She wrote money shit and underlined it twice. Then she circled it twice, the pen carving deep into the paper. She felt a warm flood of anger come through her. It had been building for almost a week now, quietly multiplying while she was busy with other things.
Merci sat back and looked at the cane chairs and tables, the waitresses in their short skirts, the palm trees and ceiling fans. She wanted to throw something at something.
'This is wrong,' she said. 'I talk to you, I talk to his partner, I talk to his parents, his in-laws and his neighbor, and you all tell me the same thing. You tell me how great Archie is. Archie saved my life. Archie adored his wife. Archie's not overly jealous. Archie struck it rich but it didn't go to his head. Archie pays his taxes. Archie never drinks too much. Archie always sticks up for women. According to all of you, Archie's perfect. I don't believe it. I don't believe that about anybody.'
Eccles smirked, no teeth, just his mouth curving up and the mustache going with it. 'Then there you have it,' he said.
'Have what?'
He sighed and shook his head. He put his hands on the table and looked down at them.
'Archie is… different. He's got a wall around him ten feet high. And the outside of that wall is perfect. It's totally bizarre that everyone told you I'm his best friend, because I don't know him very well at all. I like him. I respect him. I even try to be a friend. Like when I asked him what was bothering him that night. But I felt like I was prying, really pushing it, asking him something that simple. I don't talk to Archie about real things. He doesn't talk to me about them. We talked baseball and work and cars, you know-guy stuff.'
Eccles sat back and looked at her. She saw a hundred years of disappointment in his thirty-two-year-old eyes. 'Maybe that's why I like him. Because I know there's so much more to him, things he won't tell me. Archie has weight, Sergeant Rayborn. He's got depth. Maybe he has secrets. Maybe some not-so-good secrets.'
'What about his temper?'
'Oh yeah, short fuse. That's what gives him away. He's smiling and perfect, then look out. He usually controls it. He's got strong willpower. But sometimes not enough. You should have seen him take out Mark when they argued about you.'
She waited and he said nothing. Instead, he sighed, watched a waitress go by. 'Are you going to arrest him?'
'Yes.'
'Did he kill her?' Eccles asked.
Merci sighed and watched two Burg-Theft Detail detectives head for the cantina. Burg-Theft was Clark's old detail. She leaned in close to Eccles.
'Shit, Brad,' she said quietly, 'he's your best friend and you're asking me that?'
As soon as she said this she realized that she'd made the same mistake before-sold her trust in a man too easily and too quickly.
Eccles leaned forward. 'He's not my best friend, Sergeant. I'm his best friend. And when he was smiling at Mark one second and knocking him out the next, I wondered what else he might be capable of.'
And when Mike McNally had confessed to falling in love with nineteen-year-old prostitute who turned up dead after one of their secret little dinners at her place, Merci had wondered the same of him
She nodded. Suspicion. Wonder. Surprise. Certainly, Eccles was entitled to them. 'Okay. What do you think- Archie and Gwen, bottorn line?'
Eccles tapped his beer glass on the table. He looked at her with cold hurt in his eyes.
'I don't know, Detective-that's what I'm trying to say. Based on what I've heard of the evidence, and what I know of Archie,
I just damn don't know what to think.'
His face colored and his gaze caromed off of hers.
'Well, if CNB and Gary Brice come snooping around, you don't need to say that to them,' she said. 'You can give him the benefit of the doubt.'
'Don't worry. I'm just suspicious, Sergeant. I don't understand people who hold out. Especially on people who are trying to be the friends. But I'm not dumb enough to talk about it on TV. Listen- how do you think this sits with me? To say what I just said about him? My friend's got a bullet in his head. I feel like Judas. But I had to say it because it's what I've seen and it's what I believe. And because Gwen's dead. Maybe Fraud is getting to me. All you hear are lies and scams.'
She considered this, laying some money on the table. 'What you said was hard to admit. I respect it.'
'I hope I'm wrong. Like you were.'
She looked at him sharply but what was the point? 'I do, too.'
A long silence then, observed by the ghosts of Rayborn's memory. Eccles brought out his wallet. 'By the way, McNally's a racquetball friend of mine. He talks about you. Not a lot, but more than a little.'
'Don't.'
It was Merci's turn to color now, and she felt it happen.
Eccles shrugged. 'He admires you.'
'That's not possible.'
He looked at her with a level, open expression. 'Maybe you know less than you think you do. I know you're a good detective. Everybody knows that. But you ought to open up a little and see what's around you. What's possible. What can happen. People are surprising. Give him a call sometime.'
Merci looked at him, allowing some pleasantness into her face. 'You don't sound like a Fraud guy now. Sure you're cut out for that detail?'
Eccles shrugged and smiled. 'That was the old me talking. I was a Boy Scout-literally. That boy's not quite extinct, yet.'
'Hang on to him.'
'I'm trying.'
She got home that night after eight. Clark and Tim were at the dinner table, facing each other, Tim in his booster seat and Clark leaning forward on his elbows.
Clark looked at her with concern. Tim didn't look her way at all. It was a typical Monday, Tim displeased by his mother's absence after two days of togetherness.
She hugged him and he ignored her, turning his head away when she went to kiss him.
'Thanks a lot, you ungrateful little monster,' she said.
'He just missed you.'
'Funny way to show it.'
Tim turned to look at her now. 'Hi, Mom!'
She attacked him with kisses and hugs and Tim endured it, giggling as she tickled him under his chin. Merci plopped into the chair at the head of the table, Tim to her left and Clark to her right.
'Whew,' she said. 'That was a day.'
Clark stood and put his hand on her shoulder as he pivoted around her and into the kitchen. 'Monkfish tonight,' he said. 'The poor man lobster.'
'We're poor,' she said. 'Perfect.'
'I saw the CNB story this afternoon. Tim watched it, too.'
'Great, Dad.' She shot a glance at her father, but Clark dodged by looking into his skillet. He let Tim see and do things that she would not, and that was simply the way it was. She'd spent a year scolding her father for his permissiveness, then given up. So far as the TV was concerned, anything went.
'Awchie is not okay?'
'No, Archie is not okay. He's missing.'
'He is missing?'
'Yes. For now he's missing.'
'Is not missing?'
'You're exhausting, Tim,' said Merci. 'Cute, but exhausting.'
'Gary Brice called here twice,' said Clark.
'That asshole.' Too late.
'Not an asshole?'
