“No. Look, I didn’t even want it. I thought you’d be pleased to hear about James. It all fits. This could be it.”
“It doesn’t fit,” Lauren snapped. “It just fits in your head. Who’s Hush? Get the ax first—that’s the most important.”
“Alexis’s death is looking more and more planned the further we go. Does he fit anymore?”
“He’s the only one that fits. But you want something dramatic, so go chase your serial killer.”
“Lauren—”
“What type of wine was it?”
He told her.
“Wow. He must like you.”
She hung up on him.
The rain had sapped the morning, so it was nearing dusk when Jack finished the drive back through Sydney to Long Bay. They’d taken him straight into the interview room, switched the camera off for him. James Harrison had been set up in there already, chained to the table. Waiting calmly for Jack Quick to come for him.
As he always hoped he would.
“So glad you’re here,” James said. His voice was high-pitched, each word moist, as if he were chewing each thought like tobacco before spitting the words out.
“Jack Quick.”
“I know who you are.”
Jack was aware of the pointless introduction but unsure where to start.
“So, how do we do this?” said James.
“I’d like to ask you some questions.”
“It’s your show.” James rocked back, which clinked his chains against the table. “Shoot.”
“About Alexis White,” Jack said, examining James’s face for a reaction. To his surprise, the killer broke into a wide smile and leaned forward. He was excited, speaking his wet words quickly.
“Yeah? That’s good. She set me up, right? Prison testimony. Bull”—he flicked a thumb up, as if counting off syllables—“shit.” Then a pointer finger. He seemed to surprise himself that his finger made a gun; he pointed it at Jack. “Knew it.”
“You knew Curtis Wade in here?”
“I mean, I knew he was here. Not well though. But we watched him on the TV, so I guess we all knew him.”
“You watched the show?”
“Yeah.”
“And you knew Curtis?”
“Yeah.” He thought a second. “I see where you’re going with this. The two of us. I love it.” He smacked his hands on the table. “So good! Yeah then, if it helps, I knew him. Real well.”
They seemed to be having two separate conversations at once. Jack tried to understand what James was telling him. Was he admitting that he and Curtis had planned this together?
“Tell me more about Alexis.”
“She got what was coming for her.”
“So you’re saying she deserved it?”
“Fuck yeah I am. Curtis Wade’s harder than I gave him credit for.”
“I know that you and Curtis had a plan,” Jack said, lowering his voice.
At this, James leaned in, dropped his shoulders. “You do?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah. ’Kay. Sure. We’ll do it like that.”
Jack wished he would stop saying we. James seemed to be filling in a picture that Jack didn’t even know was there.
“What do you want to know?”
“I know why you did it. The two of you were burned by her. But I’m not quite sure how. Did Curtis commit the murder for you? And if he didn’t, tell me who did.” That didn’t sound right. Why would Curtis frame himself? Another name came to him, and then it was in the air, an accusation: “Andrew Freeman?”
“Who?”
“Never mind. Who committed the murder?”
“Wait. What?” James scratched the back of his wrist—his thinness gave him a good range of movement in the cuffs—and his forearms rattled in the loops like the ball of gas in a spray can. “I did.”
“Did what?” Say it, Jack thought, say it.
“Killed him.” James shrugged.
Him? Jack paused a second. James was confused; he was talking about the old murder.
“You mean Tom Rhodes?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, I killed him.”
“And what about Alexis?”
“Well, she stitched me up, right? That’s what we’ll use.”
“Stopping saying we.”
“You, then.”
“I’ll do what?”
“Use that.”
“We’re getting sidetracked. You killed her?”
“Fuck.” James leaned back, and his chest hopped with his small chuckle. “I wish.”
“Did you work with anyone on the kidnapping of Tom Rhodes? Were you part of an organization? If it wasn’t Curtis Wade and it wasn’t Andrew Freeman, is there someone you knew from back then? You know, a contract killer?”
