Jonathan Kellerman - Capital Crimes

“Go where?”

“The place Jack was gonna be. Someplace on First, where there’s no other clubs.”

“The T House.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You were supposed to meet up with Jack there.”

“Yes, sir. He called me that night, said he was going there, I should bring the extra verses I was working on- for ‘Breakdown’- and he was going to check them out. Then I was going to drive him back to the hotel and we were going to pull an all-nighter so the song would be in shape to sing at the concert.”

“But Mom warned you off and you didn’t go.”

“I called Jack and asked what to do about it. He told me to be cool, he’d calm her down, and we would meet up.”

“How’d you feel about all that?”

“Angry as hell, but Jack promised me we’d get together with enough time before the concert.”

“The concert was important.”

“He was going to bring me up on stage.”

“Where’d you go instead of to the T House?”

“Nowhere,” said the boy. “I stayed home and worked on ‘Breakdown.’ I fell asleep, maybe at three, four, I don’t know, it was at my desk. Then I got up and worked some more. Check my computer logs, when I write something, I record the time.”

“Why?”

“To preserve it. Preserve everything about the process. You can have my computer, if you want to prove it. It’s on the backseat of my car.”

“You seem real anxious for us to get hold of your computer.”

“Anything about me is going to be on my hard drive.”

Lamar said, “We find your computer was used at a certain time, doesn’t tell us who used it.”

The boy scowled. “Well, it was me- ask Amelia, our maid. I was in all night and never left.”

“How’d you end up at the river?”

“I went there after I found out what happened.” Tristan’s eyelids swelled as if allergic to remembering. “It was like a big hand entered here and ripped me.” Knuckling his solar plexus.

“What time?”

“Seven, nine, in the afternoon, I don’t know. I just drove like I was in a dream.”

“Where?”

“Up and down the highway, all over.”

“Which highway?”

“The I-Forty.”

“Anyone see you?”

“No, it was just trees- I drove to the old prison, down west, where they film movies? There were these- with the white-striped blue pants? I guess they’re minimum-security prisoners, they’re always walking around, cleaning up.”

“Sounds like you go there a lot.”

“It’s quiet,” said Tristan. “Helps me think. I was there that morning. Parked on top of the hill and looked down at all those dirty gray walls and one of them saw me. He had a rake, was raking leaves. He saw me and waved, I waved back. I sat there a little more, drove back to the city, parked near the river, sat in an empty building and…that’s what I was doing when the cops found me.”

“Thinking about killing yourself.”

“I probably wouldn’t do it.”

“Probably?”

“It would be selfish, right? Like her.”

“Your mama.”

“She hated Jack,” said the boy. “Told me so, when she was screaming no way I was going to meet him, she’d make a scene.”

“Why’d she hate him?”

“For leaving her in the first place, then for coming back when she didn’t want him to.”

“She was married to Lloyd when she conceived you.”

“But things weren’t going so well,” said the boy. “Least that’s what she told me. She was bored and thinking of leaving Lloyd. My mom used to be Jack’s main groupie, she made like it was more, but that’s what it sounded like to me. Then he dumped her and they didn’t see each other for a long time. Then, she was visiting a friend in LA, looked him up. They hooked up for a couple of days. After she found out she was pregnant, she called him about it but he didn’t answer. So she went back to Lloyd and forgot about Jack.”

“And now he was coming back,” said Baker. “And being a bad influence on you. You really think she’d have killed him over that?”

“You don’t know her, sir. She sets her mind to something, she’s not going to be convinced otherwise. She’s got all sorts of people working the farm. Lots of trash.” Some animation had spread across Tristan’s face. “You don’t believe me because she’s rich and cultured.”

“Well,” said Baker, “if we had some evidence.”

“If she didn’t do it, who did?”

Baker sat back, placed his hands behind his head. “As a matter of fact, son, we’ve been thinking about you.”

The boy shot to his feet. Big boy, all those muscles. His jaw was tight and his hands were clenched. “I told you! That’s fucking insane ! Meeting Jack was the coolest thing in my life, I was going to go to LA !”

“Your plan, not his.”

“He would’ve been into it!”

The detectives remained in their seats. Tristan glared down at them.

Lamar said, “Sit back down, son.”

“Stop calling me that!”

Lamar rose to his full height. Tristan was unused to looking up at anyone. He flinched.

“Please sit down, Tristan.”

The boy obeyed. “I’m really a suspect?”

“You’re what we call a person of interest.”

“That’s crazy. Fucking crazy. Why would I kill someone I loved?”

Baker said, “Maybe he changed his mind about singing your song.”

“He didn’t,” said Tristan. “But even if he did, that’s no reason to kill someone.”

“People get killed for all sorts of reasons.”

“Not by sane people- anyway, it never happened, he loved my songs. Read my e-mails, everything’s positive, everything’s cool- my laptop’s in the back of my car, it’s out of power but you can recharge it. My passwords DDPOET. Short for Dead Poet.”

“We’ll do that,” said Baker. “But no matter what your e-mail says, it doesn’t mean that Jack didn’t change his mind and decide not to sing your song.”

Lamar said, “People change their mind all the time. And Jack was real moody.”

“He wasn’t moody with me,” said Tristan. “I was important to him. Not like the others.”

“What others?”

“All those loser trailer trash women claiming they had his kids, sending him pictures of their loser kids. And stuff- songs, CDs he never listened to. I was the only one he was sure of. Because he liked my songs and because he remembered the exact day it happened.”

“The day you were conceived?” Baker asked.

“He told you about it?” Lamar questioned.

“It’s in one of the e-mails- if you ever get around to reading the computer. He even forwarded an e-mail she wrote him five years ago, when he was thinking of coming out to see me. She told him that she didn’t want to risk losing Lloyd and that I would never accept him because I was close to Lloyd. That unless he wanted to destroy her and me and everything she’d built with Lloyd, he needed to stay away. And he agreed. For my sake. It’s all in there. And he saved it for years.”

Lamar said, “Mom didn’t want to risk losing Lloyd.”

The kid smirked again. “Didn’t want to risk what Lloyd gave her. Eleventh commandment.”

“Jack had money, too,” said Baker.

“Not as much as Lloyd. Money has always been her first and only love.”

“You have strong feelings about your mama.”

“I love her,” said Tristan, “but I know what she is. You need to talk to her. I’ll give you her number in Kentucky. I know she’s there, even though she didn’t tell me she was headed there.”

“How would you know?”

“She always goes to the horses when she’s disgusted with me. Horses don’t talk back and if you put the time into them, you can eventually break ’em.”