‘Defend yourself against what? They already know you’re innocent.’
‘Come on, Tracey You know the score. You know three of those girls would still be alive if I’d done my job properly two years ago. I want this guy off the street.’
She tapes off the bandage and leans back. ‘People who you want off the street are never heard from again, Theo. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you anything.’
‘Was the hammer the cause of death?’
“It’s getting late. I’ve got a family to get home to.’
‘Come on, give me something here. Bruce Alderman, his father, now the priest — they’re dead for a reason. And this person who planted the hammer in my house is probably the same person who killed all those girls.’
‘Sidney Alderman is dead? How do you know that?’
“I’m guessing, but it makes sense, right? Everything is related.’
“Not everything,’ Tracey says.
‘What do you mean?’
She sighs, and her shoulders slump as if she’s sick and tired of talking to a ten-year-old.
‘Please, just drop it.’
‘Would you? Come on, Tracey, name me one detective you know who wouldn’t be trying to do the same thing.’
‘The problem is you’re not a detective. Not any more.’
“I know, but…’
‘Look, one thing, okay? I’m going to tell you one thing, then I want you to leave.’
‘Okay’
‘And you can’t come back. You promise?’
I’ve heard that line before. ‘What is it?’
‘Sidney and Bruce Alderman. They’re not related. Sidney Alderman is not Bruce Alderman’s father.’
chapter forty
I pin the photocopies of the newspaper articles up on the wall in my office and stare at the spot where my computer used to be until knocking at the front door breaks me out of the fugue. I think about ignoring it but it just keeps going. I head into the hallway and swing the door open. Carl Schroder is there holding two pizza boxes in his arms. Suddenly he really is my best friend.
‘Thought you might do with some food,’ he says.
“I’m in the middle of cooking something.’
“I looked in that fridge of yours, Tate. What in the hell could you possibly be cooking?’ He braces the pizzas in one hand, a bottle of Coke under his arm. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out my keys. ‘Might make it easier for you getting in and out.
Saves breaking more windows.’
‘Seriously, Carl, this isn’t a good time for me,’ I say, taking my keys off him.
‘Spare me the bullshit. This place hasn’t had any food in it for a long time. Except for this kind. You’ve got enough pizza boxes stacked in your kitchen to build a fort.’
My stomach starts to growl and my mouth waters.
‘I was going to bring beer,’ he says, reaching under his arm and grabbing the Coke, ‘but something told me that was a bad idea.’
‘You’re a real funny guy’
We move through to the dining room. I grab some plates and a couple of glasses. The pizza has a range of different types of meat on it, so between that and the Coke I reckon I’ll get the nutritional value I need for the day.
‘So why are you here?’
‘Look, Tate, Landry can be a real arsehole, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a point.’
‘Which is?’
‘The fact you’ve become a real mess.’
“I’m in the process of changing that.’
He looks around the room, absorbing the comment. “I guess
you are.’
‘That’s what life-changing moments will do to you.’
‘And what was that?’ he asks.
‘What do you think?’
‘The accident,’ he says, and he’s right — it was the accident more than it was being taken into the woods, or being framed for murder.
‘It’s kind of ironic,’ he adds.
I know what he’s getting it. He’s saying that if it hadn’t been for me driving through that intersection and hitting that car, I would now be in jail. I’d have been arrested for murder. He’s saying that picking up the bottle and getting hammered was the only thing that kept the frame job on me from being complete. It all comes back to that word luck.
‘Did you really think I did it?’
‘Sure we did. Until the weapon showed up. That threw a spanner in the works. Or a hammer, I guess, in this case. It messed everything up. So you were lucky’
“I shouldn’t have needed to be lucky. I didn’t kill the guy and that should have been enough.’
‘Come on, you know sometimes that isn’t enough.’
‘So why are you here, other than to make sure I’m eating okay?’
‘How long’s it been since we hung out, Tate?’
‘Probably around the same time you stopped calling me. Hell, it was the same time everybody stopped. If I remember correctly, it was around when Emily died.’
‘That had nothing to do with it.’
‘Then what was it?’
‘It was Quentin James. Nobody believes he ran. We all know you killed him. But without a body, without any proof…’