“He was good and gone, no helping him. I checked, okay? But I could tell. Blood on him, like he’d got knocked around or hit in the street. And the color of his skin…”
I knew it well.
“It was dark out,” Cam continued. “No one around. I… I can’t have that sort of thing. The tenants freak out at the least little thing.”
“Like the landlordmurderingsomeone?” I cried.
Cam’s eyes were wild. “I swear, I swear—”
“Okay,” Aycock broke in. “So you did what, then?”
“The curtains,” Cam said, licking his lips. “I’d yanked ’em down already, see? So I could look around the place. I came up and got ’em, wrapped him up. Gentle, you know? And then I… took him where I knew she’d gone to live. He’d be found fast there, right?”
He searched my face, then Aycock’s, Alex’s. No one gave him any kind of high-five.
“So he’d beseento,” Cam said. “Properly.” Now when he looked down at me, he was a benevolent figure gazing down from a stained-glass church window. “I haveutmostrespect for the dead.”
“Tookhim,” I said. I had a bad taste at the back of my throat. “Took him to the pubhow?”
Aycock shot me another look, then turned again to Cam. “Well? How did you transport the body?”
Cam blinked at the bad-green carpet. “I-I didn’t—I-I could only…” he stammered. “I put him in the trunk of my car.”
37
I sat, stunned, listening to Cam prattle on, making excuses for himself until he ran out of useful information and we were all sick of him. Detective Aycock finally cautioned him, officially, for concealing a body and a few other things, and radioed for some colleagues waiting downstairs to come take Cam away, in handcuffs.
I couldn’t even enjoy that. When the cops appeared in the doorway, their sidearms at their waists, I froze.
They collected Cam, who was finally sapped of fight and his dirtbag righteousness, and escorted him out. Aycock called down the stairs after them, “Hey, fellas? See if that gentleman might like to ride in the trunk.”
Aycock turned back in the room and sighed.
“They won’t really…” I said.
He shot me a look. It wasn’t just the landlord Aycock was tired of.
“What happens next?” Alex asked.
“We’ll get some crime scene people here,” he said, rubbing at his forehead. “Again. But the blood evidence we found in McPhee’s alley… I don’t think this changes anything. The evidence supports the scenario that Mr. Hartnett was killed in the alley next to the pub. His bodydoes show signs of having been moved, lividity…” He looked at us. “Discoloration caused by blood pooling at the lowest point of the body at the time of—”
“Iknow,” I said. “Even if I don’t watch theCSIs, okay?”
“He was killed there in your alley,” Aycock said patiently. “Then dumped here, by someone who presumably knew he lived here. Then…” He gestured toward the doorway, toward Cam and everything he’d told us.
“And then dumped back at McPhee’s?” I said. “Is there a car-service app for corpses I don’t know about? Why would anyone do that?”
“You have once again asked the very question on the tip of my tongue,” Aycock said. “But that’s for me to figure out, not you. You get me? Now, let me make sure I’ve got this timeline worked out.” He pulled out a chair and motioned Alex into it. “Joseph Hartnett left this apartment and was not seen or heard from by you—”
“He went to his sister’s house,” I said. “He was at her house all week—”
“Painting a nursery, yes,” Aycock said. “And giving you the silent treatment. Then he shows up at your pub, Mr. McPhee, and you…? Refused him service, fair to say?”
“He didn’t ask for service,” Alex said.
“Why not let your daughter, er… why not let him talk to Miss Devine?”
“She didn’t want to see him. She said—”
