“Maybe he hadn’t had time…. Just being devil’s advocate. You know, things could have gone wrong, and it was all over before he got to that part.”
“Maybe. But there are other things. Four: the wire around his neck. It was cut off a lamp from the office. He was gonna do it, don’t you think he’d have had rope, or another wire? I don’t believe he suddenly thought, Damn, I got to have me some of that pleasure, so I’ll just take this long lamp wire and cut it and use it. That doesn’t seem right. And five: The door to the garage wasn’t locked. The lights were out, but the door wasn’t locked. Back door was open too. I know. I ran out of that one. I ran all the way to the house to call before I realized there was a phone in the garage. He was going to do something like that, don’t you think he would have locked the door?
“Six—and this one I didn’t know until I looked at the photographs—he was all bruised up around the eyes, the jaw. You can see the bruises in the pictures. Look.”
Kayla went to her desk, took a key from under the chair cushion, unlocked a drawer, and pulled out the files. She took them over to where Harry sat, opened them, gave Harry a look.
Mr. Jones certainly didn’t look as if he was the kind of guy to deck himself out in bra, panties, and fishnets. He was a big, burly guy. But hell, it took all kinds.
“Seven: Look at his wrists. Look at the marks. Looks like they were tied so he couldn’t get himself loose. When it was over someone cut the bonds, left him hanging to make it look like an accident.”
“Why exactly are you telling me all this, Kayla? I appreciate your confidence, but…no offense, I don’t hear from you in years, and all of a sudden you’re telling me about your dad in panties and fishnets, and you’re showing me very private photographs.”
“Do you see the bruises? They show up good here.”
She handed him a photo.
“Could be bruises, I guess.”
“Look at the next one, Harry. It’s a close-up of his face.”
Harry didn’t like the photographs. The close-up especially, way Mr. Jones’s tongue was poking out of his mouth, his teeth clenched into it. But he did see the bruises.
“I see them,” he said. “But I still don’t understand what this has to do with me.”
Actually, he had an idea, but didn’t want to suggest it.
“Eight: the redhead, Harry. One you saw in the shelter? Way you described him. It fit with something. I think that was the guy who worked for my father. Young guy learning the mechanic trade. I didn’t know him well. I met him during my visit with Dad. But the other night you described him to a T. His name was Vincent Something-or- another. I’d have to look at the files to see. I have more in the drawer there. I’m not supposed to have them. I slipped in and copied them. They’re not part of my bailiwick as a new cop, but I copied them anyway. Vincent was there that night, earlier, because I saw him when I came down to see Dad the first time, but he wasn’t there when I found Dad.”
“You think the redhead did it?”
“He was never found. Just disappeared. Never went home.”
“So it looks like it was him.”
“Don’t think so. You know what I think? I think someone did that to my dad to make it look like an accident and not murder. As for Vincent doing it, he couldn’t have rolled my father over if he was dead. He was too small, and he adored my father. You could tell. Dad was, I don’t know, a kind of uncle to the kid, or father figure. This is stuff I’ve figured out after the fact, based on the way I remember things.”
“Sometimes we don’t remember as well as we think. Or we remember the way we want to.”
Kayla tapped the photo with the tip of her finger.
“What I believe happened is someone—probably more than one, because I think those bruises show my father put up a fight, did this to him. And to keep the murder from being investigated, maybe to embarrass him in death, they dressed him out in women’s clothes.”
“Why would they want to embarrass him?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What about the redhead? He didn’t do it, what’s his connection? Where is he?”
“I think he was there that night when it happened,” Kayla said. “I don’t know where, but I think they may not have known it right away. When they found out he was there, their plan was snapped. They had to get rid of him. They killed him because he was a witness. Couldn’t let him be found dead in the garage, that would mess up their plot, so they took him somewhere where he could never be found and killed him.”
“The shelter?”
“I think so. The golf course McGuire owns, it’s right behind his house. There’s a thin line of woods between the course and his property. The garage is on the far side of the golf course. What I’m saying is the garage, the course, and my dad were not that far apart. I’ll throw something else in: Joey’s dad doesn’t live far from there, and that’s one of the reasons my mom and dad split up.”
“Joey’s dad?”
“Joey’s mom. Dad, he was seeing her. He was more than seeing her. Mom found out about it, and…well, it started coming apart. Can you imagine that? Joey’s mom.”
“It surprises me. You believe it?”
“Yeah. He admitted it to Mom when she found out. Why they split up. Why he lived here and we lived in Tyler when I was growing up. Me and him, we got okay again, though. That’s why I was down to see him when he died. Trying to do the quality-time thing. But all this, and Joey’s dad being nearby, and him maybe finding out, probably knowing all about it, and him being the way he was…he could have been in on it. It all links up like boxcars.”
“But where’s the body? Why would they take him there? Why the shelter?”
“According to you, whoever did the murder knew that shelter. Right?”
“Seemed that way. Still, what about the body? Where is it?”
“Haven’t figured that part. There are a number of things I haven’t figured. You see, Harry, the house my dad lived in, it’s sold, but the garage is still there, locked up. It belongs to me. It was in some kind of will or trust or something. It’s mine. I’ve been there several times, and—”
“You want me to go there?” he said.
Kayla nodded. “You have a unique ability.”
“God, Kayla…It’s not easy. It’s not like watching a movie. I get…sensations, feelings. I’ve just now gotten to where the little stored-up things, accidents and fights and arguments that I hear from some bang or clang trapped in a car, a stone, or whatever…It’s just now that that stuff doesn’t drive me crazy. I’ve been working hard on that. I don’t want to dive right back into it.”
“It’s a lot to ask—”
“More than a lot.”
“—and I don’t want you to think it’s the only reason I’m glad to see you, but…it’s important, Harry. Don’t you think? Solving a murder? My father’s murder?”
“Jesus, Kayla. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I know what I’m asking. I’m asking for you to help me know what happened. He was murdered. I’m sure of it.”
Harry sat and thought for a long time. When he looked up, Kayla was watching him intently.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
She looked as if she had just been pushed off a cliff. She nodded. “All right…I’ll give you a ride home.”
45
Lying on his couch in his undershorts, Harry listened to the afternoon wind wrap itself around the apartment. He wondered why wind didn’t carry all manner of messages. Seemed as if all the horrors and terrors and bad things of the world would be on the wind. Was it just too flexible to hold it all?
He wondered why the big, bad sounds hid in rocks and wood and plastic and stone. He wondered why people his age liked rap music. He wondered why cats were popular pets. He wondered why in the middle of the day, even when he felt tired, like now, he couldn’t go to sleep. He wondered if Jimmy was beating someone up right now, or if McGuire might be in on some kind of kill. He thought about all manner of shit to keep from wondering about Kayla.
