The Truth Collector (9 page)

Malcolm and Paul stood there frozen. They shared doubts and fears without sharing a single word. Some time later they broke free of their stupor. They pointed their legs to the outskirts of the city, like old drinking buddies who'd just come to after the night's last pint, and began to walk.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Paul led them through the labyrinthine streets. They stopped in an alley and pulled a pair of waiters' uniforms out of the backseat of an abandoned car. They put them on just as the sun peeked out over the river and filled the streets with morning light. The clothes were dark enough to cover the bruises and blood, but they couldn't hide the agony on their wearers' faces.

Then, just before they left the outskirts for the first traces of civilization, Malcolm let Paul get out in front of him. He limped along on his swollen ankle. Slower than the pain demanded, until the gap between them was wide enough to fit a moving van. They approached an intersection surrounded by shadows and empty apartment windows. Malcolm veered to the edge of the alley. He gritted his teeth, preparing his mangled muscles for action.

Closer.

Closer and closer... until the walls gave way and opened up onto an even smaller side street.

Malcolm glanced ahead and saw Paul's back growing smaller.

Then he ducked into the side street.

He kept close to the edge. Shuffled his feet as softly as he could. Tucked his head and moved faster as the shadows around him dwindled.

"Hey." Paul's voice from the alley. Rapid movement followed it. "Hey." His voice was louder this time, echoing somewhere back in the intersection.

But Malcolm didn't look back. He swerved around dumpsters and trash piles and a pair of motorcycles that had been stripped for their parts. Deeper into the street he went. His body screamed for him to stop, but Paul's footsteps screamed louder. Other tiny streets popped up in front of him. Plenty of places to hide. Plenty of places to get lost.

"Malcolm!" Paul said. "Stop."

Malcolm kept running. He slid across an empty pizza box, almost lost his footing, and somehow steadied himself...

Until something snapped his neck back.

He screamed.

All of his forward momentum was jerked to the side then stopped. Something pressed his back against the wall and held him there, pinning him by the collar.

"That was cute," a voice said. A woman's voice. "But I can't let you leave your friend."

Malcolm tried to squirm away, but that grip was bulletproof. He heard her breathing. Smelled her perfume and the faint sheen of sweat beneath it. Then air became vapor, and vapor became woman. Charlotte let go of him and shook her head as she adjusted her dress – just in time for Paul to catch up to them.

"How many times are we going to tangle in this alley tonight?" she said.

Paul pushed past her. "What the hell are you doing? Trying to give me the slip? I don't think so. You got me into this. We're going to see it through together."

Malcolm didn't answer either of them. He just leaned against the wall gasping for air. Paul grabbed him and prodded him back into the alley from where they came. He made sure to keep Malcolm in front this time, a pirate walking a prisoner off the plank. Charlotte disappeared when they reached the bustle of the business district. But she promised to stay close. To make sure the traitor didn't have another chance to escape.

Into the workday madness they went.

* * * *

Every stranger they passed could have been Craig or the thing inside him – ready to finish the job. Malcolm studied every cheek carefully for the mark of the spade. Men and women rushed past them with paranoid eyes. But Malcolm didn't see the hunch-backed wreck of a man with his hair falling out. People gave them wide berths when they approached the central business district, sometimes hustling across the street, always ducking their heads.

They found Paul's taxi and slid into leather seats already warm from the sun. Malcolm nodded, and Paul started the engine without a word. His eyes lost themselves in the flow of the traffic. Malcolm watched the clock tick off the minutes. He told Paul to slow down. He asked him to drive back to the duplex so they could think this over. But there was no sane man left to hear him.

He sat in the driver's seat, a white-knuckled grip the only thing anchoring him to the road unfolding before them. He kept his eyes fixed perfectly ahead like another set of headlights – like if he could just drive well enough all of the confusion would vanish. Around drunk drivers and early-morning truckers he led them. Lips tight, hands steady he drove them past sugarcane fields and into Tattersall, the little town where Eric and Miranda had been murdered.

