Friends Like These(40)

“I hate cats,” I say. This is true. I do hate cats. But we both know the scratches aren’t from a cat. Could be fingers, or branches. Dammit. I’d been writing off this visit as just a box to check, nothing more. “You been in the woods over by the Hemlock place lately?”

The Hemlock place is the closest landmark to the accident scene. Everybody who grew up anywhere in a twenty-mile radius knows the house by name because every Halloween the old couple who used to live there gave out full-size candy bars. It wasn’t until years later that Mr. Hemlock got in trouble for putting his hands somewhere he wasn’t supposed to on one little vampire.

“Why would I be over there?” Luke asks, like I’m suggesting he might have been exchanging favors for a Milky Way. And notably not mentioning those other construction projects they’ve supposedly got nearby.

“I don’t know,” I say. “That’s why I’m asking.”

He looks past me again toward the car. Shakes his head. He knows I’m on a fishing expedition. Could be he’s also on the defensive because of The River. Surely those armchair detectives have come around asking both Gaffneys questions they don’t want to answer. Luke had only been fifteen at the time of Jane’s murder. The police checked into him anyway because he’d helped out a couple days at our house. But he’d had after-school detention the day of the murders.

“No,” he says finally, eyes squarely back on me. “I haven’t been near the Hemlock place.”

“Well, we’ve got an incident in the woods near there.”

“Incident?” Luke asks. “What does that mean?”

“An accident with a fatality,” I say. “We found something belonging to you near the scene.”

“Belonging to me?” He laughs. “What the fuck are you— nope. Doesn’t belong to me, whatever it is you supposedly found. No way. Because I haven’t been over there.”

“It’s an item of clothing,” I say, trying to stay vague, while dangling enough to keep him worried. Of course, all I’ve got is an Ace Construction hat that could belong to just about anybody. And a smudge of something that could theoretically be blood. But those scratches on Luke’s neck do lend a different sheen to things. And a little exaggeration never hurt. “It’s yours, Mr. Gaffney. We know that it is.”

Anger flashes across Luke’s face, but he does a decent job of reining it back in. He’s smart enough to know that losing it with a cop is not in his interest.

“Nope. Not mine. Wasn’t there.” He grips the door handle. “Now I think we’re done, unless maybe you want to help me get my eleven thousand fucking dollars back from those people. You ask me, that’s the real crime here.”

“I’d be happy to look into the money you’re owed. In fact, Mr. Cheung is with officers at his house right now, so inquiring wouldn’t be a problem,” I say, though the story of whatever is owed to Ace Construction is surely not that simple. My guess is there’s plenty of fault to go around.

“Hmm.” Luke grunts noncommittally. “Okay, what is it that you found?”

“A hat,” I say, knowing how this is going to play out. But I don’t have much choice. “An Ace Construction hat.”

Luke bursts out laughing, as I imagined he might. “You know how many of those fucking hats are floating around? We give them away at every job we work on. Plus, all our guys wear them.”

“Fair enough. We could clear the whole thing up if you’d come down to the station. We could take a quick DNA swab, get you ruled out completely.”

“Ha,” he says— less of a laugh than a statement. “You don’t have an actual warrant or anything like that, do you?”

Luke Gaffney knows to ask that question. He’s not stupid.

“You’re not under arrest, and, no, I don’t have a search warrant. But as you said, you’re not involved. So if you voluntarily— ”

“I’m not volunteering shit. Let me guess, you’d want to take some pictures of how my cat scratched me, too? And, bam, that’ll somehow prove that I’m the guy who did whatever the hell to whoever the hell. How stupid do you think I am?”

He’s right about the pictures— that is exactly what I’d hoped to do. Take pictures of those scratches that are suspicious as hell. Right after I call the ME and tell him to scrape extra careful under the victim’s fingernails.

“Then how about you tell me where you were last night,” I say. “I know your dad is out of town. If you can account for your whereabouts, I won’t have to bother either of you again.”

“My dad.” He shakes his head in disgust. “Your boss know you’re here?”

“My boss?” I laugh angrily. But this isn’t a good direction— neither is the way Luke is starting to get to me.

“Yeah, you know, Chief Seldon.”

“Chief Seldon wants me to find out what happened to the man we found dead in a car out by the Hemlock place.”

And that is true, provided the answers I find are the ones that Seldon is hoping for. Or at least aren’t the ones he really doesn’t want— like drugs, or robbery, or some other cause rooted in his inability to keep a handle on crime in Kaaterskill.

Luke Gaffney rolls his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “Sure he does.”