Alex Barclay - Time of Death

Luke’s eyes flashed, but he caught himself before they shot too wide.

Got you, you little shit. Ren watched as his faux-amnesiac brain flashed through what this FBI lady could possibly know about Tijuana.

‘I’m…tired.’

Oh, please.

He pressed his thumb down on the red call button. The challenge in his eyes was extraordinary.

I want to put that pillow over your face, you lying little shit. ‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘I’ll come visit again. And again. And again.’

He turned his head to the wall. ‘Don’t bother.’

‘Excuse me?’ said Ren. ‘What did you just say?’

He turned back toward her. ‘I said, “Don’t bother.”’ His voice had become very clear.

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘No problem. It was nice to meet you.’ She stood up. ‘Oh — wait. I have to show you something. Where is it? Oh, yeah.’ She slipped her hand into her briefcase and pulled out a photo. ‘Here. Check this out.’ She pushed the photo into his face and pulled it back slowly so he could focus on it. ‘That’s you,’ she said. ‘And that guy with you? He’s your fifteen-year-old brother, Michael, who clearly thinks that the sun shines out of you. But after investigating that possibility, I beg to differ.’

Luke’s mouth twitched. He blinked several times.

‘I’m going to leave this right here,’ said Ren, propping the photo up against his bedside lamp. ‘I know you’re in physical pain. But you’re not the poor little cripple you appear to be. I’ve seen many people with terrible injuries. And no matter how much training I’ve been given, I still find it very upsetting. And I would be very upset right now if I thought you were a one hundred per cent innocent victim. What happened to you, your father and your brother was appalling and you have my sympathy for that. But that sympathy waned just a little, right when I heard you try to deny those crush injuries.’ She picked up her briefcase. ‘I have a job to do.’ Ren walked to the door, but turned back as she opened it. ‘God help your mother and God help Michael.’

She closed the door gently behind her.

Catherine Sarvas stood nervously in the hallway outside the room.

Nervous because she knew he would tell the FBI agent nothing.

‘Luke is saying that he doesn’t remember much of his accident,’ said Ren.

‘No, he didn’t,’ said Catherine. ‘Which is probably a good thing.’

Hello? ‘Catherine — Michael is still missing.’

‘I know that more than anyone,’ said Catherine.

‘Luke is back,’ said Ren. ‘And we need to do everything we can to find out what happened to Michael.’

‘Of course you do,’ said Catherine. ‘So do I.’

‘I think Luke knows more than he is letting on,’ said Ren. ‘I need him to talk to me.’

‘Excuse me?’ said Catherine, her voice rising. ‘Are you telling me that my son is not telling you something that could help his brother be found?’

‘That is a possibility.’ Slash certainty.

‘Maybe in your cynical world it is,’ said Catherine. ‘I have waited eight months to get my son back. You are insane to think that Luke would withhold any information that could be helpful. He has been through a terrible ordeal. God knows what went on during that time. He is disturbed. Maybe, just maybe he does know something, but bullying him won’t get it out of him.’

Bullying? ‘Nobody is bullying anyone,’ said Ren. ‘With the greatest respect, Luke has lied to you before — about spring break. And when I told him just now that I would come back to see him again when he was feeling less tired, he said to me “don’t bother”. Which I find strange, because his brother is still missing.’

Catherine paused. ‘I doubt very much he would say something like that-’

‘He did,’ said Ren. ‘Is it a phrase he uses much?’

Silence. ‘If Luke did say “don’t bother”,’ said Catherine, ‘all I would hear in that is the response of a distraught teenager who is in physical pain and his been through a terrible emotional ordeal.’

‘I understand that,’ said Ren. ‘I really do. But I think that would be all the more reason why he would not want Michael to have to go through the same. I think that would be the very reason why he would talk to me for hours on end in the hope that even one detail would lead to Michael being found.’

‘He can’t remember!’ said Catherine. The volume was rising, the tone turning shrill.

‘Did he even tell you that he had seen Michael?’ said Ren. ‘Were they taken together?’ Were they taken at all? Did they kill their father and run? Did Luke kill his father and brother?

‘They were taken together,’ said Catherine. ‘By the man who shot Greg. That’s all he can remember.’

‘Catherine, I am just trying to help your family,’ said Ren. ‘And to prevent anyone else from having to go through what you have.’

‘It’s not helping if you’re harassing a seventeen-yearold-’

Oh, sweet Jesus . ‘I am reaching out to you, Catherine — I am not in there berating Luke. I’m talking to you because you’re his mother and you’re Michael’s mother and this is urgent.’

‘I am so sorry. It’s just…I’m afraid. I’m so afraid to hear what happened to him. Or to Michael. I can’t bear the thought of what I might find out. And I can’t bear the thought of him having to relive any of it-’

‘He is not you,’ said Ren. ‘And this situation is different. Maybe this is the right time for him…’

‘Oh, God,’ said Catherine. She gestured toward the room. ‘He just looks like a boy who’s been in an accident and part of me can wrap my brain around that. And it makes me feel like he could be any other high school student who…I don’t know if I’m making any sense…’

‘You are,’ said Ren. ‘Maybe if you could encourage him to speak with me again…if there is anything he remembers…’

‘He would have told you,’ said Catherine. She walked towards Luke’s room. As she opened the door, she turned back to Ren. ‘Thank you for everything.’

What a total disaster.

Ren went straight from Denver airport to Safe Streets. Cliff was the welcome face in the office.

‘Help me out here, Cliff,’ said Ren, walking in, dropping her bag on her desk. ‘As we know, I am without child, so can you explain to me how parents can be so shut down to the possibility that their offspring can do wrong? Or not even that — obviously some parents do acknowledge that. What I want to know is what makes one parent own up to their child’s bad behavior and another parent swear blind that they couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong? I don’t get it. Especially if there is evidence to the contrary.’

‘I was in school with this kid,’ said Cliff. ‘We were seven years old. And he was an arsonist. A full-blown set-a-hugefire arsonist. Who developed into a set-a-huge-fire-and-jerk-off-while-you’re-watching-it arsonist. He smelled of fire the whole time. He had burn marks on his hands. The kid died in a fire, for Christ’s sake. And his parents, one of whom was the school principal, still to this day, talks about his son’s “accident”. I used to imagine the parents, standing in their garage, shaking a jerry can and thinking “Oops, we’re running low again.”’

‘It’s insane,’ said Ren. ‘When I misbehaved as a kid — over and over — my mother never once tried to tell anyone I was innocent.’

Cliff said nothing.

‘Oh my God,’ said Ren. ‘That’s why I’m fucked up.’ She paused. ‘Your silence is telling me that that’s not normal, my own mother not backing me up.’