Claire DeWitt And The City Of The Dead Part 6

"I did the pool in his building a few times," Andray said. "Pool place. They sent me to him."

I'd seen on his sheet that last year Andray had hooked up with a nonprofit called Southern Defense. They sent him to an employer called Supirior Pools, Inc.- sic-the pool place in question. He did about ten jobs for them before he stopped showing up.

"Yet your prints were all over the apartment," I said.

"I went in sometimes," Andray said. He seemed insulted that I would think otherwise. "You know, use the bathroom, have a drink. He all right. He give me a drink, something to eat, stuff like that."

"What'd you drink?" I asked.

"Water," he said, without skipping a beat.

"What'd you eat?"

"Sandwich."

"What kind?"

He shrugged.

"Huh," I said. "So what'd you guys talk about?"

Andray shrugged again. "s.h.i.t."

"Sorry," I said, leaning forward. "I should have been more specific. What did you talk about? When he was giving you water and mystery sandwiches, what did you talk about?"

Andray shrugged again. "Just talked."

"Sorry," I said, leaning back. "My fault. I don't think I'm making myself clear. See, I think you probably weren't close personal friends with Vic Willing. I think you probably killed Vic Willing, and I think at the very least you looted his house. So I'm giving you the chance to defend the extremely unlikely possibility that you and Vic Willing actually had a relationship by explaining to me what the basis of that relationship was by telling me what you talked about when you talked to Vic Willing."

Andray looked at me.

"Birds," he said defensively. The lines on his face deepened, and he scowled. "We talked about birds."

"Birds?" I said.

"Yeah," Andray said. "He fed these birds. Made a big f.u.c.king mess on the terrace. Seeds everywhere and bird s.h.i.t and s.h.i.t like that. He pay me extra to clean it up for him when I did the pool. I thought birds were, I don't know, like rats. Dirty. No good. But, you know. Once you watch them they're like-I don't know. They're cool. They're just, you know-" He shrugged.

"Birds?" I suggested.

"Yeah," Andray said. "Just birds. He showed 'em to me, you know, all the different kinds and stuff"

"Vic did?" I said skeptically. "Vic told you about the different kinds of birds?"

"Look," Andray said angrily, reaching into his back pocket. "He gave me this. A book. To show me the different kinds "

He handed me a small paperback book. With a chill I saw the familiar blackbird on the cover of the slim paperback.

Detection, by Jacques Silette. On the cover of this edition, the U.K. paperback, was a blackbird in flight.

"The mystery is not solved by the use of fingerprints or suspects or the identification of weapons," Silette wrote. "These things serve only to trigger the detective's memory. The detective and the client, the victim and the criminal-all already know the solution to the mystery.

"They need only to remember it, and recognize it when it appears."

14.

I WENT OUT to breakfast at the Clover Grill the next morning. Over eggs and grits I looked over Andray's file again. He'd shut down after showing me his copy of Detection and I'd left soon after.

I didn't know where he'd gotten that book. I doubted Vic Willing gave it to him to show him the different kinds of birds, since it was not, in fact, about birds.

Then how had he gotten it? And why did he carry it in his pocket? When I'd asked him he'd gone back to monosyllabic non-responses. I dunno. Nothin'. No reason.

Detection, I wrote in my file. Andray. Why?

I went back to his record. He'd been removed from one foster home for suspected s.e.xual abuse by the foster father and another for suspicion of neglect by the foster mother. After that he'd been ripe for picking by the gangs that ruled New Orleans.

In other cities there were programs and missions and social workers just waiting for a malleable lump of humanity like Andray to fall into their lap. They'd train him to be obedient to a boss and a wife instead of a pimp or a gang leader. That was objectionable on its own terms, but at least he'd have a chance. But there weren't enough of those programs in New Orleans in any case, and most of the few that had existed had closed since the storm. If he could find a program, he'd have to compete for a spot with twenty other kids, all of them probably a better risk than he was.

And besides, I was pretty sure early death was a job benefit for Andray.

When I came back from breakfast Mick Pendell was waiting in the lobby of my hotel for me. He sat stiffly on a rigid high-backed chair, flipping through Detective's Quarterly. He looked like he was waiting to see a doctor about an unusual lump.

I hadn't seen Mick in nearly ten years. I recognized his tattoos before I recognized his face, especially the little star near his eye on his left temple. I felt a rush of something I couldn't name-nostalgia, maybe, maybe happiness.

I put a lid on it.

"Well, gee," I said coldly. "It's my lucky f.u.c.king day."

