Behind The Veil: A Gina Harwood Novel Page 9

  Jake decided to sit down, drawn by the beer, and possibly by Marcus' apparent ease. Marcus smiled sweetly at the detective, who was looking at him curiously with a raised eyebrow. He couldn't tell whether or not she appreciated his presence. He took a sip of his brew and then blinked. “Oh, man, I'm sorry. Did you want one? I can get you one,” he apologized.

  The detective's smile widened slightly and she shook her head. Her eyes slid off Marcus and moved to Jake, who was still adjusting himself on the stool. “So, Jake, what's going on?” her voice was practiced and casual. “Oh, is this okay?” She brought out a small voice recorder and tilted her head to one side. “Standard procedure, you know.”

  Jake nodded and took a giant swig. She clicked it on, and it began running with a faint buzz. “My dad is crazy.” Marcus exhaled sharply, drawing the detective's attention back to him for a moment, but he concentrated on watching the bartender with a disinterested expression. He wanted to let Jake tell his own story, his own way. If the detective asked his opinion afterward, then he'd gladly give it. He didn't think Peter was crazy, and he thought Jake was being reckless. Jake started from the beginning, telling the same story Marcus had heard from him just a few minutes earlier, and Marcus listened intently for any other details he could use as proof of Peter being relatively sane, at least as far as the story was concerned.

  He didn't know why it mattered to him so much, exactly, except that he didn't want any more deaths. Jake knew his dad, should know better than he did whether the story was plausible, but Marcus felt as though he were rejecting it out of fear. Out of desperation. Marcus felt compelled to play a role he rarely assumed – the voice of reason. Maybe even to save his best friend's life.

  Marcus considered that for a moment, sipping his bottle, and nodded to himself. He felt reasonably sure that Jake's life was on the line if the wrong decision were made here.

  He stole a glance at the detective to see if she seemed to think it was crazy, too. Her face was entirely expressionless, just intently watching Jake talk. It was impossible to know what she thought of the story, or Jake, by her reaction, or lack thereof. Marcus was impressed, and vowed never to play poker against the woman. Jake got through the history lesson and to the part about the bathroom, the day of Susan's death. That did get a reaction out of her; she leaned forward and raised both eyebrows, scribbling words on her notebook without even looking at it. Useful talent, thought Marcus.

  Jake finished, and for a moment, there was silence. “Totally fucking nuts,” whispered Jake.

  Marcus bit his tongue.

  When Detective Harwood spoke, she sounded almost breathless. “Why did you call me?” she asked.

  Jake looked confused. “Uh, you told me to call if I had any information.” He sounded unsure. “I think he's out of his gourd. If he's that crazy, maybe he had something to do with Harry. Or Mom. I don't know, I'm not the detective.” Now, he sounded defensive.

  The detective stopped writing and shook both hands at him. “No, no, that's fine, I just wanted to know what you thought, why you called as soon as you got out. When you called, you sounded almost angry. I was just curious, that's all.” Her words were rushed, a far cry from the composed start to the conversation. Marcus tilted his head slightly and studied her, wondering if that were part of her act, too.

  “Oh,” replied Jake, blushing slightly. “I was mad, yeah. He lied to me, and then he came up with this giant convoluted thing to try to explain it away. I guess I just hated seeing my dad like that. I always thought he was...” Jake struggled for the words. “...a good guy,” he finished, nodding to himself. “I thought he was a good guy.”

  She pursed her lips and scribbled madly on her notebook. The voice recorder was still buzzing, and for a moment, that's all Marcus could hear. It filled his head, black-winged angry insects flitting around in his brain. He closed his eyes, but that just made it worse. His mouth filled with the taste of metal, and he wondered for a moment if he'd bitten his tongue or his cheek hard enough to draw blood, but he tongued around and found no pain. “I don't think he's crazy,” he said, feeling pale and unwell. As soon as he said it, he felt a little better, and the buzzing subsided to a dull roar.

  Both sets of eyes were on him now. He stammered, feeling unusually self-conscious. Jake's eyes were thunderstorms of mixed emotions. “I'm sorry, man,” he said to Jake, but then turned to the detective, who had a bemused but attentive expression. “...but I don't. I don't think he's crazy. I think Jake's angry and upset and confused, and I know Peter's probably not dealing with everything like he should, but I don't think Peter's crazy.”

