"Are you
sure
you don't want to talk to me about whatever it is that's eating at you?" asked Mitch. It wasn't his interrogator's voice he was using. It was just one man asking another man if he wanted to get something off his chest.
"It's complicated," said Kris. He thought about Lulu and how well things were going with her. "There are other people involved now. I don't want to mess things up."
"You mean Lulu?"
"How'd you know?" asked Kris.
"Jessica is about to bust at the seams with a secret she knows that Lulu won't let her talk about. It seemed to involve you. I see how you look at her and I see how she looks at you. I'm surprised the betting hasn't started yet."
"Betting?"
"On whether you'll come out of this with your whole skin or not. Nobody's ever seen Lulu interested in a man before. Not like you. Some people think she's a dyke. There've been bets made about that too."
"You're shitting me," said Kris. "Does she know?"
"She knows they all talk about her and she knows about
some
of the bets they make in the diner," said Mitch. "I don't think she knows about
all
the bets. If she did, there'd be a lot more spilled coffee around there than there has been. Lulu is not the most patient person in the world when it comes to someone impugning her reputation."
It was quiet for a few seconds.
"So, does this complexity you were talking about involve her?"
"Indirectly," said Kris. "I don't want to hurt her. I'm almost happy that I can't remember things. What if I started to remember things and it turned out I'm a bad person? That would fuck up everything."
"I don't think you're a bad person," said Mitch. "You might have made some kind of bad mistake, or gotten involved with the wrong people, maybe, but your personality isn't that of a predator."
"How do you know?" asked Kris.
"I told you I was going to keep an eye on you," said Mitch carelessly. "I have."
"So ... this guy from New York is coming here to talk to me."
"Yeah. He's going to interview you as a victim, as far as I know."
"Okay, I'll be there. What time?"
"He should be here around noon."
"See you then," said Kris.
Kris didn't really know what to expect, so he tried not to think about it. When he saw the man waiting to talk to him, though, he felt his stomach begin to roil. The man smiled, though, and his face looked more open than Kris had expected a New York City detective to look. Mitch stood off to one side, arms folded. He had apparently either asked if he could watch or just assumed it would be all right.
Introductions were made and Harper waved at a chair, across a table from him in the office. There was a tape recorder on the table, too, and he said the interview would be recorded, if that was all right with Kris. Kris had no problem with it. Harper turned it on and, for the record, stated his name and Kris', the date and the location of the interview, followed by a swearing in routine before he started asking questions.
Kris felt lost immediately. The detective asked him all kinds of questions to which he had no answers. As it turned out, he only had one answer, and that one didn't seem to help that much.
Yes, he did have a girlfriend named Lola, but didn't know if her last name was Henderson or not.
"You don't seem to remember much," commented Harper, who was already frustrated.
"I was in an accident," said Kris. "I lost almost all of my memory. The only reason I know my name is Kristoff Farmingham is because my picture is on the driver's license Officer Connel returned to me."
"Did you tell Lola Henderson she could break into your apartment if she needed to?" Jim waited.
"I don't think so," said Kris.
"Don't think so?"
"The few memories I have of her suggest I don't actually like her very much," said Kris, feeling like he was kicking a dog. "I can't imagine I'd tell
anybody
they could break into my apartment. If I'd wanted her in there, don't you think I would have just given her a key?"
"I don't know, Mister Farmingham," said the detective. "I just know she was found in your apartment, having gained entrance through a window, which she broke, and that she claims she had your permission to be there."
"I'm sorry I can't be of much help," said Kris.
Harper said the interview was at an end, stated the time and date, and turned the recorder off. He looked at Mitch, who shrugged his shoulders.
"Can I ask you a couple of questions ... off the record?" asked Harper.
"Sure ... I guess."
"How'd you get that bullet wound?" Harper's eyes flicked to Kris' left temple, where there was a long red weal. It had been stitched, but there would still be a scar there for the rest of his life.
"I don't know," said Kris. He glanced at Mitch. "They said I had it when they found me ... after the accident."
"And what do you remember about the accident?"
"Nothing," said Kris. "Well, I remember breaking glass, but that's all."
"You know, with what you gave me, there's no way the DA will press charges against Miss Henderson."
"I swore to tell the truth," said Kris. "I don't even know where my apartment is. I can't remember what's in it. If somebody broke in and cleaned the place out, I couldn't describe anything except the couch."
"The couch?" Jim's eyes glittered.
"It's brown. I had a sort of vision of it once, while I was in the hospital." His face darkened as blood rushed into it. "And the toilet. I remember what the toilet looks like, for some reason."
Harper opened the folder that had been lying on the table and flipped through it. He extracted a photograph and slid it across the table. Kris looked at what was obviously his living room. The couch he remembered was there. His eyes searched the photograph hungrily, looking at other furniture, the walls, hoping he might recognize something. There was something on a shelf that clicked in his memory.
"Right there," he pointed. "On that shelf. That's a toad, or a frog or something, that's been stuffed. It's riding a little wooden motorcycle. I got that in Mexico."
Harper took the picture back and squinted at it. He couldn't tell whether the thing in the photograph was what Farmingham had said it was or not. Then again, he couldn't imagine the man lying about something like that.
