by Clare Kauter
“You overdosed on purpose, didn’t you?”
He looked like a deer in the headlights. “Charlie, I –”
“Don’t you dare lie to me William McKenzie.”
He sighed and began, seeming kind of unsure of what words to use. “Charlie, I – I’m gay.” Frankly, I was unsurprised, but it seemed like an odd time to come out.
“So?” I said. “What does that matter? I’m not trying to crack onto you! What do you think this is?”
“Oh my god, Charlie, grow up. This isn’t about you. I kind of… I mean, I knew for a long time, but I only admitted it to myself about five years ago and I wasn’t coping. I started taking drugs, just weed really. Nothing heavy. I got a little paranoid and hid it in my brother’s room. My parents found it, he said it wasn’t his, they kicked him out, not really for having the weed so much but for lying about it. I tried to tell them but they thought I was just trying to get him out of trouble. James wouldn’t talk to me after that, and even though I know it was about the drugs, at the time I thought it was… Well, he was the only person I’d told, then he kind of disowned me. I told your brother, then he disappeared. I thought they were…”
“You thought that all that shit happened because they found out that you’re gay? Seriously?”
He smiled, but it was not a happy smile. It looked kind of… rueful. “I know, it’s stupid. At the time, though, I was so sure. I was messed up, you know, high half the time, depressed the rest of it… I got my hands on some heavier shit and tried to kill myself. My parents didn’t kick me out because they were scared that the next time I would actually manage it.”
This was a lot more detail than I ever knew before.
“So none of this has anything to do with you maybe finding out that James was a hit-man?”
He gave me exactly the kind of look you’d imagine someone would give you after you’d asked that sort of question. “You thought that I’d tried to kill myself because I found out that my 16 year old brother was a hit man?”
Well, OK, now it maybe didn’t seem so plausible. “But James has to be the killer! Nothing else makes sense. It was James and his housekeeper, and James has been killing people for Larry Jones for five years, and that’s why Topher ran away. All the school excursions line up! Karen was the one following me last night, because she turned up after I arrived. James must have called her to warn her she’d been spotted. That has to be what happened.”
He stared at me blankly for a moment, then shook his head in disbelief. “Charlie, that is completely mental. And yes, that is my professional opinion.”
I sat down on the therapy couch and lay back, closing my eyes. “I know.” If I stopped to think for a second, I knew it couldn’t possibly be James. If nothing else, I knew he would never hurt my brother. He would never hurt his uncle. He hated Larry Jones. This was a set up.
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I’m kind of relieved to be honest. I think I was going a bit mental thinking about…” Where my brother’s body was. That’s what I was thinking, but I couldn’t say it without my voice cracking. Change the topic. “I guess it was wishful thinking that Karen was involved somehow. I hate her so much.”
“Karen? Is she James’s housekeeper?” he asked.
“Yeah, there was a car that vaguely matches a description near the crime scene.”
“How vaguely?”
“Old.”
“Right. Not exactly incontrovertible evidence, then.”
“Not exactly.”
“What’s she like?”
“Horrible. And she’s got a massive crush on James.”
He nodded slowly, as though he’d just figured something out. “So that’s why you don’t like her. Competition.”
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up.”
He smiled. “Nothing wrong with being in love, baby. You’re only human.”
I ignored him, having just remembered something important. I sighed. Whether it was relief that James was innocent or disappointment that I had been wrong, I don’t know. “He doesn’t look like a rat. He can’t be the Rodent I’m looking for.”
To his credit, Will didn’t look too confused at what I had said. I guess he’d known me long enough that nothing I said could really faze him. “I don’t even want to know what kind of weird fantasies go through your head.”
“William, shut up.”
“You are a strange and twisted woman, Charlie Davies. I don’t know if I want you to become my sister in law.”
I rolled my eyes. “I have to go. I have a murderer to catch.” I stood and stormed to the door. Unfortunately, when I got there I couldn’t get it open. Will let me out, not bothering to disguise his amusement.
“Later, Dangerous Davies.”
Prick.
“By the way, if there’s any chance of you running into my brother today, you might want to change out of your current outfit. It makes you look large in all the wrong places.”
I frowned. “Are there right places to look large?”
“Boobs?”
I looked down. Flat.
“Mmm.”
“The clothes you wear make you look like a spinster who’s given up all hope of finding a man. How can you expect James to fall in love with you when you go around dressed like you’re homeless?”
I groaned. “I don’t expect, nor want, your brother to fall for me. As you well know.”
When he started to hum Can’t Fight The Moonlight, I slapped him across the face and left the clinic. Sitting in my car, I considered all the information I had about the case. As far as Will knew, James had nothing to do with killing anybody, and, on top of that, James didn’t fit The Rodent’s profile. So basically I had nothing. Back to square one. Again.
At this rate, I was going to lose the bet.
Chapter Fifteen
Back in the car, my phone began to ring. The car answered for me. What a car.
“Honey?”
“Hey Tim, what’s up? How’s Sarah?”
“Still out of it,” he said. “But I talked to the person who found her. Apparently they saw a green van in the area.”