  She pursed her lips and nodded for him to continue, her hand doing the invisible writing thing again. Jake didn't say anything. Marcus wasn't even sure he was breathing. “It's just... well, tell her both sides, Jake. You don't know about your family beyond your parents and Harry. Did you ever visit their graves, if they're dead? You moved around all the time as a kid, right? You didn't come here til you were eleven. Your dad's accent is backwoods, but not Oklahoma-backwoods.” Jake snorted and rolled his eyes. “It's not!” asserted Marcus. “I never recognized his accent. And I don't know, the bathroom, maybe he did do that. It makes more sense than him slipping and falling. Nobody I ever knew did that kind of damage by slipping and falling. How'd he fall on his face like that, in that tiny bathroom? Don't make sense, right?” He implored the detective to back him up. She just smiled a small smile and nodded at him again to continue. Jake's eyes were black with anger now. “Aw, come on, man. I'm your best friend. I'm just scared for you is all. I'd rather you run. I'd go with you. If it's even maybe right, what if it's right, Jake? What if he was right? What if they got Susan and got Harry and are coming back?”

  The detective stopped writing now. “There isn't any 'they,' Marcus,” she said quietly. “Maybe we did get a little more truth out of Peter this time, but you have to know, understand, that his story doesn't exactly add up.” Jake was nodding profusely and looked relieved. Marcus scowled down at his lap.

  “What if you're wrong?” he asked.

  “Then there's a lot more out there that I'm probably wrong about too,” she answered simply. Marcus saw her looking sadly at him, and she sighed. “Look, I'll check out the story, do some checking around about the area. Pocomoke River, right? Highway 113?” Jake nodded again. “Okay, well, there's got to be something on that area. People don't just go missing for that many years. Plus, if there was a factory out there, then I don't care what your father said about the maps. A factory would have to be listed somewhere. With the uh... assessor's office, or something.” She wasn't looking at either of them now, but somewhere beyond them. “I can check that, for sure. Maybe ask the office up there if they can send somebody out to check, unless they already found the place. Maybe they found it a while back. I can run a check on those aliases. Check Maryland for missing persons' reports from the same general time as your parents.” She looked down again and smiled slightly. “Of course, it would be a lot more helpful if I knew exactly where to look. Do you think Peter might give you any more information?”

  Jake looked aghast. “Why would you waste time on such a crock of a story!” Her eyes hardened at him, but he didn't seem to notice. Marcus winced. “My mother and my sister are fucking dead, and you're not listening to me! Go get my dad. Lock him up. Something is wrong with him.” This didn't sound like a request.

  She nodded. “Yes, we could, I suppose. But if we do, and he doesn't tell us anything, we don't really have enough to hold him for those murders. It would only be a few hours, maybe a day at most. Then what?” Her voice sounded strained; Marcus guessed it was from forcing herself to not sound really pissed off. “You'll have to take my word for it, Jake. It just isn't the best way unless you have some better proof you haven't shared, something else he said maybe? Something else you saw?” She paused for a moment, but he shook his head. “Okay. Then, the best way is if we can track down a little more about this story. If we can demonstrably prove it'
s false, then maybe you can go in with a wire to talk to him, find out what really happened...” Jake shook his head no, alarmed. “...or maybe we can take him in at that point, interrogate him again,” she continued smoothly, her face impassive. Jake relaxed. “But if we can't, if facts point toward the basic parts of the story being true, then he's admitted to being part of other murders. We can haul him in on his own words. But I don't think he'll be nearly as likely to talk to me as he would to you.” She leaned in closer, eyes suddenly much more kind. “Are you afraid of him, Jake?” she asked softly. “Do you think he would hurt you? I don't want to ask you to do something that you feel is dangerous.”

  Marcus scoffed loudly. Neither of them paid attention to him.

  “No,” said Jake. “I mean, unless he actually killed my mom and my sister. Then yeah,” he said sourly.

  “Fer chrissakes,” exclaimed Marcus, now fully out of patience. “Peter didn't kill his own family.”

