Trust Me When I Lie

by Benjamin Stevenson

  “Wheelbarrow?”

  “Heavy, again, weighed down with a body. Those tracks would probably be clearer. Even they wouldn’t have missed that.” And again, the problem was that all of these were relatively normal for a winery. Footprints, wheelbarrow tracks, a ride-on mower—not incriminating.

  “So she fell from the sky.” Lauren shrugged. “I think the question is less how she got here and more where she was really killed. If we can find that, we’ll know how she got here.”

  “And if Curtis put her here. The question is why.” Jack paced back and forth, the ground alternating from wet to dry. Irrigation. It was unmown. Longish grass, knotted together. And the larger question plagued him, the one Jack had built his series on: Why would Curtis place the body here, with all signs pointing back to him?

  “Humor me—he planted a body that led right to him?” Lauren must have been reading his thoughts.

  “That’s the tricky part.”

  “Andrew Freeman broke our windows,” she said, as if that equated to murder. “He hated the new restaurant. This is where the old one was. Do you think it’s some kind of message? That there’s some meaning beneath the body being right here?” She stamped her feet in a dull thud, as if to illustrate the point.

  “Andrew didn’t break your windows.”

  “He did. I told you, it’s a pissing contest.”

  “Brett Dawson’s sons broke your windows, so you’d hire them to fix it. It was a cash grab, not a feud.”

  She thought about that for a minute. “Fuck.”

  “Let’s keep going,” said Jack, and they walked back to the edge of the bush, turned, and continued along the property line. They soon reached the point where Eliza had smoked a cigarette. Jack had been right in his guesswork in his kitchen—the line of sight from the Freeman restaurant windows was clear. From the top of the silos, clearer still. Jack tried to picture Eliza, arms wrapped around herself, stamping her feet from the cold. On a clear night, a small ember might have been visible from up the hill. Even if Andrew had seen someone—and he hadn’t, or so he said—there was no way he’d know who it was. Why did this cluster of footprints bother Jack? What was so interesting about a cigarette?

  “Her footprints were here, yeah?” Lauren pointed at the ground.

  “Yeah. Well. Maybe hers,” Jack said, poker-faced.

  “Gee,” Lauren said, “your case would be a lot more solid if we knew that.” She meant it as a joke, not knowing that he was the only one who could place Eliza there. Jack didn’t know what to say. He swallowed. He ran his tongue along the back of his teeth. His acrobat wobbled.

  “I’m thinking about all of this,” Lauren continued. “And don’t some killers want to get caught?” She was clearly more able to jump across to his perspective than he was to hers. “They write letters to the police. All that psycho stuff?”

  “Maybe in the movies,” Jack said.

  “I hate that.”

  “Hate what?”

  “Serial killers in movies. They’re always supposed to be these incredible geniuses. Twisted souls but clever, deep. Deserving of their own”—she hunted for the word—“kind of mythology, I guess. They’re celebrities now, for fuck’s sake: Zodiac, Jack the Ripper, the Nail-Biter Killer. Whoever killed Eliza, they weren’t some genius. Even those other words they use for criminals—psychopath, sociopath—make them sound too interesting. This is no mastermind. This is a killer of women. Nothing more.”

  For the first time, there was a hard edge to Lauren’s tone. She hated whoever killed these women as much as he did. The world on her shoulders at the age of twenty. They kept walking, now around the house, toward the tip of the driveway.

  “Eliza had a story to sell,” Jack said. “She said she’d seen something. I’m wondering if it was enough to kill over. Did she ever say anything to you?”

  She hesitated slightly, thinking. “No. Like I said, we knew each other, but it wasn’t really a tight friendship. I’ll tell you what though, I have listened to that message, and the strange thing is—she didn’t sound scared.” Jack nodded in agreement. Lauren sighed. “Another in a series of if onlys. If only he’d called her back. Tell you what, I’m sick of these fucking journalists. Present company excluded, of course.”

  “I’m not a journalist.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “And what about Andrew Freeman’s witness?”

  “Andrew Freeman’s full of shit,” Lauren said. “I don’t know why he was so convinced it was my brother, unless he wanted it to be my brother.”