Where the little girl had vanished.

Paul didn't stop until the taxi was parked in front of the tiny police station. He got out, pulled forward by his conscience or some other force Malcolm didn't feel in himself. Malcolm hurried to catch him before he made it inside. He slipped an arm around his shoulder and made him promise to let him do all the talking.

Paul nodded and opened the door.

Inside, a few uniformed men flipped through newspapers and mingled with the receptionist behind her desk. They looked over when Malcolm and Paul came inside. “We need to speak to whoever's in charge,” Malcolm said.

Two minutes later they were tucked away in an office with cups of coffee in their hands. A man sat behind a desk across them, apologizing for the mess. Despite the hour, his eyes were devoid of any signs of fatigue. He turned them on Malcolm and Paul and introduced himself as Sheriff Robert Broyles. “You fellas look like you've been through it,” he said. “But it must be something important if it brought you out here so early in the morning.”

Malcolm nodded. “We've been up all night trying to decide if we should come forward.”

Broyles leaned forward and pressed his hands together. “I take it you two work together? I mean, you're wearing the same thing and all.”

“That's right. We were working a case earlier at a restaurant. We're private detectives, you see. That's how we got wrapped up in all of this.”

Broyles leaned back, put his hands behind his head, and fiddled with the wide-brimmed khaki hat perched there. “I think you fellas need to relax. You know, I've been on the other side of that desk. I know it's stressful. If we could go back in time and ask my teenage self he'd tell you all about it."

"No kidding?" said Paul.

Broyles nodded. "No kidding. I did time, fellas. Hard time. All because I happened to have a girlfriend with a dad who had a stick up his ass. He caught us in our skivvies and then –
bam
." He pounded the desk with his hands. "One year for statutory rape. I don't know why I'm telling you this."

Malcolm nodded. "Don't worry about it."

Broyles leaned forward and looked around the room, suddenly aware of his surroundings. "I assume you're here about Eric and Miranda Swanson."

“That's right. Mister Swanson hired me. Normally I wouldn't disclose why. But it might help you figure out who's at the bottom of this. That's why we decided to come forward.”

Broyles nodded, looked down at a notepad resting on the desk, and looked up again without bothering to open it. “What can you tell me, mister...”

“Morris,” said Malcolm. “My name's Malcolm Morris. My associate and I – Paul Knox – were hired to investigate whether Miranda was carrying on an affair. Several days ago Eric and I decided that I'd take a look into things.”

Broyles's eyes widened. “No kidding? I never pegged Miranda as the cheating type. She always came across as kind of a prude.”

“You knew her?” said Paul.

“Yes. Her and Eric and both their families too. That's just how things are around here. Truly devastating.” He turned back to Malcolm. “What did you find out?”

“Eric was right,” said Malcolm. “Miranda was cheating. But I couldn't get a hold of him when it was time to give him the news.”

“Fine,” Broyles said. “You think you have something we don't?”

“She was seeing a man named Craig Fielder. He doesn't live here – he lives and works in Lemhaven – but apparently it was going on for a long time. Maybe he's the one who did it. We thought you should know.”

Broyles shut his eyes, leaned back in his chair. He kept them closed and let out a long sigh. “It's something to go on at least. Eric always had a quick trigger finger. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if he came to his own conclusions, confronted her, and just lost it.”

Malcolm and Paul looked at each other in silence.

“You don't talk much,” said Broyles, looking at Paul. “Why?”

Paul's eyes twitched like they'd been snapped with a rubber band. “I'm worried. Worried about you getting worked up and pinning this on us.”

Broyles sat up in his chair. “Is that right?” He turned to Malcolm. “Your partner put you up to this? Tell you to give me a little but don't give me too much or else this thing would blow back on you?”

“No,” Malcolm said.

“Yes,” Paul said. They spoke at the same time.

