Killer Move - Michael Marshall [91]
I couldn’t help glancing at Hazel as I said this. For almost all the time I’d been in Sarasota, she had been defined by her continued existence after the death of the man she’d loved. As of very recently, that was clearly no longer the case. I realized that this made her position propped against the wall look more peaceful than it might have done otherwise.
“Yes,” the man said irritably, “I killed her. But it was an accident. I want you to know that.”
I stared at him, not knowing how much of this to believe, if any. “Okay.”
“Got no reason to lie to you,” he said. “So. The others in the picture?”
“No idea who the younger guy next to Wilkins is,” I said. “But on the left, the man with the blonde, that’s . . . I think that’s Peter Grant. I’m pretty sure. He owns Shore Realty. Where I work. And . . . Christ, okay, yeah, the couple on the other side. I know them, too.”
“Tony and Marie Thompson.”
“What is this picture? Why have you got it?”
The man stowed it back in his pocket. “Funny thing,” he said, though all levity in his manner had disappeared. He looked tired, and pained, and not like a man for whom things were going well. “Reason I picked you up is you’d just come from seeing the Thompsons. I figured you might be able to help me pay them a visit. We’ll work on that. But now I’m thinking we may have a lot more in common than I realized.”
“What do you mean?”
He reached a hand up to the neckline of his T-shirt and pulled down the front. There, scrawled onto the top of his chest in letters that looked more like a series of knife slashes, was an old, amateur-looking tattoo. A single word: MODIFIED.
My reaction must have been plain to see. He grunted, let the material flip back up again.
“Woke up one morning to find that,” he said. He fetched the bottle of water, handed it to me. “I’d been drugged, I guess. Couldn’t remember anything about getting home the night before. I had bruises up my sides, scratches on my arms that looked like they’d been done by someone’s fingernails. Long nails, like a woman’s. I took a shower, put some peroxide on my chest, tried to get my head straight. Half an hour later, a police car arrived. You know a cop called Barclay? He still around?”
“Yes,” I said. “He’s the sheriff.”
“Figures. He was a deputy back then. He arrested me.”
“What for?”
“I said to them—look what’s happened here, guys. Someone’s tattooed a word on me. They were not interested. They didn’t care when I said I’d seen the word before a few times in the previous weeks. Barclay accused me of starting up an insanity defense. Said I’d had the ink done myself. That was so ridiculous that I got frustrated and took a swing at him, and soon after that I was handcuffed in the back of the cruiser. Thing is, I’d met the guy before, and I knew he was a good cop and a decent guy. He just wasn’t listening that day.”
“What did they arrest you for?”
The man went back to the wall, sat down. He picked up my pack of cigarettes, took one. “You mind?”
I shook my head. I took a drink of water as I watched him light the cigarette.
He frowned, looked at the tip. “Haven’t done that in a long time,” he said. “Not sure I like it anymore.”
“For what?” I asked him again doggedly. “Why were you being arrested?”
He shook his head. “Been and done and not your business. I want to hear what’s been happening to you.”
So I told him. I didn’t see any reason not to. I could have got to my feet and run, I guess. I wasn’t tied up. I might have been able to find my way out of the building. He didn’t seem to bear me huge ill will, and so he might not have picked up his gun and shot me.
But, you know, he might have.
Added to which, this was a man who might know something about what had been going on in my life. He’d already admitted he’d killed the woman in the corner, and so it seemed unlikely he was a cop. It didn’t make it impossible—but it didn’t make a whole lot of difference anyway. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I had to keep reminding myself of this,