“Isn’t that a conflict of interest? Or a… breach of ethics or something?”
Austin tilts his beer and shrugs. “I’m not a lawyer. She’s a source. And she’s fallen on hard times.”
Her burger finished, Clare drains her second whiskey too fast. It burns down her throat. What time is it? Clare takes her phone from her pocket. 11:00 p.m. She is suddenly very tired.
“My turn,” Austin says. “What’s your real name?”
Despite the tightness in her chest, Clare angles her head and stares at Austin until he blinks.
“Clare,” she says. “My real name is Clare.”
“Ha. Right. Well, Clare,” Austin says. “We’ve barely scratched the surface. But I’m feeling like this has been a little uneven. Maybe another whiskey will make you more amenable to sharing?”
“Maybe,” Clare says, finishing her drink before standing up. “But I’m meeting the detective assigned to the case tomorrow. I need to get some sleep.”
“Germain?” Austin laughs. “Good luck. That guy couldn’t find his own ass in his pants.” He reaches for her arm, brushing it lightly. “Come on. One more drink never killed you.”
What’s making Clare uneasy is how much she wants to capitulate, to drink with this guy who believes something is forming between them, to use her wiles to gain the upper hand. But she feels a little dizzy, and she cannot afford to lose her inhibition. Clare shakes her head with a contrite smile and collects her bag. Austin places his hand on the small of her back and directs her to the bar’s entrance. He stops just short of the door, pouting.
“This evening turned out pretty well,” he says. “Wish it didn’t have to end so soon.”
“I appreciate you meeting with me.”
He leans one arm on the door, posed. Clare smiles again, embarrassed by his efforts to be coy. Austin Lantz seems like a boy working hard to play the part of a man. Still, she knows there’s a mild slur to her words and he’s interpreting that as an invitation.
Outside, the cold air is a shock to Clare, a misting rain coating her. She hadn’t realized how sweaty she’d gotten inside. She walks to the nearest corner to gather her bearings. Her breaths are quick, short. She knows this feeling too well, the exhilaration of the whiskey, the desire for one more. She must keep walking.
WEDNESDAY
The restaurant is a shabby BBQ spot. It’s busy inside, but the older hostess breaks into a big grin and offers Detective Patrick Germain a warm hug. She looks to Clare with the curiosity of a nosy aunt. Germain shakes his head to stave off her implied question.
“Work meeting,” he says.
When Patrick Germain smiles, he looks almost bashful, his strong and squared jaw still somehow boyish. He is taller than Clare by only an inch, and though he’s made detective, he can’t yet be thirty. The hostess laughs, then leads them to a small booth at the back, empty, as if she’d been waiting for Germain to arrive. They sit and Germain hands Clare a menu.
“The ribs are the best in five hundred miles.”
“It’s not even nine in the morning,” Clare says.
“Never too early for ribs. This place is open twenty-four/seven. You a carnivore?”
“I guess so,” Clare says.
Germain sets the menu flat on the table to study it. Clare spots a small tattoo on the inside of his wrist, a sideways eight. The infinity symbol. The waitress comes over and Germain orders for both of them. Ribs, coleslaw, water.
“So.” Germain opens a notepad. He copies her name from the card she’s given him. “Clare O’Kearney. What’s your date of birth?”
“Why do you need my date of birth?” Clare asks. “We’re just talking.”
“It’s standard procedure.”
“With a witness maybe,” Clare says. “Or a suspect.”
“Okay.” Germain clicks at the tip of his pen. “But not with”—he studies the card again—“not with an investigator?”
“Listen,” Clare says. “I appreciate you meeting with me. I know you haven’t had the best of luck with this case.”
Germain leans back in the booth and lets out a long sigh. Clare has come to understand that the greatest puzzle in this work is deciphering what to share with whom. She knows better than to trust just anyone. In their phone call yesterday, she’d told Germain the basic facts of her relationship with Malcolm. Still, her guard will stay squarely up. Germain raps his fingers against the grainy wood of the table.
“The way I see it,” Germain says, “this case was given to me as a hazing ritual. A murder five years cold, a missing woman gone eighteen months with zero leads or clues. Two cases that shouldn’t even be on the same file but are. And the woman’s husband, the prime suspect, gone too. Malcolm Hayes’s trail has been as cold as ice, until you show up and say you’ve been playing PI with him for the past few months.”
“I’m trying to be honest with you from the get-go.”
Germain eyes her. “I appreciate that. Because, let me tell you, it feels like the witnesses change their story every time you sit them down. And the early police files are… thin.”
“Thin as in you don’t think your fellow officers were doing their jobs?”
“I make a point to never speak ill of my colleagues. But one guy who worked the case was an old boyfriend of Zoe’s. He knew Malcolm too, for chrissake. That kind of stuff is bound to happen in a small place like Lune Bay, but this one had conflict of interest written all over it. Lots of rumors that that particular cop was dirty too. There were other lead detectives too. Let’s just say a few old-timers were offered very convenient retirement packages around the time the case started to go cold.”
Clare nods. In her hometown these sorts of rumors plagued the local department, the notion that certain cases could get pushed aside if the suspect had the right connections. Even Clare
