Cemetery Lake (26 page)

I look at the photos of the dead priest. There are eight of

them. ‘Why? So you can pin this bullshit on me?’

‘If you didn’t kill him, then what’s the problem? The evidence will prove that.’

‘Depends on how you’re going to look at the evidence. Seems

to me you’re already looking at it and don’t have a fucking clue how to read it properly’

‘We’re wasting our time,’ Landry says. ‘I say we lock him up

and tell his fellow prisoners he used to be a cop. Let them loosen him up.’

‘Yeah, good one, Landry’

‘Why were you following him?’ Schroder asks.

‘Like I said, I wasn’t following him.’

Schroder presses on. ‘What were you doing before the

accident?’

“I wasn’t following him.’

‘We know you weren’t following him at that point,’ Landry

adds. ‘He was already dead by then.’

‘We need to show him a few things,’ Schroder says, then he

stands up and walks out of the room. Landry doesn’t fill the

empty seat. He pushes his hands against the top of it and leans forward.

‘You used to be one of us,’ he says. ‘What in the hell

happened?’

‘What do you think?’

Before he can answer, Schroder steps back in. He has a

cardboard box full of plastic bags. I can’t tell how many there are as they all blend into one. He starts laying them out on the table.

‘The watch,’ he says, ‘used to belong to Gerald Weiss. He was

buried with it two years ago. So how is it you’ve come to own

it?’

“I found it.’

‘There are two ways you could have got it,’ Landry says.

‘Either you stole it off a dead man when you were in the water, or you stole it off a dead man when you were pulling him out of his coffin.’

‘Even you’re doing a shitty job of trying to believe that,’ I say, and Landry looks pissed off. ‘You’re trying too hard here. And one day that’s going to come back and kick you in the arse. You’re going to try too damn hard, and people are going to suffer for it.’

‘You’re either a thief or a killer,’ Landry says firmly, as if they are one in the same. “I think that’s why you were so damn keen to help out with the exhumation of Henry Martins. You knew

who was going to be in there. You wanted to try and control the situation. But the problem was the corpses, right? They floated up. If they hadn’t, we’d never have known about the others.’

‘Look, cut the routine or I’m gonna change my mind and ask

for my lawyer.’

Schroder slides over another bag. It has the newspaper articles I found in Alderman’s bedroom. ‘You’ve been holding back on

us,’ he says, adding the printouts I made when sketching out

the timelines of obituaries and the missing girls. ‘You knew long before us who was in the ground.’

‘That’s because I used to do this too,’ I say, and it’s true. I used to do this, and between the times I did and the times I haven’t nothing really has changed. Violent acts are still a huge part of this city, as are the grey skies and the rain waiting at the threshold of every cooling hour. Bad things happening to good people.

There are kids in this city being born, being loved, growing up into the choices that make them good or bad. There are kids out there without any chance at all. Some will become good, some

will become evil, some are born and tossed into dumpsters. I was part of the world that tried to correct all of that, the world that tried to keep some of it in check. But somewhere along the way I lost track of it all. I fell into the abyss.

‘Nobody seems to have forgotten that as much as you, Tate,’

Schroder says. ‘You’re nothing like the man you used to be. You used to be a real stand-up guy. And now you’ve got a DUI hanging over your head; we’ve got you for theft, for stalking, and you’re looking real good for murder.’

‘ Without any evidence you can’t hold me here without charging me. That means I’m here on my own merits. That means I’m free

to get up and leave.’

“No, you’re not free until I say you’re free,’ Schroder says.

‘We’ve got a techie going through your computer files. You’ve

been following Father Julian since the day Sidney Alderman went missing. And these newspaper articles. How is it some of them

are originals? To me, that suggests they were cut out as the girls went missing. How’d you get them?’

Bruce Alderman gave them to me. He left them in my car

when we drove to my office.’

Schroder slides another plastic bag over. It has a small envelope inside with my name written across it. There are bloody smudges across it. For a brief moment I’m back in my office, the smell of burning metal and blood in the air, a pink mist creating a cloud over the caretaker’s head that has just been distended by a bullet.

