Trust Me When I Lie

by Benjamin Stevenson

  “Fuck,” he breathed. So much for not being in Andrew’s debt if his bottle was anywhere close to that. Jack was out of his depth; he’d turned down house wines above $6. In his twenties, one of Jack’s friends would buy boxed wine by the dollar, and squeeze the crinkled silver bag into reused bottles, before taking them to parties. He’d smile like a smarmy bastard when friends complimented him on his taste, which, inevitably, they always did. Jack just heard the stories, of course. He didn’t go to dinner parties.

  The Freeman winery wasn’t designed for people who carried two glasses back to the table because happy hour was ending. It wasn’t designed for people like him. Not for people like the Wades either. He kept scrolling through articles. Wine could be sold at auction too, he learned. Jack picked up the bottle. He chewed a nail, thinking. He picked it up and looked at the label, looking for the date. It didn’t look that old. 1961. Fuck. Penfolds Grange. He’d heard of that. Double fuck. If you’ve heard of it, you can’t afford it. He itched to search the value but resisted. He couldn’t stomach owing Andrew something, and knowing how much the bottle was worth brought it out into the light and made it real. Just don’t sell it, okay? It’s to enjoy. It occurred to him that this might even be a bribe. He felt like Don Corleone had bought him a sports car. With a body in the trunk.

  There was a rattle behind him. Alan Sanders leaned out, examined the storm, then spied Jack.

  “Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t have pegged you as an alcoholic.”

  “I got caught out.”

  “It’ll turn on you,” Alan agreed, thought a second. “We’re not open yet.”

  “I’m happy here.”

  “Mate, you’re not happy anywhere.”

  “I’m content, then.”

  “Yeah.” Alan looked out at the sheets of rain, listened to it skittering on the awning like poured rice. “This does suit you. But get inside, you idiot.”

  Inside, the bar was, of course, empty. Despite having not opened for the day—and, therefore, Jack assumed, being at its cleanest—a dandruff of potato chip crumbs flaked the carpet, and sticky, glossy circles varnished peeling-laminate wooden tables. The fungal, yeasty smell hung damp over everything. Jack knew the sommelier’s word for it now: the bouquet.

  Alan offered him a beer, said he had a few things to do, but could fix Jack some lunch when the kitchen opened later. Jack declined the beer, saying he was happy—or at least content—to wait out the storm in a booth by the wall. Alan insisted on at least turning on the television. “Because otherwise you’re just too goddamn creepy.”

  In the booth, Jack scrolled through more wine articles. There were millions of dollars there, certainly enough money to kill two people over, but how was Curtis affecting Andrew’s business? Why would he need him out of the picture?

  The Royal was open proper now, Alan pacing behind the bar, clearly wondering if people would come in with the storm. It started with a couple of sodden tourists, their day trips ruined. Alan brightened. Then the deluge came, and the bar was as busy as Jack had ever seen it. People clogged the doorway, shaking coats and furring their hair into spikes.

  Mary-Anne came in. She winked at Alan. Was there something there? It was easy to forget the people in the town were real people, not just extras in his movie. Of course Mary-Anne would have a man. It might as well be Alan.

  There was an ad for Vanessa Raynor’s talk show on the television, with footage of Ted Piper promising another interview. He was really milking this. Break someone else’s nose this time, buddy, Jack thought. Just as he thought this, the advertisement replayed—in slow motion, those hacks—Ted launching into Jack.

  “Credit to you,” said Mary-Anne.

  Was she talking to him? “I’m sorry?” he said.

  “You can take a punch.” She nodded up at the TV.

  His hand went to his face, rubbed it. Maybe he could take a punch, but he sure wished people would stop hitting him.

  “Wish I was on the telly,” Mary-Anne said, mostly to herself, and then shuffled off.

  A glass of beer clunked down in front of him. Jack was about to remind Alan that he hadn’t wanted a beer when he looked up and saw Brett Dawson. Brett was standing awkwardly, not wanting to sit. He clinked his glass against the rim of Jack’s. Cheers.

