“I can’t believe you went out to that place on your own,” he says, shaking his head at me the way Maggie would. “You’re lucky you got out of there. Especially if you heard what you think you did.”
“If?” Butch asks. He’s been quiet until now, subdued like the first night I saw him again. One word answers and only to the questions asked. Nothing more. “With all due respect, sir, are you saying you don’t believe her? Because I heard them too. And we saw Matthias burning those clothes. I’d say that’s pretty undeniable evidence of wrongdoing.”
“Of course I believe her. I’m just saying Evie’s been through some heavy stuff. Probably even more than she lets on.” He sighs and offers a doleful smile. “Sometimes trauma can skew our perception of things. Turn rhinos into unicorns, if you know what I mean.”
Butch doesn’t respond even when I laugh. He stays contained. Like he’s back in a cell. “Is Trey supposed to be the unicorn in that analogy?” I ask, still smiling.
Macaroni chuckles, but it doesn’t last long. His face stiffens again. “Listen, Evie. Go home. We’ll send a unit out to Trey’s place to check it out. And I’ll be in touch first thing in the morning.”
I nod, mainly because going home—even if it means to Maggie’s home—sounds like a relief. I might even consider letting her cook for me. But I can tell Butch isn’t satisfied. He’s eyeing Macaroni the way I do when I know a patient is lying to me.
“Do you know something we don’t, sir?” Macaroni raises his eyebrows at Butch’s insinuation, but he doesn’t deny it.
“Well, do you?” I ask.
“Mr. Calder, would you mind if I spoke to Evie alone for a few minutes?”
“He can stay.”
Butch is on his feet and at the door before I can launch a proper protest. “It’s okay, Evie. I’ll be outside.”
Macaroni scoots his chair closer to mine. “You didn’t hear this from me, okay? Danny had a hangout. Merchant’s Saloon in Oakland. Goes there every night around seven. Well, somebody called the station right before you got here. They spotted Danny milling around outside. And when we got there, we found the jeep. No Danny, of course. But there was a note to his mom saying sorry, telling her he had to get out of town.”
For a split second I doubt myself. My mind is cracked after all, a fissure so deep a whole night fell right through. But then, I close my eyes. I hear the gunshot. The slump of his body when he’d hit the ground. Real. “I know what I heard. Trey and that other guy…Matthias…they probably called in the tip themselves.”
“It’s a possibility. I agree. We’ll dust the jeep for prints.”
“I’m not crazy.” But aren’t crazy people always saying that? “And I’m not a liar. Butch isn’t either.” Debatable on both counts.
“Speaking of Mr. Calder…” Macaroni raises his eyes to the door, the little window at the center. Outside, Butch leans against the far wall, forlorn. Like an old dog passed up for adoption. Again. “I understand you feel you know this man. That he was a part of your life at one point. But I’m a cop, an old cop, and I can’t not ask you. Has he told you why he went to prison?”
Whatever he’s about to say, I know he’s right. And still, my heart stings, indignant. “Murder.”
His mouth twists, and I feel him readying a blow. “I know Mr. Calder too. From a past life when I was a lowly beat cop, the one you remember. I was on duty that night. I responded to that scene. Gwendolyn Shaw, strangled. Evie, it was awful. One of those that sticks with you.”
I glance at Butch, and he half-smiles back before I can look away. Back to Macaroni and his hard glare. I make a sound of understanding, hoping he’ll stop. He doesn’t.
“Do you know how long it takes to strangle someone to death? A good three to five minutes. Think about that. And be careful. That guy’s got a thing for you.”
“Okay,” I say, feeling sullied and slimy. Like I’ve done something wrong. “I’ll be careful. If you tell me you believe me about Trey and the murder.”
He cocks his head at me, brows knitted. “Well, you’d have to specify exactly which murder you’re referring to. Then or now?”
****
We trudge back to the car, wordless, both of us weighted by things we don’t say. I turn down the radio and leave it in park. Turn to Butch and his sad eyes.
“Why did you kill Gwen?”