‘What was in here?’ Schroder asks. ‘The articles? See, the

articles aren’t folded up, and they’d need to have been folded to fit in this envelope.’

“I can’t remember.’

‘We found writing samples at the church. This is Bruce

Alderman’s handwriting.’

‘So?’

‘So what else have you stolen?’ Landry asks.

“I haven’t stolen anything. That envelope has my name on it,

so whatever was in there was mine.’

“He wrote you a letter? A confession? A suicide note?’ Schroder asks.

‘No.’

‘Thought you couldn’t remember what was in there?’

“I can’t.’

‘But you can remember what wasn’t in there.’

‘Memory is a funny thing.’

‘Cut the crap, Tate,’ Landry says.

‘It was the watch, okay?’ I say, and it sounds believable enough.

‘Alderman had the watch. I don’t know how he got it, and when

he gave it to me I didn’t know who it belonged to.’

‘Bullshit,’ Landry says.

‘Then you ought to shut up until you can prove otherwise.’

‘Out of all the people in this city, why’d he come and see

you?’

I shrug. “I don’t know. I think it was because I was the face he connected to what was going on. I was the one who found the

bodies. I was the one who came along with the exhumation order and started all of this.’

‘You kept things from us,’ Schroder says. ‘You stole evidence

that would have helped us piece things together quicker. That

ring you took from Rachel Tyler — Jesus, Tate, let’s not forget you took the ring from Rachel Tyler. The timeline would have

changed. We’d probably have caught the person who started all

of this.’

It’s true. But the moment that coffin opened and I saw a dead

girl, I had no choice. There were other dead girls because of me, because of a decision I failed to make correctly two years earlier.

How could I not take the ring? It led to suicide. It led me to murder. It led me to drunk driving and to being taken into the middle of nowhere where I should have been left.

‘All these innocent girls,’ Schroder says, spreading out the

articles, one bag for each girl. ‘Do you even care?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘He doesn’t,’ Landry says, ‘otherwise he’d be helping us.’

‘You’ve turned one of your rooms into an office,’ Schroder

says. ‘Into a command post.’

‘You’re charging me with that too?’

‘Just tell us, damn it,’ he says, getting angry now. ‘You were following Father Julian for a reason. What do you think he did?

You think he killed Sidney Alderman?’

He leans back in his chair.

“No, I don’t think that’s it,’ Schroder continues. ‘You wouldn’t be following him for that. You wouldn’t care about one angry old retired caretaker getting taken out. So there’s more to it. You were following him because you think he had something to do with

the dead girls. Your office is dedicated to that case, and to Father Julian. You have pictures and articles pinned up all over the walls.

You think the two go hand in hand. We were looking at Sidney

Alderman as a possibility. And more so after he disappeared. We thought he ran. But not you. You kept looking at Father Julian.

He was on our radar simply because everybody connected to the

graveyard was on it. Only Alderman made a bigger blip, and

when he disappeared his blip overshadowed everybody else’s. So we kept looking for him. It’s as though you knew somethingIt’s as though you gave up looking for Sidney Alderman because

you didn’t think there was a point. Either you thought he was

innocent or you thought he would never show up again. It’s just like two years ago with Quentin James. Which is it?’

‘You tell me.’

‘You think Julian killed those girls. We’ll know soon whether

your thoughts have any foundation. In the meantime, tell us what happened to Sidney Alderman.’

“I don’t know’

‘But you knew to stop looking for him. Why did you focus on

Father Julian?’

“I wasn’t focusing on him.’

‘Why did you kill him?’

“I didn’t.’

‘This is going nowhere,’ Landry says. ‘Show him the

weapon.’

‘The weapon?’ I ask, immediately confused.

A smirk appears on Landry’s face. ‘The weapon, Sherlock.

Like I said earlier, you really learned fuck all from your years on the force. We searched your house, remember? What, did you

think we wouldn’t find it?’

