Mike Lawson - House Divided

Claire’s agents wouldn’t talk-and they did what they were told.

DeMarco took two more Tylenol, which made a total of six that he’d taken since he had gotten out of bed. His head ached so badly his hair actually hurt. It felt like every little follicle was a wood auger boring a hole in the top of his skull.

He couldn’t understand it. After he played eighteen holes yesterday afternoon, he sat around the clubhouse and had a couple of beers with the guys he played with, but he only had a couple. And last night, he had dinner at a steakhouse and a glass of wine with his meal, but that was it. No martini before dinner, no brandy after dinner, and no booze when he got home. So why did his head hurt so damn much? He wondered if he was coming down with the flu.

Anthony McGuire, Paul’s old boyfriend, lived on a block in Fairfax where all the homes were one-story brick boxes that had obviously been built from the same set of boring architectural plans. The only thing that distinguished one house from another was the color the owner selected to paint the trim and shutters. McGuire had chosen hunter green.

DeMarco rang the bell and a man he assumed was McGuire opened the little peephole installed in the front door and asked DeMarco what he wanted. A cautious guy, had been DeMarco’s first impression. DeMarco introduced himself, said he was Paul’s cousin, and wanted to ask a few questions about Paul’s will. To this McGuire had responded by saying, “How do I know you’re related to Paul?”

Speaking to the brown eye in the peephole, DeMarco said, “Well, let’s see. I knew his mother when she was alive. Her name was Vivian. I know his Aunt Lena, and Paul was pretty close to my mom. He called her Aunt Maureen, although she’s not really his aunt. And when Paul first came to Washington, I took him around and showed him some apartments.”

“Oh, you’re that guy. The one who works for Congress.”

“That’s right,” DeMarco said.

“Paul didn’t like you very much.”

That embarrassed DeMarco. “Well-uh, we didn’t really get a chance to know each other. And from everything I’ve heard about him, I regret that. Now could I please come in and talk to you?”

McGuire finally opened the door but didn’t immediately allow DeMarco to enter. He looked up and down the block, as if he was looking to see if anybody was with DeMarco or maybe watching his house. The guy was really paranoid, which made DeMarco wonder if he’d been robbed before, maybe the victim of a home invasion.

As DeMarco entered the house, he noticed two matching suitcases and a laptop case sitting in the foyer. “Taking a trip?” he asked.

“Uh, yes. I’m visiting a friend in… who lives out west. The airport shuttle will be here in a couple of hours, so I don’t have much time to talk to you.”

They took seats in McGuire’s living room which, unlike DeMarco’s living room, was as neat as a pin and smelled of furniture polish. DeMarco couldn’t recall ever using furniture polish. McGuire was also as neat as a pin: pressed jeans, pressed long-sleeve shirt, and tennis shoes so white they looked as if they’d just come out of the box. He had curly dark hair, was short and slim, and had eyelashes long enough for a Maybelline commercial. He sat on the edge of his chair, bouncing a knee, giving DeMarco the impression he was nervous, although he couldn’t imagine why.

“How did you know Paul and I were friends?” McGuire asked.

DeMarco said Paul’s landlady had told him, and then explained-for what seemed like the ten-thousandth time-that he was trying to find out if Paul had a will and where it might be. To his relief, McGuire said that Paul did indeed have a will. When your career was watching people die as Paul’s had been, and when the people dying were sometimes quite young, you learned very quickly you weren’t immortal. And since his financial life had been pretty simple, Paul had used an online form and had named St. James Church in Falls Church as the beneficiary of all his worldly possessions. He had kept his will in a safe deposit box at his bank.

DeMarco felt like leaping to his feet and cheering. “Who was the executor of his will?” he asked.

“I was. Or at least I was when we broke up a year ago. I don’t know if he changed his will after that, but I would assume he did.”

DeMarco was willing to bet that Paul hadn’t changed his will-people tended to put off things like that-but decided it didn’t really matter. He was going to tell the pastor at St. James that Paul had left him four grand and, if he wanted the money, he could go through all the hassle of getting the state to give it to him. He was through screwing around with this whole mess.

It occurred to DeMarco later that he should have left right then-but he didn’t. Instead he said, “I’m curious about something, Mr. McGuire. The FBI thinks Paul was shot because he might have been involved in a drug deal. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” McGuire mumbled. “I have no idea why he was killed. Look, if there’s nothing else, I have to-”

Now that was wrong. No one who knew Paul believed he was dealing drugs. Everyone, in fact, was adamant he wouldn’t do something like that. So why wasn’t McGuire, the person who had possibly known him best, not equally adamant? And McGuire’s body language was off. He didn’t look DeMarco in the eye when he made the statement. He did what DeMarco called rabbit eyes: eyes darting away as if looking for a place to run to, a hole to crawl into. In DeMarco’s experience, rabbit eyes indicated a lie-a lie told by an incompetent liar-which made him wonder why McGuire was lying.

“Well, what do you think he could have been doing at the Iwo Jima Memorial at one in the morning?”

“I really don’t know,” McGuire said, but there it was again: the mumble, the rabbit eyes.

“Do you know something about Paul’s death, Mr. McGuire?”

“No. Why would I?”

McGuire didn’t say this calmly, however. He practically shrieked, Why would I? as if he was desperate for DeMarco to believe him, but then he added in a calmer voice, “We hadn’t seen each other in over a year.”

But DeMarco wasn’t buying it. “Mr. McGuire, Paul was my cousin,” he said. “He was your friend, your ex-lover. And he was murdered. Right now the FBI-”

“Oh, God, the FBI’s involved?”

Why in the hell would he say that?

“Yes,” DeMarco said, “and right now the Bureau thinks his death was drug related. But if you know it’s not-if you know what really happened-you need to tell the Bureau.”

McGuire held his hands palm outward at chest level, as if he was fending DeMarco off. If he hadn’t been sitting down, he would have backed away. “I’m not going to get involved in this,” he said. “And I want you to leave. Right now.”

“Are you leaving town because of what happened to Paul?”

“No, I’ve had this trip planned for months.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

DeMarco stared at McGuire for a long moment, then said, “Mr. McGuire, I’m a lawyer and an officer of the court.” DeMarco actually had no idea if he was an officer of any court; that was just an expression he’d heard on TV. “And I think you know something about Paul’s death and if you won’t tell me what you know, then I have a legal obligation to contact the FBI and tell them that I think you’re withholding information in a homicide investigation.”

“You can’t do that!” McGuire shouted. “You could get me killed.”

“Get you killed?” DeMarco said. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Please, just stay out of this. You could get killed too.”

“McGuire, I wanna know what you know. Now tell me.”