“Ahem,” Brian said. It sounded very phony, just the way you’d write it. “As it happens, I have been to visit dear Vince.”
I looked at him with surprise. For Brian to go anywhere near so much as a patrol car was a risk. To go down to headquarters was near-toxic insanity. “Really?” I said. “You went inside? To the lab?”
He showed his teeth again. “I did not,” he said. “I waited for Vince to leave for lunch. I followed him to a little bistro near Eighth Street, Chez Octavio’s?”
I nodded. I knew Octavio’s; it was hardly a Chez. It was more like a basura, and it served quite possibly the worst Cuban food in the city. But it was extremely cheap, and so was Vince. “What did you learn?” I asked.
“Some very interesting things,” Brian said, waving happily to a large tanker truck that swerved in front of him for no reason. “To begin with, Vincent Masuoka really is your friend.” He flashed me his terrible fake smile. “Up to a point.”
“Everyone has a point, I think,” I said.
“Quite true. Vince’s point, however, is well past what you might imagine.” He paused to lean on the horn as a pickup truck with three large hounds in the bed meandered across two lanes, apparently for the sole purpose of getting in front of us and slowing down. Brian swerved into the right lane and passed. The hounds watched us with mournful apathy as we went by.
“In any case,” Brian went on, “Vince withstood a great deal of pressure from Detective Anderson.”
“Pressure to do what?”
Brian smiled at me again. “Oh, practically nothing at all,” he said merrily. “A few tiny trifles, like suppressing evidence, falsifying reports, lying under oath—the kind of everyday chore you and I wouldn’t even blink at.”
“And Vince refused?” I said, marveling a little. Vince was not large, and to call him timid is something of an understatement.
“He refused,” Brian said, nodding. “Up to and including a visit from Anderson in the large and angry flesh. He even told your supervisor, who offered to remove Vince from the case if he didn’t want to play along. And then,” he said, rather dramatically, I thought, “he did the truly unthinkable.”
“Really,” I said. I tried to think of what might constitute unthinkable behavior for Vince, and failed. “What?”
“He went to the state attorney’s office and Told All,” Brian said solemnly. “With documentary evidence, reports and so on, all crudely doctored in Anderson’s hand.”
“Well,” I said. “That is unthinkable.” And it was—not that Anderson crudely doctored the documents, of course. I had already assumed as much. But first of all, for anyone in the department to report anyone else in the department to the state attorney was completely outside the Code. Second, for that person to be Vince, a known mouse—it nearly defied imagination. “What happened? Is that why Kraunauer got me out so quickly?”
“Oh, no, dear brother,” Brian chirped. “Disabuse yourself of such naive notions. The world is not nearly so simple.”
“Neither is getting an answer,” I said. “What did the state attorney do?”
“Is there a more modern way to say, ‘Go play in the traffic’?” Brian asked thoughtfully. “I’m not sure we say that anymore.”
“The state attorney said that?”
“Words to that effect,” Brian said. We bumped down onto the surface street, and he glanced at me. “Are your illusions shattered, brother?”
“My illusions don’t generally involve the state attorney,” I said.
“Well, then,” Brian said. “It seems unlikely that a mere detective would lean on the state attorney. But I suppose stranger things have happened.”
“I’m sure they have,” I said. “But I don’t think that’s what happened.” Brian glanced at me and raised an eyebrow. “Not even a unibrowed mental-midget thug like Anderson would try to intimidate the state attorney,” I said. “But…”
I thought about it: A hardworking and honest whistleblower brings the SA’s office a documented report of authentic malfeasance, malpractice, and malingering. And the SA’s office does not, as one might expect, give said whistleblower a manly handshake and heartfelt thanks and then leap into indignant action against the heinous perpetrator. Instead, they tell Vince to go away and leave them alone—to play, if you will, in the traffic. On the face of it, it ran somewhat contrary to our general expectations of what a prosecutor’s office should do. But, of course, as I knew all too well, nothing at all in our justice system is actually about what it is supposed to be about. I suppose the same might be said of most things in life; when is the last time you met a waiter who is actually a waiter and not a frustrated actor/writer/dancer killing time until lightning strikes? But, of course, with Justice, where so many shattered lives hang in the balance, the stakes are much higher, and one really does hope for better.
