by Clare Kauter
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I gave the most convincing smile I could manage and he headed inside. I mulled over what I was going to say, but when Will returned with our cocktails (watermelon daiquiris, if you’re curious) a few minutes later, I still wasn’t quite sure how to tell him. So I kind of just blurted it out.
“Topher’s a suspect in a murder inquiry.”
Will stared at me for a couple of beats. “Wow. You’re all about ripping the Band-Aid off, aren’t you?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t think of a way to make it sound... not awful.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think anything would have really helped there.”
We each took a couple of big gulps of our daiquiris.
“Do you have any more details?” Will asked.
After a deep breath, I said, “I’m not even sure where to start.”
“Does James know?”
“I...” I frowned. I’d assumed so, but maybe Harcourt hadn’t told him yet. “I don’t know. He knows that Harcourt’s reopened the investigation into Topher’s disappearance. I haven’t had a chance to talk to James since I was questioned by the police.”
“You were questioned? What? Why?”
“Harcourt wanted my DNA to compare it to a sample from the crime scene.”
“Did you give it to him?” he asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because he has no reason to suspect Topher was there and I don’t trust him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think he planted the evidence,” I explained.
“Charlie...”
“I know it sounds insane, but is it really more insane than the idea that Topher killed someone?”
Will took a deep breath. “OK, I get your point.” He took another swig of his drink, this time finishing it off. He stared into his empty glass. “I think I’m going to need another one of these.”
“Or ten,” I said, downing the last of mine.
“Or that.” Will sighed. “At least we know everything will work out for Topher in the end.”
“We do?”
He nodded. “James will make sure of it. Toph’s got at least one cop on his side.”
I sighed, hoping he was right.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
After getting out of the pool, showering and dressing in a floral dress and a different pair of sandals, I left Will napping on his new bed and walked the two blocks to James McKenzie’s house. My house was big, but this mansion dwarfed it. If you lost anything in this house, you were never getting it back. I knew that for a fact, since a couple of months ago I’d, ahem, gone looking for something in this house and hadn’t been able to find it. I was hoping that this time if I asked politely, James wouldn’t be so reluctant to show me the note. The stakes were somewhat higher now.
I knocked on the front door, hoping that Harcourt hadn’t put cameras in the trees outside or a GPS tracker on my phone or something. James answered the door with his hair wet, presumably from showering when he arrived home from work. “Come in.”
I followed him into the dining room.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No thanks. I just wanted to talk about...”
“Harcourt told me about the murder,” James said, taking a seat opposite me. “How he thinks Topher’s involved and that you’re covering for him.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, sure I am.”
“Charlie,” James said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “I, um...”
I raised my eyebrows. “Yes?”
“I think you should ask Tim to stop looking for Topher.”
Frowning, I asked, “Why?”
“I don’t know, but part of me feels like maybe Harcourt somehow found out that Tim’s trying to find him and that’s what spurred this whole thing on.”
I paused for a moment, considering what he’d said. It was possible, for sure. But it was also possible that Harcourt had asked James to say that so the police would find Topher first. Argh, why did this all have to be so complicated? Why couldn’t I just trust James? I didn’t know what to think.
“James,” I said, “I need to see your note. I need to know that you’re on our side and not on Harcourt’s, and the only way I’ll know that for sure is if you show me that letter.”
James nodded. “I thought you might say that.” He reached into his pocket and took out a folded sheet of paper which he then handed across the table to me.
I raised my eyebrows. “Really? All that build up and now you’re just giving it to me?”
“I don’t want to give you any reason not to trust me.”
I nodded and gingerly took the piece of paper from his outstretched hand. As I unfolded it, I realised I was shaking. Inside it read:
James,
Sorry about last night. I have to go away for a while, but I’ll be back soon. Things are a little complicated and I can’t explain now. Don’t worry about me.
Toph
P.S. When you’re talking to the cops, can you say I walked to the party with you? No big deal if you don’t want to, but it would help me out a little.
I read the note twice, trying to take everything in. The actual substance of the letter wasn’t all that interesting, but the postscript had caught my attention. Why had he asked James to lie? What did he mean it would help him? Did he just want to muddy the waters to help with his getaway? Maybe. Did that mean that he’d been planning his getaway before the party? I guess so. That meant it wasn’t a completely spur of the moment thing.
That wasn’t all that was interesting about the note. I continued to stare at it, frowning. There was something else about it that was bothering me, but what?
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I... I don’t know.” I kept staring at it, studying it. Then it clicked. “It’s in a different colour.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The pen,” I said. “The ink’s a different shade of blue from my note.”
James raised his eyebrows at me and half smiled. “You really are becoming quite the detective.”
“I’m serious,” I said. “It’s definitely a different shade of blue. This is darker than the one I have.”
