Part 15 (2/2)

The doghouse, the thorn bushes and the oak tree, the ladder propped against the lip of the roof. There's the small white dog, Houdini, weaving anxiously around the legs of the ladder, and there's big J. T. Toussaint, up there fixing s.h.i.+ngles, bent to his task in the same brown work pants and black boots. He looks up at the sound of the gravel crunch on the driveway, and I catch a flash of impression, a reclusive animal surprised in his lair by the arrival of the hunters.

I'm out of the car first, straightening up and tugging down the hem of my suit coat, one hand shading my eyes against the winter sun, the other hand raised, flat palmed in greeting.

”Good morning, Mr. Toussaint,” I call. ”I have just a couple more questions for you.”

”What?” he says. He comes up from his crouch, finds his balance, and stands full height on the roof, the sun right behind him and all around him, casting him in a weird pale gray halo. The other doors slam behind me, McGully and Culverson stepping out of the vehicle, and Toussaint flinches, retreats a step upward on the roof, stumbles.

He raises his hands to steady himself, and I hear McGully shout, ”Gun!” and I turn my head back and say, ”What-no,” because it's not, ”it's just a caulking gun!”

But McGully and Culverson have their weapons raised, service-issue SIG Sauer P229s. ”Freeze, a.s.shole,” McGully shouts, but Toussaint can't freeze, his boots have lost their purchase on the s.h.i.+ngled slope, he's scrabbling, hands in motion, eyes wide, McGully still shouting-and I'm shouting, too, ”No, no, don't-no,” whipping my head back and forth, because I don't want him dead. I want to know the story.

Toussaint turns on his heel, tries to escape toward the spine of the roof; McGully fires his gun, a sliver of brick spits off the side of the chimney, and Toussaint turns and falls off the house and down onto the lawn.

”Your house smells like dog s.h.i.+t.”

”Let's focus on what's material, Detective McGully.”

”Okay. It's true, though, isn't it? Stinks in here.”

”Detective, come on.”

J. T. Toussaint starts to say something, or maybe he's just moaning, and McGully tells him to shut up, and he shuts up. He's on the living-room floor, giant body p.r.o.ne on the dirty carpet, face buried in the rug, bleeding from his forehead where he caught it on the roof on the way down. McGully is sitting on his back, smoking a cigar. Detective Culverson is over by the mantel, I'm pacing, everyone's waiting, it's my show.

”Okay. Let's-let's just chat,” I say, and then my body is wracked by a long s.h.i.+ver, shaking off the last of the adrenaline high, the rush of the gunshots, of hurtling forward, charging through the muddy snow.

Calm, Palace. Easy.

”Mr. Toussaint, it seems as if the last time we spoke, you omitted a few details about your relations.h.i.+p with Peter Zell.”

”Yeah,” says McGully curtly, s.h.i.+fting so that his full weight digs into the small of Toussaint's back. ”a.s.shole.”

”Detective?” I murmur, trying to suggest take it easy without saying it in front of the suspect. He rolls his eyes at me.

”So we were getting high,” says Toussaint. ”Okay? We were getting f.u.c.ked up. Me and Petey, we got high a few times.”

”A few times,” I say.

”Yeah. Okay?”

I nod, slowly. ”And why did you lie to me, J. T.?”

”Why did he lie to you?” McGully asks, staring at me. ”Because you're a policeman, you dodo.”

Culverson makes an amused noise from his place over by the mantel. I wish I were alone with J. T., in a room, just he and I, and he could tell me the story. Just two people talking.

Toussaint looks up at me, his body immobile under McGully's weight. ”You come around here, you think the guy got killed.”

”I said he was a suicide.”

”Yeah, well, that was you lying,” he says. ”No one is investigating suicides. Not now they're not.”

Culverson makes his amused noise again, and I look at him, at his wry face: it's a good point. McGully taps out a fat t.u.r.d of cigar ash on the suspect's rug.

Toussaint ignores them both, keeps his eyes on me, keeps talking. ”You come here looking for a killer, and I tell you that Pete and me were taking f.u.c.king pain pills, you're going to conclude that I'm the guy who killed him. Right?”

”Not necessarily.”

I'm thinking, pills. Popping pills. Small colorful capsules, waxy coating coming off in a sweaty palm. Trying to imagine it, my insurance man, the squalid details of abuse and addiction.

”J. T.,” I start.

”It doesn't matter,” he says. ”I'm dead now either way. I'm done.”

”Yup,” says McGully mirthfully, and I will him to shut up.

Because I believe Toussaint. I do. There's a part of me that really does believe him. He lied to me for the same reason that Victor France spent his precious hours snooping around Manchester Road to get me the information I needed-because nowadays every charge is serious. Every sentence is a death sentence. If he had explained his real relations.h.i.+p with Peter Zell, he would have gone to prison and not come out. But there's still no reason to a.s.sume that he killed him.

”McGully. Let him up.”

”What?” says McGully sharply. ”Absolutely not.”

We both look to Culverson instinctively; we're all the same rank, but he's the grown-up in the room. Culverson nods minutely. McGully glowers, comes up out of his squat like a gorilla rising from the jungle floor, and steps pointedly on Toussaint's fingers on his way to the ratty sofa. Toussaint struggles to his knees, and Culverson murmurs, ”That's far enough,” so I get down on my knees, too, so I can look into his eyes, and I give my voice a coaxing, sweet gentleness, somewhere in the vocal range of my mother.

”Tell me what else.”

Long silence. ”He's-” starts McGully, and I hold up one hand, eyes still on the suspect, and McGully shuts up.

”Please, sir,” I say softly. ”I just want to know the truth, Mr. Toussaint.

”I didn't kill him.”

”I know that,” and I mean it. In this instant, looking into his eyes, I don't believe that he did kill him. ”I just want to know the truth. You said pills. Where did you get the pills?”

”I didn't get them.” Toussaint looks at me, bewildered. ”Peter brought 'em over.”

”What?”

”G.o.d's truth,” he says, for he can see my skepticism. We're down there on the floor, kneeling across from each other like two religious fanatics, a pair of penitents.

”Dead serious,” says Toussaint. ”Guy shows up on my doorstep with two pill bottles, MS Contins, sixty milligrams a pill, a hundred pills in each bottle. He says he'd like to ingest the drugs in a safe and effective manner.”

”That's what he said?” snorts McGully, settled in the easy chair, his sidearm trained on Toussaint.

”Yes.”

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