Trust Me When I Lie

by Benjamin Stevenson

  Maybe it was the aspirin slowly dissolving and fizzing through his system, but Jack felt resolve surge through him. He still had his police contact: Ian McCarthy. He could build a new case. But no cameras this time. He could do better.

  The ghost of Alexis’s fingers feathered his wrist.

  But first, a more immediate challenge awaited him downstairs.

  Breakfast.

  “The Nail-Biter Killer,” Peter said, dropping the Sydney Morning Herald on the kitchen table. “It’s got a ring to it.”

  Peter had wispy, gray hair, sparsely placed, barely fending off balding. He had hazel eyes and sunspots on his neck from a life lived. There’s a moment in every son’s life when a parent suddenly strikes them as old, and Jack had reached his with his father. He moved slower now. Cracks in his face like a gingersnap.

  Jack took a seat. It was cushioned, with a wooden frame. It wasn’t a kitchen chair. Peter had brought it in from the living room especially for Jack, his own chair merely plastic. Jack supposed that one chair was normally all he needed. His brother was always upstairs. Peter turned back to the bench.

  Jack scanned the paper. The front page had a close-up picture of Curtis, red letters splashed diagonally across him. Of course, the copy editor had added a question mark—The Nail-Biter Killer?—to protect from defamation. In the body of the article was a smaller photo of Ted flying out of his seat into Jack, his blue jacket flailing behind him in blurred motion. A quick profile on Alexis. A hotshot young lawyer. A little infographic of her biggest scalps—the murdered son of a property developer, her first big trial, won in blazing fashion. Made her name. The killer, only twenty-two years old: James Harrison. Jack remembered it from the papers. Bullet-point list of more killers. It seemed Alexis excelled at murders. More reports, pages three and four. Jack didn’t feel the need to open it.

  “They think it’s a serial killer, then,” Jack said to his father’s back. He took a sip of his tea. Too hot. Too sweet.

  “You’re not a serial killer until you get a catchy name.”

  “It’s not that catchy,” Jack lied. He wished he’d thought of it.

  “Digital dismemberer? Finger feeder?”

  “Stick to retirement, Dad.” Though he was glad for the levity. Besides, “digital dismemberer” wasn’t too bad. He filed it away.

  “You probably don’t want to talk about it.”

  “No.”

  “But the police called.”

  “Of course.”

  “Anytime today, they said.”

  Jack nodded.

  “I think it’s pointless, you know,” Peter went on, seemingly unsure what to say but keen to fill the silence with something. “You make TV. What use could they have for you?” He meant it compassionately, but it came out cutting. He backpedaled. “I meant they shouldn’t need you to come in and do their job for them.”

  “I know what you meant. It’s okay. I want to help.”

  “I’ll come. If you want.” Peter put a plate of toast down in front of him.

  “No. I need to stop somewhere first.”

  Jack picked up a slice of toast. Thick Vegemite. The salt shocked his tongue; he hadn’t eaten since the hospital. His jaw hurt from retching, but he did his best.

  “My jaw hurts.” He made the excuse without prompting, aware that he was eating too slowly. They used to have a stopwatch. Not anymore, but something ticked between them still. Jack changed the topic. “What do you think, then?”

  “About what?”

  “The victims. Eliza. Alexis. Either.” Jack shook his head, her name a boulder in his mouth. “Alexis, mainly.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We don’t have to talk about it.” Peter flipped the paper sports-side up. Curtis banished to the laminate.

  “It’s okay,” Jack said. “I want your opinion.”

  “Did he kill her?”

  “No.” Jack felt it explode out of him, and suddenly he was sobbing. Black eyes and bruises. Crying on the kitchen table. All the slickness and manipulation of television slipping away. No edits, no cuts. Just a child again, in his father’s house. “I think I did. Making that fucking show.”

  His father stood up, wrapped his arms around him. It was a tight hug, tight enough to feel the warmth of tea on his breath. The smell of an old man too: bathroom water, public changing rooms, that almost-clean aroma that follows the elderly—simultaneously wet and dry. His father didn’t say anything, not that Alexis’s death wasn’t Jack’s fault; he just held Jack and let him get it out in heaving, ragged breaths.

