Part 13 (1/2)
”You don't know what it's been like,” said Zack, sniffing. I handed him another hankie. ”Ever since you told me in your office, I've been trying to act normal on the outside, but inside I was losing my mind. I felt like some kind of monster, and I kept imagining her lying there in the water.”
”Shhh. Try not to think about it anymore. All you have to do now is explain to the police-”
”No!” He sprang up from the bench. ”No, I can't! And you can't tell them either.”
”But Zack, we have to! The more they know about what happened that night, the better. You can tell them what time you saw her alive, and if you saw anyone else in the area.”
He shook his head violently. ”I didn't see anybody, and I don't know what time it was. I can't tell them anything they don't already know. Don't ask me to!”
He strode to the railing and gripped it with both hands. I followed, trying to sound calm and persuasive, and get this settled while we were still alone. No one else had come out from the lodge, and now I prayed they wouldn't.
”Zack, the police will understand what you did. They won't blame you. You can tell them you didn't even know how she was killed-”
”But now I do know, don't you see?”
”That's only because I told you! You can skip that part, just tell them you've decided to come forward with your story about seeing Mercedes alive.”
”If I did that, they'd question me over and over, and I wouldn't be able to pretend I don't know about her getting hit with a rock.”
I looked at his profile, young and tear-stained, and realized with dismay that in my rush to rea.s.sure Zack, I'd stolen his innocence. If he had gone straight to the police with his story, not knowing how Mercedes really died, his ignorance would have been obvious and unshakable. But now...
”I'll go with you,” I told him. ”I'll convince them that you didn't know until I told you. The police are reasonable people. Lieutenant Graham will listen.”
”Oh, right,” he said hotly. ”Like you would know. Have you ever been interrogated?”
”No, but-”
”Well, I have. They just pound away at you till you say what they want to hear. The cops believe what they want to believe, and the prosecutors believe the cops. They'd take one look at my record and lock me up.”
”Your record?” I asked uneasily. ”What's on your record, Zack?”
His voice dropped to a sullen mutter, and I had to strain to hear him. ”I was driving some friends, back in St. Louis. I was just driving! I thought they bought this booze, but they stole it, and beat up the liquor store guy. I was in for five months and it felt like a hundred years. Somebody like you, you can't even imagine what it's like in there. Especially for guys like me.”
I didn't have to ask what kind of guys he meant: young and good-looking, and nowhere near tough enough to make a true criminal back off. I pictured a man like Skull alone all night in a cell with this youngster, and shuddered.
”Carnegie, please.” Zack turned to face me. ”I came out to Seattle to get my act together. n.o.body here knows about me being in jail. I got my web business going, and now that I know that I didn't kill Mercedes, I really do get to start over. I'll never touch anybody again, I swear, and I'll never drink like that again. Please. You saved my life. Don't take it away again, please. I'm, like, begging you.”
”All right, Zack. All right.”
He clutched my hand. There was hope in his eyes, hope after long days and nights of despair. ”You promise you won't tell the cops? Or anyone, ever?”
”I promise.”
”Oh, Carnegie.”
Zack embraced me, and this time I welcomed it. I had some qualms about keeping his secret, but they were swept away in the exhilaration of delivering him from his tormented guilt. And when he began to kiss me, well, it was a highly emotional moment. Anyone would have kissed him back. And besides, I was chilled to the bone by that time, and it felt good to get wrapped up in his arms. It was only reasonable.
Well, all right. So it wasn't reasonable. I really had no business standing out in the middle of a brightly lit pavilion smooching with a handsome guy some years my junior-a fact which occurred to me instantly and with compelling force when Aaron Gold tapped me on the shoulder.
I was too flabbergasted to speak. Unhappily, Zack wasn't.
”Hey, Aaron, my man!” Zack greeted his friend with a nervous grin. To me, Zack was still the picture of restored innocence, but to Aaron he must have merely looked smug. ”We didn't see you coming!”
”Obviously.” Aaron's voice was calm enough, but he had to step close to be heard over the Falls, and in the harsh light of the pavilion I could see a vein jumping at his temple. I knew him well enough to know he was furious, and trying not to show it. ”Carnegie, the party's breaking up. I came out to tell you.”
”Thanks.” The word caught in my throat. How could I possibly explain the scene he had just witnessed, without betraying Zack? I settled for a feeble smile. ”We were just going to-”
”Save it,” he snapped. ”I can guess what you were just going to do. Good night.”
”Will... will I see you in the morning?”
”Oh, right, our breakfast date.” Aaron glared at Zack, then at me. ”I think I'll pa.s.s.”
”But-”
But Aaron was already striding off into the fog. Instead of returning to the lodge, he headed out to the far end of the parking lot where he'd left his yellow Bug. I'd seen it there when I parked my tin can of a rental car.
”d.a.m.n,” I groaned. ”d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, dammit.”
”Carnegie?” Zack looked blank at first, then the light dawned. ”Oh, I get it. Aaron's, like, mad about us being here together.”
”Aaron is, like, royally p.i.s.sed off,” I said. ”And now he's not going to help me figure this out.”
”Figure what out?”
”The murder,” I told him. ”Because if you didn't kill Mercedes, then who did?”
Chapter Eighteen.
I SLEEP NAKED SLEEP NAKED. EVEN AS A KID I I FELT STRANGLED BY PAJAMAS FELT STRANGLED BY PAJAMAS, and as an adult I go without, keeping a big fuzzy robe on a chair by the bed in winter. So when Aaron knocked on my door early Sat.u.r.day morning, I threw off my flannel sheets, threw on the robe, and rushed through the kitchen to let him in, grateful that he'd relented and eager to explain away, somehow, the awkwardness of the night before.
Except it wasn't Aaron. It was Zack, standing on my doorstep with a huge grocery bag and a carrier tray of takeout espresso cups. He was still in his cords and green sweater from the party, and clearly still riding high on the news I'd given him. Even in the half-dark of a November morning, Zack was radiant with happiness.
”I brought you breakfast,” he announced, ”since Aaron cancelled on you. I didn't know what kind of coffee you drink, so I got, like, four different ones.”
I should have sent him away. I knew that. But the aroma of coffee, life-giving coffee, rose up through the chilly air and addled my brain. I opened my mouth to tell him ”Thanks anyway, but-” and heard myself saying, ”Is one of those a double latte?”
Zack radiated even brighter. ”Yeah! Right here-oops!”
As he proffered the tray, the grocery bag slipped from his grasp and spilled its contents at my bare feet. I rescued the coffee and backed into the kitchen, while he gathered up his treasures and piled them on the table: a half-gallon of orange juice, a cardboard supermarket box holding a dozen syrupy cinnamon rolls the size of my head, a baton of somewhat dented French bread, a big tub of cream cheese with chives, an even bigger jar of orange marmalade, and, retrieved from where it had rolled up against the stove, an entire pineapple.
Zack frowned uncertainly at the pineapple, then set it on the table, where it rolled again and knocked over the marmalade. ”Do you, like, eat fruit for breakfast?”
”All the time,” I said, hiding a smile in my latte. How many men, far more mature than Zack, turned into clueless adolescents in the supermarket? ”But there's enough here to feed me and everyone I know!”
”I guess I got carried away.” He gazed at me earnestly. ”But I just wanted to do something for you. I mean, I want to help you figure out about Mercedes, too. I couldn't really think straight last night.”