by A. J. Thomas
Once he finally got Christopher down to an undershirt and briefs, Doug let him fall backward onto the bed. Christopher lay there for a moment, and then he burrowed under the blankets. Doug stripped down to his boxers and crawled under the covers with Christopher. As soon as he wrapped his arms around Christopher and pulled him close, he let sleep claim him. Doug felt warm lips and rough whiskers against his cheek before he fell into a deep sleep.
For once, it wasn’t a nightmare that woke him up, but the sound of his phone ringing. He fumbled for his cell, trying not to disturb the man beside him. “Heavy Runner.”
Beside him, Christopher blinked and sat up.
“Heavy Runner, it’s Daniels. You were the one closing out the case file on that Hayes suicide, right?”
Doug sat up quickly. “Yeah. What’s up?”
“Where’s the next of kin’s contact information? The only thing in the case file is his work phone.”
Christopher glanced up at him, his silent question tinted by amusement.
“No,” Doug said quickly, “I don’t have his contact information in the case file. I can find him on my way into town, though. I know where he’s staying. Why?”
“Someone burned down Peter Hayes’s house last night. The fire department called down to the FBI field office in Missoula for an arson investigator. They would like to chat with Mr. Hayes. And you. Where’s he staying? I’ll send a deputy out to pick him up.”
“No, I can get there faster. I’ll make sure he comes in. But”—he glanced at his watch fast—“I’ll probably miss the shift briefing.”
Doug hung up the phone.
“You look serious. You’ve got to go arrest someone?”
Doug looked away. “Not quite. I have to bring someone in for questioning. You remember that fire last night, the one they paged the entire fire department to deal with?”
“That was the entire fire department? For the whole town?”
“Yes.”
“I remember.”
“Your brother’s house burned down last night. They called in an arson investigator from Missoula. An FBI agent, apparently. He wants to talk to both of us this morning.”
“How the hell did an FBI agent get up here so fast? It took me all fucking day!”
“They’ve got an office in Missoula. If you just stay on the highway, it’s only a four-hour drive.”
Christopher glared at him. “He wants to talk to both of us?”
“That’s right. They want to talk to you because it’s technically your house. And me because I was the last one to have the keys.”
“An arson investigation,” Christopher muttered. “I knew my week just wasn’t complete yet.” He jumped out of bed and began to dig through his luggage. He pulled a nice brown suit out of his garment bag, and then pulled out another gray one. “Here.” He held up the brown one.
“I should go home and get something of my own,” said Doug.
“So they can ask what took you so long? You can just bag it up and drop it at the front desk if it makes you feel really weird.”
Doug bit back the urge to say something. There wasn’t time to panic about what was supposed to happen this morning. There wasn’t time to dread an awkward good-bye, or to suffer a panic attack because the good-bye part didn’t seem to be happening. There would be time for all that crap later. Right now, he needed to be as collected and professional as possible. Christopher seemed to realize that, too, because his work mode mask was already firmly in place.
Doug rocked forward as he realized what this would mean for him. He would have to explain that he had been with Christopher from the moment he stepped out of his car until his phone rang. The possibility of outing himself at work had just become inevitable. He couldn’t lie to a federal arson investigator, and he couldn’t let Christopher face the shitstorm that would come from not having someone to verify he hadn’t set the house on fire when he was there. “What am I supposed to tell them?” Doug asked.
“The truth,” Christopher said automatically. “Don’t act like a moron and try to hide the fact that you were here. I got drunk, you tucked me in, and you fell asleep. That is actually what happened.”
“Yeah, but….”
“We came here after my run, I got a hotel room, and I got cleaned up. You were in the room. Whether you think they need to know you were in the shower or not is up to you, but I don’t intend to mention it.”
Doug rubbed his eyes and climbed out of bed, the rising panic ebbing. “God, you’re right. I just… I’m not out, and I don’t think anybody I work with would handle it well. Not to mention the town.”
