Spencer Quinn - A Fistful of Collars

Thad turned quickly away from me and back to Bernie. “What do you want?”

“Start with the facts about April’s murder,” Bernie said.

Thad took a huge breath, let it out in a way that was almost a sob. “I was just a kid.”

“So was she,” Bernie said.

And then Thad did sob, one big teary cry that he muffled by putting his hands over his face. “I don’t even know where to start,” he said, or something like that, not too clear what with his hands like that.

“Start with the car wash,” Bernie said.

Thad peeked at Bernie through his fingers. I’d seen Charlie do the exact same thing. Did that mean Thad was some sort of child? What a thought! It disappeared from my mind, and not a moment too soon.

“How do you know about the car wash?” Thad said.

Bernie just gazed down at him. Slowly Thad lowered his hands.

“The car wash,” he said. “It was in Vista City. Jiggsy worked there. He’s my cousin, although nobody knows it, so I’m asking you not to…” His voice trailed away.

“You came from LA to visit him?” Bernie said.

Thad nodded. “Just for a couple weeks. It was my first time away from home. I was sixteen, knew nothing about nothing, except for surfing. Then one day April drove into the car wash.”

“Alone?”

“With her friend.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No. Her friend Dina.”

“And then?”

“I sort of became the boyfriend. It all happened so fast. And so intense. I was a virgin up until that time, believe it or not.”

“And April? Was she a virgin, too?”

Thad shook his head. “She was only a year older, but way more experienced. And kind of wild. I loved that about her.” He gazed toward the window, hidden by the dark curtains. “In fact, I actually just loved her, period.”

“So why did you kill her?” Bernie said.

Thad sobbed again, this time more than once; his eyes teared up, but they didn’t overflow. Bernie watched with a real cold look on his face. I raised my tail, high and stiff.

“I don’t know,” Thad said, shaking his head from side to side. “I’ve tried and tried and tried and…” He kept shaking his head like that, faster and faster. Bernie reached out and slapped him across the face.

Thad stopped shaking his head, looked real angry. He glared up at Bernie and his hands balled into fists. But then they unballed and those big blue eyes-kind of like a movie all by themselves-went dead. “Just kill me. Kill me now.”

“I’ll take a rain check,” Bernie said.

Uh-oh. That was a bit of a baffler since it never rains in the Valley. So did a rain check mean never? I’d been over this ground before, always with the same result, meaning zip.

“Right now,” Bernie was saying, “let’s get back to why you killed April.”

“I already told you-I don’t know,” Thad said. “I don’t remember a thing about that night.”

“What night?”

“That goddamn night. I’d never done drugs before, not even pot. I’d hardly ever been drunk.”

“You did drugs that night?”

“April was kind of wild, like I said.”

“What drugs?” Bernie said.

“Oh, man,” said Thad, “I’m one of those people that drugs just live for, you know?”

Bernie didn’t say whether he did or didn’t, whatever Thad’s question might have been. That was one of his interviewing techniques and this was an interview, no doubt about it, and not close to being the first one we’d done with someone or more than one someone in bed. In fact, that kind of interview often went well for us.

“Stick with that night,” Bernie said.

“I told you I don’t-”

Bernie cut Thad off, his voice rising. “Where were you?”

Thad kind of cringed, just at the sound of Bernie’s voice. “If you’re going to hit me again, don’t stop. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

“There’s no time for your dramatics,” Bernie said. “Where were you?”

Thad laughed, a harsh little laugh, quickly done with.

“Something’s funny?” Bernie said.

“The opposite,” said Thad. “I’ve trained myself to shut out the critics. Now you come along.” Bernie stared down at him. Thad looked away, turning again to the curtains; he seemed to be seeing something far away. “We were at Jiggs’s place,” he said in a voice that got quieter and also stranger as he went along, almost like he wasn’t really with us, hard to explain. “Jiggs was living at his dad’s and his dad was usually gone-he worked in the oil patch out in Texas. This particular night was my last one. I had to go home the next morning for summer school on account of my lousy grades. I wanted April to come with me. She wanted me to stay. We had a little fight about that.”

Silence. We waited. That was another part of our interviewing technique. Bernie had explained why more than once, but it was one of those reasons that just didn’t stick. I tried not to worry about that; actually, I didn’t even have to try. I’m lucky that way.

One thing about this particular technique: there was no point in waiting forever. Just before we were about to hit forever, Bernie said, “What kind of fight?”

Thad glanced at Bernie, squinting as though Bernie was too bright. “Nothing physical, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “We argued a bit, that’s all. Maybe she cried. But then she came up with this idea to take LSD. Go on a trip together after all, kind of thing. I wasn’t that enthusiastic-we’d smoked some pot and we were drinking vodka, too. But I went along. All I remember-I still see them-were these terrible visions, in a tunnel, April and me, although we were actually in bed, and claws.”

“Claws?”

“Horrible long hooked claws, clawing and clawing at us.”

Big claws? I’d been up close to an angry mama bear, knew more than I wanted to about big claws. I started feeling kind of sorry for Thad, but not much, since I was getting the feeling he’d done something real bad long ago.

“And?” Bernie said.

“And nothing,” Thad said. “We just clung to each other, shaking and crying. At least I was. She might not have even been there.”

“April might not have been there?”

“I don’t know.” Thad’s eyes turned deep and murky. He closed them. “I feel like-I felt like-I was all alone, clinging to myself.” His chest rose, fell, rose again. “April, April,” he went on, very softly. “But she won’t answer. Still mad? I have to go to school, babe. It’s my whole-” His eyes opened. He blinked a few times and his eyes returned to normal, if eyes like Thad’s could ever be called normal. Was he back in the here and now? I myself preferred the here and now at all times, maybe something we can go into later.

Thad tried to meet Bernie’s gaze and actually did. “But she must have been there,” he said.

“Why?” Bernie said.

“Because when I woke up she was right next to me.” Thad shuddered. “Blood all over her, all over me, and the knife was still in my hand.”

“What knife?” Bernie said.

“This ordinary kitchen knife.”

“From Jiggs’s kitchen?”

“I guess so.”

“How did it come to be in the bed?”

“I must have gotten up and brought it there.”

“Do you remember doing that?”

“I told you-I don’t remember anything.”

“Where was Jiggs this whole time?”

“Hanging with friends. He didn’t come back until morning. By that time, I was freaking out. He kind of took over.”

“In what way?”

“Handling the situation.”

“How did he do that?”

“Calmed me down, to begin with,” Thad said. “Getting me to understand that I hadn’t been in my right mind, like temporary insanity.”