Ah, well. Hope is for people who can’t see the Truth. As it happened, in this one instance, I thought I saw Truth. “Aha,” I said. “If that doesn’t sound too corny?”
“No more corny than ‘go play in the traffic,’ ” Brian said. “So tell me.”
“In the first place,” I said, “my case is a very public national black eye for the department.”
“International,” Brian said. “It was all over the news in Mexico, too.”
“So they need to have it solved,” I said. “And they need to have it done by convicting someone like me.”
“Well, then,” Brian said. “Who better than you yourself?”
“None other,” I said. “But there’s more. Imagine you are a lawyer.”
“Please,” Brian said with a very real shudder. “I have some standards.”
“And now imagine that one of your clients—or many of them—have been convicted on evidence supplied by Detective Anderson.”
“Oh,” Brian said.
“Yes,” I said. “When you learn that Anderson has doctored evidence once—”
“Then you can easily persuade a judge he doctored evidence twice,” Brian said.
I nodded. “Or more. Maybe every time, in every single case. And Detective Anderson has a rather large caseload,” I said. “Most of the detectives do.”
“And suddenly the streets are flooded with released felons,” Brian said.
“Right,” I said. “Which many people would prefer to avoid.”
“Ah, well,” Brian said happily. “We live in wicked times.”
“Very busy times, too,” I said. “And suddenly every conviction of the last five years is overturned. And?” Now it was my turn to pause dramatically.
“Oh, dear, there’s more?” Brian said in mock horror.
“Just this,” I said. “The state attorney is elected in Florida.”
“Oh, bravo!” Brian said with real good cheer. “What wonderful stupidity!”
“It is, isn’t it?” I said. “The quality of mercy is not strained—but it is handed out by someone who got the job by pandering to the lowest possible common denominator.”
“And they must present an impressive record of convictions to get reelected,” Brian said.
“Yup.”
“And so the picture is complete,” he said. He steered us up the on-ramp and onto I-95 south.
“Very nearly,” I said.
“Great heavens, there’s more?” said Brian with mock horror.
“Quite possibly,” I said.
“Do tell.”
“Well,” I said slowly, “just speculation here, but if it was me…?”
“Oh, dear,” Brian said. For the first time he frowned. “Poor dear Vince—surely they wouldn’t?”
I shrugged. “As I said. Speculation. They might not actually kill him.”
“But in any case,” Brian said, “disgrace, dishonor, discredit, and dismissal.”
“Almost certainly,” I said.
“And that we cannot allow,” Brian said. “Since he is our hole card, and we need him alive, well, and highly credible.”
I looked at
my brother with some fondness. He had cut right to the very practical chase, without dithering around about friendship, gratitude, or honor. It was nice to be around somebody who thought so much like me. “Precisely,” I said.
“If some dreadful accident happened to Anderson…?” he suggested.
“I admit it’s tempting,” I said. “But it would look a little too convenient for me.”
“You would have a wonderful alibi,” he said, a little too seductively, I thought. “No one could ever pin it on you.”
I shook my head. “Deborah would know,” I said. “She has already hinted that she might rat me out someday.”
“Mmm,” he said, and I knew what he would suggest before he ever said it. “There could be two dreadful accidents….”
I opened my mouth to tell him to forget it, drop it, put the thought permanently out of his mind. Not Deborah, never my sister, no matter what might happen. It was out of the question, off the menu, not remotely a possibility—and I paused, closed my mouth, and pondered. It had been pure unthinking reflex to deny the merest thought of Accidenting Deborah, and like so many reflexive denials, it did not truly bear the weight of logical thought. I would never have considered it before, even for a moment; family loyalty and obligation, all drilled into me by Harry and so many years of acceptance and practice, made it impossible. Deborah was unthinkably untouchable. She was Home and Hearth, Kith and Kin, as much a part of me as my arm.
