Emily Littlejohn - Inherit the Bones

She smirked. “Is that what she said? The first thing you should know about Tessa is that she is supremely talented. The second is that she’s a pathological liar. You do the math.”

I asked, “So if Tessa told me that you were in love with her, that was a lie?”

Lisey fell backward to the grass with a hysterical laugh. She lay there, chuckling, and when she sat back up, her eyes were again filled with tears. A lock of auburn hair fell across her face, and she pushed it away.

“That’s hilarious. I had my first boyfriend when I was eleven. I’m about as far from that as… as…” She faltered off as she tried to think of a suitable comparison. “As Jennifer Lopez!”

Finn handed the pink phone back to her. “I think I fixed it for you.”

“Yeah?” she said, and pushed a few buttons. “Hey, thanks! It’s working.”

Finn gave her a wink and sat down next to us. “So, Lisey, no girl-on-girl action? Why would Tessa tell us you had a thing for her?”

“Like I said, she’s a liar. And she’s really good at it; it’s second nature to her. Sometimes she lies even when there is nothing to lie about. Like, I’ll ask her if we need milk and she’ll say yes and I’ll check and there’s a full carton. Stupid shit like that.”

I asked, “Did Reed know about the lying?”

Lisey snorted. “Of course he did, the idiot. But he was such a nice guy, and he was in love with her, like straight up Romeo and Juliet love. He worshipped her. He thought she would change.”

“Tessa told us she found a torn-up photograph of herself and Reed under your bed. Did you do that?”

Lisey looked startled. “What? Why would I do that? I liked Reed; he was a good guy. He was kind of freaky, with the piercings and tats, but hey, he was a gentleman. Tessa didn’t deserve him, that’s for sure. And if I did tear up some photo, why would I keep it under my bed for Crazy Pants to find?”

She had a point. If Lisey was telling the truth, then I couldn’t believe a word Tessa had said. But if Tessa was telling the truth, then Lisey was a jealous woman with a good reason to hurt Reed. Maybe even kill him.

The one thing I believed was that they both couldn’t be telling the truth.

But that didn’t mean they both weren’t lying.

Finn leaned back on his arms and stretched his long legs out in front of him, so his left shoe was touching Lisey’s right foot. He gave her a little kick and she looked at him.

“What do you do, anyway, Lisey? I mean, here,” he said. “At the circus.”

She smiled, displaying a mouth full of crooked teeth that somehow made her look even more beautiful. “I’m a costume designer. I make all the costumes, for the performers, the clowns, even the animals, like the elephants’ headpieces and the vests for the monkeys.”

“All of them?”

She nodded. “I have a couple of assistants, day laborers we pick up in the cities, but I design the outfits and do most of the sewing and beadwork. The pay is shit but I love the work. And it’s sort of fun, you know? Getting to see the world, one crappy town at a time.”

“Where are you from originally?” Finn asked. He’d withdrawn his foot and crossed his legs but his eyes hadn’t left Lisey’s face.

“Salem, Massachusetts. I got my degree there, in fashion design, and then had what you might call a falling-out with my dad. I left Salem and stayed with some friends in Chicago for a few months, working for a shop out there. The owners knew Papa Joe-Mr. Fatone-and well, one thing sort of led to another,” she said. She plucked at a few pieces of grass and began threading them together in her hands. “Tessa was the first friend I made.”

“So you’re what, twenty-three? And this is what you want to do for the rest of your life?” Finn asked. “What about a family? Career?”

“I’m twenty-five. And yes, this is what I want. These guys, the performers, the workers, they are my family. My dad wants me to come home and work for him at his construction company, but I hate that stuff,” Lisey said. “Accounting, taxes. Death by office work.”

She looked down at the phone in her lap and then up at me.

“I was just talking to him. He said he would pay me fifty thousand a year to run the front office, plus health benefits. But a desk job would just kill me. I tried it last summer, when the circus was having some financial trouble and there was talk of layoffs. I cried every night. Talk about soul-numbing.”

High above us, a jet engine roared. We watched the plane pass over us, heading southeast, no doubt to the big Air Force base in Colorado Springs. The jet left a trail in the sky like someone had brushed a streak of white paint across a cornflower-blue canvas.

I took another gamble. “We couldn’t help overhearing you, Lisey. So that was your dad? You sounded pretty angry.”

“Oh, that’s just how we talk to each other. I mean, I love him and I know he loves me.”

I thought of asking her about the Ramones T-shirt, the one Tessa said had vanished, but decided against pressing my luck. I also decided it was unlikely Lisey had been the other person in Tessa’s car last night.

We’d gotten a lot out of her. I just wasn’t sure what it all meant yet.

She stood and brushed at her backside. “I got to get back, see if there’s any repairs I need to do before tonight’s show.”

I awkwardly rolled to one side and half pushed, half lunged my way to a standing position. In another few weeks, I was going to need assistance getting up. The thought of asking Finn to pull me was horrifying and I hoped to God we’d solved this case by then.

“We’ll be in touch, Lisey,” I said.

Finn pulled out a business card so fast I almost got whiplash watching him, and he presented it to Lisey as though it were a flower.

“Don’t hesitate to call. If you need anything, that’s my cell number on the bottom.”

He shook her hand and I noticed her give him another one of those top-to-bottom glances. She walked away, Finn watching her all the while.

“Earth to Finn. I got four words for you: twenty-five and murder suspect.”

He laughed. “Oh, c’mon, you don’t really think she killed Reed. If you did, you’d have brought her in for questioning. In fact, I think you kind of like her.”

He was right. I did sort of like her. She was plucky and independent.

We headed back to my car. The fairgrounds were calmer; the late afternoon heat seemed to have sucked the energy out of every living thing. Even the pine trees in the woods at the edge of the circus looked tired, their boughs sagging low to the ground. A few teenagers roamed through the booths, halfheartedly playing the games, but most of the families with children had left for the day.

Thinking about Finn’s words, I shook my head and wagged a finger at him, feeling an awful lot like Chief Chavez. And sounding an awful lot like Chief Chavez, with my next words.

“First truth of being a cop: be a cop. It doesn’t matter who we like or dislike. Instinct is everything, but fact is king.”

“What’d you do, memorize Chavez’s little black book? Jesus, Gemma. If you were any farther up the chief’s ass, you could start charging as a proctologist,” Finn said. “Be a cop… fact is king… Jesus.”

I stopped. “Is that really what you think? That I’m some kind of kiss-ass?”

Finn kept walking, and after a moment I hurried to catch up with him. “Well? Is it?”

“Let’s say the chief seems to favor you quite a bit, Gemma. Like he’s grooming you,” he said with a shrug. “Just be careful. You can make a lot of enemies on the way to the top. Some of the others don’t exactly appreciate getting passed over for plum cases like this one.”

I grabbed Finn’s shoulder and spun him around. “Are you kidding me? Chavez didn’t give me this case. I was in the fucking room when the call came in. It’s that simple. It always has been. You get the call, you get the case. Who’s got the problem with me? Moriarty? Armstrong?”