.

  “OK.” Devereaux pushed his empty plate away. “Here’s the deal. You need to come clean. We may have a serious crime on our hands, and we can’t afford to waste any time. So if you stop dicking us around and tell us what you know, we’ll do our best to keep your personal business out of the paperwork. But make us run around and dig it up another way, we’ll let the chips land wherever they fall.”

  Nelson took a long sip of tea then sagged against the back of the bench, his head leaning on the whitewashed wall behind it and his eyes focused on the tiled ceiling above. “Well, like you’ve obviously guessed, the woman who sells the antiques isn’t just my advisor. My wife doesn’t know anything about it. She thought I was running errands this morning. Innocent stuff. But you know how it goes. Time got away from me. I realized I was running late, didn’t want to look suspicious, and was hurrying back when I saw the fire at the school. What could I do? I didn’t have time to stop, but I couldn’t not report it. What if someone had been trapped inside? So I kept going, and called 911 from the car.”

  Neither detective said a word.

  “OK, OK.” Nelson squirmed in his seat. “I admit it. I don’t have hands-free. I was holding the phone while I drove. I’m sorry!”

  “It’s good that you told us these things.” Devereaux waited for Nelson to look at him. “We’re not here to judge your personal life. And we don’t care about the phone. But there’s something else you’re holding back. Don’t deny it. I could feel it at your house. I can feel it now.”

  Nelson bent forward until his forehead was touching the table, then straightened up halfway. “All right. Yes. There’s one more thing. I think there might have been someone else there, near the school, when the fire started.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.” Nelson took out his phone, opened a photograph, and slid it across the table. “But, here. Look.”

  Devereaux looked at the blurry image on the screen, then passed the phone to Garretty. The building in the picture was completely unfamiliar to him—the school he’d attended on the site had been demolished and replaced in 2011—but the new structure wasn’t what caught his eye. Nor was the smoke pouring out of it. It was the figure standing on the steps of the modern brick and concrete church on the opposite side of the street to the school.

  “I can’t see his face.” Garretty had latched onto the same thing, and was using his fingers on the phone’s screen to enlarge the image. “Or his hair. His hood’s in the way. But it’s probably a male. Probably an adult. We need to look into this. Jeff, I need you to email a copy of this picture to me and Detective Devereaux right away.”

  “No problem.” Nelson took the phone and sent the email. “Am I in trouble now?”

  “Why didn’t you tell us about the photo right away?” Devereaux checked his phone to make sure the complete message had come through.

  Nelson covered his face with his hands for a moment. “I was going to. That’s why I took it in the first place. I thought it would help. Then I thought, if I give this to anyone there’ll be a record of where I was, and when. What if my wife heard about it? How would I explain it? So I was wavering, and then I saw how bad the picture had come out. I figured someone might ask why, and I’d have to admit I’d taken it while I was driving. Then they might have asked why I hadn’t stopped to take a better one, and I’d have had to get into the whole thing of where I’d been and why I was hurrying, which I didn’t want to do. I didn’t realize the other guy was there till I saw him in the picture when I got home. And then I convinced myself it wouldn’t matter, because he must have gotten a much better view than me and had probably come forward as a witness. He did come forward, right?”

  Devereaux shrugged his shoulders. “That’s one of the things we’re going to check. Now go home. And stop running around behind your wife’s back. We’ll be in touch if we need you.”

  —

  The detectives walked out of the diner together and paused at the side of Devereaux’s car, blinking in the bright sunshine.

  “Want me to call the lieutenant?” Garretty checked his watch. “Bring her up to speed?”

  “No.” Devereaux took out his keys. “I’ll do it. You’ve got a date tonight, right?”

  “Right. At the Red Pearl. With Joanne.”

  “How’s that going?”

  “Good, knock on wood. Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t I call the restaurant? Make it a table for four. You and Alexandra could join us. Make it a double date. What do you say? Might help get you out of the doghouse for ditching her at the theater.”

  “Who says I’m in the doghouse?”

  “Cooper. Come on. Alexandra was planning this trip for how long? And you walked out halfway through. Who do you think you’re kidding?”

  “It wasn’t my fault I had to leave. It was work.”

  “And you think that matters? Seriously, Cooper. You should come.”

  “Thanks, Tommy. It’s a nice thought. And I’d like to. But we’d need a sitter for Nicole. There’s only one girl Alex trusts, and she always seems to be booked up these days. So, no. I’ll head home. I’ll make it up to her some other way. You enjoy your date. Try the crispy shrimp, if you haven’t had it before. It’s sublime.”

  “I will. But listen to me, Cooper. You’ve got to face the music. Get it over with. Girlfriends’ tempers aren’t like wine. They don’t improve with time. Trust me on this.”

  Chapter Seven

  Saturday. Evening.

  Home at last! Home at last! The words echoed inside Diane McKinzie’s head as if she were being tormented by a shrieking sideshow clown with a lung full of helium.

