Locust Lane(38)

“Hey!”

A man had appeared on the house’s elevated deck. Just keep moving and act casual, she thought as she grabbed the wheelbarrow’s handles.

“Who is that?”

The wheelbarrow banged into the fence, causing the whole thing to wobble unpromisingly. She climbed aboard, achieving less altitude than she’d hoped. Luckily, she’d climbed fences under duress in her life. Between the unexpected wife and freedom stands … chain link. She grabbed on to two of the pointed planks and slotted her right foot between two others. She hoisted herself with all her might. She’d hoped to pause gracefully at the summit, but her momentum was greater than she’d anticipated. Suddenly, she was plummeting ass-first into Michel’s yard. Her forearm scraped something sharp on the way down, though her contact with the planet was cushioned by damp earth and dead leaf.

Should have just used the fucking trampoline, she thought as she struggled to her feet. Michel’s yard was smaller than his neighbor’s, as was his house. There were no spotlights here. At the kitchen door, she looked through the window. A light burned above the stove, another down the hall. She knocked, then knocked more loudly. As she did, she noticed that her arm was bleeding pretty badly.

Michel appeared in the hallway. He did not look happy. It wasn’t until he’d almost reached the door that he saw it was her. He didn’t look much happier. For a moment, it seemed as if he wasn’t going to open it. So she held up her arm, showing him her wound.

“Little help here,” she said.





MICHEL


He almost didn’t answer the back door. Journalists had already come twice to the front. They were polite, he was polite. They wanted a comment. They said it would be anonymous—they didn’t name minors. And he almost gave them what they wanted, sat them down and made them understand that this was a terrible mistake. His son would never hurt anyone. But the lawyer had told him to say nothing and so he simply requested that they leave. There had been calls as well, although at least these came on the house phone, which he was able to unplug.

He was tempted to seek sanctuary at the restaurant. But they would only follow him. It might be a while before he went there again. He was starting to understand that closing Papillon was not going to be the temporary matter he’d believed earlier in the day. Watching the police search his house had made it clear how quickly his old life was slipping away. They’d arrived a few minutes after he got back from the station. He’d just finished speaking on the phone with the lawyer, who’d warned him that this was coming. Two uniformed officers and Procopio arrived; they had permission from a judge. Michel watched them from the kitchen chair to which he’d been confined. They looked in every corner and cabinet and closet and cavity. They took Christopher’s and Michel’s computers; they bagged his son’s toothbrush and the sheets from his bed and the clothes scattered around his bedroom floor. Outside, they searched the garbage and recycling cans. The one thing they didn’t take was Michel’s cell phone. The lawyer had told him to hide it and tell them it was lost—he’d get it stricken from the warrant before they could come back for it. He’d be needing that so they could speak.

His name was David Cantor. He arrived soon after they left. He’d dropped everything and driven straight out from Boston following their initial call. He wanted to touch base with Michel before seeing Christopher at the station. He was a tall man with thick eyebrows and large hands. He looked like a young Elliott Gould. His voice was soft, but it carried authority. Michel liked him immediately.

“So, you’re from Lebanon?” he asked after Michel handed him his coffee.

“I was a boy there. But I was educated in Paris and worked there for a time before coming to America.”

“Are you a Muslim, Michel?”

“I’m Catholic. I was raised Maronite. Do you know about them?”

“Yes.”

Michel was impressed. Most didn’t.

“Have you been to Lebanon?”

“No. I got pretty close, though.”

“Israel?”

“I lived there for a while before law school. You should know—I served in the IDF for a year.”

“Don’t be worried. That makes us allies.”

“So. No problems?”

“Between our nations or the two of us?”

“Let’s try to leave the homelands out of this.”

“David, we’re both Americans.”

Cantor pointed at him with his pen.

“Right answer.” He took a legal pad from his bag. “So. In your own words, in your own time.”

Michel told him what he knew. Christopher’s late arrival home, his stricken silence, his refusal to tell him about being at the Bondurant house. He told him what his son had said during the two interviews, here and at the station. Cantor nodded neutrally throughout the account, although he did appear interested to hear that Jack Parrish had been present at the house.

“Oliver Parrish’s son?”

“Yes. You know the father?”

“Like Tokyo knew Godzilla. What’s Jack like?”

“He’s Christopher’s best friend.”

Cantor picked up on the disapproving note in his voice.

“And?”

“I don’t like him.”