  Jack nodded again; that was what he’d said in the show.

  “The cops think Alexis’s murderer might be a boyfriend,” Jack said, starting to feel he was pushing Lauren too hard. “So there’s no genius there. Just blind rage, a king hit.” She looked at him dully, so he added, rotating his fingers back and forth between them, “In the interest of sharing.”

  “Now you’re getting it,” she said brightly, momentary sullenness gone. “Look at us, a regular Robin and Watson.” He was about to correct her when she continued, “Because sidekicks do all the work.”

  “That’s why the cops don’t think it was Curtis. They’re pretty confident Alexis’s murder was staged.”

  “Did you know her boyfriend?”

  Jack shook his head. “She had a second phone. The cops didn’t know about it.”

  “But you do?”

  “They know now. But no one knows who this guy is. She took a call on it when we met up. Before—”

  “What does this have to do with Eliza?”

  “I don’t know. But that’s why I think Curtis might be low on their list of suspects.”

  “So they think the crimes are unrelated?” Lauren was thoughtful.

  Jack had assumed she’d be happy about this, but she seemed more confused. “Legally speaking, they are.”

  “Do you? I mean, we’re talking about a copycat now, right?”

  “It might have been a crime of opportunity. Which means it wasn’t a deliberate copycat, rather a convenient shield. Curtis might be a mask, not a target. I think knowing what happened to Eliza will help us solve Alexis’s murder. Two killers though…” He shrugged.

  “Is that all the police are going on?”

  No, Jack thought. “Yes,” Jack said.

  Jack could practically hear Lauren’s Rolodex of evidence whirring in her brain. “Anything else useful you can think of?”

  Plenty, Jack thought. Your brother is a killer of women.

  He didn’t answer her question. “Alexis and Curtis didn’t”—he could barely get it out—“see each other outside of court, did they?”

  Before Lauren could answer, a third voice cut them off.

  “He wishes.”

  They were at the driveway, at the point where the ever-changing landscape of the pebbles precluded footprints. The point where Eliza disappeared from the earth. The front deck of the Wade house was on their right. Eliza could have easily walked straight up and knocked on the door. Gone inside the house without leaving a trace.

  Curtis was leaning against the railing, drinking out of an enamel mug. “Having fun with your friend, Lauren? You’re lucky she thinks you’re useful, Jack.”

  Lauren ignored him. Turned to Jack. “Do you want to come back tomorrow?” Then she whispered, “He’ll settle down.”

  “Alexis’s funeral,” Jack said.

  “Oh. Shit. Doesn’t make sense us both driving. Can I hop in with you?”

  “You’re going?”

  “She stuck up for my family. Of course I’m going. Besides, her killer boyfriend might be there.”

  Jack wondered if that was disrespectful. Then again, he hadn’t even thought of it. It was a good opportunity to have a look around.

  “You’re at Mary-Anne’s?” she asked. “See you tomorrow, then.”


  Jack gave a noncommittal nod. He was aware of Curtis watching them. He couldn’t be seen at the funeral with Lauren, but he’d have to talk her out of it tomorrow.

  Lauren bounded up the stairs, gesturing for Curtis to come inside. He turned to put an arm around her, but she weaved out from under it, recoiling at his touch. This must be so hard for both of them. A family without a mother or a father now. Both of them untethered, their surname hated, not just by this one small town but the whole country. Lauren had some broad shoulders to take all that on. It was more than self-preservation, he thought, and more than being scared. She wanted to see justice for these dead women, the right person in prison.

  She opened the door, guiding Curtis inside now. Jack heard her mutter something about it being time to go in, admonishing him for what was in his cup. A murmured protest. She gave a retort, not properly heard but Jack got enough of her tone and cadence to guess the words: I can smell it, Curtis.

  Chapter 21

  Lauren bobbled in the passenger seat next to Jack. He’d tried to sneak out early, stepping over the blackening banana in his doorway, but Lauren had already been there, sitting on his car hood, legs swinging in the air. She was wearing a black pantsuit with a white blouse, barefoot, her high heels perched on the roof. Jack didn’t have the heart to argue; he tossed his bag in the back and they got in. Five minutes into the drive, Lauren buzzed down the window, stuck an arm out, hooked her heels with her fingertips and brought them back inside.

