Cruel Comfort (Evan Buckley Thrillers Book 1) (6 page)

'No. We leaned on him pretty hard,
especially after he admitted giving the kid a ride in his car. We pulled the
car apart and searched his house, but there wasn't anything. His wife was
furious. You should have seen her. I bet he really got it in the neck after
we'd gone.' Faulkner smiled to himself at the memory. 'We also took away his
computer and found a load of porn on it.'

'Kiddie porn?'

'No, just the normal stuff. And you
don't have to worry that we missed some secret internet portal; we do have some
bright people who know what they're doing.'

'So, it doesn't exactly single him
out as public enemy number one.'

'No.' He smiled again. 'Mind you, if
you were married to his wife, you'd look at a lot of porn.'

'Not what you'd call a looker?'

'Maybe if you're a male Hippo.
Anyway, I feel pretty confident we didn't miss anything there.'

'What about the bus driver? Did he
have an alibi?'

'What, apart from driving a busload
of screaming brats home?'

'What about afterwards?'

Faulkner laughed. There was genuine
amusement in it this time.

'What?'

'He went to a strip joint. Different
strokes for different folks, eh? The teacher goes for a drive in the summer
sunshine, and the bus driver goes to some dingy basement to gawp at saggy tits.
It takes all sorts.'

'They remembered him?'

'Apparently he was one of their best
perv...I mean customers. It must have been payday that day, because he paid for
a number of private dances with the same girl. I use the word loosely - she was
old enough to be my mother.'

'Could he have paid her to say he
was with her?'

'Of course he could. And the FBI
killed JFK.'

'It's possible,' Evan said
defensively.

'Probable impossibilities are to be
preferred to improbable possibilities. Do you know who said that?'

'No.' It sounded more like a tongue
twister to Evan than a quotation.

'Look it up on the internet when you
get bored with the porn. Now, are we done here, or do you have any more
How
the hell did I miss that
questions for me?'

They weren't likely to get any
further forward. Evan could see why they'd been happy to pin it on the boy's
father in absentia, but it didn't make his task any easier. He got up to go and
stopped to look at the wall of framed photographs and commendations. Lots of
them showed Faulkner with a good looking, dark haired woman.

'That's me and the wife, God rest
her soul,' Faulkner said, joining him and pointing to one of a younger version
of himself and the woman, smiling brightly on vacation somewhere. It looked
like Switzerland or Austria. He pointed to another one of an even younger
version of the same women standing with an older couple in front of an old, red
barn. 'That's her and her folks before we got married.' He stared silently at
the photograph as he must have done a thousand times before. 'She died last
year. A blessing really, she'd been ill for a long time.'

'I'm sorry,' Evan said. 'I know what
it's like to lose someone you love.'

Evan knew he didn't have any choice
now but to speak to Linda Clayton. He wasn't comfortable with the fact that
he'd spoken with Faulkner under false pretences. More than that, it was obvious
that Faulkner wouldn't have given him the time of day if he hadn't told the
lie. Other people he wanted to talk to would probably be the same way. Besides,
he wanted to meet her and help her. He certainly wasn't expecting her to pay
him. He didn't have anything else to do with his time after all.

He drove straight to her house after
leaving Faulkner. There wasn't going to be any fooling around this time, so he
parked directly outside the house, walked up the path and knocked on the door.
Her car was in the driveway and Tom Jacobson had told him she didn't like to go
out in the daytime, so he was confident she was at home. That didn't mean she
was going to answer the door, though. He knocked a couple more times, and then
peered through the window. He couldn't see anyone moving around inside.

He didn't want to draw too much
attention to himself but it looked like he would have to talk to her through
the door and try to persuade her to let him in. He looked up and down the
street but there wasn't anyone around.

He cupped his hands round his mouth
and put them to the door. 'Mrs Clayton, my name is Evan Buckley. I'm a private
detective. I believe you came to my office a couple of times. I would very much
like to talk to you. Please let me in. I'm not going away until I've talked to
you.'

The door remained firmly shut, so he
tried again. 'I've just spoken to Matt Faulkner...'

The door was pulled open so fast he
almost fell on top of her. She must have been standing right on the other side
of it. Obviously there was some kind of reciprocal arrangement with her and
Faulkner's names. All you had to do was find the right button to push. He
managed to regain his balance and stood upright. 'Mrs Clayton..' he started
again.

'Yes, yes, I heard all that garbage
through the door. What are doing talking to that old bastard Faulkner?'

Evan got his first good look at her.
She was tall and slim with shoulder length blond hair. Evan couldn't tell if it
was natural or out of a bottle. He couldn't see any tell tale roots. She had a
strong nose and eyes that should have been clear blue and sparkling if it
wasn't for something behind them that stole the light from them. He wouldn't
have called her beautiful, but she was definitely striking. The mention of
Faulkner had brought a flush to her cheeks. He hadn't been exaggerating about
soured relationships, Evan thought. Most of the sourness seemed to be going in
one direction, but that was understandable.