But now?
Now, after she had so thoroughly disdained, dismissed, and disowned me? So very completely rejected Me and all I am? Was it really unthinkable to send Debs away on the Long Dark Journey now, when she had already suggested that she did not find it at all unthinkable to do exactly that to Me?
I felt a small, sly, slithering purr from deep inside, where the Passenger napped, nestled in webs and shadows, and I heard it whisper to me what I realized I already knew.
It was not unthinkable, not at all. It was, in fact, suddenly very thinkable.
More: It could even be painted with a light patina of true justice, in a sort of Old Testament way. Debs was willing to see me dead—didn’t it make perfect, eye-for-an-eye sense for me to see her dead first?
I remembered her words: never really my brother. They still stung, and I felt a slow-burning anger smoldering at the outer edges of my Harry-built propriety. I was never really her brother? Fine. That meant that she was never really my sister. We were now and forevermore unsibling, unfamily, unrelated.
And that meant…
I became aware that Brian was humming happily, so very far off-key that I could not even recognize the melody. He would be just as happy, and perhaps much happier, if I gave him permission to do away with Debs. He didn’t understand my past objections, and certainly felt no hesitation himself. After all, he had never thought he was related to Deborah; that had been my tragic fallacy. And even though he was no more capable of human feelings than any other reptile, it was Brian who had come to my aid, after Debs had refused with great self-righteous loathing. The Great Illusion of my bond with Deborah had been exposed, rejected, flung from the fracas at the first real trial. And instead, blood had proved true after all.
And yet…
I still found it very hard to picture the world without Debs.
Brian had stopped humming, and I looked at him. He looked back, his terrible fake smile in place. “Well, brother?” he said. “Today’s special? Two for the price of one?”
I could not hold his gaze. I looked away out the window. “Not yet,” I said.
“All righty, then,” he said, and I could hear disappointment in his voice. But he drove on, and I continued to look out the window. I buried myself in dark musings, and didn’t really see any of the scenery, even as we approached my house and it got more and more familiar. Neither of us spoke again until, some twenty minutes later, Brian did.
“We’re here,” he said, slowing the car. And then he said, “Uh-oh,” and I looked out the window. He was driving us slowly past my house, the home where I had lived with Rita for such a long time. And right in front of the house, another car was already parked.
A police car.
SIX
As I may have mentioned, Brian had a very real aversion to police in any form at all, and he had no intention of pausing to chat with the two cops we could see in the cruiser. They glanced up at us, just doing their job and checking out the traffic, looking bored but still prepared to spring out of the car and open fire if we should suddenly unlimber a howitzer, or try to sell them drugs. But Brian very coolly smiled and nodded and continued his slow cruise past the house, pointing at a neighboring house in a very good imitation of the House Gawker’s Crawl, a South Florida custom that involves driving around at a maddeningly sluggish pace while staring at houses that may someday be for sale. It was a perfect disguise, and the cops gave us no more than a glance before turning back to their conversation, no doubt involving either sports or sex.
But it was, after all, my house, and it contained most of my earthly possessions. I wanted to get inside, if only for a change of clothing. “Circle the block,” I said to Brian. “Let me out up at the corner and I’ll walk back.”
Brian gave me a concerned look. “Is that really a good idea?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s my house.”
“Apparently it’s also a crime scene,” Brian said.
“Yes, it is,” I said. “Detective Anderson has stolen my house.”
“Well,” he said lightly, “as I said, there is a hotel room waiting for you.”
I shook my head, suddenly feeling stubborn. “It’s my house,” I said. “I have to try.”
