Cemetery Lake (29 page)

pizza boxes in his arms. Suddenly he really is my best friend.

‘Thought you might do with some food,’ he says.

“I’m in the middle of cooking something.’

“I looked in that fridge of yours, Tate. What in the hell could you possibly be cooking?’ He braces the pizzas in one hand, a

bottle of Coke under his arm. He reaches into his pocket and

pulls out my keys. ‘Might make it easier for you getting in and out.

Saves breaking more windows.’

‘Seriously, Carl, this isn’t a good time for me,’ I say, taking my keys off him.

‘Spare me the bullshit. This place hasn’t had any food in it for a long time. Except for this kind. You’ve got enough pizza boxes stacked in your kitchen to build a fort.’

My stomach starts to growl and my mouth waters.

‘I was going to bring beer,’ he says, reaching under his arm and grabbing the Coke, ‘but something told me that was a bad idea.’

‘You’re a real funny guy’

We move through to the dining room. I grab some plates and

a couple of glasses. The pizza has a range of different types of meat on it, so between that and the Coke I reckon I’ll get the nutritional value I need for the day.

‘So why are you here?’

‘Look, Tate, Landry can be a real arsehole, but that doesn’t

mean he doesn’t have a point.’

‘Which is?’

‘The fact you’ve become a real mess.’

“I’m in the process of changing that.’

He looks around the room, absorbing the comment. “I guess

you are.’

‘That’s what life-changing moments will do to you.’

‘And what was that?’ he asks.

‘What do you think?’

‘The accident,’ he says, and he’s right — it was the accident more than it was being taken into the woods, or being framed for murder.

‘It’s kind of ironic,’ he adds.

I know what he’s getting it. He’s saying that if it hadn’t been for me driving through that intersection and hitting that car, I would now be in jail. I’d have been arrested for murder. He’s

saying that picking up the bottle and getting hammered was the only thing that kept the frame job on me from being complete. It all comes back to that word luck.

‘Did you really think I did it?’

‘Sure we did. Until the weapon showed up. That threw a

spanner in the works. Or a hammer, I guess, in this case. It messed everything up. So you were lucky’

“I shouldn’t have needed to be lucky. I didn’t kill the guy and that should have been enough.’

‘Come on, you know sometimes that isn’t enough.’

‘So why are you here, other than to make sure I’m eating

okay?’

‘How long’s it been since we hung out, Tate?’

‘Probably around the same time you stopped calling me. Hell,

it was the same time everybody stopped. If I remember correctly, it was around when Emily died.’

‘That had nothing to do with it.’

‘Then what was it?’

‘It was Quentin James. Nobody believes he ran. We all know

you killed him. But without a body, without any proof…’

“I didn’t kill him.’

‘Hey I’d have killed him. Any one of us would have — and

that’s why none of us looked real hard into finding him. It just sucked that it had to be you. And none of us wanted to hear you say it. What would have happened if over a few beers one night you told me what you’d done? What then? No, none of us could

call you, Tate. It was the only way. It was safer. And not just for you, for us.’

I don’t answer him. I’m not sure if he’s made a valid point

or whether he’s just made up an excuse that sounds believable. I guess if I were in his situation I’d have done the same thing.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, eating our pizza and getting through our Cokes. The Coke tastes different without bourbon

added to it.

‘Tell me something,’ I say, finishing one slice and getting ready to start another. ‘Bruce Alderman. Did you ever look at him for the murders?’

‘We looked at everybody’

‘Yeah, but how much did you look at him?’

‘Not as much as his Father.’

‘Which father?’ I ask.

If you’re trying to get at something, Tate, just spell it out.’

“I didn’t mean his priest.’

He sets down his pizza. ‘Who told you?’

“That Bruce and Sidney weren’t related? I’ve known from the

beginning. Do you know who the real father is?’

He picks up his slice and starts back in on it. ‘Tracey told you, that’s what I think. Probably recently too. Maybe today’

‘How’d you figure it out?’ I ask.