“I’m not going to out you to the FBI,” Christopher promised. “Or myself, if it comes to that. Those fuckers never have a sense of humor.”
“I’ll just shake out the jacket I wore yesterday. No one’s going to notice. Do you have a clean shirt I could borrow?”
“There’s a cream-colored shirt in the suit jacket. And no more God talk.”
At least the FBI had a dress code. Between Doug and the two federal agents, there were enough suits in the station that Christopher didn’t look out of place. Unfortunately, for two hours he had been sitting at Doug’s desk in the charge room, while Doug answered questions inside a small conference room. Christopher, like everyone else in the room, was trying very hard not to pay attention to the window in the conference-room door.
Christopher knew, from the way they had separated them for questioning, that the FBI was convinced the fire had been deliberately set. The firefighters wouldn’t have called in an arson investigator if they didn’t have evidence. Proper procedure would mean bringing Christopher in without giving him and Doug a moment to talk to one another, so they could compare both Doug and Christopher’s accounts of what happened objectively. Both Christopher and Doug were being treated as potential suspects. Christopher wondered if being one another’s alibi would clear them or get them both arrested.
They were following standard procedure, so Christopher couldn’t hold it against them. He wasn’t crazy about the way the skinnier of the two FBI agents kept staring at him through the window in the conference room door. The man’s expression was utterly blank, and Christopher wasn’t sure what to make of him. He had short black hair and two days of stubble on his jaw. He was taller than Christopher, which was rare by itself, and his suit hung off him. It would have looked bad if the man hadn’t radiated such complete confidence that wearing a rumpled, oversized suit just made him look slim and fit.
Christopher tapped his foot until his calf muscle ached, and then he bounced his knee. Two hours with nothing to do but hang out with a room full of strangers had Christopher ready to start drumming his fingers on the desk.
When the door finally opened, Doug came straight toward him, with the skinny FBI agent following on his heels. Doug rounded the desk, nudged Christopher’s thigh to the side, and pulled open the bottom drawer. He pulled out a file and handed it to the FBI agent without opening it. “You’re welcome to use our copy machine. The key went back into the evidence locker last night,” said Doug, walking away without even glancing at Christopher.
The FBI agent, however, stood there staring at him. His expression was still unreadable, but his gaze was open and curious.
“Mr. Hayes!” The second FBI agent appeared beside his partner and elbowed him in the ribs. “I’m Special Agent Allen Shaffer. This is Special Agent Elliot Belkamp, who is going to go make photocopies. Come with me.”
There was no mistaking his words for a request. Christopher was just grateful for a chance to get up and move without looking as restless as he felt. He jumped to his feet and hurried ahead of the FBI agent, toward the conference room. He sat down in the chair that Doug had spent the last two hours stuck in, drummed his hands quickly over the table, the bottom of the chair, and then the table again, then tried to settle down.
“You all right?” Agent Shaffer asked, taking the seat opposite him.
“I don’t sit still. It’s physically imposs
ible for me to do so without some kind of restraint system. It would probably be classified as a high-functioning form of ADD, except I can’t sit still long enough for a diagnosis.” When the FBI agent didn’t even smile, Christopher forced himself to settle down. “Can I ask you a question?”
“I might not be able to answer, but you can ask.”
“Are you required to have your sense of humor surgically removed to join the FBI, or is it optional?”
“That was a joke?” Agent Shaffer asked.
Christopher pressed his lips together tight. “I guess it wasn’t,” he muttered.
“Sorry,” Agent Shaffer said as he pulled out a legal pad and a pen. “It’s been a long night.”
“It’s ten in the morning.”
“Yes, that’s how long a night it’s been.”
“Sorry to hear that,” said Christopher, well aware that leaving the windows in Peter’s house open had probably contributed to the man’s long night. Christopher sat back and studied the man carefully. He was tall and broad, but not quite as tall as Christopher or his dark-haired partner. He had military-short auburn hair, hazel eyes, and a bright red goatee showing a hint of gray.
