Sanchez tried to think of nice things that were yellow. Sunflowers. Lemon gelato. Beaches. But the stink of Wallert’s urine rose and rose from the stains she scrubbed at, a heady, feral smell, and all she could think of was his shrivelled, limp penis in his chubby hand, the way the stream twisted as it poured out and pattered on the carpet like the footsteps of a small animal. His arc had been wide, so she shifted on her knees to a new spot, working the carpet cleaner into a pale-yellow foam, pushing the soaked cream fibres this way and that. The T-shirt she had tied around her nose and mouth was damp with sweat. She settled back on her haunches and finally faced the fact that there was only one mental project that would take her away from this moment, from the little yellow stars crowding the cream universe beneath her. She let go, and thought about Blair Harbour.
She’d been wrong about the cheese sandwich. It was looking as though she’d been wrong about the view through Harbour’s window into the Orlov house. Like Diggy had said, it was possible these were meaningless variables in an otherwise solid case. But Jessica could feel the heat in the darkness. A strange, rising fever that wanted to envelop her. Jessica dried her hands and slid her phone out of her back pocket. She searched for Kristi Zea, Orlov’s girlfriend, the only witness to the murder. There was no social media profile, no links to any information on Zea that didn’t originate from news sites covering Orlov’s murder. That was strange. Zea had been a prolific social media user before the killing, with multiple accounts on different platforms. Jessica guessed the young woman had changed her name, tried to move on to a new life.
She stood and went to the smashed back window, decided to give the piss stains a rest for a while and see to the broken glass. It wasn’t a good idea to leave it lying here with the Harbour boy jumping the back fence and strolling over any time he wanted. She looked back at the meagre supplies she had bought for the clean-up job. She hadn’t factored in the glass, too revolted by the urine on the carpet. She wondered if there was a broom and trash bags in the garage. She went there, unthinking, and opened the internal door.
It was the lights that did it. Fluorescents blinking to life, white eyes waking, reflecting on the polished concrete surface of the big, bare space. She remembered different things every time the flashbacks hit her. A sign above the door to the Linscott Place garage, soldered into pine and lovingly polished – ‘Garage-mahal’. A joke gift from a family member, probably. The old battered red couch. Beer fridge. Rug. Framed photographs on the walls, hot rods and football teams, a lime-green Chevrolet parked in a field. The rippling shock of panicked pain that seemed to pass from her head to her toes as she turned and saw the man crouched over the old woman, bending to take another bite.
Jessica realised she was on her knees in the middle of the garage of the Bluestone Lane house when the doorbell rang. Her hands were gripping at her own throat, where air refused to pass. She staggered towards the front door, wiped at invisible creeping, itching feelings crawling up her arms and neck. Taking the gun from the counter was a thoughtless action. She didn’t expect any friendly visitors here.
She wrenched open the door and lifted the gun.
‘Motherfucker,’ Jessica sighed, shook her head. The anger was instant, washing over the terror that had gripped her in the garage. She had the gun pointed at the woman on the doorstep, out from her hip, cocked. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Blair Harbour paused, looked at the gun, then glanced into the street, where a group of women in jogging lycra were standing on the corner, talking. The Harbour woman was older than Jessica remembered. Prison time was etched on her face. Ten years without proper food, sleep or exposure to sunlight. Her chocolatey hair was pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck and her shoes were worn sneakers, the T-shirt and shorts combo something she could probably slap a cap on and call a uniform at whatever shitty job she’d managed to acquire since her release.
‘It’s complicated,’ Blair said. ‘Can I come in?’
‘You must be lost. Your son’s house is over the back. I have nothing to say to you. I’ll give you thirty seconds head start, and then I’m calling the cops.’ She flicked the gun sideways. ‘Go now.’
‘Look, I just want to talk to you.’
‘Beat it. This is your first and only warning.’
‘It’s not about my case.’
Harbour held her hands up. Her eyes were big, full of emotion. Jessica remembered her at the defence table. How those soulful eyes had wandered through the jury, assessing faces as they looked at the crime scene photographs. The big blue eyes of a curious deer, like her son had.
‘It’s not about my son, either,’ Harbour said when Jessica didn’t answer. ‘He seems to like you living here.’
‘I don’t live here.’
‘Can we just talk?’ Harbour glanced at the lycra women again. ‘We’re causing a scene. And you’re not going to shoot me, because I’m not a threat to you. I come in peace.’
Jessica thought there was something pretty ironic about the Neighbour Killer’s stance on shooting people who were not a threat, but she didn’t have the sense of humour to make a joke about it. She went inside but kept the gun hanging, ready, by her thigh. Blair followed her through the living room to the first-floor kitchen, glancing thoughtfully at the pile of soap suds slowly dissolving on the otherwise empty living room floor that was visible through the large passageway.
‘Here’s what’s not happening,’ Jessica said when they arrived. ‘I’m not reviewing your case so you can seek exoneration and a payout from the state. I’m not appearing in a true crime documentary about you, and I’m not saying nice things about you to a judge so you can get custody of your son back. If you’re here to apologise as part of some bullshit twelve-step circle-jerk then do it and get out.’
‘It’s not about any of those things.’
‘Then what the hell do you want?’