‘Probably the same way you did. You want to share first?’

‘Come on, Carl. You wouldn’t have come around unless you

had something for me.’

And you need to stop reading things into situations that aren’t there. I don’t have anything for you. I came around to check in on you.’

“I appreciate that,’ I say, ‘but come on, just give me that one thing. You know we fucked up two years ago. You know we could have stopped this, and three more girls would still be alive for it. I can’t let it go.’

He sits his pizza back down. “I’m surprised it took you this long to play that card,’ he says.

I don’t answer. I just wait him out and he carries on.

‘Like I said, we were looking at everybody, right? A case this big, all those girls — we’re gonna run all the DNA we can get hold of. Absolutely we’re gonna do that.’

And Alderman agreed to that?’

‘No, he didn’t agree. He didn’t even know. He came down to

identify his son’s body. When he took a swing at you, he hit the wall, right? That gave us his blood. We threw it into the database we were building.’

And?’

‘And the results are still out on DNA. Come on, Tate, this

shit still takes a couple of months to get back to us. Nothing has changed there. But blood tests proved the two Aldermans weren’t biologically related.’

‘Why’d you test?’

‘Like I said, all that stuff just gets done, right?’

‘What about Father Julian? You checking to see if his DNA

shows up anywhere it shouldn’t?’

“how did I know you were going to ask that?’

‘Well?’

‘You’ve had plenty of opportunities to tell us about Father

Julian, Tate. You kept refusing. But, like I say, we’re still waiting for DNA results.’

‘Father Julian was Bruce’s real father, wasn’t he?’

‘What makes you say that?’

I think about what Father Julian said about Bruce being like a son to him. A hunch.’

‘Don’t know. It’s quicker to disprove parenting through blood

comparisons, which we’ve done. But it’s going to take longer to confirm. We’ll know soon.’

“How soon?’

‘We’ll know when we know. That’s just the way it is.’

I wish testing was as quick as it is on TV It’s not. It’s about eight weeks of sitting around waiting while the specimens are sent out, tested, re-tested and sent back.

‘You’re going to compare the DNA you’ve been collecting

against the samples found at crime scene in the church?’ I ask.

‘Gee, why didn’t we think of that? Christ, I didn’t realise the impact of you leaving the force.’

“Yeah, good one, Carl.’

Tou fucked up,’ Schroder says.

‘What?’

‘This whole thing. You fucked up. And it’s only a matter of time until we find Sidney Alderman.’

‘When you do, can you ask him about Father Julian? Maybe he

knows something.’

“Yeah, I’ll make sure I do that. He wrap his hands around a crystal ball. See if that’ll help the conversation. It sure has to be better than this.’ He swallows the last of his drink, then stands up.

I walk him to the door.

On the step he turns around and faces me. ‘You know his wife

died in an accident, right?’

He knows I do. I found the article online and printed off a copy It was pinned to my wall with all the others.

‘What of it?’

‘With everything that’s going on, some bright spark had the

idea that maybe there was something more to her death.’

‘You’re kidding,’ I say, suddenly worried about where this is

going.

“I knope. It’s bullshit, right? It’s a stupid idea. But the decision has come down from the top. One of those dot the i’s and cross the Ts that’s going to cost time and money and get no result. The upshot is we’re digging her up on Monday’

‘Don’t you need something more to be able to do that?’

‘The gun Bruce shot himself with. Do you know where he

got it?’

“I always wondered.’

‘It belonged to his father. I mean it belonged to Sidney

Alderman.’

‘And?’

‘And Alderman bought that gun years ago. He bought it the

same week his wife died. About two days before she suddenly

jumped out in front of a car by accident. Hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?’

‘You think he bought the gun to kill his wife and pushed her

in front of a car instead?’

