Harmless (7 page)

Do you ever find
yourself people-watching, say, in an airport on the way to New York to see
Brian Williams, and make up stories about each person walking by?  She
has
to be a super model.  He’s on his way to meet his girlfriend, where he’ll
propose and be rejected.  Those guys are coming back from a weekend golf
outing.  It’s the same thing.

Call it manipulation if
you must (you shouldn’t), but I felt that these facts about Thomas might come
in handy one day.  I’ve experienced some psychic tendencies before, but I never
would’ve thought that I’d have to bring up his flaws during the course of a
murder investigation.  My objective was to use it as a way to get him to pick
up a bar tab or pay for a round of golf.  How does the death of an officer
compare to picking up a check, you ask?  Well, if you
need
to ask, you
haven’t been paying attention.

***

Thomas seethed.  Was it
undue?  Yes, from my standpoint.  “That has nothing to do with this.”

“I think it absolutely
does.”

“How?  Explain to me
how Carter dying has anything—and I mean
anything
—to do with you.”

“I’m under fire here. 
I need help, and this is your chance at redemption.”

“You son of a bitch. 
Don’t you dare.  I’ve paid for that already.  Leave it alone.”

I could see his armor
weakening, but it wasn’t quite enough.  I stood up.  “You can choose not to
believe me—you have that right—and I get how complicated this must be for you…
I said the same thing to Shayna when she didn’t want to let me inside my own
house.  Schott and Berger, those guys are going to mess this up, big time, and
I’m trusting you because that thing with Carter was a one-time fluke.  You’re
better than that, and I’m asking a better man for help.  Don’t let something
like the law get in the way of good judgment.  I loved Kerry, and she loved
me—honest to God, she did—and this needs to be made right.  Not by them.  By
me, by us.  Can you do that for me?  Just this one time, ignore whatever oath
you took and help a guy out.”

He paced down the porch
and back.

Then I offered
something that he couldn’t resist.  It pained me but sometimes you have to give
to get.  (Like the old saying, “If you love something, set it free,” and
blah
blah blah
.)  I said, “Help me and I promise—with the rock-solid word of a
Pendragon—I promise that you’ll never have to see me or hear from me again.”

He stopped so suddenly,
I heard his shoes squeak.  “Is that legit?”

You could probably
describe what I did next as “hemming and hawing” and then eventually, I said,
“Yes.”

“If I help you, we’re
done for good?”

“On my honor.”

“That’s not saying
much.  Jesus—okay.”

“Okay…as in, okay
you’ll help?”

“If it means I never
have to see you again…yeah.”

I can’t say that it
didn’t hurt.  I mean, how would you feel if someone so willingly tossed away a
friendship?  And the look he gave me—I can only describe it as the same look
you give a short-legged dog after it makes several attempts to hop up on the
couch and you eventually relent and help the pathetic bastard up.

That was it.  I’d
reduced myself to nothing more than a Dachshund with poor vertical leap.

“Good.  Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. 
I’m still on the fence.”

“But you said—”

“Forget it.  Just tell
me exactly what happened and what you found.  Every single detail you can think
of.”

I don’t need to
reiterate all the details here because you already know what happened and what
I saw and what I found.  I’ll spare you the repetition—you’re busy, I know how
it is. 

I really should mention,
however, that I left out the part about the diary.  I did feel a slight twinge
of guilt about that, but I wanted to save it for myself.  I needed to look it
over in a private moment so I could have one last piece of Kerry, one last
moment with just the two of us.

And really, you can’t
look at it like it was an invasion of privacy.  She would’ve wanted it that
way.  She would’ve wanted me to use it for clues.  I know it, you know it.

We’ll get to the
contents later, though I will tell you this: what I read changed everything.

Once I’d finished
rehashing the particulars of my awful evening, Thomas said, “And that’s it? 
Your cat, some clothes, and a box of pictures?”

“Yep,” I lied.

“Have you looked
inside?” he asked, pointing at my front door.  “Noticed anything else missing?”

“I haven’t had a chance
yet.”

“Hold off then.  There
may be more.”

“Like what?”

“Hell if I know, it’s
your house.  If I’m going to help you, you gotta do exactly as I say.  Listen
to me—pay attention—if Schott and Berger or anybody else over there finds
something that belongs to you and they question you about it, you tell them
you’d loaned it to her, okay?  You’re neighbors, so it won’t seem suspicious. 
Do not say anything about stealing.  They might take it the wrong way and it’ll
open up a whole can of worms that we don’t want to deal with.  You’re a witness
and that’s it.  We want a clean break.  You heard a gunshot, you saw her fly
out the window, and then you called me to report it.  Nothing more.”