Brian sighed theatrically. “Very well,” he said. “But it seems like an awful risk, less than an hour out of jail.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, although in truth I was not nearly as optimistic as I sounded. So far Anderson and the mighty Juggernaut of Justice that he represented had had their way with me, and there was no reason to think things would change now, merely because I was represented by Frank Kraunauer. But one can do no more than try one’s best in this Vale of Tears, and so I climbed out of Brian’s car absolutely brimming with synthetic hope, a cheery fake smile painted on my lips. I stuck my head back inside and said, “Go up to the strip mall on the corner. I’ll walk up when I’m done.”
Brian ducked down and looked at me searchingly, as if afraid he might never see me again. “If you’re not there in half an hour, I’m calling Kraunauer,” he said.
“Forty-five minutes,” I said. “If I get in, I want a shower.”
He looked at me a little longer, then shook his head. “This is a very bad idea,” he said. I closed the door, and he drove slowly away, up toward Dixie Highway.
I understood Brian’s worry. It was perfectly natural caution on the part of somebody who preferred the sort of entertainment he liked. He had always seen cops as the Enemy, a rival predator in the food chain to be avoided whenever possible. But even though I shared his distinctive tastes, I had no inbred aversion to blue uniforms. My unique upbringing and career path had made me familiar with cops, and I understood them as much as I understood any human.
So I walked right up to the patrol car, phony smile still on my face, and tapped on the glass.
Two heads swiveled toward me in perfect unison, and two sets of cold eyes, one blue and one brown, looked me over with unblinking readiness.
I mimed rolling down the window, and after another moment of staring, the owner of the brown eyes, closest to me, rolled down the window. “Can I help you, sir,” the officer said, making help sound as threatening as possible. I let my smile broaden just a little, but the officer didn’t seem impressed. He was thin, about forty, with olive skin and short black hair, and his partner, who was much younger and very pale, with blond hair that was Marine Corps short, leaned over to watch me.
“Yes, I hope so,” I said. “Um, this is my house here? And I was hoping I could get in a
nd get a few things…?”
Neither one of them offered any encouragement, not even a blink. “What kind of things,” Brown Eyes said. It sounded more like an accusation than a question.
“Change of clothes?” I said hopefully. “Maybe a toothbrush?”
At long last, Brown Eyes blinked, but it didn’t soften him up noticeably. “The house is sealed,” he said. “Nobody in, nobody out.”
“Just for a minute?” I pleaded. “You could come and watch me.”
“I said no,” Brown Eyes said, and he was sliding down the scale now, from cold to positively hostile.
And even though I had absolutely no hope that it would change their minds, I couldn’t stop myself from saying, in a kind of desperate, pathetic whine, “But it’s my house.”
“It was your house,” Blue Eyes said. “It’s evidence now.”
“We know who you are,” Brown Eyes said, openly angry now. “You’re the fucking psycho that killed Jackie Forrest.”
“And Robert Chase,” Blue Eyes chimed in.
“You made us all look like assholes,” Brown Eyes said. “The whole fucking force—you know that?”
A very great number of wonderfully clever replies flitted into my brain, like, Oh, no, you already did, or Maybe, but you sure helped, or even It wasn’t that hard. And under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have hesitated to let one slip. But looking into the patrol car at Brown Eyes, I realized that there was a very good chance my lighthearted good humor would slide off ears that seemed to be fastened on a little too tightly—Brown Eyes looked altogether too tightly wrapped all over, in fact, to see any fun anywhere in a world that contained me, so I let the bon mot wither unspoken.
“You’re supposed to be in lockup,” Brown Eyes went on. “What the hell are you doing out?”
“We better call it in,” Blue Eyes said.
“I was released this morning,” I said quickly. “All perfectly legal.” I thought about trying a reassuring smile, but decided it was a bad idea. Blue Eyes was already on the radio, and his partner was opening the door of the car and getting out to face me with the full majesty of the law and barely controlled fury. The effect was spoiled just a bit because Brown Eyes was only about five-foot-four, but he did what he could to make himself taller with his anger.