“I heard you like to run,” Agent Shaffer said in a friendly voice. The man tried to smile, but Christopher could see nothing but stress and strain in his eyes.
That wasn’t what Christopher was expecting. That was the type of bullshit investigators pulled when they were trying to set their suspect up: a half hour of friendly conversation hoping their suspect will slip up and say something stupid, then they could press him on the slipup and try to convince him they were on his side because they’d spent a whole thirty minutes chatting. No wonder they had spent two hours asking Doug to tell them about a single night. “I do,” said Christopher, trying to keep a passive look on his face.
“I googled you,” Agent Shaffer explained. “You’ve run some major races.”
“Yes.”
“That’s awesome. I wish I could run like that. I did a few marathons when I was younger, but now my knees just won’t hold out for much more than a 5K. I nearly shit myself when I saw that you’d finished Western States and Leadville—those are insane.”
“Is this an interview, or do you want recaps of the last Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon?” Christopher asked, not smiling.
“Yeah, okay. I just thought it was cool.” Special Agent Shaffer shrugged.
Maybe Christopher was overreacting. He probably was. The guy might not actually talk to suspects that often. He might actually want recaps of the last big San Diego marathon. “Look,” he offered, “I’m not trying to be an asshole. If you want to talk running, I’d love to, but not here and not now.”
The door to the conference room opened, and the skinny FBI agent let himself in and shut the door behind him. Elliot Belkamp. Christopher repeated the name in his head.
“So what brought you up to our neck of the woods?” Special Agent Shaffer asked.
“My brother killed himself. I’d have left him up here to rot, but I was on medical leave anyway. I thought it might be a good excuse for a change of scenery, if nothing else.”
“Medical leave?” Shaffer flipped through the sheets on his notepad. “You’re a certified peace officer in the State of California?”
“That’s correct.”
“Why are you on medical leave?”
“Is that relevant?”
“I don’t know,” the agent admitted. “That’s why I asked.”
“I was injured in an officer-involved shooting last month.”
“You were shot?”
Christopher kept his features neutral, but he was trying to imagine other ways to get hurt in an officer-involved shooting. “Yes,” he said finally.
Special Agent Belkamp snorted.
“When are you planning on going back to work?”
Christopher shrugged. “When the doctors tell me I can.”
“So you will be able to go back to work? Your captain said you had some doubts about that.”
Christopher was careful not to look surprised. “I do. And if my doctor tells me I’ll never go back into law enforcement, I’ve also got my secondary-school teaching credentials for California. I’ve got subject credentials in English and physical education.”
“Really?” Shaffer couldn’t hide the look of disgust that flashed over his face. “From Homicide to a high school gym?”
“And here I thought you were thorough.” Christopher leaned forward and set his elbows on the table. “No California school district has funding for gym anymore. I’d like to teach English. I would have to take a few refresher courses first.”
Special Agent Shaffer scribbled a few illegible notes. “So were you and your brother close?”
“No.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“About two decades ago.”
“Two decades ago?”
Christopher nodded.
“So you didn’t grow up together?”
“Until I left, we did.”
“You left?”
“Yes.”
“You’re thirty-two. You left home at twelve?”
Christopher knew the man was just parroting him, trying to get him to elaborate. He didn’t want to elaborate, but he had a feeling this guy just wasn’t going to let it go. “I just turned thirty-three. There is a basic assumption in that question that is incorrect,” said Christopher calmly. “We didn’t have a home. I left him.”
“You were homeless? Was he your only family?”
“Technically, we were in a reputable foster home, run by a local minister.”
“But you ran away from the foster home?”
“I did.”
“Why did you run away?”
Christopher opened his eyes and glared at the man. “Is that relevant?”
“Again, I don’t know.”
