Schroder says nothing.
‘Then the whole tongue thing. Like I said earlier, why the hell would I cut it out? Because I didn’t want him talking? That’s the sort of message you want to leave when there are others who can still talk, right? A gang thing. But not in this case. This time it was designed to make me look guiltier. It would look like I was pissed at him for talking to you guys and complaining that I was following him.’
He starts tapping a pen against the table in a slow rhythmic pace, then smiles. ‘Well done,’ he says. He leans forward and starts packing up the photographs.
‘So you know I didn’t kill him, but you haul me down here anyway’
‘Come on, Tate, you know how it is.’
He’s right. I do know. There are two things that bug me.
The first is, why plant the hammer in my garage, and not the tongue?
‘Somebody still killed him,’ Schroder says.
‘Uh huh.’
‘You can help us out there.’
‘You shouldn’t have fucked me around, Carl. You should have just asked for my help.’
‘Hey, don’t go playing the victim here, Tate. You almost killed a woman last night. Hell, maybe you still did — last I heard she was stable, but that don’t mean shit and you know it. Father Julian had to take a protection order out on you and you kept breaking it. You were there the night he died. You’re involved, Tate. Julian died, and if you’d been upfront a month ago maybe he’d still be alive now. Sidney Alderman is nowhere to be seen and you’re acting like he’s dead. Same goes for Quentin James. You need to start giving me some answers. Look, you know that by keeping these from us —’ he leans forward and touches the bags with the jewellery and the articles — ‘you slowed down our investigation.
Things would be different. We might have looked further. We might not have pinned all our beliefs on Alderman. Fuck, Tate, we needed this one. There’s been so much shit lately with the fucking Carver case, and that’s just the tip. You’d know that if you gave a shit, or if you read a newspaper.’ He pauses, takes a pencil out of his shirt pocket, rolls it across his fingers, then snaps it in half. ‘Look, you get the point. We needed something to work out, not just for the victims and for their families, but for us. People don’t have faith in the police any more, Tate. Jesus, it’s hard to blame them. That could have all changed, but you held back on us.’
‘Was I in the news today?’
‘What?’
‘The papers, Carl. Was I in them? The accident?’
‘Not the papers. The accident was too late for that. But you’ve been on the news all day’
‘Since this morning?’
‘That’s what all day means.’
‘Then why the hell aren’t you asking yourself the obvious question?’
‘Which is?’
‘Why would the guy who planted the hammer in my garage not take it back out after seeing the news? He must have known being in jail would clear me.’
I can tell from his expression that Schroder hadn’t thought of it. ‘Maybe he didn’t see the news.’
‘Come on, Carl, you know just as well as I do that these guys always read the papers and watch the news.’
He taps one half of the broken pencil against the table. ‘This is going to be a long night,’ he says. ‘We’re going to get this sorted.’
‘Then I’d better make myself comfortable,’ I answer, and I lean back in my chair.
chapter thirty-seven
Schroder was right and wrong. Right that it was going to be a long night. Wrong about us getting it sorted. Landry showed up on cue, but their routine at trying to shake something loose from me was ruined by the murder weapon. It was planted, they both knew it, and that was the problem. They’d have had a better chance if they hadn’t found it. They held me long enough to go over the same questions and until they were satisfied the people going through my house had searched enough. And satisfied I wasn’t going to offer them any further information. I could tell Landry was itching to keep me locked up, and that Schroder was tempted to go along with it, but in the end they had nothing to hold me on. Even the blood and dirt on my body I explained away as a bad fall while I was out walking trying to clear my head.
Nobody bought it, but it didn’t matter.
A guy gives me a lift home in a patrol car. He doesn’t even attempt conversation.
My house is locked up and I still don’t have my keys, so I get inside using the same busted window as before. Schroder never mentioned the window, and I guess maybe he figured out why.
My house isn’t any tidier since the police have scoured their way through it. The articles and pictures from the bedroom I’d set up as an office have all gone. All that are left are pinholes in the walls.