  An hour later, they still hadn’t spoken. Lauren’s jiggling head matched the bumps in the road, and Jack didn’t know what was pissing him off more: the elasticity of her neck or the fact that she was sitting next to him at all, which meant that he had to go back to Birravale. Though Mary-Anne hadn’t asked him to check out, and he hadn’t returned his key either. He was going back whether he liked it or not.

  “Do you think they’ll be there?” Lauren broke the silence as they purred across the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

  “Who?”

  “The murderer.” She angled herself around in her seat, practically leaning out the window to glimpse the sails of the opera house. Jack didn’t bother. Like every other Sydney commuter, he’d become numb to the majesty of the bridge and what was around it. Sure, the bridge was one of the architectural marvels of the world. But it was also just the way to work for any Sydney-sider. It still looked incredible from the aerial photos, but up close, you could barely see the opera house for the barbed-wire enclosed walkways, the train tracks, and the traffic. The opera house’s supposedly pristine white sails were rust dark with water stains. Up close, seeing how things were built, the majesty was removed. Just like people themselves, the nuts and the bolts of them, the traumas and the bruises. Everyone liked the final product, but no one wanted to see it close enough to know how it was all stitched together. Just like his TV show.

  Jack peeled off to the Cahill Expressway, which quickly opened up a better view of Circular Quay, the opera house, and the bridge. He feathered the brake in sympathy to let Lauren have a proper look. Then they dipped into a tunnel and into the eastern suburbs, weaving through town houses and roadworks. Another twenty minutes and they were in the beachside suburb of Maroubra. Jack slowed as they came up to Alexis’s family church; he’d planned to park around the corner, so he and Lauren wouldn’t arrive together. The church itself was old and regal, with rough, large-bricked walls. The front facade was peaked and triangular, though the stained-glass window and large wooden double doors were both arch shaped. The way the roof peaked, that triangular prism, the angularity of it, it looked almost like Andrew’s or Curtis’s country homestead. If you added a veranda, wood instead of stone, you could worship at that altar.

  The churchyard was empty, the street not yet clogged with cars. They had an hour and a half until the service started.

  “We’re way too early,” Lauren said, as if it wasn’t her fault Jack had tried to sneak out early. “Coffee?”

  Jack certainly didn’t want to be the first one there. The last sight the grieving family needed was him sitting in a pew with Curtis Wade’s sister next to him. That was next-level gate-crashing.

  There’d be coffee shops by the beach, he figured. He parked on the main road. Lauren sat with her door open to put on her shoes. One of the heels was roughly glued on. Jack supposed she barely had use for heels in the country; these were funeral and court-case shoes only. Jack was in jeans and a T-shirt; he hadn’t wanted to drive in his suit. He got his bag out of the back and pointed to a public toilet block down near the water.

  “I have to change.”

  “I’ll order you something,” Lauren said, gesturing to a café over the road. “What do you want?”

  “What you get,” Jack said.

  The road ran parallel to the beach. The sea hissed and rolled like it was boiling. Some tiny black dots were out far, bobbing up and down, waiting for the temperamental sea to serve them something they could use. Jack wasn’t close enough for spray to fleck his cheek, but salt hung in the air, opened his nostrils. There were two men showering in the open showers just off the parking lot, a surfboard propped against the railing beside them. One was half-in, half-out of a wet suit, which was hanging off him like the black skin of a rotten banana, peeled to the waist. The other man was in his underwear, thick black hair on his chest, facing up into the stream with cupped hands around his cheeks, letting the water pepper his face. Shampoo foam bled out of his hair. Either a vain man, Jack thought, to bring his own hair products to the beach, or a backpacker.

  The toilet block had a polished concrete floor and wet, crunchy sand underfoot that hung together in clumps. Glued together by salt and piss. Jack locked himself in a cubicle—there was a steel toilet without a seat—and changed by draping his clothes over the door, standing on his sneakers. He wobbled as he threaded his trousers one leg at a time. This wasn’t how it used to be. He used to put his knees on such a floor if he had to. Any floor used to do. Not today.