  At last? Sure. If she was a shift worker, and didn’t start until lunchtime. But as it was? The sun had been down for over an hour. So much for getting home early…

  Diane gently slid her key into the lock. She held her breath then pushed the door, making sure to stop before it reached the point where the hinges squeaked. She cursed herself for the millionth time for not having oiled them. Slipped through the narrow gap into her hallway. Eased the door closed, welcoming the dark as it enveloped her. Started toward the foot of the staircase, ears straining for the slightest sound. And tripped on something.

  It was one of her son Daniel’s giant, gross sneakers. She made a mental note to speak to him about not putting them away properly—again—in the morning. Maybe. But for now she just had to concentrate on getting upstairs, to her room. Silence was critical. She took another step toward the staircase, knowing which floorboards were likely to creak and avoiding them by muscle memory. She slid her feet smoothly across the polished wood. Figured she’d made it a third of the way. Took another step. And—

  “Um, hello!” The voice boomed out in the darkness. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Daniel?” Diane’s heart rate skyrocketed. “Sweetheart? Where are you?”

  There was no reply.

  “Sweetheart?” Diane was working hard to keep her breathing under control. “I’m sorry I’m so late. I thought you’d be in bed already. I was trying not to wake you. I got held up at work. There was a fire at a school, you see, maybe an arson attack, and I had to
write an article about it. It’ll be in the paper, tomorrow. You’ll be able to read it.”

  There was no response.

  “Daniel, my angel, did you hear me?”

  The house remained silent.

  “Danny-love, where are you?”

  Her son still didn’t answer so Diane reached out and switched on the hall light. There was no sign of him in the long corridor that stretched to the kitchen at the back of the house, though he had dropped one of his old hoodies on the floor halfway down. It was lying beneath the gap in the series of her father’s most famous articles that lined the wall. Diane hated seeing the forlorn little picture hook, sticking out, bent and empty. She cursed herself for still not having had the frame’s glass repaired, then took another step forward. She looked through the archway into the living room, and finally saw him. He was sitting on the couch, bolt upright, eyes focused on the drapes that covered the window in the opposite wall. His arms were crossed rigidly over his chest, rumpling the wording on his T-shirt and ruining the pun it made by misplacing pi and pie. As usual, his hair looked like it could use a wash and it had obviously been a while since his plump, grubby bare feet had seen water.

  “Danny?” Diane moved toward her son. “What are you doing? How long have you been sitting here in the dark?”

  “Maybe you’d know if you’d been here.” Daniel’s voice was deep for a fifteen-year-old, and it was loud. “If you weren’t always at work. It’s Saturday, and you couldn’t be bothered to spend any time with me. Again.”

  “Now, come on.” Diane crossed her arms. “That’s not fair. You know I have to work. I don’t get to pick my hours. I’d much rather spend my weekends with you, my sweet. You know that! How did the community service go, by the way, with the church. Was it fun?”

  “I didn’t go.” Daniel turned to glare at his mother. “Don’t change the subject. And you’re lying, anyway. Nothing you say is true. You don’t have to work. Dad gives us plenty of money. You should stay home and take care of me. You could if you wanted to. If you were a good parent. Or you could get a different job, like my friends’ moms have. One with better hours. If you cared. If you were fit to be my mother.”

  “Daniel!” Diane took a step toward him. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

  “You’re a horrible person.” Daniel stood and glared down at his mother. Even at fifteen he already towered over her. “How often do you leave me all alone? How many nights are you late home? And what are you even doing? You can’t possibly be at the office all that time.”

  “Of course I’m at the office. Where else do you think I could be?”

  “Then why are you never there when I call?”

  “I am there!” Diane’s voice was shrill. “Unless I’m in an editorial meeting. Or out researching a story.”

  “Right.” Daniel nodded sarcastically. “Researching one of your little stories. Instead of helping me with my homework. Or cooking me real food. Or hanging out with me. I should go live with Dad. I never should have stayed with you. Or let you change my last name. McKinzie sounds so stupid. My life’s a nightmare because of you. You’re the worst mother in the world.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Daniel, but I’m doing the best I can.”

  “That’s not good enough. You’re a mess. And even when you are here, you’re like a zombie half the time. You stumble around. You can’t hold a conversation. You can’t string a sentence together some days.”

  “That’s because I’m tired! And tiredness isn’t a crime. I’m a single parent, and I have a very demanding job. It’s not easy to juggle both things. But listen. Enough of that. I have exciting news. I got an email from a friend today, and—”

  “I’m going to bed.” Daniel walked out of the room and switched off the hall light, leaving Diane in the dark. “I have to study tomorrow, before we go out. Wake me at eight.”

  Diane was trembling so much she had to carry her glass of water in both hands as she climbed the stairs. She reached her bedroom, made sure the door was properly closed, then took the little bottle of pills from its hiding place in the hollowed-out bible on her nightstand. She had no recollection of the rest of that evening. Just like she had no memory of so many other evenings. And weekends. And holidays…

  Chapter Eight

  Saturday. Evening.

