The Tell-Tale Con (14 page)

Left without anything else to look up, I went to bed.  But sleep didn't come easy.  In fact, it almost didn't come at all.  I refused to give into the urge to call Harrison on the cell and demand he tell me why he'd left the chess world.  Or just to have someone to talk to while I couldn't sleep.  It was after four before I fell into a fitful sleep. 

 

Wednesday morning found me looking puffy, colorless and exhausted as I met Harrison at the car.  I had no clue what the hell we were doing.  But now that we were half-way in, I couldn't see any way out but through to the other side.  I had a very bad feeling that if Harrison went to the police and tried to tell them anything, it would give them another reason to suspect he might be responsible for Nate's death. 

Once we were buckled, I started the car.  “Is there any reason the police would truly believe you had a motive for killing Nate?  Anything besides the fact you were there?”

Harrison stared at me.  “No.”

“Look, I think maybe you should go to the police.  I mean, heaven knows I'm not a fan of the authorities, but what are we doing?  We don't know anything.  We could have blown this all out of proportion.  Sure, it makes you sound a teensy bit crazy.  But who cares?  You're a Hollywood kid.  People assume you're crazy.  You haven't been to rehab yet, so you can do this instead.  If there's something to see, they'll find it.”

He spent a moment staring at his backpack.  “Okay.”  He sounded reluctant. 

“Do you want me to take you to the police station right now?”  

I thought he might say no.  But in the end he nodded.  Then I felt bad, like I was a mean parent making my kid do something absolutely horrific.  “What am I going to tell them?”

Actually, I had no answer for that.  After giving a moment's thought, I said, “Well, don't tell them about Nate.  We can't prove he's the one who put the recorder in there anyway, and it draws attention back to you.  It makes you look potentially guilty.  We don't want that.  So I guess just that you have footage that suggests that the car hit you on purpose and that it's a stolen car.”

“That makes sense.” 

It was clear to me that if anyone in the world wanted to deal with the cops less than me at this moment, it was Harrison.  But he didn't argue.  He sat, a silent lump in the passenger seat, thinking who knew what. 

The downtown police substation wasn't that far from us, and it only took me a few minutes to get there.  Harrison didn't seem particularly willing to do this, but I didn't have to prod him out of the car.  We were hardly in the parking spot, between a police cruiser and a tan Cadillac, before he was out of the car and crutching his way inside.  By the time I caught up with him, he was already giving our case number to the woman behind the desk who asked us to sit for a moment and wait. 

I'd been in a lot of police stations over the years when my mother or father had been arrested for one small-time scam or another.  Or the two times that I had been picked up with them, but eventually released.  They always got off in the end.  Except this last time.  Comparatively, this particular branch of the Albuquerque police was kind of fun.  It had a whole mid-century vibe going on with brick planters, large plate glass windows and decades-old gold carpet. 

Finally, a woman, not the other lady cop from the crime scene or anyone from the accident, came out and waved us into her office.  Inside her teeny glass cubicle the station turned uninteresting.  This was just another generic office with cheap Ikea-style furniture and white tile floors.  I liked it much better in the lobby. 

She sat down behind one of the desks.  There were two more in the room, but no one else was there at the moment.  Tall and a little bit overweight, she looked like a high school athlete who'd let herself go.  She extended a hand, which was much larger than mine, and gave us both a firm handshake. 

It was second nature to me to read the signs that people kicked off.  Over the years I'd learned instinctively to know one of most important tricks of the grifting trade.  How to pick a good mark.  And the first rule of picking a good mark was knowing who you could lie to and who you couldn't. 

This woman wasn't someone I could lie to. 

I mean, I could try, but she wasn't going to believe me.  She was not a person who was likely to believe any story I spun for her, no matter how good and no matter how convincing it would be to almost any other person in the world.  I could see her eyes assessing me the way I was assessing her.  She was an anti-mark. 

It would behoove us both to let Harrison do the talking.  This particular detective would be able to smell me coming a mile away. 

She steepled her fingers against her desk.  “I'm Tanya Tabke.  I didn't take your original statement, but the two officers who did are out today.”  She indicated to the empty desks.  “So why don't you bring me up to speed?”

Harrison glanced at me, and I made a little gesture with my hand to let him know the floor was his.  So he walked through the accident with the same detail he'd given the other cops, while Officer Tabke followed along with a file on her desk.  When he'd finished she said, “Heather said you had something else to add.”

“Yeah, I know this guy.  He's the head of the AV club, and his place backs up to the parking lot.  He records the parking lot all the time.”

She immediately perked up.  “Does he?”

“Yeah, like, twenty-four seven.  Anyway, he has footage of the car and the plates.  It's sitting there, waiting for something.  I think…well, I mean…I guess it was waiting for me.”

She leveled him with a look that I was glad wasn't directed at me.  She was doing exactly as I had known she would.  She was using her inherent bullcrap meter to evaluate Harrison's story.  Finally she sat back in her chair and nodded.  “Let's get this guy's name and address.  I'm going to get the tape and have a look.  In the mean time, I think you two should be very careful.” 

She took Hector's info and then turned to me.  “Do you have anything to add, Miss Jones?” 

She'd gotten my name from the report, but that didn't mean my stomach didn't brutally twist hearing it come from the mouth of a cop.  I shook my head wordlessly.  Let her think I was shy. 

She evaluated me, too, though not with the laser beam stare she'd given Harrison.  When she'd decided whatever she was going to decide about me, she shut the folder.  “I'll be in touch.  Once again, I would advise both of you to use a great deal of caution.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rules of the Scam #21

Always be charming.  No matter what…

 

Harrison waited until we were back on the road to stare me down.  “What was that?  Gone suddenly mute?”