“I’m not saying anything. But you remember what happened

last time we started digging up bodies? I’m telling you, Tate, it’s going to be a long week. And take some advice — get yourself

a good lawyer, man. These drink driving charges aren’t going to disappear, friends in the department or not. You’re going to be doing some time. Get yourself sorted, start jogging — you’ve put on what, three, four kilos in the last month? Get your life back on track. Do anything else but this case, man. I know we could have made a difference two years ago, but you have to let it go and let the rest of us take care of it.’

His cellphone starts to ring.

“Hang on, Tate.’ He talks quickly into it, then hangs up. ‘Jesus, I gotta go,’ he says, and rushes to his car.

All I can do is watch him as he speeds out of the street, and all I can think about is what they are going to find buried in the dirt when they exhume Sidney Alderman’s wife on Monday.

For the longest time I can’t move. My breathing becomes

shallow and I start to sweat. The house is cold and the air slightly damp because of the busted window in the lounge. There is a

restricting pain in my chest. On Monday they are going to find Sidney Alderman buried on top of the coffin of his wife. He’s

going to look like he died hard. There are going to be contusions and gashes and deep cuts. Realistically there shouldn’t be any evidence pointing directly at me, not that I can think of, but there might be something. Regardless of that, they’ll know I did it. It won’t be like Quentin James, where they knew I did it but didn’t try looking too hard to prove anything. This time they’ll make an effort because the man I killed was innocent.

I walk outside to the garage and find a piece of plywood and

some nails; of course, I have no hammer. I use a drill and some screws to hold the plywood over the busted window. The work helps to calm me, at least for a few minutes. When the last screw is buried, I start to go through my options, and the one that keeps coming up is that I ought to call Carl Schroder and tell him to come back here. We could sit down and he could listen to my sins.

I sit down at the table and eat some more pizza. I need to

start making the most of good food, since I won’t be seeing any for another ten years. On the other hand, Schroder was right.

I should be joining a gym. Or at least running. Doing something.

I reach down and grab a handful of stomach. A month ago I was

lean. Now I’m not. I reach up and find extra padding around my neck and jaw that shouldn’t be there either. I hope Schroder’s estimate of my added three or four kilos wasn’t conservative.

I finish off the pizza and drink the rest of the Coke. Daxter

comes wandering down the hall, probably hoping I kept him

some pizza. I give him his usual and he seems placated by it.

I head to bed and set my alarm clock. I slide it to the far end of the bedside table to kill the risk of my reaching out and slapping the snooze button while still in some dreamlike state.

I end up dreaming about my wife, about Emily, and in my

dream they are both alive. They talk to me, but what they say

makes little sense, because in the dream I seem to be burying

my family while they’re still alive. Rachel Tyler appears — she’s a younger version, one of the Rachel Tylers on display in the

hallway of her parents’ house. She accuses me of murder, and in this world of dreams as well as outside of it it’s exactly what I am.

When the alarm goes off it’s two o’clock in the morning and

it’s raining. Daxter is curled up next to me, the first time he has done that in two years. I wonder if this means something. My

house is cold and my mind is full of bad ideas. I get dressed and step out into the night.

I thrrow a shovel into the back of my dad’s car, and park outside my house. I look up and down the street, searching for a tail, then drive off in the direction of the cemetery, taking random lefts and rights to make sure no one is following. I need to get Alderman out of the ground before the others go digging for his wife.

At the cemetery everything looks different, as though I’m still in the dream. The night is about as dark and wet as it can get in this city. There is an occasional sliver of pale light that breaks through and reflects off the windscreen. It is completely still out here, and cold. I suspect if I tried digging deep into the ground to remove Sidney Alderman, it’d be like digging through quicksand.

I park out on the street two blocks away and walk back to the

cemetery. Naked branches that look like skeletal remains reach out overhead and lock fingers above me as I enter the grounds. I slow down and stay hidden in the shadows of several oak trees along the sides of the road in case there are any police around. There doesn’t seem to be anybody, but I go further into the grounds

before going back for the shovel, knowing I could only offer bad answers to questions about why I was carrying one.