  Home at last. The words sounded foreign and out of place to Devereaux, even as they were running through his head.

  Home? Would he ever get used to thinking of Alexandra’s house in that way? He’d spent more time at her previous one, over in Vestavia Hills. The one she’d sold after they broke up. That place certainly didn’t hold many happy memories for him. He associated it with getting dumped, unsurprisingly. And the reason he’d been there so much was that he’d been serving one of his longest suspensions during the final weeks of their relationship. He’d shot someone in order to save his partner’s life. But that someone was fourteen years old, and all hell had broken loose. Devereaux was benched, and he never did well when he had too much time on his hands. And what made it worse was that he couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. You don’t have to be a certain age to pull a trigger, and no one had forced the kid to point his gun at a police officer’s head. Would the public have preferred to end up with a dead cop? And if they would, why was he wasting his time Protecting and Serving them? He’d known other ways to make a living, as his Porsche and his penthouse bore witness to.

  Maybe things would work out differently this time? Although Devereaux wasn’t honestly a big fan of the house itself. He preferred his apartment at the City Federal. He liked its light, and its space. Its elegant, balanced proportions. Its close connection to the heartbeat of the city. The building’s crazy neon sign that blazed extravagantly at night. But for all its advantages, there were three things that the apartment did not have. Alexandra. Nicole. And a shot at having a real family of his own.

  Devereaux slid his key into the lock and gently opened the door. The hallway light was on, but there was no sound of music or TV. He was hoping that Alexandra was still awake, but crept silently inside so as not to disturb her if he was too late. He reached the kitchen and found a note on the table, handwritten on yellow legal paper and held in place by a half-full bottle of wine:

  Sorry! Zonked. Had to hit the hay. Hope you’re OK!

  There’s pot pie in the fridge…

  See you in the morning!

  A xx

  Devereaux smiled. He hadn’t realized he was hungry until he read Alexandra’s note. He took the pale blue Le Creuset pot from the fridge, set it down on the table, and ate the pie without waiting to heat it. When he was done he stacked the dirty utensils in the dishwasher, started down the hallway, then paused at the bottom of the stairs. He was tired, but didn’t feel like he’d be able to sleep just yet. His mind was still chewing on something. It was searching for a name. Of a guy he’d known in the lost years between school and the Police Academy. A torch artist. And an absolute asshole. Kevin something, was he called? A vile cowardly snake of a guy who set fires just for the thrill of lurking in the shadows and seeing other people’s stuff get destroyed. He didn’t need to do it. He didn’t gain from it in any way, other than witnessing the pain he caused. Devereaux had done his best to ignore the guy until a fire he’d set had spread to a friend’s mother’s house. Then he’d offered Kevin some helpful advice about relocating to another city. Immediately. And permanently. Devereaux had never seen the guy again, and had hardly given him a second thought since he disappeared. But now something had brought him to mind.

  The picture that Jeff Nelson, the 911 caller, had taken.

  Devereaux sat at the bottom of the stairs and pulled up Nelson’s email on his phone. He enlarged the photo as far as it would go and stared at the grainy image of the man standing outside the church. Who are you? he thought. Lieutenant Hale had confirmed that the guy’s description didn’t match any of the other witnesses who’d been interviewed that afternoon. Could he be a sick
asshole like that Kevin guy, causing damage just for the hell of it? Could he be—

  “Daddy?” Devereaux hadn’t heard Nicole’s light feet sneaking down the stairs behind him. “Who’s that man?”

  “No one, princess.” Devereaux slammed the phone facedown on his lap and braced himself for one of the spectacular tantrums he’d seen Nicole throw when Alexandra didn’t give her something she wanted. “No one I can tell you about, anyway. He’s from my work.”

  “That’s OK!” Nicole flashed a wide smile and turned to dance back up the stairs. “I understand, Daddy.”

  Chapter Nine

  Saturday. Late evening.

  The last fire truck had been gone for a good few hours by the time Tyler Shaw risked sneaking back to his window. He’d been lying low, desperate to avoid the attention of the police who’d been swarming all over the neighborhood, hammering on doors and no doubt asking all kinds of questions about what had happened at the school.

  Shaw reached out and cracked the window an inch, praying that the coast really was clear. He took a deep breath and almost choked on the traces of smoke that were still lingering in the air. It was truly foul. But how foul? He continued to sniff, trying to discern what sort of particles might be present. Rotten, obnoxious ones, obviously. But the kind that are someone else’s problem? Or the kind that should remain his secret?

  Shaw cast his mind back to the time he’d spent at the school. He thought of the thick, solid floor, and imagined the layers of varnish that would have built up to protect it by now. He tried to remember what his distant science lessons had taught him about flames. About how they rise. And finally he turned and gazed at his icons. Each one carefully displayed. Each one inspiring him. Telling him that he was safe. That it was time to move on to the next phase of his growth, now that fate had brought him back to Birmingham and given him the perfect platform.