“Maybe yours is faded,” he said. “I’ve kept mine hidden for a long time. It hasn’t seen the light much.”
“Nor has mine,” I said. “I don’t think it’s faded. This is a different pen.” I could tell, because the pen used on mine was one of the nice, smooth pens that Barry the Elf was always trying to steal from my gift wrapping station. The blue on James’s note was from an inferior pen.
“OK, so he used a different pen. What does it matter?”
I frowned. The paper was the same rule, as far as I could tell. Still, something was off.
“Why wouldn’t you show me this note earlier?” I asked.
“What?”
“It doesn’t have any important information in it.”
“Neither does yours.”
“Mine says not to trust cops. You’re a cop. I have an excuse.”
He sighed. “It was written to me, Charlie. Not to you. I felt weird about showing it to you.”
“But why? There’s nothing personal in this. Nothing private.”
“What do you want me to tell you, Charlie?”
“The truth would be nice.”
“Are you accusing me of something?”
I hesitated. “No, I just –“
“Go on,” he said. “Come right out and say it.”
I took a deep breath and blurted, “Is this the real note?”
He raised his eyebrows and laughed humourlessly. “Wow, Charlie. Are you serious?”
“Yes,” I said. “I am.”
“Because the pen’s a different shade you think I forged it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what to think.”
James glared at me and I was worried he’d snatch the note back, so I
whipped out my phone and took a photo before he had a chance, then I handed it back to him.
“Topher wrote this note, Charlie,” he said quietly. “You may not believe me, but that’s the truth.”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” I said. And with that, I turned and walked out the front door. As I made my way down the path to the pavement beside the street, I took out my phone and dialled Adam.
“Hey, Charmander,” he said.
“Hey.”
“What do you want?”
Adam knew me well enough to know that I rarely called just to chat.
“I have a question.”
“Yes?”
“Do you know anyone who can analyse handwriting?”
“You mean like a psychic? No.”
“No,” I said. “I mean like a forgeries expert.”
“Ah,” he said. “In that case, I do.”
“Any chance you could get me a meeting with them?”
“Well, I’m just about to have lunch,” he said. “Why don’t you bring your potential forgery down to the hospital and meet me?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Since I’d been drinking earlier, I took an Uber to the hospital. I called Adam again and he came out to meet me in the garden. I’d picked up some takeaway on the way (felafel, tabouleh and hummus wraps – healthy because it was for Adam) and we sat at a table in a shaded part of the garden to eat. It was late afternoon, so a little past lunch time for me, but I hadn’t really eaten today and since I’d already been drinking it seemed like it was probably a good idea to have something.
Adam was dressed in scrubs and I was genuinely astounded at how good he looked in them. He looked like a movie star playing a doctor, not like someone who actually worked at a hospital.
Once we were seated and had both started on our lunches, I passed him my phone with the picture of the note James had shown me along with my own note from Topher, which I’d been keeping in my wallet in case Harcourt decided to randomly search my house while I was out one day. Adam took a bite from his wrap and examined the note up close, zooming in on the picture on my phone.
“It’s real,” he concluded finally.
My shoulders fell. “Really?”
Adam frowned at me. “Why do you sound so disappointed?”
“Well, if it’s real then I kind of just went a bit crazy at James for no reason.”
Adam shrugged. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Why? What made you think it wasn’t real?” he asked. “The different ink?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Are you sure it couldn’t be a forgery?”
Adam thought for a second, examining the picture again. “I guess it could be, but if it is then it’s the best forgery I’ve seen in a long time.”
“Do you deal with a lot of forgeries?”
He nodded. “I do,” he said. “For legal cases as well as investigations. I’ve seen a lot of forgeries, but none this good, and certainly not sustained for that long. Most people just do signatures, and even then you can see mistakes. I don’t think this is forged, Charlie.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, wondering how the hell I was going to apologise to James this time. The longer this thing went on, the more mental I seemed to get.
“Right, OK. Thank you for looking at it for me.”
“Was there anything other than the ink that seemed off about it to you?” Adam asked. “The phrasing or something?”
I shook my head. “No, nothing in the actual letter itself...”
He raised his eyebrows. “But?”
I sighed. “But I asked James to show me this note nearly a year ago the first time and he refused. I’ve asked again since then and he still wouldn’t show me,” I said, frowning, trying to make sense of everything. “But then today I barely even said that I wanted to look at it and he handed it right over. He had it in his pocket, ready to show me. It just seemed like such a big shift, you know?”
“And you thought he’d faked it so he wouldn’t have to show you the real letter?”
I nodded. “He just seemed too keen to show me,” I explained. “He said he wanted me to trust him.”
Adam laughed. “That backfired.”
Glaring at him, I said, “It’s not funny.”
“It’s a bit funny,” he said, still smiling.
I took an aggressive bite of my wrap to show him that I was angry and snatched the note and my phone back.