I had no idea what to say.  I couldn't lie as well to Harrison as I might have been able to lie to another person.  Not because I felt he could read me.  But because I just didn't have it in me.  I didn't want to con him.  I didn't know what I wanted to do with him at all.  In the end, I decided on the truth. 

“Look, I'm good at reading people.  Like,
really
good.  It's what I do.  I could tell that she was going to think I was full of crap no matter what I said.  So I didn't say anything.  It's best not to give people like that fodder for their cannons.”

“Well, I don't want to be argumentative, but she thought I was full of crap too.”

“Yes, but
I
am
full of crap.  Or have you not noticed?” 

A smile tickled the edges of his lips.  “I have noticed you seem to be gifted in the art of…storytelling.”

I had to laugh at that one.  “You make me sound like Hemingway.  It's nothing quite that literary, I promise.  My parents are great proponents of old W.C. Fields.  If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.  That's all it is.”

He nodded, still sporting a very small smile.  “Maybe.  It seems to be a skill, either way.  I'm secretly both impressed and concerned by your stellar ability to tell a lie.” 

He sounded totally sincere about that.  He probably had no clue what to think of my ability to make crap up.  I wanted to tell him that he hadn't seen anything yet.  Instead I said, “That's odd, because that's the same way I feel about your ability to play chess so well.”

His laugh pushed out of him with surprise, like I'd punched him in the stomach with something funny.  “Yeah, I could see that.” 

“Speaking of chess, where's this Matt dude now?"

Harrison shot me a look.  "You mean
Mitch
?"

"Sure.  Whatever.  Can we interview him?”

He slumped back in his seat as I pulled into the school parking lot.  “No.  Because he's been playing in the Universal Chess Symposium in the Ukraine for the last week.” 

“Oh.”  That was a bit of a disappointment.  He'd been our best, well, our only, suspect.  “We suck as detectives.”

Harrison laughed.  “Yeah, detectives we are not.  What do you want to do now?”

I considered it for a while as I navigated into a spot and turned off the car.  “Well, we can forget about it, let the cops handle it and hope it goes away.  Or we can check some other options.”  I let that hang for a moment before adding, “Like your step-mom.”

I let him think about that for a few moments without comment while we worked our way into the school.  We were late, so there was no one around.  At least I wouldn't be stared at while people wondered who the heck I was, why I was with Harrison, and why I deserved to be the one who got the benefit of Van Poe's money and privileges. 

But we did have to explain to the office why were late.  I debated what to say until I finally realized I didn't have to say anything but the truth.  It was perfectly reasonable for us to be late to school because we were talking to the police about the accident on school property.  They were no doubt worried that we were going to sue them.  Frankly, I was surprised that my mother hadn't yet tried.  At least, not that I knew of.  It was entirely possible that she'd been talking to lawyers while I was at school. 

Before we entered through the office doors, Harrison grabbed my arm.  He looked up and down the hallway, as if trying to gauge if we were alone.  “After school, you should come with me to the set.  You can meet my dad…and Kanako.” 

It was obvious this was a tacit indication that Harrison wanted to check Kanako out, and the first thing I needed to do was find out why he thought that Kanako didn't like him.  I had a feeling that conversation was going to go like every conversation that involved something Harrison didn't feel comfortable with.  I would have to push and push.  Excellent thing I was particularly good at getting what I wanted from other people. 

But I didn't have the opportunity until lunch.  Metro High was big enough that it was easy to miss someone in the crowd, no matter how much you were trying to steal a word with them.  Harrison's locker wasn't close to mine, and we didn't share any classes, save biology. 

Finally, I saw him sitting at a corner table in the cafeteria.  He was speaking to people as they passed, but he was sitting alone.  I crossed the cafeteria with purpose and slapped my tray down on the table, making him jump.  He looked up from his green beans. 

“Oh, hey.” 

I'd had more enthusiastic greetings over the years.  That was for sure.  Now I was certain he was trying to avoid me.  “So what's the deal with you and mommy dearest?  Why aren't you the best of friends?”

The look he gave me said that
we
were unlikely to be the best of friends either.  “I don't know.  Not exactly anyway.  She never liked me.  Not from the beginning.  Even though my dad didn't have custody, she threw a fit that he wouldn't fight my mom to send me to boarding school.  It made her crazy that we were living in the same building.” 

He spoke very low, and very slowly.  He was barely getting started.  I was certain there was more.  But Hector joined us, setting his plate down so carelessly pudding sloshed off the side of his bowl.  “Hey Poe, my dad called me and told me the police came by to get your footage.  You cost me another video.  But I guess I don't mind too much this time.  After all, it was kind of yours.” 

Now that Hector had arrived I knew there'd be no more information from Harrison.  He most certainly wasn't going to speak freely in front of Hector, despite the fact that they were apparently the best of friends.  He greeted Hector and went back to his food, pretending like we'd never been talking at all. 

I spent a brief moment debating ways I could get rid of Hector, but then I caught sight of Sam coming our way.  When she saw I was sitting with Harrison, her eyebrows shot high.  Then she started waggling them.  There was nothing for it now.  She was going to come over here, if only to see if Harrison and I were shooting each other longing looks over our beef sandwiches. 

She came to the table and sat down.  She pulled out her cell phone and started texting, after giving us only the most perfunctory of greetings.  I jumped when Harrison's cell phone vibrated in my pocket.  Pulling it out, I saw I had a text.  Of course it was from Sam.  Good Lord. 

Now you're eating together?  Still trying to pretend you're not dating?

I glared at her. 

I wasn't that proficient of a texter, but I managed,
we're just eating
.

She rolled her eyes.  I glanced at the guys, but they were busy stuffing their faces and talking about a video game.  She texted me again. 

You might as well admit it.  Everyone is talking about it anyway.