  Brett raised his glass to his lips. Expectant. Jack picked up his own glass, raised it in reflective salute, then took a sip.

  “Thanks,” said Jack. He wasn’t sure what else Brett wanted him to do. He looked nervous, like he had something to say. Andrew had said the locals would lay off. He knew Andrew had influence, but this quickly? Did he have a favor phone tree? Brett’s unease made sense now. Jack could see it: a kid, pressured by his mother, pushed onto the playground to make friends. You never know. You might like him.

  “Yeah. Sure.” Brett fumbled for the words. “I didn’t know you already had one.” He nodded at the wine.

  “That’s for later,” Jack said, turning the label away, in case Brett figured out how expensive it was.

  “Right. Well…” Brett, clearly exhausting his small talk, wasn’t sure what to do.

  “Do you want a seat?”

  Brett took the offer with relief. They sipped their beers in silence.

  “I’m not here to make things worse,” Jack said after a time. “Though I know it doesn’t seem like it.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Brett’s voice was phlegmy with the beer.

  “Did you know her?”

  “Not really.”

  “Which one are we talking about?”

  “I didn’t know the lawyer. But the girl, yeah, well, she used to pick for Andrew, didn’t she? I can’t say I met her, personally, but the pickers, they float around town a bit. Some stay here at the pub, if they work shifts. Others at Mary-Anne’s. So you see ’em round, know ’em by eye. Especially the Brits, they stand out like beacons.”

  “Why do they stand out?”

  “They get so sunburnt they glow. Like beacons,” Brett said again, as if that analogy was his only source of wit.

  “You like Andrew?” Jack said, figuring if Brett was being forced to talk to him, he might as well push it.

  “Yeah. Well, everyone does. Don’t you?”

  “He’s a generous man.”

  “He is. That restaurant was lots of work for me and the boys.”

  “A big job like that though, would need better—” Jack saw the quick jerk of Brett’s head. “Sorry. I mean different experience than what’s in town. Architects and engineers, that kind of thing. No offense, but he’d have to bring some people in.”

  “That’s the thing about Andy—he respects the town. He needed a few outsiders, but he kept us on board anyway. I was site foreman. I never had a proper job site before, let alone be foreman of it.”

  “And you rebuilt the Wade restaurant as well, for Curtis?”

  “Yes. Well, half. The knockdown of the old site was paid for by Whittaker. The last bloke. And then Curtis hired us to build his new one.”

  “But you did do the entire job even if two different people hired you?”

  “Yeah, okay,” Brett conceded, as if suspicious of being tricked. “If you want to say it like that.”

  “And Whitti—what was his name?”

  “Whittaker.”

  “Whittaker paid you to put concrete in the cellar. To ruin the ground?”

  “That’s not my fault. I’m just the hired hand.”

  “I’m not blaming you.”

  “Yeah. Whittaker had a chip on his shoulder about knocking down the old one. It was his family business, so it meant a lot to him. Like if you knocked down my motel.”

  “You still made thirty-five grand off his revenge.”

  “Are you saying I ripped him off?” Brett shifted at the hip. Took a drink.

  Jack raised his hands in mock surren
der. “I wouldn’t dare. But tell me, if you’re not ripping anyone off, why’d you smash the Wades’ windows?”

  “It wasn’t just— Who told—” Brett shook his head, resigned. “Because he’s a stingy fuck,” he said. He looked up and saw Jack didn’t believe him. “I was short, okay? I thought the build would be a bigger job than it turned out being. Nah, fuck that. Actually, he needed it to be a bigger job, but he let us go before we finished. It was like he just gave up.”

  “Looks finished to me.”

  “That’s beside the point, and I don’t want to get into it. Point is, I broke his windows because I figured he owed me a little. And I figured he could spare it. He’s got the money—put in some tacky wine storage humidifier thingies, three of them, twenty grand each. Just woke up one morning and called me, said to put them in. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “If you were short, why not ask Andrew? He’s basically the town benefactor.”