I expect him to say, “Where did that come from?” Or, “I don’t want to talk about it.” But it’s almost like he’s been expecting it, waiting for it. The way you feel when you get a bad grade on a test you didn’t study for. Like you deserve that big red F. “Do you want the easy answer or the hard one? The insightful one or the bullshit? The long or the short? Because I’ve got them all.”
“I want the truth. The honest one.”
And I watch his hands. Strong, capable hands. Capable of ending life. Of saving it too, though. He had saved me more than once. “Evie, I…whatever he said about me, it’s probably right.”
His phone buzzes then, and we both stare at it, startled. Like it’s the past calling to explain itself. He turns the outer screen toward me. “Is that for you?”
I recognize the number. “It’s Maggie.”
“Go ahead.”
I take it, flip it open. And already, I’m uneasy. Why is she calling?
“Maggie? Is everything okay?”
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
My unease curdles, sours, and I snap. “I told you already. I lost it.”
“Then why did you call me?”
“I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did,” she insists. “While I was in the shower. Your name showed up on the screen, and you left a message.”
I’m nearing full-blown panic, but I manage to speak. To deny. “That’s impossible.”
“Hmph.”
“Fine. What did I say?”
She lets out an exasperated breath. And my own breathing gets shallow, my stomach a pit of snakes, writhing. “You didn’t say anything. You just hung up.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
Butch
January 18, 2017
Wednesday
Evie’s talking fast. Ninety miles a minute. Something about Trey and her mother-in-law and the cell phone, but I can barely keep up. Because I’m stuck on this: Why did you kill Gwen? And my pathetic non-attempt at an answer.
“Uh, Butch? Hello?” She touches my forearm, and I blink up at her and her bottle-green eyes.
“Sorry. What?”
“I need to go to my office to get my laptop. Then I can use the app, the find phone one. I can show Detective Maroni exactly where Trey’s at.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” She’s already pulled away from the curb, her face pinched with focus. “What’s an app again?”
We both laugh a little too hard—clipped and nervous—like we need it to ease the tension. After, the silence is strange, an awkward third wheel between us. “I haven’t forgotten your question,” I say, finally.
“Oh. You don’t have to—”
“I want to answer it. Properly. I’ll tell you the whole story when you’re ready to hear it.”
Her eyes are fixed on the road, impossible to read.
“But till then, I’d have to say the short answer is all the usual reasons. I’m one of those guys. Control. Fear of abandonment. Rejection. The whole nine.” I tick them off one by one, each word thrumming with truth. “I’d like to tell you I was a different person back then, but that’s bullshit. The truth is I don’t really know who I am now. I know who I was in prison. And I know who I want to be. But the psych doctors were right. I haven’t really been tested. Out here. In the land of the living.”
I’ve been talking forever—that’s how it seems—and I force myself not to fill the quiet. This nervous chatter thing is new. It
’s an Evie thing, I remind myself. No wonder she’s a goddamned shrink. She’s used to this. She’s probably diagnosing me right now.
“Okay,” she says, Switzerland neutral.
“Is that a good okay or a bad okay? Cause I can’t really tell.”
She smiles. “What time is your curfew?”
“1 a.m. Why?”
“Do you want to come back to the office with me? Help me with the app? I don’t want to go alone.”
I take that as her answer—a good okay—and I give her a nod. “Sure. But I won’t be much help. Unless you need to rewind a VCR. Or make a mix tape. Or find something in the yellow pages. Then I’m definitely your guy.”
****
I sit on a folding chair while she powers up her laptop. “So, Dr. Maddox, this is where the magic happens, huh?” Shut up, Butchy. You sound like an oaf.
But she laughs while she types. And it warms me. That she still laughs a lot. As much as I’d let her down, not all is lost. “I wouldn’t call it magic. More like trudging through…”
“Excrement?” I ask, grinning.
“Wow. You remember that conversation?”
I shrug it off, but I feel proud. Because she seems impressed. And I’ll take what I can get. “Two things you’re never short on in prison—regrets and time. So you tend to spend a lot of it reliving the past.”