“I think we should start again,” James said after thinking for a beat. “Because I’m keen. But you gotta tell me what to say. The criminal underworld, all that business, I can’t say I really know. But if that’s what you need. I’ll tell you something.”
Jack closed his eyes. Was James such a psychopath that he was literally unable to make sense, or was he enjoying running Jack in circles? Or was Jack missing something? The oddity of sitting here unable to extract a confession from a killer who was telling him everything didn’t escape him.
“We’ll start again,” Jack said. “Let’s try simple yes and no for now, and see where that takes us.”
“’Kay.” James grinned and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Shoot.”
“Did you kill, or arrange to kill, Alexis?”
James thought, trying to figure out something. Perhaps how the conversation had led to this. “You want honesty?”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Hmm.” Jack tapped a scarred knuckle on the table, frustrated.
“Not the right answer?”
“Not quite.”
“Well.” James rubbed his chin. “Yes?”
He said it as a question, voice lilting up. As if he wanted Jack to be happy with the answer. As if he wanted to give the answers Jack wanted him to give. Jack sighed, shut his eyes, and squeezed the bridge of his nose. Lauren had been right; he was still chasing drama over truth.
“Was that the wrong answer too?” said James, a pleading tone to his voice.
“Why do you think I’m here?”
“You got my letter.”
Perhaps it was the disappointment of it or the simple way James had said it, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, but Jack felt like he was about to throw up. He was so fucking tired and so fucking hungry and, most of all, so fucking full.
“Okay.” Jack tried to keep the shake out of his voice as he stood. “Thanks.”
“You got what you need already? But you didn’t record anything.”
“Sure. Yeah. I got what I needed. You didn’t kill Alexis.”
“’Kay, sure. Whatever you say.”
And that was James Harrison, laid bare. He hadn’t killed Alexis. He just thought Jack Quick, television shaman, could get him out of jail.
James Harrison thought he was the goddamn sequel.
“You’re a guilty man,” said Jack.
“Guilty but wrongfully convicted, yeah?”
“Tom Rhodes—”
“I killed him.” James mimed sticking a knife in the table, drew it across like a child with a pencil: a curled fist, pressing hard. “I’ll give you the details. Gory ones. If you want?”
“You shouldn’t be telling me this.”
“Huh?”
“You’re supposed to tell me you’re innocent.”
“Does that make it easier for you?”
Those words took the wind out of him. He had to leave. He turned for the door, rapped it twice. There was a crash from
behind him. James had stood, flicked the aluminum chair against the back wall, where it now lay on its side. He was standing, stooped though, still bound to the table. He was breathing through his nose, shoulders heaving up and down, his turtled neck dipping in and out. Glasses askew.
“Why the fuck are you here then?” he yelled, the sound bouncing off the walls. He spat in Jack’s direction; it fell well short. He was shaking the table. Rabid. “If you’re not going to help me?”
“I won’t help you,” Jack said. Not I can’t, which he almost said. I won’t.
Jack heard the door open but didn’t turn. James locked eyes with him and seemed to calm down.
“But that’s what you do, isn’t it, Mr. Quick?” The insult seethed through his teeth, and then a smile. “You get people like me out of jail.”
Chapter 31
The all-night service station glowed green and white in the dark, levitating strips of neon. The light stung Jack’s bleary eyes. It was ten minutes to the turn, then nothing to Birravale. He pulled in. Black bugs flecked him, spiraling up to circle the neon. Jack filled his tank and washed his windshield. Inside, it was brighter. Clinical. The hum of fridges. Jack swiped his card. It was more than a hundred bucks, so he had to sign. Walked out crinkling.
Birravale was sodden and calm in the way rain seems to pat down energy as well as dust. Puddles, mud-filled potholes—water splashed up his doors as he drove. Chalk was streaked on the bakery sign, not yet corrected. Jack waited as the single traffic light blinked, looking over at the fuzzy, warm yellow light from the Royal. He shot past the turn to the B and B and turned right into Lauren’s driveway. He parked out front. The house was dark, which was no surprise. He considered honking but texted her instead. No reply. He looked in the backseat, itched.