  “Andy helps everyone out from time to time. He put new doors on the motel after the wine stained ’em all. He repainted Mary-Anne’s house for the same reason. But, just, I didn’t want to ask him for too much. I thought this was something I could do on my own. Me and the boys.”

  Jack shook his head in disbelief. Brett saw ripping off Curtis Wade as a family bonding exercise. He changed the topic. “I know Andrew asked you to come here and play nice.”

  “Look, I bought you a drink.”

  “I can buy my own drinks. Be useful.”

  “I don’t know anyone who killed anyone. If that’s what you want.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Man, what do you want me to tell you?” He threw his hands up. “All I know is boring country shit. Like that the yield should be higher this year than last. Like that this rain won’t help Curtis’s dying vines, because he’s too cheap to fix the irrigation through there properly.”

  Jack resisted the temptation to point out that that was because of the concrete slab Brett had put there himself.

  “Or that Andrew’s Forester needs a new clutch soon, because I can hear it when he pulls up. That I’ll be patching the roof at the bakery tomorrow because she’s not ready for the hail. That Alan Sanders has gout. Yeah.” He raised his voice and yelled to the bar. “Gout! Of course I know boring shit. It’s Birravale, for fuck’s sake, not Caracas.” Jack must have looked surprised, because Brett added, “I watch the news. We’re not all idiots… And you mope around wondering why no one here likes you? You’ve turned us into the murder capital of the world.”

  They were interrupted by Alan sliding a plate down in front of Jack. A kid’s meal. Spaghetti. Jack couldn’t remember ordering when he came in. He didn’t think he could handle eating right now. He needed focus, even for this small war. His acrobat needed silence and calm to walk the rope.

  “Thanks, Alan,” Jack said, “but I haven’t paid.”

  “You’ve been buying half meals at full price. I figure we can count this one sorted.”

  Another Freeman favor, Jack supposed. One phone call and suddenly the whole town was on his side. But the kindness was as fragile as scum on the surface of a pond, easily broken should you throw the right stone. The vibe of the place was all wrong, as delicate as Andrew’s carefully stored wines. This was a kindness that required its environment to remain consistent.

  Brett stood.

  “Don’t know why you’re still here,” he said. “You already know who did it. We all do. You just want to invent something bigger.” He went to the door and paused a second, appreciating the gale. Decided to brave it.

  Jack looked down at the pasta. He felt full to his sternum even as he twirled it around his fork. He needed Lauren, he realized. He missed her company. Shit, he realized. He missed her.

  Brett, just like everyone else, thought the answer was easy: that the real question wasn’t whether Curtis had killed Eliza but whether he’d killed Alexis as well. But that just didn’t sit right in Jack’s gut. He’d already dismissed the idea of Curtis sitting in his prison cell, slowly dragging a pencil across candy-wrapper thin prison paper, plotting revenge. Besides, he’d met the copycat—they’d almost taken his head off.

  You get the threats too? Alexis had asked him back in Sydney, her warm hand on his. Or had she put her hand on his after she’d said that? He couldn’t remember. She was a wisp in his mind now. His memory of her wouldn’t stick. He thought of her cigarettes on her dresser. How he hadn’t known she was a smoker either. Best carton of cigarettes I ever bought.

  Another thing she’d said dislodged inside his brain. Those cigarettes. She’d framed an inmate about to walk on a grisly crime, her big career-making case. Alexis had a gutsy, tenacious side. One that cast aside certain morals in the pursuit of her own ends. One that could make enemies, perhaps. Jack realized they’d made basically the same decisions. Was it so different that her goals were morally superior to his own? Fuck, whoever killed her and tried to pin it on Curtis, they’d basically done the same thing too.

  Was framing a guilty man as bad as framing an innocent one?