“What about the time
discrepancy?”

“The what?”

“Can’t they pinpoint
the time of death?  Won’t they realize it took a while before I made the call?”

“Maybe.  Shit.  How
long did it take before you called me?”

“Half an hour, tops.”

“They might not be able
to isolate it that close.  If they ask—
if they ask
, meaning don’t offer
more than you should—um, you seem like you’re pretty good at stretching the
truth—”

“Hey!”

“Tell them that you’re
fuzzy on the time frame.  Something like, you’ve never witnessed a murder
before so it took you a while to compose yourself.”

“I might not be able to
hide that.  I mean, I’m
always
composed.”

“I don’t even know what
to say to that.  Just do as you’re told or I’m done.  Got me?”

“Yes.”

“Here’s what I don’t
get—why didn’t any of the other neighbors call it in?  They had to have heard a
gunshot.”

I pointed to each of
the surrounding houses.  “Mrs. Epstein over there, that old hag probably didn’t
have her hearing aid turned on.  Beside her, there in the house with the white
shutters, that’s where Dan Jordan lives.  He works for Philip Morris, so he’s
gone a lot.  Yeah, looks like his car’s not there, so he’s on the road until
tomorrow.  Mike Evans and his family live on the other side of Kerry, and I
think they’re on a trip to Disney World.”

“What about behind you?”

“There’s a pothead in
one, and the house directly behind Kerry’s is on the market.”

“Damn.  Well, that
works out for you, cuts down on the chance anyone saw you.  Sucks at the same
time, because there’s nobody to ask if they saw anything after.”

“Like what?”

“Like a guy running
away, maybe the type of car he got into.  I gotta tell you, chief, right now we
don’t have a lot to go on.”

We’d been so deep in
conversation, neither of us had noticed Detective Berger approaching.  And it’s
a good thing he was only close enough to hear the last sentence. 

He said, “What do you
mean
we
don’t have a lot to go on, Planck?  Shouldn’t you be out
checking meters somewhere?”

And so the reaming
began.

CHAPTER
8

My first impression? 
Dick
. 

In every sense of the
word, from his demeanor, to the way he dressed, to the way he parted his hair
down the middle.  (The 1800s called, Berger, and they still think you’re an
asshole.  I mean, really, does the guy have no sane person in his life to tell
him what an abomination he’s perpetrating on the rest of us?) 

He wore a rumpled suit,
which undoubtedly came from the same recycle bin where Clarence shopped, a
sinfully ugly tie capable of inducing seizures, and—get this—
sunglasses
hanging by a neon orange lanyard.  In the middle of the night.  The only thing
admirable about him was the perfectly executed Windsor knot at his neck.  Given
the opportunity, I wouldn’t have hesitated to choke him with it. 

Perception and reality
were sufficiently intertwined in this case.  He smelled like stale bread.  He
sounded like a braying donkey.  He looked like a dirtbag.  Define what a
dirtbag looks like? 
See: Detective Berger
.

Thomas backed away a
step, held up his hands.  “Sorry, Berger.  Just easing Mr. Pendragon’s nerves.”

“You better be.  We
wouldn’t want you planting ideas in his head.”

I felt my skin
prickle.  I can’t say that statement didn’t worry me.  Like maybe he’d heard
more than we thought.  In the end, however, it seemed more like a throwaway
statement than a gentle hint that he knew something was up.

Berger said to me, “Mr.
Pendragon, mind if I ask you some questions?”

“No, not at all.  And
you can call me Steve.  That’s Steven with a
V
.”  I could tell by his
questioning, sideways glance that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to inject my
step-hen
joke.  Regardless, being the dick that he was, I doubt he would’ve laughed.

“Right.  Mr. Pendragon,
how well did you know Miss Parker?”

Here, I could’ve
offered him a dissertation on Kerry.  Grooming habits, underwear choices,
orphaned fish.  Weekly schedule, shoe size, ketchup-to-fries preference.  What
she smelled like.  Taste in music.  How appreciative she was when I
hand-delivered her mail.  How she loved my sense of humor.  The amount of her
paycheck from the elementary school.  And as I mentally cycled through the
multitudinous bevy of information I’d gathered about her, something dawned on
me.  Every bit of it was a surface-level character profile.

My internet searches
(harmless—you know it, I know it) regarding “Kerry Parker” had offered little
in the way of actual information about her.  If anything, now that I’d paused a
moment to think about it.  There had been ancient, decaying (outdated?  rusty? 
prehistoric?) MySpace pages registered to the same name (twenty-three of them
total) and not a single one had a picture that resembled my Kerry next door. 
They were all too young, too old, too male, or they lived thousands of miles
away.  No matching Facebook profile.  No LinkedIn profile. 

