‘Bullshit,’ Landry says.
‘Then you ought to shut up until you can prove otherwise.’
‘Out of all the people in this city, why’d he come and see you?’
I shrug. “I don’t know. I think it was because I was the face he connected to what was going on. I was the one who found the bodies. I was the one who came along with the exhumation order and started all of this.’
‘You kept things from us,’ Schroder says. ‘You stole evidence that would have helped us piece things together quicker. That ring you took from Rachel Tyler — Jesus, Tate, let’s not forget you took the ring from Rachel Tyler. The timeline would have changed. We’d probably have caught the person who started all of this.’
It’s true. But the moment that coffin opened and I saw a dead girl, I had no choice. There were other dead girls because of me, because of a decision I failed to make correctly two years earlier.
How could I not take the ring? It led to suicide. It led me to murder. It led me to drunk driving and to being taken into the middle of nowhere where I should have been left.
‘All these innocent girls,’ Schroder says, spreading out the articles, one bag for each girl. ‘Do you even care?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘He doesn’t,’ Landry says, ‘otherwise he’d be helping us.’
‘You’ve turned one of your rooms into an office,’ Schroder says. ‘Into a command post.’
‘You’re charging me with that too?’
‘Just tell us, damn it,’ he says, getting angry now. ‘You were following Father Julian for a reason. What do you think he did?
You think he killed Sidney Alderman?’
He leans back in his chair.
“No, I don’t think that’s it,’ Schroder continues. ‘You wouldn’t be following him for that. You wouldn’t care about one angry old retired caretaker getting taken out. So there’s more to it. You were following him because you think he had something to do with the dead girls. Your office is dedicated to that case, and to Father Julian. You have pictures and articles pinned up all over the walls.
You think the two go hand in hand. We were looking at Sidney Alderman as a possibility. And more so after he disappeared. We thought he ran. But not you. You kept looking at Father Julian.
He was on our radar simply because everybody connected to the graveyard was on it. Only Alderman made a bigger blip, and when he disappeared his blip overshadowed everybody else’s. So we kept looking for him. It’s as though you knew somethingIt’s as though you gave up looking for Sidney Alderman because you didn’t think there was a point. Either you thought he was innocent or you thought he would never show up again. It’s just like two years ago with Quentin James. Which is it?’
‘You tell me.’
‘You think Julian killed those girls. We’ll know soon whether your thoughts have any foundation. In the meantime, tell us what happened to Sidney Alderman.’
“I don’t know’
‘But you knew to stop looking for him. Why did you focus on Father Julian?’
“I wasn’t focusing on him.’
‘Why did you kill him?’
“I didn’t.’
‘This is going nowhere,’ Landry says. ‘Show him the weapon.’
‘The weapon?’ I ask, immediately confused.
A smirk appears on Landry’s face. ‘The weapon, Sherlock.
Like I said earlier, you really learned fuck all from your years on the force. We searched your house, remember? What, did you think we wouldn’t find it?’
Schroder lifts the last plastic bag from the box and puts it on the table. Inside is my hammer from home. It’s covered in blood.
And I already know it’s going to belong to Father Julian.
Chapter thirty-six
‘You’ve been following him for a month. You think he’s guilty of murder. You’ve been parked outside his church every day before the protection order, and some days since. And you want us to believe you had nothing to do with his death,’ Schroder says, putting the murder weapon down slowly, as if carefully balancing a cup of water filled to the brim. He puts it in the centre of the table so we’re all within reaching distance. Maybe he’s hoping I’m going to make a break for it. I’m sure Landry is. He’s hoping this can all end right now.
‘Where did you find it?’
‘Where you left it,’ Landry answers.
“I want my lawyer now.’
‘Yeah, guilty people always do,’ Landry says to Schroder before turning back to me. ‘Come on, Tate, you know how it goes. You’ve seen it before and you used to hate it too.’
“Hate what?’
‘When the perp keeps on denying it even after we’ve got so much evidence against him.’
‘You’ve got nothing.’
“Nothing? Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘Tell us again why you were following him,’ Schroder asks.