  Walking back out in his suit—which, being gray, he hoped was reverential enough—Jack saw one of the men drying himself in the parking lot and changing into proper clothes, half-shielded by the door of his car. Jack recognized the car first—a silver SUV. He caught a glimpse inside: filthy, the opposite of Andrew Freeman’s vacuumed carpets. Then he properly saw the man—it was Ted Piper. Out for a surf before the funeral. Jack’s first thought was that it wasn’t very respectful; his second was that Ted had never struck him as a surfer. But he knew hardcore surfers didn’t care for such things as grief, if the ocean’s calling. They chased that pull, addicted to the drama of the sea. The swell, bro, it’s irresistible. Funeral or not.

  Jack hurried back toward the café. He definitely didn’t need a confrontation with Ted before the funeral. And perhaps sipping a soy latte with a potential serial killer’s sister wasn’t very respectful either.

  Because there was a pull on Jack as well, just like Ted and the ocean, that same addiction to the drama. Lauren was sitting outside; she waved. The swell, bro, it’s irresistible. She’d ordered food. He really fucking wanted it.

  Jack told Lauren that he’d go first, and she could follow in fifteen minutes.

  “You’re like a high schooler getting dropped at school by their mum,” she said, but agreed.

  “I thought you were homeschooled?” Jack said.

  “Jesus, Jack. Creepy much?”

  “If having a team of researchers look into a woman is creepy…” He got out of the car.

  People were still milling on the large stone steps of the church, and Jack willed them to start heading in. He knew he couldn’t get in and out completely unnoticed, but he still wanted to minimize the attention. David Winter and Ian McCarthy were talking by the door. Winter was using his hands. McCarthy, at least a foot taller, was nodding. Around them, people started to move, splitting around the policemen, as if tidal, filtering through the large, arch
ed doors. Winter produced a manila envelope, handed it to McCarthy, patted him on the back, and joined the current of black backs into the church.

  Jack watched as Ian squeezed the sides so the mouth of the envelope opened. He glanced into the church, then at the envelope in his hand. He thought for a second and then stepped quickly down the stairs, over to his Toyota. He didn’t need to open the door; country cars always have their windows cracked. Ghosts of blue heelers in the back, Jack supposed. Ian slid the envelope through the window onto the passenger seat, as if posting a letter, then hurried up the steps and into the church.

  The mingling on the steps had thinned. Jack didn’t recognize any faces. Now was as good a time to make his entrance as any. He crossed the street, taking the long way behind the back of Ian McCarthy’s car. Curious, Jack peered in through the window. There was a McDonald’s coffee in the console. The yellow envelope was on the passenger seat. The window was descended generously into the sill.

  Jack stood there awhile. Last favor, he thought, recalling his text message to Ian. He figured people might look over if he hovered too long, so he got moving, rubbing his shoulder.

  As at the police station, there was a hush when he walked into the church. A few seconds of silence. Then a sound like crinkling paper, whispers trickling through the gathering.

  I didn’t think he’d come.

  Who told him it was on?

  Someone should ask him to leave.

  He took a seat in the last pew, scooted to the end. People swiveled to catch a glimpse of him. Lauren would fare better—not as many people would recognize her. But if they caught on—if that whisper rippled through the church when she came in—they’d both have to leave, and quickly. It wouldn’t take much to explode this powder keg of grief.

  Heavy piano music ricocheted off the stone walls. Alexis’s coffin was on the altar, open at the midpoint and lined with white satin. But the coffin was empty. The ever-cautious Winter must be hanging on to Alexis’s body. The family would have a smaller, private ceremony later. Jack looked around. On one wall, a projector cycled through photos of Alexis. There was one of her in a mortarboard, holding a scroll, graduating from law school. Another of her hiking. One of her drinking from a comically large stein in Europe. He wondered if Eliza’s family had put together a slideshow, if they had pored over the images to choose those that best captured her life. How had they felt when the memories they’d chosen to remember her by were replaced by billboards and TV ads of her bone-white skin and strangled neck?