  After a time, Jack pulled away. He wiped snot on his sleeve. Red in it.

  “Sorry. Should I feed Liam?”

  “He’d like that.”

  Peter bustled around the kitchen while Jack finished his tea, grainy down at the bottom now. Peter handed him a bowl of porridge, bananas squished on top. Mushy stuff, kid’s food. Sludge. Two children in this house. Jack headed upstairs in silence, wishing his father had just said it wasn’t his fault. They bristled inside him, those missing words. Maybe—unlike his son, that professional liar—Peter Quick could only bring himself to tell the truth.

  He opened the door to his brother’s room. Liam was propped up on pillows in the new bed Jack had bought. Jack had made sure it was state of the art, moved all angles. To make Liam’s home care easier for his father. Liam’s head drooped to one side, too heavy for his neck. Something beeped softly—oxygen maybe. Jack wasn’t sure. Liam needed most things. Jack sat down beside him, unnoticed, and thought about his brother. Back when they were kids. Cheeks caked in orange dust. Blood leaking out both ears. Chest crumpled, jumbled under desperate, pushing hands, like a bag of assorted tools.

  A lie becomes the truth when you’re the only one who knows it’s a lie, and you’re the only one telling it. The thought jumped into his mind.

  A lie. That was the first time he’d thought of Eliza’s shoe like that. Not just an untruth. Alexis had seen it straightaway for what it was. And now he would go to the police station that afternoon and lie to them as well. Because if he told them the truth, he was ruined. He looked at his brother, silent, unknowing, but alive at least. Brain damage does that to a person: humanity reduced to its basic functions. Only truths in that body.

  Jack ladled the sludge of nutrients into Liam’s tube. Thought about the way his father had put the sugar in the tea and watched him drink it. That mistrust. That all he needed was a little more. Now, force-feeding his brother in his father’s house, Jack knew his dad still didn’t understand. He would never be better, not from this, even when the physical act was gone. Despite his doorless house, the door was always open to this disease. It was never a matter of an extra spoonful of sugar. It was never a matter of running upstairs, slamming the bathroom door, and shoving your fingers in your throat.

  Your fingers are always in your throat.

  Nail-Biter.

  Chapter 9

  Alexis had lived in a town house in Sydney’s east. Had. She’d died in the alley behind it.

  A patrol car blocked the lane off at one end, blue-and-white tape strung between a streetlight and the nearest tree. Likewise, Jack assumed, on the other end. He recognized the cobblestones from the media pictures. The garage door, backing onto the lane, was fully open. It had only been a third off the ground in most of the press photos, a toothless yawn of dark. As if Alexis had been in the middle of lifting it. The laneway sloped downward, dropping away to reveal, over the triangular roofs of the wealthy, a hint of the sparkling harbor. The tip of the famous bridge. You mostly saw the tips of things in Sydney.

  Jack dawdled across the road. There were no reporters. They would have been packed in behind the tape last night, squabbling for position under stark generator lights. They’d gotten their shots, Alexis sprawled on the uneven bluestone. The body would be i
n the morgue now. No white sheet, no front page. Nothing urgent here.

  Instead, the reporters were camped outside Jack’s place. That was partly the reason he’d stayed at his father’s. He’d taken a cab here. He didn’t want to be anyone’s story.

  There were no detectives either, from what Jack could tell. Just a lone officer, a shadow inside tinted windows, parked in the lane. Forensics would have worked the scene overnight, got the laneway cleared first in case Sydney’s tempestuous weather turned and big, fat, plum-like drops of rain washed evidence away. Then they’d follow up with the house. They might have overhauled it last night. Or perhaps they were taking their time, figuring out what they were looking for. A house is not an easily interrupted crime scene, which meant they had more time. No sprawling vineyard, no dogs and flashlights needed here.