  Framing a guilty man. Jack turned the thought over in his head. Curtis hated her because she’d sent him to jail. But Jack’s cast was too small. Curtis wasn’t the only one.

  What had Curtis said to him, back in the house, when he’d been too captivated by Alexis’s phone to take any real notice? Jim Harrison, fuck, he’d tell you some stories.

  Jim Harrison. The nickname had skipped over Jack, but Curtis had been talking about James Harrison. Two of Alexis’s most high-profile cases, and they’d been in the same prison.

  Right motive. Wrong person.

  Best pack of cigarettes I ever bought.

  That word bubbled inside him again.

  Revenge.

  Chapter 30

  James Harrison didn’t look like someone who could gut a rabbit with a steady hand, let alone a teenage boy. He had a turtle’s neck, sails of thick skin webbed to his thin collarbones. Adam’s apple in the space between skin folds, set back into his neck: a whorl in a bushfire-hollowed gum. He was skinny too. His plain gray T-shirt fit him like a teenager’s hoody. He wore cheap, gold-framed reading glasses. The type of glasses you find warped on the sides of roads, left at bus stops. Short gray stubble, chin and crown.

  They shared a similarity in thin wrists, Jack noticed, though James’s were chained to the stainless-steel table between them.

  He had not been hard to find. Alexis’s obituary had flagged the Harrison case as her big break, profiling how she put him away. His victim, Tom Rhodes, was the son of a wealthy property developer. It was kidnapping gone foul. There were gangs involved, organized crime. Jack imagined Curtis and James—in his mind, they shared a cell—throwing a ball between the top and bottom bunk. Curtis on the bottom, lobbing it up. James on top, clawing it out of the air with a flat hand before dropping it back down. Back and forth the ball—it was red and rubber in his mind—would go. And all the while, the two criminals traded battle stories of that bitch of a lawyer that screwed them. Maybe they made a deal.

  After the storm had passed, Jack had walked back to the B and B. In his doorway, the black banana had been replaced with a freshly baked muffin. He picked it up and smelled it. Banana. Another omen of Andrew Freeman. He placed it on his bedside table, so it would at least look like he appreciated the gesture.

  His research confirmed that Tom Rhodes had been eviscerated as Alexis had described. That Alexis had uncovered star testimony at the final hour and convinced a deadlocked jury to convict. It all fit. And James Harrison was indeed still housed at Long Bay.

  It was never hard to talk himself into the prison: the guards knew him and were, for the most part, excited to have him there—each hopeful for their own part to play in the national pantomime that true-crime podcasts and TV had turned the justice system into. It was the same with the prisoners. Jack had been worr
ied that James wouldn’t want to talk to him, but the guard had come back almost immediately with his message: When can you come?

  He rang Lauren and filled her in. She seemed confused, not as pleased to hear from him as he’d been hoping.

  “James Harrison?” She put him on speaker while she tapped at her phone, pulling up his case. “Okay, he has motive. I see it.” Her voice was flat and analytical.

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “How’d he kill his lawyer from inside a prison cell? You’ve gotta find the ax, I think.”

  “I’m thinking that he might have paid someone, you know, with his organized crime connections.”

  “Uh-huh. And who’s Hush then?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going to see him. You coming?”

  “Not today.”

  “You’re busy?” He didn’t do a good job keeping the incredulity out of his tone.

  “I might have a closed restaurant, but I still run a winery.”

  “Vineyard.” It slipped out.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Did I do something?”

  “The cops were here. They were looking for the ax. That Winter bloke is aggressive. He almost arrested Curtis. Hell, he would have arrested me too if he could have.” Jack breathed out in relief. Thank God he’d taken the phone. “They didn’t, this time. But they’re coming back.”

  “I didn’t tell them anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “I didn’t.” He was pleading now.

  “You went up to the Freemans’?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d poke around. I thought he might be Hush.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. Andrew gave me a bottle of wine.”

  “So you’re friends now?”