Faye Kellerman - Prayers for the Dead

“Right. Can you truck with that?”

“Fine with me. Just that you’re gonna look like an asshole and I thought you might want a little privacy.”

Decker said, “Mind if I turn on the tape recorder?”

“Go ahead.”

“Would you like something to drink?”

“No…no, thank you.”

Decker turned on the tape. “So tell me how I’m going to look like an asshole.”

Luke rubbed his face, stared at the one-way mirror, then looked back at Decker. “Yesterday, I got a phone call from Reggie Decameron. About seven-thirty…maybe eight in the morning. He sounded…strange. Calm but serious. Which is very strange for Decameron. He said he needed to talk to me about my family. When I asked him to be more specific, he said it was a private matter, too personal to talk about over the phone. We set a meeting time at ten. His house.”

Luke scratched his head.

“He was already dead when I got there. He and some other man. They were both…covered with blood…and glass.” His voice dropped to a whisper. He blinked hard. “Lots of broken glass.”

There was a long pause.

“It was all I could do to keep my stomach down. I would have left immediately except something caught my eye. There were about a dozen magazines…in plain brown wrappers.” He waited a beat. “They had my brother’s name on them.”

Again, he stopped talking.

“I picked one up, took off the cover. It was homosexual pornography. Explicit…revolting shit!”

The room was silent.

“I totally freaked. I ran outside, got in my car, and peeled rubber. A block later, I pulled over and threw up. I was shaking so badly, I couldn’t drive.”

Sweat had formed on Luke’s face, had deepened the color of his shirt under his armpits. Decker poured him a glass of water. Luke downed the contents in a few gulps.

“I must have sat there for…I don’t know…ten minutes. Maybe longer, maybe shorter. I knew I had to go back.”

“Why?”

“Obviously, I couldn’t leave crap like that with my brother’s name on top of two dead bodies. I thought it might…incriminate…I went back and this time I took all the magazines with me. I don’t know why I didn’t just throw them away. I think I wanted to confront my brother. Have him deny they were his.”

“Why would Decameron have your brother’s pornography?”

“I don’t know.” Luke shrugged. “I can only imagine it was because they were…involved.” He winced. “God, the thought is so disgusting!”

“If Decameron was your brother’s lover, why would he be calling you to talk about Bram?”

“I don’t really know. Maybe blackmail. Because everyone thinks we’ve come into money with our father’s death.”

“Have you?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have. We have. Me and all my siblings. Dad left us insurance money. Maybe Decameron wanted a piece of the action. For all I know, I was the first one and he was going to hit on all my sibs. He knew my family, my parents’ beliefs. He’d know we’d do anything to prevent this from coming out. For my mother’s sake. Everyone knows Bram is her golden boy.”

“You’d do anything to prevent it from coming out?”

“Not anything. Certainly not murder. But I, for one, would have certainly paid the sleazeball off to keep quiet about my brother.”

“You would have paid him off?”

“Absolutely. His calling me up like that. I smelled something rotten.”

“Yet you came when Decameron called.”

“Yes, I did.” Luke poured himself another glass of water and drank it. “And that is…the end of my story.”

Decker said, “When you saw the bodies, why didn’t you call the police?”

“And admit I was there? Are you crazy?”

“You’re admitting you were there now…with a lot more dire consequences.”

“You arrested Bram. I couldn’t let him take the rap for me.”

“The rap?”

“I met with him after I left Decameron’s house. Called him up and told him to get his ass over to his apartment because we had things to talk about. I showed him a magazine, shoved it in his face actually. I wanted him to tell me it was a mistake, for God’s sake!”

“Did he?”

“No.” Luke shook his head. “No, he didn’t. He just took my bloody clothes, my shoes, and the magazines. Told me not to worry, that he’d take care of it. At that point, I was so glad to rid myself of that shit, I just let him do it.”

Decker sat back in his chair. “But you’ve suddenly come to your senses. Now you’re being a man and bailing out your brother.”

Luke glared at Decker. “I realize it’s hard to believe a slime like me could be noble, but yes, it’s true.”

Decker said, “You know, if I were to believe any part of your story, I’d believe the part about your brother and Decameron. Which would mean that Bram, more than anyone, would have a reason to shut Decameron up.”

“Except Bram wasn’t there. The evidence you have against him is mine! Sure, the bloody clothes fit him. Because we wear the same size. And yeah, the shoes fit him too. Because we have the same shoe size. Maybe you even have blood evidence, because picking up the magazines, I sliced myself several times. You don’t have his blood, pal. You’ve got my blood. We’re identical twins.”

Decker hoped his face was registering neutral. Inside, he could feel his heart taking flight in his chest. He waited a beat, then said, “We have other things.”

“You found my cross, then.”

Decker couldn’t hide his astonishment. He was silent for a long time. Then he said, “Didn’t know you were that religious.”

“I’m not but old habits are hard to break.” Luke looked at the mirror. “How you all doing over there?”

“Luke-”

“It was given to me when I…when Bram, Paul, and I were confirmed as teenagers. We all got the same present-a Walkman and a gold cross engraved with the name Sparks on the back. No initial, mind you, just Sparks. Our crosses are interchangeable. My parents weren’t big on personalization.”

Decker was silent.

“Anyway,” Luke continued, “mine has had a loose clasp for years. Never got around to fixing it. Maybe I secretly wanted to lose it. Not in a pile of dead bodies, but God works in mysterious ways.”

“I’m supposed to believe this?”

Luke said, “This morning, while I was taking a shower, thinking about what I had to do, I noticed my neck was bare. I looked around my apartment, couldn’t find it. I knew what must have happened. It came off at Decameron’s place. Then I knew why you arrested Bram.”

He leaned over the tabletop.

“If Bram wears anything over his shirt, it’s a Roman Catholic crucifix-a big silver thing with Jesus on it. But he also wears his boyhood confirmation cross inside his shirt. You booked him, you stripped him of his personal belongings. Go back and check your bags, Lieutenant. You’ll find his cross there. Would it make sense for Bram to be wearing two identical crosses? Man, even he’s not that fanatical.”

Luke grew impatient.

“Look, my brother didn’t murder Decameron. He wasn’t even anywhere near the house. He was with my mom in the morning, at his church in the afternoon.”

Decker was quiet.

“Yes, I know there were time gaps. Maybe he sneaked into Decameron’s house between Reggie’s phone call to me and before he visited my mother. That means he had to have been there around seven-thirty in the morning.”

“So?”

“Decameron had another guy there, both of them dressed in business suits. Who the hell does business at seven-thirty in the morning? No one. Because they were murdered later on. Make sense?”

Decker didn’t respond. His head was buzzing.