  Jack kept his distance. He didn’t want the officer to recognize him. Then he saw the door to the patrol car open and, not wanting to see anymore, turned and started walking away. He heard a clunk, a car door slamming, and resisted the urge to turn around. Keep walking. He waited for someone to grab him by the shoulder, spin him around, the ice of steel on his wrists—even though he hadn’t done anything wrong. Yet.

  Nothing happened. Jack risked a glance. The officer was walking away from him. He must have to patrol in increments, walk around the block, thought Jack. Either that or he was just a lazy cop.

  Jack chewed his lip. Do it now or leave, he chided himself. He’d go to the station afterward and help the investigation. Immediately after. But first, a quick look. That tenacity that made him a good documentarian, that scavenger inside him, had awoken, sniffing, stiff whiskers and bared teeth. And underneath it all, his need to control his own story. He knew the case against Curtis intimately; he might see something they hadn’t. Something they couldn’t, hidden behind red tape and bureaucracy. The rodent knocked at his skull, elation and anxious energy rising within him, an adrenaline not so dissimilar to his hunger at its worst. The rush. The hunt. Just a look.

  He ducked under the police tape. His number of crime-scenes-interfered-with rose to two. Who’s counting?

  Jack hurried to the garage door, sticking to the taped perimeter. Some of the blue cobblestones were chipped with white scars. A scuffle? He remembered the garage door, only a third raised. He pictured Alexis, bending over to fling her rolling garage door up, someone looping something around her neck, yanking her backward, heels bruising as they ricocheted against the uneven stones…

  In the middle of the lane, the grout between the stones was dyed a dark black, as if permanently wet. Blood soaked in. Blood that hadn’t yet been cleaned by pressure hoses and burly city workers in orange jackets. The last of Alexis White. A stain to be scrubbed away.

  The sun disappeared as he entered the garage. Alexis’s car, a Mazda sedan, was parked nose in. Jack took a quick inventory. No dark patches here. A bicycle hung on a hook. A few plastic boxes were piled in a corner. Nothing seemed out of place. He wondered what was in the boxes—surely a person’s standard junk. They didn’t look like case files. Case files would be useful.

  Eliza had found out something she wanted to sell—what if it got her killed? And what if Alexis had found it out as well? It didn’t matter; he couldn’t open the boxes even if they were case files. He couldn’t leave a trace.

  The garage connected directly to the house. He pulled his sleeve over his hand and gave the door a push. It swung open. Not because it was busted; someone had simply left it ajar. Sloppy police work. The rodent scratched in his skull; his heart thundered in his chest. He stepped into the house.

  The first thing that hit him was how neat it was. Snowy carpet underfoot, a tasteful hall runner. The hallway led straight through the house and to the front door. The kitchen was directly to his left, a sitting room at the front, also on the left. On his right, leading backward, a flight of stairs. An old, stale smell tickled at him. A physical smell, one that sat high in his throat. It was at odds with the cleanliness. Still, no one had died here—that much was clear.

  A quick look, nothing more, he told himself. Just enough to be helpful to the police. Treading lightly on the carpet, Jack poked his head into each room. Nothing seemed abnormal. There were no broken windows. He rattled the handle of the front door with sleeve-covered fingertips. Locked. Nothing impacted in the doorframe either. No signs of a struggle. Certainly, it seemed that no one had broken in. Until today.

  He tried to picture Curtis, dully lit under the porch light, rapping on Alexis’s door. From the inside, a blurry silhouette through rose-colored stained glass. Do you let an ex-con into your home, even if they are your client?

  Maybe you don’t. So they wait for you outside.

  He walked up the stairs. The stale smell lingered. It was time to go, but his curiosity would starve him if he didn’t check everything. In the bathroom, there was a single toothbrush in a glass. So much for her thing. No men’s clothing in her bedroom either. Ceiling-high mirrors slid back to reveal her courtroom clothes. As expected, a swathe of neatly hung browns and whites.

  Something caught his eye on her dresser. A small cardboard box. Suddenly the smell of the place made sense. An old smell, one that soaks into the walls and the carpets and never really goes. He picked up the pack of cigarettes. She was a smoker.