Broyles clapped his hands togethe
r. “Now we're
talking. Here I have one man with a conscience and another with a brain. What am I supposed to do with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other?”

“Listen,” Malcolm said. “Listen to the end of our story if you ever want to catch the person who killed Eric and Miranda.”

“And took the little girl,” said Paul. “She's still alive.”

Broyles's eyes dropped beneath the desk. “How do you fellas know all this?”

Malcolm looked at Paul to give him a silent warning, but the words were already out. “Because we were there,” he said. “After it happened.”

“After the murder?”

“That's right. We didn't do it. But we went over there to try to find Eric. He owed Malcolm money.”

Broyles nodded slowly as a smile worked its way onto his face. It was an uneven smile, like someone had done needlework with no regard for getting the stitching straight. “I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation why you two didn't come in earlier.”

Paul shrugged. “Not really. I mean, there
is
an explanation. But I don't know how reasonable it'll sound. You probably won't even believe it.”

Malcolm covered his face with his hands. Behind them sat a row of jurors with angry faces. Jailers who would throw them into prison yards and watch with twisted smiles while the other prisoners turned them into pulp. Any semblance of a normal life after this – a free life on the margins – died behind Malcolm's palms. He held them there for a long time while Paul talked some more, hanging them with his words.

Something warm pressed on top of Malcolm's hands. It pulsed as blood passed through it.

A hand – much smaller than his, but a hand all the same.

A woman's hand.

Charlotte.

He reached for it but that hand refused to let go. It didn't stop until it pried away his fingers and forced him to look at Broyles across the desk.

The policeman wore a relaxed smile, but his eyes had drifted down to his desk and settled on the telephone there. A finger followed. He never stopped smiling – even when that finger pressed the button on the telephone that would set their damnation into motion.

“There were prints,” Broyles said. “Detectives found lots of them at the scene. We don't know who they belong to yet, but all it takes is one or two to get the murder conviction.”

Malcolm nodded, looking back every few seconds to check the door leading into Broyles's office. It was closed now, but in a few seconds it would open. Officers would pour in with handcuffs out and pistols drawn. Ready to lock them up forever.

“You need to be somewhere?” Broyles said.

“What?”

“You keep looking at the door.”

“Oh. Just distracted I guess.”

Broyles nodded and smiled like they were old friends sitting on rocking chairs. Everything was checker-playing, lemonade-sipping casual… until he stabbed you in the back. “You've done the right thing getting out in front of this.”

“It wasn't us,” Paul said. “They were already dead when we got there.” He shook back and forth in his chair, face pale. “I know that sounds hard to believe.”

Broyles's eyes narrowed. “How did you know they were already dead?”

“They were in the bedroom. The front door was open. We walked in trying to find Eric and there they were.”

Broyles stood up behind the desk. His hands dropped to his pistol and handcuffs. “See, that's where your story falls apart. That doesn't explain why we found them buried in a little grave out back. It was an amateur job too. Like no one even cared if we found them...”

His eyes flashed to the door.

It burst open and three officers ran in. They held handcuffs and loaded pistols in front of them. They looked at them with part fascination and part awe as they followed the sheriff's instructions.
Cuff them
, he said.
Put your hands behind your back
. Malcolm obeyed in a sleepwalking state, waiting for the final metal clink when his freedom would be taken away. But their handcuffs fell from their hands when they lunged for him. Every time they bent down to pick them up the cuffs went flying again, slapped across the room.

“What the hell is going on?” Broyles said, reaching for his handcuffs. Then
his
handcuffs flew through the air before any of his men could answer. A paperweight lifted off his desk when he reached down to grab them. Broyles stared at it, open-mouthed, as it floated suspended in the air and smashed into the side of his face. He howled and lunged over the desk, tackling Malcolm and snapping the cuffs around his wrists. Blood dripped off his uniform and landed on Malcolm's face in slow, steady drops.