'I had to start somewhere. I tried
you first, but you seemed a little reluctant to talk.'

'You didn't have to start with that
horse's ass. You might as well come in, now you're here.' It wasn't said with
what he'd call good grace, but at least he was in.

She led him down the hallway to a
small lounge at the back of the house. She waved her hand at an armchair for
him to sit. She didn't offer him a beer. Evan sat down at looked round the
room. It was clear from the number of photographs of her son and husband
everywhere that she didn't hold her husband responsible for her son's
disappearance.

'You're right, she said, 'I wanted
to talk to you and I came to your office but I got nervous and couldn't do it.'

'There's no reason to be nervous
about talking to me,' Evan said, putting on his best
you-can-trust-me
face.

'There is if you've been through
what I have. If you've talked to Faulkner, you've already guessed that I wanted
to talk to you about Daniel. I'm sure that evil old bastard has told you all
his wicked lies about my poor Robbie. But I never believed a word of it. I ask
you, would I have all these photographs of him if I thought he could do
anything to our boy?' She waved an arm, taking in the whole of the small room.

Evan was starting to get the feeling
that now he'd got her started he might not be able to stop her talking.

'I never believed it and I told them
so; and I told them they should keep looking for the monster who really took my
boy and not blame my Robbie when he wasn't there to defend himself. But they'd
made up their nasty minds and they didn't want to hear it and so they started
to ignore me and if I collared one of them and they couldn't manage to squirm
out of talking to me, they treated me like I was an idiot. Like I'd gone soft
in the head. Even if I was soft in the head, I'd have more brains than that lot
put together.'

She stopped for a moment and paused
for breath. Evan had been wondering whether she was ever going to. 'Trouble
was, because their version was the official version, the gospel according to Saint
Matthew, everyone else around here believed it. So they all started to treat me
like I was crazy, too. You could see it in their eyes. You could see the pity
too, as if any of them ever gave a shit.'

She paused again and stared into his
eyes, searching for any sign of the offending emotions. She seemed satisfied
that they weren’t hiding in there. 'That's why I couldn't bring myself to talk
to you - I couldn't stand the thought of you treating me the same way. Writing
me off as some lunatic old woman, wasting your time.'

Evan couldn't vouch for the lunatic
part at this early stage - it was still a definite possibility - but he
certainly wouldn't have classed her as
some old woman
. She couldn't have
been more than mid-forties and she was still attractive, despite all the
anguish she'd been through. Life had beaten her down and he could have forgiven
her for looking a lot more haggard than she did.

'Well I'm glad we're talking now,'
he said, 'and I promise you I won't treat you like an idiot just because you
won't believe what the police tell you. I might treat you like an idiot for
some other reason, but not that.’ She put her hand up to her mouth to smother a
girlish giggle. He liked her even more. ‘I'm interested to know why you've
taken this up again now and why me? I'm not what you'd call famous.'

'As far as taking it up now goes,
I've never really dropped it, but getting anyone to listen hasn't been easy. As
for you - you were recommended.'

Evan assumed it must be Jacobson as
he thought originally, even though he'd denied it. He was wrong.

'I'm good friends with Ed Guillory.
He suggested I should talk to you.'

Evan recognized the name, but
couldn't place it. Linda saw his confusion and said, 'He's a police detective.'

Evan remembered now; Guillory had been
one of the cops who'd come to see him about Stanton's death; the reasonable one
who hadn't said much. He was dumbstruck.

'I won't repeat what he said about
you; he wasn't very complimentary.' She couldn't stop herself smiling as she
remembered it. 'But he said it would be killing two birds with one stone;
helping me and giving you something
worthwhile
to do. That was the exact
word he used.’ She paused to give him a chance to explain how it was that he
needed to do something worthwhile, but carried on when it became obvious he
wasn’t about to volunteer anything. ‘He also said that you would understand and
have some sympathy for me' - sympathy was okay, it seemed, but not pity - 'and
you'd work your butt off, as he put it, as a result.'

Evan found it hard to believe what
she was saying, but it made some kind of sense. They'd told him he should be
doing something worthwhile instead of snooping, but he'd never have expected
this. Linda was still talking. He supposed it happened like that when you were
a recluse; when you did get to meet someone, it all came pouring out.

'He didn't say anything more than
that, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that you've lost
someone too.'

Once again Evan's emotional world
was being turned upside down. He was here to help this woman with her problems,
not the other way around. And it had to be kept strictly businesslike; he
couldn't afford to get emotionally involved.