Oh god. Did that mean…
“Is there some sort of safe house I can go to?” Yeah, that sounded a little dramatic. But hey, this was a dramatic situation.
“We’re tracking your car’s GPS. Just make sure you keep an eye out and call it in if you spot the van.”
“Who do I call?”
“Me. Please just don’t do anything stupid.”
“Sure,” I said, in what I doubted was a convincing tone.
“Please.”
I was feeling much calmer after talking to Will. I mean, sure, there was a very experienced assassin after me and I had no idea who they were, and yeah, they could kill me at any time, but hey – I was still in with a chance of winning a house.
I cruised in silence for a while, not really driving anywhere in particular, when my phone rang again.
“Charlie? It’s Jo.”
“Hey, Jo.” How did she get this number? I hadn’t planned on telling her I had a mobile, um, ever.
“Were you ever planning on telling me you got a mobile?” Uh… “Not that it matters. Your mum gave me the number so now you can’t avoid me.” She cackled. “I can’t believe you waited until your work gave you a mobile before owning one. Hello, 21st century. Actually, hello 20th century. You are so behind the times.”
OK, was there some way I could get my car’s Bluetooth to block certain people’s numbers? Because as much as I loved Jo, this was actually going to drive me crazy.
“I didn’t realise people were so hot to talk to me,” I said.
“Sure, whatever. I’m just ringing to remind you that my dinner party is tonight and you promised, like 100% promised, that you would be there. Here.” Pretty sure that was a lie, but whatever. “Lea is already here – your mum dropped her off. They’ve both told me you’re dressed like a country hobo, so go home and get changed. It starts in an h
our, but I don’t mind if you turn up late looking hot, because I have invited three potential suitors for you, and you are going to love all three of them and you’re not going to be able to choose and you’re just going to have penis coming at you from all directions and you won’t even know what to do with it.” I shuddered.
“Jo, that is the single most disturbing image I have ever been exposed to, and I just spent all weekend looking at autopsy photographs.”
“Anyway, turning up fashionably late is OK so I don’t even care that you’ve forgotten. Just make sure you get changed out of your Old McDonald clothes and into something that shows a bit of leg. A bit of shaven leg,” she said, and hung up.
I groaned and headed for home. I didn’t think I could get out of this dinner party. Best to just submit. It was four o’clock when I got back and I hopped straight into the shower, trying to tame my crazy curls. Once I was washed and shaven (don’t even go there, you pervert), I added some weird hair goo and let my mane dry curly. I opened my wardrobe and looked in. Hmm. I really did need to go shopping.
As you may have gathered by now, I was not usually one for fashion statements. Well, I guess I did make statements, but the things my clothes tended to say were along the lines of “go away” and “there’s no such thing as the wrong size”. Trying to find something nice to wear was a challenge. Normally I wouldn’t bother, but Jo had given me instructions, and Jo could be downright terrifying when you defied her.
A dress, I decided. Not to impress the “potential suitors”. (Oh lord, I didn’t think I’d be able to even look at them after Jo’s earlier comments. After that even my internal monologue was starting to sound like my Grandma voice.) I was only wearing the dress for Jo. I dug around right in the back of my cupboard and found a pink dress. Yes, a pink dress. A gift, of course. I secretly loved it – it was an exact copy of my favourite pink polka-dot dress from when I was little. It had appeared, pristinely wrapped in baby-blue wrapping paper and white ribbon, on the dining table the morning of my last birthday. There was no “from” on it. My parents denied all knowledge of it. They thought maybe it was from Vi. Vi suggested it was maybe from my friends. My friends suggested it was maybe from a secret admirer.
I was pretty sure I knew who it was from, which was why I’d never worn it.
Until tonight.
I was ready by five, and headed out in my car to Jo’s house. On the way, however, I got a little distracted, thinking about the case. If the emails had been sent from Frank’s house, and James hadn’t sent them, then who had? I wondered if Tim had updated him at all. Probably not. Tim didn’t want James to find out how much we knew in case he was the killer and he got spooked. James probably didn’t even know about Sarah.
Unless, you know, he shot her.
Next thing I knew, I was accidentally parked outside his house. Well, I thought. I’m here now. Might as well duck in for a chat. He’s probably not even a murderer.
He took a while to answer when I knocked at his door, and when it finally opened he looked… Well… Not like the James McKenzie I knew. This was like when we were little and I’d broken my arm for the first time – he’d thought I was dying and he spent three days in a deep depression, refusing to eat or sleep or leave the side of my bed. Except now he wasn’t three and it wasn’t heartbreaking in a cute way anymore. It was just heartbreaking.
“Oh my god James, you look like shit.” Not the most sensitive thing I’d ever said, I’ll admit.
“Come in,” he said quietly, turning and walking away. He was wearing nothing but boxer shorts, which wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but was also just not like him. He was one of those rare individuals who walked around the house fully dressed. Something was really wrong.
There was an old-time jazzy mix playing somewhere in the background, and he had a glass of some sort of amber liquid in hand. It was all rather dramatic. I followed him into his kitchen at which point he stopped, turned, and looked at me. “I like your dress,” he said, his voice cracking slightly.