No Twitter account. 

And thank God for that—I
would’ve considered reevaluating our emotional connection.

All in all, Kerry
Parker, as I knew her, didn’t exist within any online social circles.  It was
odd, to say the least, because you can’t open a web browser these days without
seeing that someone ‘likes’ Hot Yoga Thursdays.

Basically, my knowledge
of Kerry came from looking at her through a pair of binoculars.  (That sounds
creepy.  “Metaphorically” is what I meant.)  Granted, some folks are private
enough—and sane enough—to resist sharing every bit of their daily minutiae, but
there’s at least some semblance of an online trail of breadcrumbs to follow. 
Maybe a mention of some award won at a charity auction or the fact that you
placed fifty-seventh out of two hundred in your age class during the Thanksgiving
Day Turkey Trot 5K.

Not Kerry.

As hard as this may be
for you to believe, I realized in that moment that I had created an
image
of Kerry, not the
actuality
.  I certainly hadn’t believed she would’ve
been the type of person to covertly enter a home and steal things.  And if I
didn’t know that much, what else had there been?

Shayna hid plenty of
things from me.  Bank statements, medical records, Social Security number.  The
lack of faith would’ve driven anyone away.

So yes, it took that
simple question from Detective Berger to ask myself,
How well did I know
Kerry?

“Not very,” I admitted,
which did not change the fact, not in the slightest, that she and I were meant
for each other.  The blame is mine.  I should’ve worked harder, dug deeper. 
She would’ve treasured the effort.

Detective Berger said,
“Not very, huh?  She lived next door to you for what, six months?”

“That’s correct.”  From
the corner of my eye, I could see Thomas offering a subtle
good job
nod.

“And in that time, you
didn’t make her acquaintance?  Maybe invite her over for dinner?  Anything like
that?”

“No,” I lied.  “She was
a private person.”

“Are you sure about
that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Hmm.  Funny.”

“Funny?  Funny how?”

“That’s not the
impression I got from the blue boys.  They said you were damn near out of your
mind when they got here.  Practically had to restrain you.”

“I—I was—distraught.”

“Distraught.  Is that
right?  That’s a strong word for someone who wasn’t very familiar with the
deceased.”

I didn’t like what his
tone suggested.  “Well, it’s the truth, and why are you here questioning me? 
Shouldn’t you be next door going through her things?  This doesn’t seem like
the most efficient use of resources.”

Have you ever seen
those old Hanna-Barbera cartoons where a character goes red-faced and steam
pours out of his ears?  Yosemite Sam comes to mind, especially when he’d get so
angry at Bugs that he couldn’t speak properly and a slew of mumbled
frustrations would fly out of his mouth.  That’s what Berger sounded like
next.  If you were to put pen to paper and create an animated doodle of him,
he’d be firing so many rounds into my porch that the recoil would lift his feet
off the ground.

“What—who do you—are
you—I’m—you can’t be—”

Thomas stepped in. 
“Breathe, Berger.  He’s a little flustered.  Everybody asks the same thing,
man.  He’s not suggesting—”

“Back off, Planck.  I
will
not
take a breather.”

An older man, better
dressed than Berger with a solid air of composure, stepped up onto the porch
beside him.  Shaved bald, graying goatee, he was confident and measured in his
approach.  Taking his time, giving us all a second to accept his arrival.  I
felt more comfortable with him present.  “Safer” is a better word.

It’s not an
exaggeration to say that some of the air went out of Berger’s balloon.

“Now, now,” Schott
said.  “Let’s not harass the witness.”  (He pronounced it “
hare-uss
.”)

From the look Berger
gave him, I can only surmise that later there would be a heated discussion
about not scolding him like a child in front of a possible suspect.  Which
Schott would parry deftly, no doubt.

Schott said, “Proceed,”
with a hand-wave, granting permission.

And from there, the
grilling continued, although with reduced venom.  What had I been doing when I
heard the gunshot?  (I almost got him to agree that allowing Russell to pinch
hit was a horrible idea.)  What did I do after?  Why did it take me so long to
call?  Why did I call Thomas first instead of 9-1-1?  Was I positive I didn’t
have anything to hide by doing so?  I saw the body fly out the window—did I see
anyone running from the home?

I answered each with
the typical grace and poise of a Pendragon, at least until Berger said this:
“All right, then, I suppose it doesn’t matter too much what you were doing. 
From the looks of it, we’re treating this as self-inflicted.  We found a
possible weapon underneath her bed.”

I mentioned I redlined
just shy of primeval, didn’t I?  That doesn’t necessarily do my emotions
justice, because in all seriousness, I managed to contain my
outward
appearance
to that level.  Inside, I boiled.

