“Not at all, Mr. Feldman.” His smile has about as much warmth as ice. “In fact I wish more people were as careful as you. Have you finished taking a look?”
When I nod he closes the ID and tucks it into the back of his pants.
“You look anxious, Mr. Feldman. Like you think half the world is out to get you.”
“What half are you in?”
“That depends on how you answer my questions. Perhaps we can step inside?”
Before I can answer he tilts his head and gives me a direct look. “Unless of course you have something to hide?”
“Come on through,” I say.
“After you,” he says, and I realize he doesn’t want to turn his back on me.
I walk down the hall. I can feel his eyes on me. I hear the front door close. I wonder what Jo is thinking. I lead him into the dining room. A light sweat has formed across my forehead, but I do nothing about it. I drag a seat from the table for him and sit opposite. He pulls out a notebook and rests it on the table before he sits down. He doesn’t open it, just slowly taps a fingernail against the cover. I rest my right elbow on the table, cross my legs, and don’t offer him a drink.
“I’m curious-if you didn’t hear me the first time I knocked on your door, how did you know you were answering it after my second?”
I open my mouth to answer, but can’t come up with anything. He smiles, but it seems he doesn’t really want an answer. He saves me from the awkward moment by taking me into another one.
“Who hit you?” he asks.
I raise my hand to the bump on my forehead. It stings on contact. I try not to wince, but fail. Gets me every time. “Nobody hit me.”
“Walked into a door, did you?”
“A tree.”
“Wouldn’t be the same tree that broke into your house?” The detective twists his head and points his thumb at the back door. “Who broke in?”
“I don’t know. I only just got home.”
“Anything taken?”
“No.”
“Damaged?”
“Just the door.”
“Why would a man who comes home to find his house has been broken into not call the police?”
“I was about to,” I tell him, trying to figure out if he’s here because of Jo, or because of Kathy and Luciana.
“Would you like me to help you look through your house?” he asks.
“No, no. That’s fine,” I tell him, and I know he’s driving at something.
“You said you just got home. From school?”
“Yeah.”
“I rang your school today, Mr. Feldman. They said you weren’t in.”
“I took the day off, but I had to go pick up some work.”
“Where were you on Sunday night?”
“Sunday night? Umm, let me think.” I run my hands through my hair trying to look like I’m trying to remember. Trying to act as though Sunday night was no different from any other night. Nothing to make it stand out. “I was at my parents’.”
“Doing what?”
“Just catching up. You know what it’s like.”
“What time did you leave?”
I shrug. “Not sure. Maybe somewhere around eleven o’clock, give or take.”
“Where did you go when you left?”
“Home.”
“You came straight here.”
“That’s right.”
“And went straight to bed.”
“I had a shower first.”
“Anybody see you?” he asks.
I shrug. “My shower isn’t outside.”
“Did you spend the night alone?”
“That’s right,” I say.
“You’re sure you came straight home?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Uh huh. Well, I guess that pretty much sums it up,” he says, but he doesn’t make any attempt to get up. He just sits there, staring at me, maybe pissed off because I haven’t offered him coffee, or because he thinks I’m a cold-blooded killer. He hasn’t put his pad away.
“Good.” I lean forward and start to stand.
“Just two more questions.”
“Just two?”
“First, why haven’t you asked me why I’m here?”
I sit back down. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t ask what I’m investigating. All these questions. It’s like you already knew. You just opened the door and resigned yourself to the fact that I was here to arrest you. I’ve seen that look many times, Mr. Feldman. It’s the look of somebody who was hoping they wouldn’t get caught, but aren’t surprised they have been. I saw it in your face. You didn’t ask what I wanted because you thought I was here to take you into custody for murder. You didn’t go through the whole routine of trying to figure out why a detective inspector would show up on your doorstep late at night wanting to ask you questions. An innocent person would have. Or a good liar. Your problem, Mr. Feldman, is that you’re neither.”
It’s buzzword time. “That’s crazy.”
He stops tapping his finger and points it at me. “Have you ever heard of Camelot Drive?”
I know what’s coming and can’t see a way out of it.
“Mr. Feldman? Just a yes or no will do.”
“No,” I answer quickly.
“The body of a young woman was found there yesterday morning. But you know all about that, don’t you?”
“Sure, it’s been on the news. Everybody knows about it. Does that make everybody a suspect? Unless you’ve got-”
“Why would we think of you as a suspect?”
This guy is annoying. I have the urge to tell him to stop playing games. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“But you must have done something to think that we would regard you as a suspect.”
“Look, if you’ve got a point here maybe you should get to it.”
He nods. “Fair enough,” he says. Then he follows that up. “You knew those women.”
“No I didn’t.”
“So if we take your fingerprints and DNA, we’re not going to get matches to those at the scenes?”
“That’s right,” I tell him. “I was never there,” I say, thinking I should come clean. I should tell this man everything that happened. I decide not to. If Landry were sure of himself then he would be arresting me, not questioning me.
“How well did you know them?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I thought you only had two more questions for me.”
“That was until you started lying. You’ve never seen or spoken to either woman?”
Again I shake my head. “I’m not lying,” I tell him. “I don’t know either of the women, I’ve never seen them before in my life, so if you have anything to back up what you’re-”
Landry stands up and tucks his notebook into one pocket, and from another he produces a plastic ziplock bag. Inside is a small pad. He holds it toward me and I reach up to take it. “You don’t need to hold it to read it,” he says.
I move closer toward it. It’s the pad on which Kathy wrote my details, only that isn’t the page that’s on the top. Sherlock Landry has used a pencil to rub over the page beneath it. My name and phone number have appeared, and with them any chance I have of talking my way out of this. The top page to that pad is in my bedroom. I try to explain this, but my mouth has gone dry and I feel as if somebody has poured glue down my throat. All I can do now is take my chances with the truth.
“I can explain,” I tell him, the words coming out slowly.
“I think it’s in your best interests to explain at the station, where you can have a lawyer present,” Landry says.
“I, um, I. .”
He pulls his handcuffs from behind his back. Maybe they were clipped to his belt or inside a pocket. Then he pulls out a gun. He keeps it pointing at the ground. “Turn around, Mr. Feldman.”
“You’re arresting me?”
“What other choice do I have?”
“You could arrest the right person. I didn’t kill anybody!”
“We’ll discuss it at the station. Where you can have a lawyer present.”
“No, no, this is all wrong. All wrong,” I repeat.
“Come on, Mr. Feldman. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
They’re similar to the words I’ve been using with Jo, and on the receiving end they don’t sound good at all. I put my hands out in front of me and start waving them around in tiny circles. “No, no, please, wait a second, let me explain.”