"So you remember Mexico?" he asked.
"No. When I saw that in the picture, I just suddenly knew what it was and where I got it."
"Anything else?"
Kris took the picture back and stared at it for a long time. He leaned back, shaking his head.
"Can I ask you some questions now?" he asked.
Harper's eyes flicked to Connel again and he nodded tightly.
"What part of town is this in?" He pointed to the photograph.
"It's on Long Island," said Harper.
"Did you talk to anybody else that knows me? Friends? My publisher?"
"Who is your publisher?" asked Harper.
"I don't know," moaned Kris. "You know more about me than I do. Did this Lola woman say anything about me writing a book? Did she say what the book is about?"
Now it was Harper's turn to say he couldn't really answer many of Kris' questions. He had some idea, during that process, of how frustrated Farmingham must be.
Kris' last question was "Is that it?"
It was obvious to both lawmen that the man expected something more. Harper looked at Connel again, who ran the blade of his hand across his throat and back, in the universal sign for "Cut it off." Harper thanked Kris for his cooperation and they watched him leave. Harper turned to Connel.
"What the fuck is going on?" he asked, almost angry that Connel hadn't warned him about Farmingham's condition beforehand.
"I wanted you to see him like I see him," said Mitch. "Did you catch the lie about the accident?"
"I saw something, but I didn't know what it was. I was thinking about the gunshot. What about the accident? That happened here, right?"
"I think so," said Mitch.
"You
think
so?"
"The car went over a drop-off into the river. It was below zero and snowing like crazy. The river froze over before I could find the location. A local woman found him lying in the middle of the road, almost dead, and managed to get him to the hospital. They have since developed what appears to be a romance."
"You never recovered the car?" Harper was incredulous.
"We don't have the budget," said Mitch. "When the ice thaws, and I can go swimming without freezing my ass off, I hope to find it. If I can, we'll put a cable on it and have a wrecker drag it out."
"Weird situation," said Harper. "Still, you could have warned me. I might have handled things differently."
"He's hiding something," said Mitch. "I can see it and feel it. It all seems to be tied up with the accident. The funny thing is I really believe he has no memory at all of being shot."
"I've seen people winged like that before," said Harper. "Delivers a hell of a thump to the brain. He's lucky, actually. Another half an inch and he'd be pushing up daisies."
"What do you think about the possibility that he got shot in New York and then drove here?" asked Mitch.
Harper looked skeptical. "I don't know. Usually an injury like that puts you out for a while. You don't think it happened here ... during the accident?"
"We don't have the kind of clientele you do," said Mitch wryly. "Around here, if somebody decides to shoot someone, they use a rifle and try to make it look like a hunting accident."
"Couldn't he have gotten that from a rifle shot?" asked Jim.
Mitch shook his head. "I talked to the surgeon who cleaned the wound and sewed him up. He told me the bullet actually left a furrow in the bone. He showed me the x-rays. Based on the size of the gouge, it would have to have been an elephant gun. It for sure wasn't something small caliber."
"Very curious," said Harper. Then he shook his head. "Your problem, though. I've got enough of my own. Looks like I made the trip for nothing. Miss Lola Henderson will be happy to learn that the charges will most likely be dropped, though she may not be so happy to find out her boyfriend isn't much enamored with her."
"I just wanted to see what happened when another cop showed up," said Mitch. "I'd really like to figure this one out. I don't suppose you could do a little asking around down there ... you know, get me some more info on this guy? Maybe find his publisher or something. Anything could be helpful."
"You say there's hunting in these parts?" asked Harper.
Mitch blinked and nodded.
"I'll do some nosing around on my free time," said Harper. "In exchange, I'll entertain an invitation from you to come up and go hunting."
"Deal," said Mitch, smiling.
Chapter Twenty-four
Kris was more worried now than he'd ever been since waking up in the Pembroke hospital. The interview with the detective hadn't helped at all. He was almost ill, because nothing in the photograph looked at all familiar. And he knew no more about the accident or hitting the man than he had before. Normally, he wouldn't have worried, or at least thought he wouldn't have worried.
But Lulu was involved now.
Oh, sure, she didn't know anything - certainly nothing that could get her in any trouble - but he liked her. Just as important ... he was in love with her. He loved her on a level that made him think about asking her crazy questions having to do with their future, even though she'd said she wasn't the marrying kind.
But he couldn't do that. Not until that memory was dealt with. He needed to know if he was in trouble or if it was just some random memory from a misspent youth that he'd already paid the price for. He couldn't move things any further along with Lulu until he knew if he'd be there later ... to keep being there with her.
On impulse, he turned around and went back to the station. He was so intent on his destination that he completely missed seeing Jim Harper drive past him, heading in the other direction.
Mitch was sitting at the desk in the station house. There was another policeman there Kris had never seen.
"Can I talk to you ... alone?" he asked a surprised Connel. He didn't stay surprised for long. Confession was good for the soul, and it was just possible that Kris had stewed about whatever his secret was long enough for it to get to him. He asked Don Hemphill, the other patrolman on duty, to step into another office for a minute. The man did so without saying a word.