“Birthday present,” I said, as if he didn’t know.
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Tim called,” he said. “He apologised, but said he can’t get anywhere with the case and that he was dropping it.”
“He’s lying,” I said. “He got somewhere. It just wasn’t where either of us wanted it to go.” I watched his face, but he clearly already knew.
“I’m expecting to be arrested any minute now.”
“Well, you’re dressed for it.”
“Do you know what evidence they have against me?” he asked.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you,” I said.
“Why not? Do you think I’m guilty?”
He said it in a light-hearted way, but there was a flicker of something more serious in his eyes. Fear, sadness, you know – the kind of emotions you probably feel when people think you’re a serial killer.
“Obviously, yes, I think you’re a crazed killer. You’ve always displayed such psychotic tendencies. That’s why I’m here. Because you’re so terrifying.”
He laughed quietly, but still didn’t look much happier. “Is Sarah OK?”
“Last I heard, she’s still in a coma.”
“What?”
Ah, so Tim hadn’t told him anything. I began explaining – about Sarah, about the same van that chased me being seen near where she was shot, about the car seen at Frank’s murder scene, about the emails sent from Frank’s house, about the date in the organiser, about the pictures in the magazine.
“So Tim actually thinks…”
James leant back against the fridge, his knees giving way under him, and slid down, collapsing onto the floor. He put his arms around his knees and his head forwards. I realised that his shoulders were shaking. Oh shit. This was worse than when I broke my arm. This was much worse.
I walked over and sat down beside him, putting my arm around his shoulder. He turned and hugged me and we sat there like that for a moment; him crying silently, me feeling awkward and wondering how to help. He regained his composure eventually and apologised.
“Sorry, I, um… You know.”
“I’m really sorry your uncle’s dead, James.” It was one of those rare moments when I acted like a nice human with feelings.
“Thanks Charlie,” he said. “We need to figure out who did it.”
“I know. OK, um. I have no idea what to do. All the evidence screams that you did it and had Karen help you.”
“Except that I didn’t.”
“I know, Jamie.” I froze. Jamie? That was what I’d called him when we were kids, back when we had affectionate nicknames for each other.
“Jamie? You haven’t called me that since we were little.”
“Yeah, well, it seemed a bit familiar after we broke off the engagement.”
“Why did you break it off?” I looked at him. His eyes were still red from crying. It was kind of endearing.
“You didn’t want to hang out with a dorky kindergarten kid. I was just doing you a favour.”
“Some favour. You broke my heart.”
“You broke mine first.”
“That’s a lie and you know it.”
“It’s not a lie at all.”
The jazz singer was warbling in the background. Everything felt a bit nostalgic. I didn’t often drink, but this felt like a red wine moment. Or scotch on the rocks. Not that I’d ever had scotch.
“I hope they don’t arrest you any time soon,” I said. “I’m hungry.”
“And you want me to cook you dinner?”
“Well, if you’re offering.”
Yes, I was ditching my friend’s specially organised dinner party held in my honour to hang out with James McKenzie, who at any moment might be carted away for a string of violent murders. What a turn of events.
“Cupcakes OK with you?” he asked.
“Do you even have to ask?”
We mucked around baking mini mud cakes for – well, I don’t know how long. He lent me
an apron to protect my dress. (Yes, he owned an apron. I don’t know, it must be an upper-class thing.) Neither of us could cook particularly well, but we were happy just eating the mixture from the bowl. Only about half ended up actually in the oven.
“Sweetie?” said James, growing serious.
“Yes, Jamie?”
“Do you… Do you still talk to Will?”
The question caught me off guard. “I saw him this morning.”
“How was he?”
Oh right, so he refused to speak to his brother for five years but now he was asking me how he was doing? Boys.
I chose my words carefully. “He’s… a lot better than when you last saw him.”
James looked a little uncomfortable. “Did he, um, say anything?”
“He said a lot of things. That happens during conversations.”
“Right, yeah.” James was avoiding eye contact. “Of course, I just…”
“This whole fight thing you’ve got going on is a bit stupid. You still live in the same town. Just talk to him.” It’s not like he’s a missing person, I thought, but I kept that last bit to myself.
“It’s no worse than the fight you and I have had going on for the last 13 years.”
I sighed. “I guess not. But your family misses you.”
“Mum brought me a casserole the other day.”
“She what?”
“It’s probably time for me to grow up and stop whining about getting kicked out, isn’t it?”
“Probably. It would be nice for all your nieces and nephews if you’d come to the family BBQs.” Our families always had joined barbeques – one every few weeks. James never came, though. He’d only see his siblings and their kids when his parents and Will weren’t around. “Plus I think Will could do with a friend.”
“Will’s friends with everyone.”
I thought about telling him what Will had told me this morning, but I thought maybe it wasn’t my place. All I said was, “He misses you.”
The oven pinged at that time and the serious conversation was over. I burnt myself trying to get the trays out of the oven. As James was putting burn cream on it for me I could see he was trying not to laugh at my stupidity, so with my free hand I painted icing on his face.