  The detective turned her eyes on him. “Then who do you think did, Marcus?” she asked quietly.

  That buzzing was back in his head and he glanced at the tape recorder. It was still spinning away. “How would I know? But it wasn't Peter. That just doesn't make any sense.” He shrugged and drained the last of his beer.

  She frowned and scribbled in her notebook some more. Irritated, Marcus went back to the bar to order another round.

  ⇼ ⇼ ⇼ ⇼ ⇼

  “Hm,” said Snyder.

  Gina waited, as patiently as she felt she could. She clicked to rewind the tape, gritting her teeth at the low squeal. Why were they all still working on analog everything? There were digital players. She'd seen them. They weren't that expensive. Maybe she'd buy one for herself. It reached the end, or rather, the beginning, and clicked off.

  Snyder still appeared lost in thought.

  “Hm, what?” she urged. He looked at her, then looked away. “I think it's big,” she said, as if replying. “I think it's pretty big.”

  “I don't know,” he said simply. “It's weird, that's for sure.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “It is weird. I checked out the maps of the area, but the ones online aren't much help really. They do show a national forest of that name, and it is near that highway in Maryland.” She shrugged. “Doesn't really say much though. I put in a request to the Snow Hill station, that's the city he mentioned that was nearby.”

  “Is it?” he looked up.

  Gina bit her cheek. “Is it what?”

  “Is Snow Hill nearby?”

  “Yeeeesss,” she said slowly, a little patronizingly. “But that doesn't prove anything, either, except that he knows the area.”

  “Hm,” he said again. Gina wondered briefly how she had any hair left on her head, with a partner like Snyder. She sighed heavily and stuck a pen in her teeth.

  “You know, I hate that,” he said, his eyes focused on her mouth.

  She looked up, surprised. “Hate what?”

  “The pen-chewing thing. And the sighing thing.” He twisted his mouth up disapprovingly.

  “Yeah?” she felt her cheeks redden. “Well, I hate how you don't talk. You just sit there, saying things like 'Hm.' You're a terrible conversationalist.”

  “You grit your teeth when you're irritated. It is the worst sound in the entire world.” He looked very, very serious, and she fought back a derisive laugh.

  “You make fun of me all the time. I hate it. You make me feel defective, like there's something wrong with me.”

  He cocked his head to the right. “No, I don't. When?”

  She stood up and paced, ticking the examples off on her fingers. “You smirk at me whenever I do anything wrong, or not fast enough, or not easy enough. You make fun of the way I type.”

  “You type weird,” he retorted, matter-of-factly. “I've never see anybody type without their thumbs before. I mean, you still type faster than I do. It's just weird.”

  She ignored him. “And every time we get to a scene, you make fun of my 'it-speak'...”

  He laughed. “Aw, come on. You make fun of it too sometimes.” She shot him a glare. He faltered a bit and lost the smile before continuing. “Yeah, well, you make it obvious to anybody that you hate me. That you'd rather have a potato for a partner. You look sickened if you even call me by my first name. That kind of hurts, too.” He stared at the floor, feeling foolish. “Every time you talk to me it sounds like you're talking to a child.”

  “That's because sometimes you are deliberately stupid!” she nearly yelled. “At least, I think it's deliberate? You can be brilliant in one minute and ask the dumbest possible question the next, holy christ, that drives me crazy!” She took a deep breath. “Okay, maybe that wasn't nice. Look...” she started to say 'I'm sorry,' but felt herself choke on the words. She wasn't sorry. This was his fault. “It's just, I know you hate being my partner,” she paused for a moment before adding “too.” She felt immediately bad about it and wanted to take it back, but that little appended word made her feel considerably less vulnerable. This conversation had gone too far, too fast, and she didn't feel in control of it at all. “Sometimes I speak before I think. Okay?” That choking feeling resurged and she couldn't get any closer to an apology. It would have to do.

  He stared at her blankly. “I don't hate having you for a partner,” he said, factually, as if he were telling her the time.

  Gina felt the flush crawl further up her face and turned away from him. “Whatever,” she said, hoping her head didn't spontaneously combust from the sudden heat. “Can we get back to the O'Malleys? Of which two are now dead?” she sounded colder than she wanted to.

