John Hart - The King Of Lies

So we drove, and I tried to speak with great care.

“Why were you there, at his house?”

“My mother’s idea. Dinner. Trying to make peace, I guess.”

Mills turned fractionally, cut her eyes away from the road. “Peace between…?”

“Jean and my father.”

“What were they fighting about?” she asked.

“Fighting is too strong a word. There was just a distance there. One of those father-daughter things.”

“Specifically what?”

I wanted to lie, to protect Jean completely, but I feared that Mills would find the truth elsewhere. A lie now would only make it seem more important. That was the problem with talking to cops. You never knew what they knew. In the end, that’s how they nailed you.

“I think it was about Alex.”

“Your sister’s girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

“Your father didn’t approve?”

“No, but it was an old argument. We’d been there before.”

“Your sister was not mentioned in your father’s will.”

“She was never in the will,” I said, lying. “My father had old-fashioned views about women.”

“And why did your mother intervene?”

“She just got worried. It was a loud argument.”

Mills kept her eyes on the road. “Did your father beat Jean?” she asked.

“No.”

She looked at me. “Did he beat your mother?”

“No.”

“Who was it again that called?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you were there when the call came in.”

“I didn’t answer it.”

“Tell me exactly what your father said.”

I thought back. “‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ That’s what he said. He answered the phone. He listened. Then he said he’d be there in ten minutes.”

“He didn’t say where?”

“No.”

“He didn’t tell you where he was going?”

“No.”

“Who had called?”

“No. Nothing. He just left.”

“How long was he on the phone?”

I thought about it. “Thirty seconds.”

“Thirty seconds is a long time.”

“It can be,” I said.

“So someone had a lot to say.”

“What about phone records?” I asked. “Lugs, PIN numbers, anything like that?”

“No luck,” Mills said before she caught herself discussing the case and quickly changed the subject. “There had to be something else. Did he take anything with him? Say anything? How did his face look? Was he angry, sad, thoughtful? What direction did he drive?”

I thought about it, really thought about it. That was something I’d never done. How had he looked? What was in his face? Something. Resolution, perhaps. Determination. Yes. And anger. But something else, too. Smugness, I thought. The bastard looked smug.

“He looked sad,” I told Mills. “His wife had just died and he looked sad.”

“What else?” Mills pushed. “Did he take anything? Did he stop between the phone and the door going out? Think.”

“He stopped for his keys,” I said. “Just for his keys.” And then I thought, My God-his keys. Ezra kept his keys on a hook board by the kitchen door. One set for his car, one set for his office. I saw it happen like it had been this morning. He moved past me, into the kitchen, his hand reached out-and he took both sets of keys. I saw it. He was planning to go to the office! But why? And had he made it before he was killed?

“There were no keys on his body,” Mills said.

“Any sign of his car yet?” I asked, eager to distract her. I didn’t want to talk about the keys. Not until I knew what it all meant. Why would Ezra go to the office? I thought about his missing gun, and I thought about his safe. It had to be opened.

“I can’t talk about that. Did you ever hear from him again?”

“No.”

“Phone calls? Letters?”

“Nothing.”

“Why didn’t you report him missing?” she asked.

“I did.”

“Six weeks later,” Mills reminded me. “A long time. That troubles me.”

“We assumed he was in mourning somewhere, getting away from it all. He’s a grown man.”

“Was a grown man.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is that he didn’t even show up for the funeral, and still you didn’t report him missing. That’s just suspicious. No other word for it.”

How to explain that? My father was not at the funeral because he killed her. He knocked her down the stairs and broke her neck! I’d figured that the guilt was destroying him. That he knew better than to face Jean and me with empty words and crocodile tears. Because not even Ezra could eulogize about what a fine person he’d killed. I’d guessed he was dead drunk or at the bottom of a high bridge. To me, that made sense. A lot of sense.

“Grief makes people do funny things,” I said.

Mills gave me a very pointed look. “That’s what I keep telling myself,” she said. “If you know what I mean.”

I didn’t know what she meant, but her expression helped me guess. She still liked me for the crime. That was good for Jean, which made it good for me. But I couldn’t do prison. I’d die before I did life in a box. But it wouldn’t come to that; that’s what I told myself. There had to be a way.

“I guess that brings us to the big question,” Mills said. We were at the park. She turned onto the side street that ran past the lake and stopped the car. I could see my house and I got her message. You’re not home yet. That’s what she was telling me. Not by a long shot.

The engine ticked as it cooled. I felt her eyes on me. She wanted to look at me now, to focus. The car began to warm in the sun; the air grew stale, and I wanted a cigarette. I met her eyes as steadily as I could. “Where was I on the night in question?” I said.

“Convince me,” she replied.

Decision time. I had an alibi. Vanessa would back me up, no matter what. The truth of that coursed through me like cool water. Measured against trial, conviction, and prison, it was the most valuable thing in the world. It’s what every cornered criminal would kill to have. But did I want it? The answer was yes. I wanted it so badly, I could taste it. I wanted to turn Mills’s withering stare away from me. I wanted to sleep in my own bed and know that I would never be some convict’s bitch. I wanted to give her my alibi like a gift. Wrap it in pretty paper with a big bow.

But I couldn’t. Not until Jean was in the clear. Should I be absolved, they would look to her. Dig deeply enough and they’d find a reason to like her for the crime, be it our mother’s death, Ezra’s will, or a lifetime of overpowering abuse. For all I knew, she’d kill for Alex. And thinking back to that night, as I had so many times, I knew that she could have done it. It was all in her face, the rage at her mother’s death and the dismay of such utter betrayal. Ezra had left and she’d left right behind him. She could have followed him easily enough. And, like all of us, she’d known where he kept the gun. Motive, means, and opportunity-the holy trinity of criminal prosecution. Douglas would eat her alive if he knew. So I had to know she was safe before playing the alibi card. Yet I felt the weakness in me, fluttering deep and low. Strangely, the knowledge of it made me strong. I looked at Mills, whose face was all hard edges and sharp lines. In her glasses I saw my own features, distorted and unreal. It was too close to what I felt on the inside, so I grasped at that strength, and told one more lie.

“It’s like I told Douglas. Dad left. I went home. I was in bed with Barbara all night.”

Something moved on her face, a predatory glint, and she nodded as if she’d heard what she expected to hear. Or what she hoped to hear. She gave me a smile that made me nervous without knowing why.