Blair looked around for somewhere to sit or lean, but there was nothing available, only a kitchen bench that would have left her standing far too close to the cop who had arrested her. So she stood in the empty space, alone. The detective didn’t answer when Blair had finished telling her story about Dayly Lawlor and the amateur investigation she had launched with Dayly’s mother. She just stood there, her hand on the gun resting on the counter between them.
‘We’re not completely out of our depth,’ Blair went on. She cleared her throat, winced in the stinging silence. ‘We’ve found some good leads, I think. But we’re getting to the stage where someone in law enforcement on our side would be really helpful. Invaluable, actually.’
‘This friend of yours, Sneak,’ Jessica said. ‘I understand her coming to you to question you. You were the last person to see her daughter alive. But why is she hanging around? You’re not a private investigator. You’re a doctor.’
‘Not anymore,’ Blair said. ‘They cancelled my medical licence.’
‘Thank Christ,’ Jessica said. ‘Why doesn’t she just go to the police?’
‘She may be . . .’ Blair gave a big sigh, paused for a long time to weigh her options. ‘She may be wanted.’
‘Are you kidding me?’
‘She’s not sure.’
‘Oh, great.’ Jessica nodded. ‘That’s just great.’
‘Dayly’s disappearance is with the police. That much became clear when I went to inquire about it myself. I was handled . . . aggressively.’
‘I’d probably have handled you aggressively, too, if it was me,’ Jessica snapped. ‘You’re a killer. Not just that, you’re a parolee hanging out with a known criminal. How the fuck are you not behind bars again right now?’
‘I’ve been lucky,’ Blair said. ‘But the aggression wasn’t related to that. The detective on the case is named Al Tasik. Do you know him?’
‘Maybe.’
‘He treated me as if I was fishing around in something that was off limits.’ She shifted uncomfortably and looked out at the pool. ‘And he’s since made a play at getting me thrown back in jail.’
‘Made a play?’ Jessica asked. ‘You mean, did his job?’
Blair folded her arms, stared at the carpet, seemed to consider something. Jessica watched, the heat burning in her cheeks, her neck. The heat that told her something was wrong here. That she was fighting for the wrong side.
‘I’m asking you not to follow the same course of action,’ Blair said. ‘As a kindness.’
‘You can ask all you want.’
‘Maybe it was a mistake to come here,’ Blair sighed.
‘You think so?’
‘I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t desperate. Believe me, you’re the last person in the world I want to see again after what happened.’
Jessica’s hand tightened on the gun.
‘But I’m willing to set aside our history and work with you on this,’ Blair said carefully. ‘Sneak is my friend, and I believe her daughter is in real danger. And maybe you were just doing your job the best way you knew how when you put me away. You were wrong about me, of course. I didn’t kill Adrian Orlov because I was paranoid or angry. I did it because I had no choice. I believed he was going to kill his girlfriend right there in front of me, and as a doctor I was trained to protect life. You didn’t believe me, but everybody makes mist—’
Jessica shook her head. ‘There was no fucking mistake, Harbour.’
‘But like I said’—Blair put a hand up—‘I’m not here about that. I came because Dayly Lawlor put a gun in my face, and that gun wasn’t as scary to me as the look in her eyes. She looked like a hunted animal.’
Jessica watched her visitor across the wild, hot, empty space between them, the burning knowledge of what they had once been to each other. Hunter and hunted. When Blair met Jessica’s gaze, it was all Jessica could do not to look away.
‘Will you at least see what’s going on at your end?’ Blair asked. ‘Where the investigation stands and why Al Tasik—’
‘I don’t know what I’ll do,’ Jessica said. ‘Right now my only plans are to watch you get in your car and drive the hell away from here.’
She walked out of the kitchen. Blair followed her to the front door. There was some kind of drug-dealer special parked in front of the house. Jessica marvelled at it, the glimmering chrome rims and hood ornament. She could only imagine what stories might be cooked up at the station the next day if a patrol drive-by spotted the car parked next to hers out front. Blair Harbour was hardly out the door when she slammed it shut, twisting the deadlock closed.
Three seconds.
She watched helplessly as her own hand twisted the lock back again. With a will that was not her own she wrenched open the door. Blair paused on the stoop.
‘The Orlov bathroom,’ she said. ‘First floor or second floor?’
Blair looked back at her, her features a mixture of confusion and fear.
‘What?’
‘You said you saw Orlov and his girlfriend fighting in the bathroom that night,’ Jessica said. ‘You saw them from your kitchen window. Was the bathroom on the first or second floor?’
Blair searched her memory, her eyes roving the ground at her feet. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know? It’s a simple question.’
‘It’s been ten years. It was a horrible night. I’ve tried not to think about it.’
Jessica scoffed, was surprised by the nastiness of the sound. ‘You ever go into the Orlov house before that night?’
‘No,’ Blair said.
‘You sure?’
‘Positive.’
‘So how do you remember a thing like that, and not what floor the bathroom was on?’
‘Why are you asking me this?’ Blair asked. Jessica opened her mouth to answer, but whatever had been controlling her had fled. She shut the door and locked it again.
Jessica watched through the glass panels beside the door as the killer she had once arrested walked down the driveway towards her car.