“Self-inflicted? 
What?  What?!  You can’t be serious.  Kerry wouldn’t do that.  She wouldn’t! 
There’s no chance in hell that the Kerry Parker I knew would ever do something
like that.  If you think for one second that she would put a bullet in herself,
you need to have your head examined.  Something happened over there, something
evil
,
and it didn’t involve Kerry committing suicide.  Go back to cop school or
whatever it is you do, Detective Berger, because that’s about the stupidest
idea I think I’ve ever heard.”

You’ve heard the term
“pregnant pause,” right?  If we’d had an audience, or if life came with a
prerecorded soundtrack of important moment responses, there would have been an
audible gasp.

Thomas rolled his eyes,
then covered his face with his hands.  It’s the same thing I would’ve done at
the end of the Giants game.  Schott cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. 
Berger, well, I don’t have to elaborate on how he reacted.

The three of us waited
on his mushroom cloud to dissipate.  Thomas retreated.  I crossed my arms. 
Schott put his hands in his pockets, patiently allowing the tirade to come to
an end.  This, I suppose, was the result of witnessing this particular type of
behavior before from Berger, and knowing that it was better to let his
explosion capitulate.

I was confident in my
assessment that he was wrong and I took no stock in his immediate threat to
“tear me a new asshole.”  I couldn’t care less what he thought. 

(I should interject
something here: the phrase is “couldn’t care less.”  Not, “I could care less.” 
If you
could
care less, why don’t you?  Just a little tip from your
Uncle Steve.)

And I was fine,
completely, until he suggested something that rocked me.

“Seems to me you’re
giving us a lot of conflicting information, Mr. Pendragon.  You say you didn’t
know her that well, but you’re awfully damn certain that she didn’t shoot
herself.  How can you be so sure, huh?  How?  Little fishy, if you ask me.  I
am
this close
to changing my mind and considering you the prime
suspect.”

“Prime suspect?  Prime
sus—are you kidding me with this?  I would never, and to even suggest the
possibility is a complete character assault.  Character. 
Assault
.”

“I don’t give a damn what
happens to your character.  You’re exhibiting suspicious behavior—”

“She didn’t kill
herself.  I saw the…”  Somehow, I was able to jerk the words back into my mouth
before they came out.  I saw…
the murderer
.  I mean, I didn’t, really,
but he existed, he was inside her house.

“You saw the
what
?”

Here, the word
“backpedal” would be appropriate.  “I saw the…the bullet hole, you know, in her
chest.  If she really wanted to kill herself, that doesn’t make any sense.  Why
not go for the head?”

“Uh-huh.  Right.  Why
didn’t
you go for the head, Pendragon?”

“I didn’t kill her!”

Thankfully, that’s when
Thomas stepped in.  “Hey, hey, we’re losing focus here.  Let’s not turn it into
a pissing match.  Mr. Pendragon can be a little—he can be a little too…
certain
of himself sometimes.  I’m sure the evidence will clearly show—”

Berger said, “Shut up,
Planck.  If I wanted advice from some flatfooted doughnut commando, I’d ask.”

Schott, being the
dapper gentleman that he was (I have no idea if he’s actually a dapper gentleman,
but I at least owe him the courtesy since he undoubtedly saved me from time
behind bars) interrupted with a simple, “Mr. Pendragon is telling the truth,
Berger.  Leave it be.”

How he came to that
conclusion in an entirely separate mystery from Kerry’s story, one that remains
unsolved.  Maybe it was my body language.  Maybe it was due to years of gauging
suspects.  Whatever the case, I still give him a call now and then to thank him
for making the assessment.  He stopped returning them after a while, but the
desk clerk assures me that the messages get delivered.

It was obvious that
Berger was used to yielding to Schott’s wisdom, but it didn’t stop him from
giving Thomas the finger before he nodded and left my front porch.

Schott said, “I would
apologize for him, but I’ve gotten tired of doing it.  You’re clear for now,
Mr. Pendragon, just don’t go anywhere for a while.  We’ll be in touch.”

“Thanks.”

When he left and was
out of earshot, I had to endure another round of reaming from Thomas, albeit
less severe, admonishing me for being thickheaded, stubborn, and carelessly
going against his advice to not be myself around Berger.  For no other reason
than to appease him, I agreed.  Honestly, I have no problem admitting when I’m
wrong (I can almost hear you shaking your head—trust me on this one, I don’t),
but not when it comes to giving credence to self-serving assholes like Berger. 
I didn’t believe I was to blame, of course, yet even outwardly admitting it
felt like I swallowed a whole grapefruit along with my pride.