“Seeing as it’s not fake, though, we should probably talk about that postscript,” said Adam. “I’m assuming that’s why James didn’t want to show it to anyone – because it asked him to lie to the cops.”
I nodded. “Yeah, but I already knew he’d lied in his interview from when I broke into –”
Adam put his hand up to stop me. “As your lawyer, I’m going to advise you not to finish that sentence,” he said. “So James lied in his interview because Topher asked him to. Why?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “And what really doesn’t make sense about it is that he asked James to lie, but not me.”
Adam frowned. “What do you mean?”
“James and I walked to the party together. Topher wasn’t there. But he didn’t ask me to say that he was.”
Adam nodded slowly. “That does seem odd,” he said, staring down at the table as he took another bite of his wrap. “Did you tell Harcourt that Topher wasn’t with you?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t tell Harcourt anything much, to be honest.”
“Do you think Topher might just have predicted that you’d be uncooperative?”
“How could he possibly have predicted that?”
Adam smiled and shook his head, finishing the last bite of his wrap. “I’ve got to get back to work soon, Charmander,” he said. “How’s your Santa case going?”
I grimaced. “It’s not,” I said. “I got a photo of the flasher, but it’s super blurry. I think he might have a tattoo on his leg, but I don’t know how to clear it up enough to see if that’s what it is or if it’s just a smudge.”
“You should call Tim and see if he can help you out,” said Adam. “He’s good with that kind of thing. And you should show him that note, too.”
I nodded. “Good idea.”
He stood from the table. “I’d better get back to work. Good luck with the flasher.”
“Bye, Adam.”
Once Adam disappeared back inside, I took out my phone and dialled Tim.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Timmy,” I said. I chose my next words carefully thanks to the potential phone tap. Fucking Harcourt. “I have something interesting to show you.”
“Awesome,” he said. “Where should we meet?”
“At the hospital.”
“Oh, honey. What have you done now?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just visiting.”
“OK, I’ll be there in ten.”
Ten minutes later, I saw Tim’s Porsche pull into the parking lot and I walked down to meet him. He double-parked and I slipped into the passenger’s seat, sighing happily as the cool air-conditioning washed over me. As we drove out of the parking lot, I filled him in on the day’s events.
“Did Adam tell you about what happened this morning?” I asked.
“Harcourt questioning you and accusing your brother of murder? Yeah, he did,” said Tim. “I don’t know what your brother did, honey, but he certainly seems to have pissed Harcourt off.”
“At least if he’s back in Gerongate and he’s wanted for murder they might arrest him before Harcourt has a chance to kill him, I guess,” I said.
Tim remained silent.
“What is it?” I asked, not really wanting to hear what he had to say.
“If Harcourt’s setting him up like that, honey...”
“What?”
“He’s probably just giving himself an excuse to shoot your brother on sight.”
My jaw dropped. “Jesus Christ, Tim, don
’t break it to me gently or anything! Just come right out and say it!”
“Sorry, honey,” said Tim. “That was a bit blunt, I know, but we have to think about the possibility.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, because we’re going to find him first.”
“Exactly,” said Tim. “Now, what was this new evidence you found?”
“James gave me the letter.”
Tim looked impressed. “Well done,” he said.
I grimaced as I thought back to what had happened when James showed it to me. ‘Well done’ was not quite how I’d describe my actions.
“Anyway, I showed it to Adam and he says it’s the real one.”
“I admire your tenacity in getting it verified, but surely you didn’t think your boyfriend would give you a fake note.”
I remained silent.
“Oh, honey,” said Tim. “You have serious trust issues.”
I sighed loudly. “I know. Let’s not even go there. Point is, I have a copy of the letter.” I took my phone from my bag and emailed the picture of the note to him. (I blurred the names out first, though, just in case Harcourt was somehow intercepting my email.) “Now you have a copy too.”
“Thanks, honey,” he said. “Does it say anything interesting?”
“He asked James to lie to the police for him.”
Tim nodded. “I guess that explains why he was so reluctant to let anyone else see it.”
I shrugged. “I guess.”
“And how is your case going?”
With a sigh, I said, “Not great, but I’m hoping you can help me.”
“Sure. What can I do?”
“I have a photo of the flasher.”
Tim glanced at me, eyebrows raised. “Well done!”
I gave him a small smile. “Trouble is, it’s a bit blurry. I was hoping maybe you’d be able to help me clean it up.”
“Sure thing,” he said.
We drove back to my house and I headed up to my room to get my laptop while Tim stayed downstairs to feed Arnold. I returned and we sat at the dining table. I opened the laptop and showed Tim the blurry photograph. I pointed to the back of Santa’s leg.
“Do you see that smudge?”
Tim squinted and leant in closer to the screen. He nodded. “Right, yeah.”