'Yes I have, but then so have a lot
of people,' he said a little too quickly. 'I think what Guillory was getting at
was that I expressed my own dissatisfaction with the police's efforts fairly
forcefully. In fact I would have hit one of them - a fat slob called Ryder - if
Guillory hadn't stopped me. From what you've just told me, he probably thought
we'd get on like a house on fire.'

She smiled at him, and Evan thought
again how attractive she must have been before a double dose of tragedy invited
itself into her life. 'I think he's probably right,' she said.

Evan coughed nervously and met her
gaze. He knew Guillory was right - he would work his butt off for this woman.
The problem was going to be how to avoid getting too involved, especially now
that she knew some of his past.

She stood up and asked him if he
wanted coffee, breaking the tension before it became awkward. He got up and
followed her into the kitchen.

'I don't know how much you know
already,' she said, 'but let me tell it to you from my point of view.'

She ran through the same story that
Evan had heard from Faulkner up to the point concerning her husband.

'Faulkner wants me to believe that
Robbie was here at home when Daniel got back from school, and that he killed
our boy for some unexplained reason and got rid of the body somehow. Then the
cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch stayed here, living with me for a couple more weeks
before making a run for it himself.'

The soft flush in her cheeks had
turned a deeper red. 'Like I wouldn't know if something was wrong; if he was
hiding something. I knew my Robbie and I know he couldn't have hurt Daniel if
his life depended on it. And he couldn't have fooled me either.' She gave Evan
a defiant look, challenging him to contradict her.

'I'm sure he couldn't, but the
police say that Robbie's alibi didn't stand up. Nobody remembered him in the
bar where he said he was.'

'Alibis are for the police to worry
about. They're the ones who get all antsy if they can't check all the boxes and
square everything away. I mean, it is just a paper exercise after all, isn't
it?' She snorted contemptuously. 'But I knew my husband and I know he couldn't
have done it.'

She looked down and was quiet for a
moment, fiddling with the wedding ring she still wore on her finger. Evan
thought she was deciding whether to tell him more. All she'd told him so far
was that her Robbie couldn't have done it because she said so.

'Do you have a theory about his
alibi?' he prompted.

She looked up and Evan could see the
start of tears welling in her eyes. 'I've never mentioned this to anyone
else...but I'm pretty certain he was seeing somebody else. That's where I think
he was, in some woman’s bed, not in some bar, and he didn't want to tell that
to the Police.' She swallowed thickly.

Evan felt like a heel for pushing
her. His voice came out hoarse when he asked his next question. 'Did you say anything
to him about it?'

'You bet I did.' The tears were gone
as quickly as they'd appeared. He got the feeling it wouldn't have been a
conversation her husband enjoyed.  At the same time, with her face flushed and
the wetness still in her eyes, Evan couldn't see why any man would want to look
further. 'What did I care if all the old gossips round here laughed at me
behind my back? If it meant the police would believe him and keep looking for
the bastard who really did it, then it would've been worth it.'

'What did he say?'

'He denied it all, of course. Stuck
to his story - said he'd been in the bar the whole time and it wasn't his fault
if they all had a collective dose of amnesia. Said they were all too drunk to
remember their own names, let alone his.'

'But you didn't believe him.'

'Like I said, I knew my husband. I
know he didn't hurt our son and I'm also pretty certain he was seeing someone
else. Men think they can hide things like that, but they can't.'

She caught him looking through the
doorway into the lounge where the walls were covered with photographs of her
errant husband.

'So why are all those still on the
wall?' she said. 'That's what you're thinking isn't it?'

'It crossed my mind,' he admitted,
'but then again, one lapse doesn't mean a whole marriage is bad, does it?'

'That's the way I look at it - he's
a man, he can't help himself.'  She laughed then but without any real humor.
Evan laughed with her, despite being a man himself. He supposed it was quite
funny, but only if you were sitting in the comfort of not being the injured
party.

'Why didn't you say anything to the
Police?'

She shrugged. 'What would've been
the point? Robbie would have denied it and that would have been the end of it.’
She turned back towards the kitchen countertop so that Evan couldn’t see her
eyes. ‘He was obviously prepared to be considered a murder suspect in order to
keep
her
name out of it. She must have been some woman.'

He could feel the bitterness
overlying the layers of hurt. He wanted to ask her if Robbie had stopped seeing
the other woman, or whether there was the possibility he had run off with her,
but he couldn't bring himself to do it. She must have asked herself the same
things a million times. An idea he didn't want to even think about came to him
and he tried to push it away without success; what if Daniel had seen or caught
the two of them together and they'd killed him in an attempt to keep him quiet?
Had Linda thought the same thing over the years? It was a question that would
have to wait for another day.