  Interesting. Jack hadn’t thought she was the type. He thought he knew her. But then again, his idea of her came mainly from trawling through endless hours of footage. Alexis had never been a real person to him; she’d been a highlight reel. He’d created her. But he’d used only the best bits, exaggerated through regret and memory. Everyone builds their own versions of themselves—happy, healthy, full—to present to the world. Just as they build versions of others. Director’s cut. The incongruity of life viewed behind a camera lens with real life playing out beyond the viewfinder.

  The mints in her handbag. That she’d pegged Eliza’s movements as that of a smoker. It made sense that Alexis smoked. But it was still a shock to Jack; it went against his mental casting list. What else had he got wrong? Who else had he got wrong?

  Time to go. He turned to the bedroom door, but it was blocked by two policemen. On the left was the patrol officer he’d seen outside. He was a young bloke, Caucasian, but with a tribal tattoo around one bicep. One hand was on his hip, fingers drumming his belt, ready to unsnap. The other cop was unarmed, out of uniform in a tan suit. Tall and thin, wispy brown hair parted to one side. Calm gray eyes. In charge.

  “Jack,” Brown Suit said, “would you like to come with us?”

  Chapter 10

  Detective McCarthy wasn’t at the station.

  Jack didn’t know who he should have expected, but he’d kind of hoped for Ian McCarthy. McCarthy was a Central Coast detective and the first responder to Eliza’s death. He had a bull’s shoulders and a hefty frame. In a movie, he’d definitely be a henchman (not the main villain—didn’t have the jawline for that) who barges the hero through a plaster wall or two. But his size was contrary to his disposition. McCarthy was a relaxed, jeans-and-R.M.-Williams-boots kind of cop who left the gun at home most days. Talkative too, and a bit thick; things slipped through his teeth as if oiled. And, most importantly, not a fan of Andrew Freeman. He’d been a perfect source for the documentary.

  Instead of McCarthy, the new detective sat across from Jack in an airless, glass-boxed interview room. Middle-aged and lanky. Ladled into a brown suit that looked like it had been ironed onto him. A long, thin nose that could cut bread. He’d told Jack his name; Jack had forgotten it.

  It had been hard to focus when they guided him past reception and the general clutter and noise of the busy police station had come to a screeching halt. Officers turned and watched. Coffee mugs clunked on desks. Whispers. He’s here.

  “Where’s Detective McCarthy?” Jack asked.

  “McCarthy works in Newcastle. This isn’t his case.”

 
That made sense. This was a Sydney murder now. And much more high profile. No need for a country cop. Get someone who’s better at taking photos of footprints, someone who doesn’t thunder a 4WD through the middle of a murder scene.

  “Do you want a lawyer?” asked the detective.

  “Do I need one?”

  “Depends. Where were you yesterday, from dawn until around midday?”

  Jack took his phone out, placed it on the table, pressed record.

  “You can’t have that,” said Brown Suit, nodding at it.

  “I’ll need your name again, Detective—”

  “Winter. And I’m the one doing the interviewing. Put that away.” He nudged the phone an inch back in Jack’s direction.

  “I want to be assured this is being recorded.”

  “Contrary to what you might think, Mr. Quick, we as a police force are not in the business of grand conspiracies. I guarantee you this interview is being recorded, and that it will not be manipulated, deleted, or misconstrued in any way. I have no interest in winding up the villain of your next feature. Besides, I’m not the one who broke into a crime scene.”

  Jack nodded. Pressed Stop on his phone, pocketed it. This one was definitely not a country cop. Jack got the feeling Winter was used to high-profile cases and that he’d steamroll Jack, TV camera or not, to get a result.

  “I don’t need a lawyer,” Jack said, “unless I’m under arrest.”

  Winter shook his head, a quiet refusal to give Jack any extra ammo.

  “For the benefit of the recording,” said Winter, then raised his voice almost comically, “no, you are not under arrest. You’ve come here voluntarily. Correct?”

  “Under request from police, yes.”

  “Under polite request from police.” Not a question.

  “In that case, I am politely here voluntarily.”

  “You don’t want a lawyer, then?” Winter opened a notebook, raised an eyebrow.

  “No.”