  She sneaked a glance at his face and was horrified to see how crushed he looked.

  “Yeah, of course,” he said, sounding lost. He turned away for a moment to shuffle some papers around aimlessly on his desk, and when he faced her again, his face looked etched in stone. Something deep within Gina cried out, but she mentally smashed it over the head with a sledgehammer to shut it up.

  To spite herself, Gina resumed chewing on the pen cap with renewed vigor.

  He didn't react. “It's hard to know whether Peter O'Malley really believes all this or not, since we didn't hear it from him. Jake sure doesn't.” His voice was official, clipped, professionally devoid.

  “You get me the wrong coffee. All the time. I like it with sugar and cream, lots. Not black.” Gina heard the words tumble out of her mouth, horrified.

  He stopped and looked at her with darkened eyes before continuing as if uninterrupted. “I want to talk to Peter. I think we should bring him in.”

  Gina looked at him, astonished, immediately forgetting the list of his wrongs her mind was tallying up without her permission. “Didn't you hear what I told Jake? We can't hold him, Snyder. We don't have anything.”

  “I don't care,” he answered darkly. “We can bring him in for questioning. There's nothing wrong with that.”

  “It might scare him into running. He already tried to send Jake away. I bet that's just a pretext for his own run to the border.”

  Snyder studied her face. “You really think the old man did it?” he sounded flabbergasted. “Really? After you were so sure he didn't? I trust you on those sort of things, and now you're saying you weren't sure?”

  Gina shifted uncomfortably. “I'm not ruling it out. I can't say without hearing him say it himself whether he's lying or not.” She looked down. “We only questioned him about his wife's death. I didn't get the feeling that he did that, no.”

  He didn't answer, just kept looking at her.

  “He could have done it,” she said defensively. “He doesn't have an alibi for his daughter's death.”

  “Neither do you,” replied Snyder pleasantly. “Or me. Or anyone who sleeps alone. It was too early in the morning. And he has a solid alibi for Susan's.”

  “He could have ordered it done,” she said in a smaller voice.

  Snyder looked at her uncomprehendingly, but didn't answer.

  “Okay, no
. I don't really think he had anything to do with it,” she sighed.

  “Then we should bring him in for questioning. Just in case there's something about his story. Maybe protective custody...” he suggested.

  Gina thought about it for a moment, and nodded. “Maybe...” she said thoughtfully. “That might work...but I don't think he'd release himself to protective custody, do you?”

  He shrugged. “Never know til you try. If not, we could offer a guard detail for a few days.”

  Gina was troubled. “I hate to do that before we get any information back on his story. I think we'd have a better chance if we had some facts first.”

  Snyder shrugged. “Your call, then. Now, or wait?”

  She furrowed her brow. “Give me a day or two, okay? Let's just see what Snow Hill has to say. Maybe they'll get back to us quick, and it won't even be that long, yeah?”

  He shrugged again and turned back to the desk. Gina understood that body language: conversation over. None too soon, as far as she was concerned. She swept out of the room and headed to records.

  9

  It was the first time that Jake could remember seeing clearly in Marcus' house. Usually the rooms were so full of smoke that it was hard to make out the walls, let alone the hazy shapes of the posters on the walls. How the neighbors didn't complain, Jake never figured out; it was a modern-day Marcus miracle. His friend was just lucky that way.

  Of course, Marcus was really starting to get on his nerves right now, sober or not. They tried playing video games, a normal diversion, but Marcus wasn't concentrating well enough for them to get anywhere; they kept getting taken out by screaming thirteen-year-olds on the server. At least, they were usually screaming thirteen-year-olds. They had no way of knowing at the moment, because neither of them had the headsets plugged in. Every fifteen minutes or so, Marcus would set the controller down, and twist to look at Jake. It always started differently - “Dude, you know I'd go with you if...;” “Hey man, you know, there's not a lot holding us here now...;” “I can't stand playing with Matt anymore, what about you?” But they all ended the same: “Maybe your Dad was right. Maybe you should run. I'll go with you. Let's just go, Jake.”