“Oh my God.” And right away, I check myself. I’ve done something, said something. Screwed it up somehow.
But it’s not me. I breathe out, relieved, even as she panics.
Evie motions me over, pointing to the map on the screen, the flashing circle. “That’s my phone. And that’s my address. My new apartment.”
“Are you sure?”
She nods fast, already dialing the number on the card she’d pulled from her pocket. Detective Maroni. And just like that, I’m a lowly ex-con again. Because that guy doesn’t like me.
****
Evie twists her hair with one hand and drives with the other. It’s making me nervous. Because Trey is messing with her. That and the thought of the cops meeting us at her apartment, scrutinizing me. Maybe it’s my imagination, but it’s like they just know—ex-con, parolee, murderer—the way a dog can sniff out a tumor.
“Can I ask you a weird question?” I try to distract us both.
“Shoot.”
“Why’d you buy this car?”
“Seriously? With everything that’s happened today, that’s your question?”
“I’m a car guy. You know that.” In a flash, I see the ’Cuda on my last day of freedom. The decimated passenger side. Crumpled like it had been made of paper, not steel. “It’s just that I don’t really see you as a Prius kind of girl.”
“A Prius kind of girl?” She smirks at me. “It sounds like you’ve put time into developing this theory.”
“A fair bit. Think about it. Doesn’t Melanie strike you as a powder-blue, Mini Cooper gal? And Mr. Vinetti, he has Chevy pickup written all over him.”
“I see. So silver Prius doesn’t say Evie?”
Hell no. “Well, the theory is a work in progress, so…”
“I didn’t buy it, if that helps with your research. It was Jared’s. I always took the BART to work.” I keep my mouth closed. No way to stick my foot in it. “But now you’ve got me curious. What sort of car did you see me driving?”
Uh oh. “Hmm.” I put on my thinking face, but I’m just buying time. This answer I know.
“C’mon. Spit it out.”
“A black Corvette.” The burst of her laughter is contagious, and I chuckle even though my face is burning. “Black because of your hair, of course. And a Corvette for the look of it. It’s tough but also…”
“A gas guzzler?”
“I was going to say elegant.” And just like that, I’m doing it. Hold the phone, Butch Calder is flirting.
But I’m not even sure she heard me, because her frown is back. She hits the blinker and points to the gated complex on the right. “That’s my building.” As if I didn’t know it already, with the red and blue lights flashing out front. Total buzzkill.
“I figured.”
Evie maneuvers the car into the first open spot, waving at Detective Maroni. Then she turns to me. Lays a casual hand on my knee. “Hey, Calder, thanks for distracting me.”
Evie gets out, swallowed by a swarm of cops, before I manage to mutter sure, my knee still slightly electrified. I go after her, trying not to act like myself. Maybe I can throw them off the scent this time.
“Did you find it?” I hear Evie’s voice and follow it to the curb. Her and Maroni.
With a gloved hand, he holds up a cell phone. “Is this it? It was sitting on your welcome mat.”
She nods, reaching, but he pulls it back. “We’ll need to get prints first. But, didn’t you say there were pictures? Of Danny’s jeep?”
“And a video. Just after they…” She doesn’t finish, probably worried he’ll doubt her again.
I take a step toward them. Then, a few more, testing my luck. Maybe he won’t notice me. “Mr. Calder. I didn’t expect to see you here. Don’t you have a curfew?”
The officers lingering at their cars turn their heads to look at me. With that look. Like I’m the tumor. Like I need to be excised. Burned away.
“Yes, sir. It’s not for a couple more hours though. And Evie asked me to—”
“I asked him to come.” She motions me over.
Maroni gives a single nod—all the approval he can muster, but I’ll take it—and powers up Evie’s phone. “Well then, let’s have a look.”
Evie stands over his shoulder, directing him, a caveman like me. He follows orders, and I watch her face. Because it tells me everything I need to know.
“He erased them,” she says, lifting her eyes to me, her voice quavering. “Trey erased them.”
