Chapter 18
THAT NEXT MONDAY, Dad meets me outside the house when I get home from school. That’s enough to clue me in that something is wrong—he should be getting ready for work, but he’s still in his regular clothes. The thing that really clues me in, though, is the look on his face. A tight kind of panic, like he’s freaked out but trying to hold it together in front of me.
“What’s wrong?”
“When you go inside,” he says slowly, “you will see Deputy Chief Garcia at the kitchen table.”
My backpack drops from my hand. “What?”
“He says he needs to talk to you, and it’s just a casual conversation, but . . .” Dad glances back toward the house. “Gideon. Do I need to get you a lawyer?”
There’s too many reasons he could be there—did they find out I set off the alarm at the furniture store? Or that Lily’s been investigating Marco Vince’s death like the murder it was? Hell, maybe I’m about to be cited for drinking underage at Doc Holliday’s.
Or maybe . . . it’s about the murder itself.
“Do you actually think I killed somebody?”
“Of course not.”
“When you caught a mouse in the kitchen I made you drive it to Mission Trails Park and release it in a field.”
“I remember.”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
“I know,” he says. “But is there any chance you might have seen something that’s going to get you in trouble? Is there anything you aren’t telling me?”
I shake my head. He breathes out. Though it’s not exactly a sigh of relief.
“Okay. Let’s go talk to him.”
Dad sits me across the table from Garcia and stands behind me. Normally, I’d be annoyed at how close he’s hovering, but not now.
“I need to go over the statement you made about finding the body at the construction site,” Garcia says. “All right?”
“Sure,” I say. “What changed?”
“Changed?”
“Something changed, or you wouldn’t be talking to me again. Either you found something new, or someone told you something new. So . . .” I shrug. “What changed?”
“We’re reinterviewing everyone based on the coroner’s report.”
“You only just got it?” In movies, it happens so fast.
“San Miguel doesn’t have its own coroner. The body had to be sent downtown, and there’s a backlog.” He pauses. “It was ruled a suspicious death.”
Oh.
“You know he was murdered,” I say, and I’m trying not to sound excited about it, because . . . well, murder. But—“I was right. Now you know I was right, that it was murder.”
“I didn’t say that. I said it was a suspicious—”
“Because he didn’t overdose and then fall.”
“He did fall,” Garcia says. “His injuries are consistent with a fall from the catwalk.”
“But not because he was high.”
“The tox screen didn’t indicate that, no.”
“Then what?”
Garcia looks over my head at Dad. Sighs. Focuses back on me.
“We have forensic indications—at the scene and on the body—that give us reason to believe somebody else was there when he fell. And that person either watched him fall and then let him die, quite slowly.” Garcia pauses. “Or they helped him fall.”
My stomach flips. Throat closes up. And the image of Marco—blood around his head, eyes wide open—swims to the front of my mind so suddenly and strongly I barely see Garcia anymore.
Does it make it more real, to have someone say I was right? Or . . . was there a part of me, buried down deep, that didn’t want to be right?
“But I think you knew that already,” Garcia says, and the image vanishes—but not the unease. “Didn’t you?”
I jerk back so suddenly Dad puts his hand on my shoulder. “No, I only knew someone had killed him, I didn’t know how—”
“I’m here today,” Garcia says, leaning across the table, “because I need to know what you saw. And I need to know it now.”
“I didn’t see anything. I told you, Lily told you, we found him like that, and there was nobody else around; we didn’t see any—”
“Then why would you say it was a murder?”
“His watch was gone.”
Garcia’s eyebrows shoot up. “What watch?”
“Exactly.”
“Gideon . . .” Dad squeezes my shoulder. “Just spit it out.”
“He had a tan line on his right wrist,” I say. “Also, the hair wasn’t as long there, because something used to rub against it. Like a watch. And I think it was pretty big.”
That starts a quick, relentless volley back and forth, where I’ve barely finished answering before he’s throwing me the next question. It’s the kind of thing you might find in a screenplay . . . or a trial transcript.
GARCIA
Wouldn’t that prove robbery, not murder?
ME
That’s what I thought, until the cop asked me if I knew his name. Which means they didn’t. So no ID, no credit cards, but he had money in his wallet and a diamond earring. Why would someone take everything with his name on it but leave the money? Because it wasn’t about money at all. They wanted to hide who he was.
GARCIA
Why take the watch?
ME
Maybe it was engraved. I don’t know.
GARCIA
You saw the tourniquet on his arm. Correct?
ME
Yes.
GARCIA
But you didn’t think he’d overdosed? You didn’t even think he’d been high?
ME
No.
GARCIA
Why?
ME
Maybe I did at first. But only at first. When I played the scene back in my mind and looked at all the details, they weren’t right.
GARCIA
What do you mean?
ME
The tourniquet was tied tight. In a knot, like the way it is at the doctor if you have to give blood. How could he have done that himself? And then there was the tan line.
GARCIA
What about the tan line?
ME
It was on his right hand, which means he wore his watch on his right hand. And his left hand had a big smear on the side. I think pen ink, probably.
GARCIA
And . . . ?
ME
That means he was left-handed.
GARCIA
How could you possibly know that?
ME
I am, too. And when we write stuff, because it’s left to right across a page, we smear the words.
GARCIA
And what does it matter? That he was left-handed.
ME
The tourniquet was tied on his left arm. Who shoots up with their nondominant hand?
“What would you know about shooting up?” Dad cuts in, breaking the volley.
“You saw all of that,” Garcia says. “In just a couple minutes. In the dark.”
“No,” I say. “I had a flashlight.”
“I guess I’m wondering how likely it is that you came to be there,” he says mildly. “And then how likely it is that you’d be able to correctly guess the cause of death with very little to go on. My own officers didn’t come to the conclusion you did.”
Well, yeah, because they knew what they were looking for. A drug hangout spot means an overdose, or an accident caused by one. A dead addict means no need to look twice. They saw what they expected to see, because they’d seen it so many times before. I didn’t know enough to make any assumptions.
I don’t say that to Garcia. Besides, he isn’t done with his monologue.
“So now I have to decide what is more likely. That you really are some kind of savant who just happened to stumble onto another crime scene. Or . . . that you know more than you are telling me.” He pauses. “Which do you think is more likely?”
“That sort of depends.” I look up at him. “What’s a savant?”
“You know what, I think we’re done.” Dad’s voice sounds tight, but he doesn’t hesitate with his words. “Gideon has told you what he knows. And I’m sure you can appreciate that this is very hard for him to talk about.”
“What do you mean, it’s—” I start to say. Dad glares at me. “Um. Deeply traumatizing.”
“Obviously,” Garcia agrees. He looks to Dad. “Thank you for your time. I’ll let you know if another conversation is needed.” He places a small card down on the table in front of me. “If you remember anything else, Gideon, this is my card.”
I don’t take it. “Okay.”
“And do me a favor.” Garcia gets to his feet. “From now on, keep yourself out of this case.”