Andrew Klavan - The long way home

I had only one chance left. If I couldn't find the right strike to knock Mike out of the way, then I had to find the right words, the right argument, that would make him see why he had to let me go. I had to convince him. And I had to do it now.

"Mike," I said, thinking even as I spoke, searching desperately for the words and the reasoning. "Listen, okay? Just listen to me."

"I'm listening. You have until the police get here."

"You said you figured I was framed, right?"

He nodded. "That's right. You must've been. There was so much evidence against you, there were only two possibilities. Either you were framed or you were guilty. And I know you weren't guilty."

To be honest, I didn't know whether he was right or not, whether I was framed or guilty or whether there was some other explanation altogether. But I did remember what Beth had told me. How she'd described the day I was arrested and what the evidence against me was and so on.

"Some of the traces of blood they found were on my clothes, remember?" I said. "The clothes I was wearing the last time I saw Alex."

"Yeah, I remember. So?"

"So I gave those clothes to the police myself. I had them at home and I turned them over as soon as they asked for them. No one touched them except for me and the police."

Mike made an impatient gesture with his hand. "So what?"

"Well, how'd the evidence get on my clothes, Mike? How'd the blood get on them?"

"So what're you saying? That you're guilty?"

"Maybe. Like you said: guilty or framed. And if I was framed, then it must've been the police who framed me."

Mike's eyes went wide. "What? Oh, come on!"

"No, listen. Listen. They were the only people who had the clothes, right? Them and me. Who else could've put Alex's blood on them?"

He gave a wave of his hand, made a dismissive noise. "Nice try, Charlie, but that's nuts. That doesn't make any sense at all. I know a lot of the cops in this town. They're straight-arrow, every one of them."

"You can't know them all."

"No. But enough. It's a good department."

"Then I must be guilty," I said. "You said it yourself. Either I was framed or I'm guilty. If I was framed, it had to be someone on the police force who did it. Or at least it had to be someone who could get to the evidence while it was in police custody. Maybe it was the prosecutor or someone in his office. I don't know. But it had to be someone like that. Someone in authority."

For a moment Mike didn't answer, and a little flutter of hope went through me. I could see the logic of it working on him. It was working on me too. I hadn't really thought it through before, but now that I'd said it, it did make a certain amount of sense, didn't it? If I wasn't guilty, then where did the evidence come from? Blood on my clothing. Fingerprints and DN A on the knife. If I wasn't guilty, how could it all get there?

"I never even owned a combat knife, Mike," I said, thinking out loud. "How could it have my fingerprints on it and my DN A? If I was framed, it had to be by someone in power, someone who could get at the evidence and at me."

When I stopped speaking, we were both silent again. And in the silence, I heard them: the sirens. Off at a distance somewhere, but coming fast. Mike heard them too. We both glanced in the direction of the door.

"Mike, listen," I said. "Either I'm guilty or you may be giving me over to the very people who set me up in the first place."

"I'm telling you," Mike said, "the police wouldn't do that. I know them…"

But he didn't sound as sure as he did before. I kept pressing.

"You don't know all of them. It would only take one. Or the prosecutor. Or someone like that. And that means I'm dangerous to someone, someone in authority, someone who knows the truth. If you let them put me back in prison, you may be putting me just where they want me, just where they can get at me."

"You don't know that," Mike said-but again, he didn't sound so sure.

"You said I broke out of prison before my lawyers could even appeal," I pressed on. "I don't remember, but maybe I did it because I had to. Maybe I knew that if I stayed in prison, I wouldn't live long enough for an appeal."

He looked at me and I looked back. We were both thinking it through. We were both realizing it made sense.

And all the while, the sirens were growing louder. That sound like baying dogs getting close to their prey. It made me sick inside. The police would be here any minute now.

"Mike, please," I said. "Just think about it. If you let me go, at least you know I'll be free to defend myself. If you send me back to prison, you might make me a sitting duck; you may be putting me right where they want me." Mike actually nodded slightly. I couldn't fight him, but my words were getting through. "If you think I'm guilty, turn me over," I said. "But if you think I was framed, you gotta let me go. You gotta let me try to prove it. Someone- someone on the inside-is my enemy. If you think I'm innocent, you've got to let me go."

Mike just went on standing there, went on looking at me. Another second went by and then another. The sirens were much louder now. I thought the cops must be almost at the mall. There was no more time…

"You're innocent," said Mike then-now he was the one who was thinking out loud. "There's no question you're innocent, not to me. Some things you know because you can prove them. But another man's heart-that's something you have to take on faith. I have faith in you, Charlie. I know you're no killer. And if you really think you have to keep running in order to stay alive"-he turned aside, leaving a path to the door-"then go."

There was no time to say all the things I wanted to say to him, to give him all the thanks he deserved, not just for this, but for everything, all through the years. There was no time to say any of it. Choked up, I gripped his shoulder once as I went past him.

Then I was out of the dojo. Through the foyer. At the door.

"Godspeed, chucklehead," I heard Mike say behind me.

I braced myself and stepped out into the night.

The sirens came closer and closer. At last, I saw the flashing lights of the police cruisers converging on the mall. I saw two cars come screeching to a halt in the parking lot in front of the dojo. I saw a uniformed officer step from each of the cars and I saw the two of them go running to the dojo door.

I saw it all in the rearview mirror of Rick's red Civic. Because by then, I was driving away.

Real True America Back at the Ghost Mansion, I tried to sleep. Maybe I did sleep a little. I don't know. Mostly I lay awake, staring into the dark, wrapped in my sleeping bag against the cold that came in at the windows.

It wasn't the spooky creaking of the old house that disturbed me. It wasn't the scrabbling of the mice in the walls. It wasn't the moaning of the autumn wind in the trees outside or the leaves rattling through the graveyard there or even the thought of the mourning woman, cowled and staring blank-eyed into nothingness.

The ghosts of the haunted house didn't scare me anymore. It was reality that was terrifying. It was my own racing thoughts that wouldn't let me rest.

I kept going back over what I'd said to Mike. I kept thinking about what Beth had told me, about the day I was arrested. I had come to her that morning on the path by the river, she said. I had told her about all the evidence there was against me.

"How could that happen?" she'd asked me.

It was a good question. How could it have happened? How could Alex's blood have been on my clothes? How could my fingerprints have been on the knife that killed him?

And what about Alex? What had he been involved in? Who had he known? Why had he been going to see Mike and why did he want his friends to keep it secret? Who could have killed him if I hadn't?