“I’m terribly sorry to intrude on you this way,” Detective Rhimes said. She looked genuinely apologetic. “You’re very kind to let us look around. It’s such a big help to our investigation.”
“That’s all right,” Nick said. Strange, he thought, that she was keeping up the pretense. They both knew he was a suspect. He heard the rattling squawk of a crow circling overhead.
“I know you’re a very busy man.”
“You’re busy too. We’re all busy. I just want to do everything I can to help.” His mouth went dry, choking off his last couple of words, and he wondered if she’d picked up on that. He swallowed, wondered if she noticed that too.
“Thank you so much,” she said.
“Where’s your charming partner?”
“He’s busy on something else,” she said.
Nick noticed the gawky guy walking across the lawn to them, holding something aloft.
He went light headed.
The guy was holding a large pair of forceps, and as he drew closer Nick could see a small brown something gripped at the end of the forceps. When the tech showed it to Detective Rhimes, without saying a word, Nick saw that it was a cigarette butt.
Detective Rhimes nodded as the man dropped the cigarette butt into a paper evidence bag, then turned back to Nick. She went on speaking as if they hadn’t been interrupted.
Was Stadler smoking that night? Or had that been dropped there by one of the contractor’s guys, taking a cigarette break outside the house, knowing they weren’t allowed to smoke inside? He’d found some discarded Marlboro butts out there not so long ago, just before the loam was hydroseeded, picked them up with annoyance, made a mental note to say something to the contractor about the guys tossing their smokes around his lawn. Back when he had the luxury to be annoyed about such trivialities.
“I hope you don’t mind that we got started a little early,” Detective Rhimes said. “Your housekeeper refused to let my team in until you arrived, and I wanted to respect her wishes.”
Nick nodded. “That’s kind of you.” He noticed that the woman articulated her words too clearly, her enunciation almost exaggerated, hypercorrect. There was something formal and off-putting about her manner that contrasted jarringly with her shyness and reserve, a glimmering of uncertainty, a vein of sweetness. Nick prided himself on his ability to read people pretty well, but this woman he didn’t quite get. He didn’t know what to make of her. Yesterday he’d tried to charm her, but he knew that hadn’t worked.
“We’re going to need to get a set of your fingerprints,” she said.
“Sure. Of course.”
“Also, we’re going to need to take prints from everyone who lives in the house-the housekeeper, your children.”
“My children? Is that really necessary?”
“These are only what we call elimination prints.”
“My kids will freak out.”
“Oh, they might think it’s fun,” she said. A sweet smile. “Kids often find it a novelty.”
Nick shrugged. They entered the house, the high alert tone sounding quietly. The place different now: hushed, tense, like it was bracing itself for something. He heard the sound of running feet.
Julia.
“Daddy,” his daughter said, face creased with concern, “what’s going on?”
62
He sat down with the kids in the family room, the two of them on the couch that faced the enormous TV, Nick in the big side chair that Lucas normally staked out, which Nick thought of as his Archie Bunker chair. The Dad chair. He couldn’t remember when they’d all watched TV together last, but back when they did, Lucas always grabbed the Archie Bunker chair, to his silent annoyance.
On a trestle table next to the TV set Nick noticed the little shrine that Julia and Lucas had made to Barney: a collection of photographs of their beloved dog, his collar and tags. His favorite toys, including a bedraggled stuffed lamb-his own pet-that he slept with and carried everywhere in his slobbering mouth. There was a letter Julia had written to him in different colored markers, which began: “Barney-we miss you SO MUCH!!!” Julia had explained that the shrine was Cassie’s idea.
Lucas sat on the couch in huge baggy jeans, his legs splayed wide. The waistband of his boxer shorts was showing. He wore a black T-shirt with the word AMERIKAN in white letters on the front. Nick had no idea what that referred to. The laces on his Timberland boots were untied. He was wearing that rag on his head again. My own in-house, upper-middle-class, gated-community gangsta, Nick thought.
Lucas, staring off into the distance, said, “You gonna tell us what’s up with the five-oh?”
“The police, you mean.”
Lucas was looking out the bay window, watching the cops on the lawn.
“The police are here because of that guy who we think kept coming by and writing things inside our house,” Nick said.
“‘No Hiding Place,’” recited Julia.
“Right. All that. He was a man who had something wrong with his head.”
She said in a small voice, “Is he the man who killed Barney?”
“We’re not sure, but we think so.”
“Cassie’s dad,” Lucas said. “Andrew Stadler.”
“Right.” Cassie’s dad.
“He was fucked up,” Lucas said.
“Watch your mouth around your sister.”
“I’ve heard that word before, Dad,” said Julia.
“No doubt. I just don’t want either one of you using language like that.”
Lucas, smirking, shook his head with amused contempt.
“So this man, Andrew Stadler, he died a couple of weeks ago,” Nick went on, “and the police think he might have tried to come by our house the night he was killed, on his way to wherever he was going.”
“They think you did it,” Lucas said. A triumphant smile.
Nick’s insides seized. Maybe he had heard, that night when Eddie came over. Or did he just put two and two together?
“Hey!” said Julia, outraged.
“Actually, Luke, what they’re doing here is trying to trace his whereabouts.”
“Then how come they’re gathering evidence? I can see ’em out my window. They dug up some dirt from the lawn and put it in a little container thing, and they keep walking back and forth on the lawn like they’re scoping for something.”
Nick nodded, breathing in and out. They were gathering dirt? What did that mean? Had they found dirt on Stadler’s body? He remembered that Eddie had brushed Stadler’s shoes clean.
Could they have found dirt on Stadler’s body that connected him with the house? Could they even do something like that? This was the awful thing: Nick had no idea of what the police were actually capable of, how advanced their forensic science was, or how backward.
“Luke,” he said calmly, “they’re looking for anything that can tell them whether the guy came by here that night or not.” Nick knew he was treading water here. His kids were too bright. They’d watched too many TV shows and movies. They knew about cops and murders and suspects.
“Why do they care?” asked Julia.
“Simple,” he said. “They need to nail down what he did that night, see if he really was here instead of somewhere else, so they can figure out where he might have gone after that, when he was killed.”
“Wouldn’t that be on the cameras?” Lucas asked.
“Could be,” Nick said. “I don’t remember when the new security system was put in and when exactly the guy was killed.”
“I do,” Lucas said right back. “They put the cameras in the day before Stadler was killed.” How the hell did he know that, remember that?
“Well, if you’re right, then yes, they might find something on the cameras. I have no idea. Anyway, the police want to get your fingerprints while they’re here.”
“Cool,” said Lucas.
“How come? They don’t think we killed the man, right?” said Julia, looking worried.