Christopher kept his gaze locked on Special Agent Shaffer’s. “I ran away after my brother raped me. In all fairness, he had refused to let our foster father do it. He was beaten and brutally raped instead, and I ran away to hide and to wait for my big brother to come find me. If I had had any clue about the nature of cyclic violence, I probably would have seen it coming. Afterward, he felt so guilty he sat there crying. He told me to run away and never look back. I ran.”
Christopher didn’t look away from the other man’s gaze. He glared at him, daring him to say something with the same mocking sympathy Christopher had heard every time he admitted to being an adult survivor of child abuse. He absolutely refused to look at Agent Belkamp.
“Did you go to the police, or to CPS?” Shaffer asked.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t think you did.”
Christopher laughed. “Special Agent Shaffer, your assumptions in this conversation are all seriously flawed. I did. I told them everything. Unfortunately, the only actual evidence I could provide incriminated Peter. My CPS caseworker agreed that I was traumatized. They said I was transferring responsibility for what happened from Peter to our foster father in my head. Peter went to juvie, not prison, though, because he was a minor. I went to a foster family in another part of the county, an older couple who were both retired teachers. They believed me. They helped me through it. They helped me go to school and insisted I keep coming to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner after I turned eighteen. They even stopped saying grace at the table because it freaked me out so much I couldn’t eat.”
“They sound like nice people.”
“They were. They both passed away over the past few years.”
“I’m sorry,” Agent Shaffer whispered.
Christopher dropped his glare. “It’s fine. Can we get on with this now?”
“Did you know that your brother lived here in Elkin?”
“No.”
“How did you find out?”
“The sheriff called to tell me he’d died. Frankly, I was surprised he was out of prison.”
“W
hen did you arrive here in Elkin?” Agent Shaffer asked.
“Yesterday. Around five. I got lost.”
“Got lost?”
“Yes. I flew into Missoula on Saturday. Missoula has curry, good beer, and some great running trails. I figured the morgue would be closed until Monday anyway, so I stayed there and enjoyed the trails. Then my GPS somehow turned a four-hour drive into a twelve-hour drive through someplace called Big Fork.”
“Big Fork?” Agent Belkamp asked.
“It’s a bit out of the way.” Agent Shaffer chuckled.
“Yeah, yeah. Purchasing a map is on the agenda. I got that lecture yesterday.”
“So you arrived in town at five?”
“Yes. The GPS managed to get me straight to the morgue once I was in town. I was running so late that I caught Doug as he was leaving.”
“That’s right…. How long have you and Detective Heavy Runner been friends?”
Christopher thought about the question. He shrugged. “I couldn’t say.”
“How did you two meet?”
“We were the only big-city cops in a Montana bar,” said Christopher. It was a gamble, but he was confident that they would assume he meant they met at the Hay Loft.
“Big-city cops?”
“He worked Miami,” Christopher said idly. “Opposite coasts, different gangs, different issues—but it’s still the same animal, you know?”
“Miami? I assumed he was Native American.” Agent Shaffer laughed. “I figured he was trying to pretend he wasn’t from the reservation by moving a whole twenty miles north.”
Christopher didn’t smile. He froze. The twitching, that he so often disguised with flamboyant conversation skills, stopped.
“Reservation?” Agent Belkamp asked.
“The Salish and Kootenai tribes,” Agent Shaffer tried to explain. “Nothing but drunks and assholes. Ah, never mind. He just transferred out here from California a few months ago,” he said, pointing a thumb at his partner.
Christopher let his glare intensify on its own again. He didn’t make any attempt to hide it with a smile. He sat back and folded his arms across his chest.
“So you’re old friends?” Agent Shaffer said carefully. He was quiet for a moment, and Christopher had a feeling he was either waiting for Christopher to confirm that he knew Doug previously or to clarify that they’d just met. Christopher stayed quiet. He had no way to know exactly what Doug had told them, and the worst thing he could do right now was to say the opposite.