Schroder lifts the last plastic bag from the box and puts it on the table. Inside is my hammer from home. It’s covered in blood.

And I already know it’s going to belong to Father Julian.

‘You’ve been following him for a month. You think he’s guilty of murder. You’ve been parked outside his church every day before the protection order, and some days since. And you want us to

believe you had nothing to do with his death,’ Schroder says,

putting the murder weapon down slowly, as if carefully balancing a cup of water filled to the brim. He puts it in the centre of the table so we’re all within reaching distance. Maybe he’s hoping I’m going to make a break for it. I’m sure Landry is. He’s hoping this can all end right now.

‘Where did you find it?’

‘Where you left it,’ Landry answers.

“I want my lawyer now.’

‘Yeah, guilty people always do,’ Landry says to Schroder

before turning back to me. ‘Come on, Tate, you know how it

goes. You’ve seen it before and you used to hate it too.’

“Hate what?’

‘When the perp keeps on denying it even after we’ve got so

much evidence against him.’

‘You’ve got nothing.’

“Nothing? Are you fucking kidding me?’

‘Tell us again why you were following him,’ Schroder asks.

‘Come on, Tate, if he was guilty, then let us help you. I mean, hell, if it turns out he killed those girls, we’ll probably end up giving you a medal. Just tell us what happened. We’re all on the same team here.’

“I didn’t kill him,’ I say, but my team mates don’t believe me.

I want a drink.

‘Give us a few minutes alone,’ Schroder says, and Landry

looks angry, but I know it’s an act. I know they’ve cued up their conversation before coming in here and this is the point where Schroder becomes my friend.

Landry walks out without saying anything else. It’s part of

their game.

‘You have to give me something here, Tate, or I can’t help

you.’

I figure it’s best if I play the game too. But before I do, I decide to give him something.

‘Father Julian knew who killed those girls.’

‘What?’

“He told me he knew. And Bruce Alderman, he buried them.

He told me that.’

‘What? Why the hell didn’t you tell us that?’

I explain to Schroder my conversations with the priest,

detailing my pleas for Julian to tell me who had done it, even touching on the frustration I felt. I can see Schroder wondering how far he’d have pushed it if he’d known that Father Julian had been confessed to. I tell him about Bruce Alderman and what he said about dignity before elegantly blowing his brains out.

‘You should have told us,’ he says. ‘We could have convinced Julian.’

“I doubt that.’

‘We could have done something, Tate. Anything. But instead

you let a whole damn month slide by and now it’s too late. That’s why you were outside his church, right? You weren’t following Father Julian. You were watching to see who came to see him.

T>u were waiting in case the killer showed up, only you didn’t know who the hell you were looking for.’

“I had to do something.’

‘You fucked up.’

‘I know’

‘And now Father Julian is dead. And you’re in a world full of

shit.’

‘It’s an abyss.’

‘What?’

‘Come on, Carl, you know me. You’ve known me for nearly

fifteen years.’

‘Which is why this is hard for me too. We found the hammer

in your garage.’

‘And that’s why you’re going to let me leave.’ It’s time to play the game.

‘What?’

‘You’ve got nothing to hold me here.’

He looks down at the hammer in such a way as to suggest

maybe I’ve forgotten it’s there. But I haven’t.

‘You found it in my garage.’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, well, first of all you don’t even know if it’s my

hammer.’

‘That’s not the …’

‘Second,’ I say, and I hold up my hand and start counting off

my points. ‘You’re going to print it and find my prints aren’t on it.

You’re going to think a guy who used to be a homicide detective was dumb enough to clean off his fingerprints but not the blood, was dumb enough to keep the weapon, was dumb enough to

leave it in his garage for anybody to find.’

“Not dumb, but drunk,’ he says.

‘And that’s exactly my point.’

‘What?’

‘Three,’ I say, counting off another point with my fingers. ‘And this one is the kicker. This is the reason I’m about to get up and walk out of here.’

Schroder leans back. He knows what’s coming.