After ten minutes, he was ready to leave when he saw her emerge, stride across the deck, and open his passenger door. Jack realized he was messy, so he brushed the front of his jacket. Lauren climbed in and wrapped her arms around herself even though it wasn’t that cold. She looked pale, her eyes sunken. Like she hadn’t slept.
“What do you want?” she said.
“I was wrong about James Harrison.”
“Okay.” Her fingers hunted the door handle. “Is that it?”
“Did I do something?”
“Fuck, Jack.”
“What?”
“That for me?” She nodded to the back.
“Just stuff.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t…” He realized he was gripping the steering wheel. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“No shit.”
“What happened? Here.” In this car, he tried to say. Between us. But that sounded stupid. He didn’t know the words. Besides, there was no us. Just another fake connection, intimacy through a screen.
“Of course it’s not James fucking Harrison.”
“I know. You told me. I should have listened to you.”
“Like I give a rat’s about you listening to me.” Her voice rose and fell. “Goddamn it, Jack. The only thing I care about is that we’re running out of time.”
Jack didn’t know whether he saw it in her eyes or heard it in her tone, but suddenly he understood. Winter had come out to her property and accused her brother again. He must have really scared her. And the only person in the whole country who was supposed to be on her side was off chasing stories at Long Bay.
“You’re accusing people of Alexis’s murder, and it shows you don’t care what happened to Eliza. Or what happens to my family.” She swallowed hard, and Jack saw the youth in her face. “Or what happens to me, Jack.”
James Harrison had motive for Alexis, but not for Eliza. By treating the murders separately, he was admitting that he still thought Curtis guilty of Eliza’s. He’s guilty, she’d said, days ago in her drive. He always will be. It doesn’t matter if he actually did anything or not. She didn’t know about the shoe like Jack did. Every new copycat they looked at rammed her family’s shame back at her. Once Andrew Freeman, or James Harrison, was out of the picture, Curtis Wade became a killer again.
And she was right, of course. They were running out of time. The older the case got, the likelier it remained unsolved. The more likely it hung around the Wade family like a collective noose. TV shows and podcasts aren’t on recent crimes because, as the stories age, so does the truth in them, bled out like the midday color in this bleached-bright town. And you can play with that. Physical evidence decays. Conversely, and it doesn’t make sense, but memory can sharpen. Not because people remember better. But because, as time wears through truth, there is less to contradict it. The real reason memory sharpens: because you can put it in high-def, beam it into people’s lounge rooms, tell them what they believe.
But Lauren didn’t know Jack had one extra piece of evidence against Curtis. She didn’t know.
“Lauren, four months ago—” He felt tired. Light-headed. His stomach cramped. His acrobat had fallen, was drowning. He’d been eating more since he got to Birravale. Maybe it was because there was nothing to do but linger here, like the water on the road. Like festering potholes of wine. Or maybe it was because, in the “murder capital of the world,” he’d started to feel safe. Lauren was a part of that. Spit it out. She looked at him with a tilted head, tired eyes lightly bloodshot. He ground his jaw. Realized he was gripping the wheel again, and said:
Nothing.
He couldn’t tell her. Not yet.
“Four months ago?” Lauren prompted.
Jack gave her a little. “I know you’re trying to see things from all sides, but I think you can’t. You’re blocking out the truth because it might hurt you. And it might. I understand. Four months ago, I felt the same. I was just trying to make a TV show.”
“Now?”
“Now I’m just trying to find the truth.”
“Truth.” She laughed, had enough, got out of the car. Her back was to him, but he still heard it. “Wow.” It seemed for a second she would say nothing more, but then she leaned down, just before she swung the door closed, and said: “You hold that word out in front of you like a shield. And you don’t even know what it means.”
