'I just remembered what suiseki means. They are rocks you collect and look at. Viewing stones. I have a room full of them. I always liked rocks as a kid. But the viewing stones, I think I bought those kind of recently.'
'You didn't know that three minutes ago.'
'I just remembered it now.'
'Archie,' said Zamorra, 'when does your gardener come?'
'Huh?'
'Your gardener, the guy who rakes the leaves and pulls the weeds
'I don't really know.'
'Do you know his name, or how to get in touch with him?'
'I don't remember.'
'Can I ask you one more question?'
He nodded but he felt himself gliding upward into a clear blue sky that was Gwen.
'When you think about that night-Gwen and the party, the rock and the light in your eyes-do you remember being sad? Angry? Happy? Afraid? How did you feel, then, that night? What was in your heart?'
'I was happy. We made love by the beach. Stars in her hair. I just remembered that, too.'
Merci sat at her desk at headquarters and played her messages. The Homicide pen was empty now, almost seven on a Friday evening. She liked it this way.
George Wildcraft confirmed their Saturday breakfast interview. He had a clear sharp voice and for whatever reasons she pictured him with a suntan and good teeth. Natalie, Archie's mother, would be there also. But Zamorra wouldn't because it was Saturday and he refused to work Saturdays or Sundays. Kirsten.
Gilliam had called but not said why. He rarely left information on a tape. She called him at home and apologized but he cut her off.
'You know you can call me anytime, day or night, Merci.'
'Thanks, Jim.'
'Look, I didn't want to leave it on the machine, but we finished up the DNA on Gwen and Archie today. The semen inside her was his.'
'I could have told you that.'
A silence. TV news in the background.
'And some of the blood on his robe was hers.'
'Shit.'
'Yes,' he said softly.
'There's an explanation, Jim. He loved her. He had no reason.'
'I hate to be the one to point this out, but-'
'But we've convicted lots of creeps with less than half the evidence we've got on Wildcraft.'
'Less than a quarter,' Gilliam said.
Merci felt a little chill go up her back. She pictured a jury listening as Archie tried to reassemble his blasted memory: I have no memory of that… wait a minute, I just remembered… no, I didn't kill her…
So she wondered if a piece of lead might speak more convincingly on his behalf. 'Can you tell me the caliber of the bullet in his head?'
'I can't do it. The scans just aren't precise enough. We're talking fractions of millimeters in bullet size. Plus the fragmentation and distortion. I need the slug.'
'Why not use a-you know, Jim, a…'
'A what, Merci? God knows I'm open to ideas.'
'I don't know, some gadget that measures bullets in brains.'
Another silence. 'I wish I could.'
'It's possible.'
'What is?'
'That someone else shot them both.'
Gilliam chuckled. 'I'm trying to see it your way. In spite of the evidence, I am. But I'm not getting very far.'
'Shit was going down, Jim. Somebody chucked a rock through his living room window. We've got some monstrous footprints from under that tree. What if Gwen was alive when Archie went outside? What if Wildcraft went outside to find the rock thrower and got off a shot at Size Sixteen? That accounts for the residue right there.'
'Okay. But your witness heard one shot, not two.'
'Simultaneous.'
'I'm stretching hard here.'
'Okay, then Archie came out with his weapon when he heard the rock through the window, walked into a bullet from the giant under the tree. He's down and bleeding. The shooter takes his gun and uses it on Gwen. He comes back outside and fires a sky round through with Archie's hand in a shooting grip. That's what Jones heard.'
'Why didn't he hear the shot that put down Archie?'
'A small caliber-twenty-two or thirty-two. A silencer. Maybe Jones sneezed right then, was flushing a toilet. I don't know yet. But it was an autoloader. That accounts for the mess of footprints. Because the shooter had to find the casing.'
'It wasn't just the gardener who left those prints, or one of us.”
'Not just the damned gardener, and Crowder told me that nobody been in there. It was the shooter, looking for the brass.'
'And at some point this guy wipes Gwen Wildcraft's blood Archie's robe?'
'Exactly.'
Gilliam sighed. 'Maybe.'
'What's wrong with it?'
'Not really wrong, Merci, but we've got a young, financially troubled, very jealous deputy who kills his wife and shoots himself, happens. We all know it happens. Or, we've got a giant throwing rocks, hiding under trees, switching out weapons, planting evidence and driving away without anyone seeing him. I'd go with Occam and his razor.'
'Fuck Occam, and his razor too.'
'And this Jones witness? I understand he was drinking hard stuff in the morning.'
'So? He heard what he heard. The two shots to Gwen, they happened inside the bathroom. The bathroom was on the far side of the house, away from Jones's garage. And where did you get that Wildcraft was extremely jealous?'
'I was extrapolating.'
'Because Gwen was beautiful.'
'Correct.'
'And what's this financially troubled crap?'
'It's a million-dollar home, Merci. Wildcraft was good for about fifty or sixty, and his wife was unemployed.'
'They invested in OrganiVen, the cancer-cure guys. Made two million in less than a year. They weren't troubled-they were flush.'
'It's easier to spend than to make. They could have been way over their heads.'
'Jim, something's wrong. Help me. I'm no damned good, trying to think like a defense attorney. But I can't go after an innocent deputy just because he looks guilty.'
Like I went after Mike.
'You know, Merci, that entry wound in Wildcraft's head-right side, behind the temple and above the ear-is where a lot of right-handed suicides place the gun.'
She felt her anger leap from her heart to her mouth, like a spark jumping a gap. 'Stebbins gave you scan copies already?'
'Slow down-you'll get yours tomorrow. You're free to look at mine if you can't wait that long.'
She swallowed down the anger, saying nothing.