****
Evie slogs up the stairs to check her mailbox, a uniformed officer trailing her. Which means I’m left alone with Maroni. I start to pace, the way I did the first few months in Folsom. If I’d added up the steps I’d taken in that six-by-eight box, they would’ve sent me around the world and back. But like any captive animal, I’d grown placid over time. Adjusted to the size of my cage.
“How long did you say you’d been out?” Maroni asks. Like I hadn’t already faced his inquisition at the station. Like he’s just making small talk.
“About five months, sir.” I give him my best free-man smile—small and polite—hoping he’ll back off, at least take pity on me.
“Did Evie tell you I warned her about you?” Or not.
“No, sir.”
“You might not know this, but I’m familiar with your case. That was my beat back then. And some cases, they stick with you forever. My partner and I got the call that a homeless guy had found a body over at the Port. A dead girl.”
I try to go somewhere else in my mind, back to the car with Evie’s hand on my knee. Back to the first day I met Gwen, her sundress and her watermelon bubblegum. Back to my bedroom, before my world got smashed, with Jesse and me playing cops and robbers. It doesn’t work. His voice is more powerful than all of it.
“That’s a scene I’ll never forget. Such a young girl. A beautiful girl. Her whole future ahead of her. Just dumped out there on the pavement like a sack of trash.”
I wish he’d cuff me, tase me, throw me to the ground. Anything but this. Hell, I’d rather he shoot me. I would deserve that. But this, this is just cruel. “Her neck was broken. I imagine you know that. Did you do that with your hands or when you ran—”
Evie is my angel of mercy. Because when he sees her, he stops.
“You okay?” he asks her. Meanwhile, my whole heart is shredded to ribbons. But what can I say? He’s right. He’s right about all of it.
“Yeah. Just tired.”
; When he turns his back and walks ahead, I finally look at her. And I see why he asked. She’s gone faraway. Miles from here. Her hands hold a stack of mail, an opened letter on top marked with a bright yellow FORWARD sticker.
She moves like a ghost. Like she could pass through walls.
She stops. Whispers. “It’s from Cassie.”
Evie
May 13, 1994
My birthday
Thirteen steps to the gallows.
Thirteen knots in a hangman’s noose.
Thirteen feet before the guillotine falls.
And thirteen days of May when Arlene Allcott became a mother. My mother. She’d told me the story once. Only once. Like she’d rather it never happened.
“It was the longest I’d ever gone without using,” she’d said, pausing, probably waiting on me to thank her. “Your daddy too. Both of us, clean as a whistle.” I couldn’t say if I believed her, but I’d wanted to. “You would’ve been real proud of your mama.”
Anyway, your dad was real antsy, waiting on you to come out. So he took me to one of those carnivals. Wasn’t my idea, I’ll tell you that. I was fat as a tick and ready to pop. My ankles all swollen, thick as ham hocks. Worst nine months of my damn life. Another pause, and I’d almost laughed. And cried. Seeing how she’d wasted away to nothing.
“Right off the bat, your daddy had taken me into one of those cockamamie fortune-tellers with the cards. Who knows why? More than likely, he’d been checkin’ her out. In fact, I’m sure of it. Cause he’d kept givin’ her the eye. And she’d been givin’ it back. Your daddy was a looker alright with those same unnatural green eyes that you’ve got. And I’ll admit I’d been jealous. Especially on account of you fattening me up like a cow for the slaughter. And do you know this skank—in her rickety old tent and spooky black veil—she’d had the nerve to pull out the death card?”
I’d sucked in a big, audible breath, felt a chill work down my spine.
“Exactly. What a bitch, right? Messin’ with me like that.”
My mom had put her arm around me, skinny and pasty and scarred by a thousand needles, but I’d leaned in, desperate for her touch. “My water broke not more than fifteen minutes later in the middle of the damn house of mirrors. Imagine that. Your daddy carried me out of there, right past that hoochie and her tent. And if I hadn’t been feelin’ the throes of hellfire comin’ out of me, I would’ve made him stop just so I could have told her to go fuck herself.” A tired laugh had hauled its way up my mother’s throat. “Pardon my French, but it’s true.”
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