It comes out in order. Reversed. Like watching a movie of people going into a club and then rewinding it. If you were really paying attention, you could pick through your day.
There, the banana muffin. That was last in, sitting on the cold rim of the bathtub. There, the bright orange of the cheesy, salt-coated Doritos, the empty bag next to bright-orange marks on the white sheets where he’d wiped his fingers. There, the brown of the chocolate he’d eaten while driving to Lauren’s. He’d brushed the flecks from the front of his coat when she’d entered the car. There, the scotch finger biscuits, shoveled in crumby handfuls before turning off the highway. No one in the service station had noticed his crinkling jacket, pockets full, as he signed for the food. The food he was paying for, anyway. No one looks twice when a grown man swipes snacks. They’re supposed to be better than that. Shoplifting is for women, apparently. Not a man’s crime. Not a man’s hands, knuckles scarred, shoving packets in his coat. The spaghetti now. Worms. Next, just spit and acid. A retching burn where the body wallows, empty, while the mind still tries to squeeze the last drop of sacrifice out of it. Eyes bloodshot, pushed against sockets. Ribs tight with pressure.
They call it a purge for a reason. With each piece of food he saw, Jack tried to vent the day, the week, the year, the life from him.
That’s what you do, isn’t it? You get people like me out of jail.
Thin ropes of cloudy spit hung from his lips. He wiped them away.
You hold that word out in front of you like a shield.
He flushed. Started again. Rewinding. Get it out.
Curtis’s guilt, laced up in his closet. Alexis’s hand. Soft and warm and alive.
The lies you can live with.
More. Harder. It’s not working if there isn’t pain. His fist was slicked and slimy as if freshly jellied, just birthed.
Whump.
Get it all out. Curtis. Alexis. Eliza. Dead women. Dead ends. His brother. Lauren. Andrew. His father. His brother. His brother. His brother.
Liam. In the hospital. Tubes rising out of him, bound up in a spiderweb. Bubbles coasting through the transparent plastic crisscrossed against the white of the hospital wall. A nurse coming in. Pouring a nondescript brown sludge into an upright cylinder, affixed at Liam’s hip, that sucked and gurgled as it slowly descended. Brown watermark stained on the plastic. Like filling oil in a car. After that, for the first time, food felt like paste in Jack’s mouth. No taste or color or smell anymore. The shit that went in the same as the shit that came out, just skipping a few steps. Tar to go down a chute: a throat or a tube. So he’d started avoiding food. Overchewing. It worked. He and his brother decayed in tandem. It felt fair. Later, when people started to notice, and forced him to chew the paste into a swallow, he could always feel it inside him. Thick gunk. Remembered the brown sludge glugging down the tube. Had to get rid of it. That sludge. Unwelcome. Unwanted. His undeserved reward for still walking around. That sludge they’d literally poured into his brother.
That sludge that poured out of him now, small penance.
You’re never really full, never really empty. There’s a point where it stops coming though. Where your fingers dip the wooden bucket back into the well, but the bucket comes up empty. The bile and the spit have dried. But just because it stops coming out doesn’t mean it’s not in there. Jack could feel it in his blood, in his breath. Still not empty. Something inside. No matter how hard the push. How dry the well. Sleep, maybe. Pass out, maybe. Wake fifteen minutes later, cold tile pressed to cheek. The smell of vomit settling into the room. Still there, that feeling. Not empty.
He hunted for more. Those half-finished packets of food. Those new ones. He’d thought about it and bought backups, reinforcements. Worse than the preplanning was a trip back out to the all-night supermarket, if he was in Sydney. Out here it would be the gas station. He didn’t think he did go back out there. But he couldn’t quite remember now, because time had passed and there was more food and he was eating again. Because it was a cycle, this, and putting more in let him get more out. Like filling a glass to float a dead bug to the rim. More in. More out. Maybe then he’d be empty. Never was. Never was.
Trust Me When I Lie Page 24