Mick heard my voice and jumped up. He looked good. He'd gone a little gray around the edges but he carried it well. He wore an old black sweater over a T-shirt, and black jeans, all of it faded and rumpled and not too clean. He had his sweater pushed up, and I saw that his arms were now completely covered in traditional j.a.panese tattoos: water, flowers, black swirls. On his knuckles were rune marks and around his wrists were words: HATE on the left and LOVE on the right.

If you ask me, if you can't remember which is which, maybe you ought to stay home.

"But unfortunately," I said, "you didn't make an appointment. So. You know. Bye."

Mick laughed as if I were joking.

"Claire," he said, smiling wide, his voice deep and aged. "Claire. Oh my G.o.d. I am so happy to see you."

I didn't need to be a private d.i.c.k to know he was lying. No one has ever been happy to see me. Not unless I owed them money. Even that didn't always fly.

I looked at him.

"I'm sorry I couldn't see you," Mick said, putting his hands in and out of his pockets. "I'm sorry about the appointment thing. I just-"

"You just had better things to do," I finished for him. "As do I."

I turned to walk through the courtyard to my room. Mick followed.

"It's just-" he began.

I walked faster. He caught up to me.

"It's just-" he said again.

We'd reached my room. I took out my key and opened the door.

"Sorry," I said. "I would invite you. It's just that, you know, I want you to go away." I waved my fingers. "Go."

"Claire," Mick said, trying to catch my eye. "Claire. I'm sorry about the appointment thing."

"No, you're not," I said. "You came here because you want something. And whatever it is, you're not getting it. So you can go now."

"Oh, come ON!" Mick cried, maneuvering between me and the door. "I was in with a student! I-"

"You're lying," I said. "Next you're going to tell me you value our friendship and that you think of me often and you're so sorry we lost touch and then you're going to ask for whatever it was you were going to ask me for. So you might as well just ask and get it over with."

"I do value-" he began.

"Look at the time!" I cried, looking at my watchless wrist. "It's all gone. There's none left."

Mick sighed. "Yeah, okay," he said, dropping his fake smile. "Listen. I do need your help."

"Oh-h-h," I said slowly. "You need my help. What a f.u.c.king surprise. I never would have guessed. I am totally f.u.c.king-"

"Okay," he said softly. "Okay."

We didn't say anything for another long minute. We each shivered.

"I'm cold," Mick said. "Come on." I looked at him again. Now that he wasn't trying so hard I saw that he was tired. He looked older than I'd expected him to be. If I was thirty-five that made him forty-ish. He looked ten years older than that.

I opened the door and didn't stop Mick from coming in behind me. There was a heater along the baseboard of one wall and I cranked it up. I put down my bag and took off my coat and sat on the bed, curling my feet under me. From the ashtray on the dresser I took half a leftover joint and lit it up, inhaling deeply.

Mick sat on the end of the bed. He took the joint when I pa.s.sed it to him and smoked a little before handing it back to me.

"I heard you went to see Andray Fairview in OPP yesterday," he said.

I blinked. Out of all the things Mick had possibly wanted, I hadn't expected anything to do with Vic or Andray.

"That was fast," I said.

"I'm in this group," Mick explained, as if he knew how ridiculous it was. "Southern Defense. We provide legal services to people who otherwise would get none. People like Andray."

"You volunteer?" I said. "Mick, that's f.u.c.king incredible of you. You deserve a f.u.c.king medal. Don't for a minute think that I'm not impressed, because-"

"Believe it or not, Claire, I'm not trying to impress you," he said bitterly. "I-"

"I choose not to believe it," I said. "But what do you do? Don't they get public defenders?"

Mick lay back on the bed and smoked a little more weed. He sighed again. "Of course they get one on paper," he began.

"Stop sighing," I said. "It's annoying."

He took another big inhale but this time stifled the sigh and exhaled silently. "Yeah. So they get a defender on paper, but there aren't really any here. So this group, Southern Defense, they're supposed to help by giving them defenders. But they don't have enough defenders either. They've got fourteen but they're all totally overextended. So they recruited people like me, criminologists-"

"Professors of criminology," I corrected him. Mick used to be a PI but gave it up to teach and donate his time to nonprofits like this. I hadn't forgiven him for it yet, and I didn't plan on doing so anytime soon. Teaching was a waste. School was the worst possible place to learn anything, or so it seemed to me from my brief time there. If he really wanted to help people he ought to be out there solving mysteries.

"Whatever," he said, muting another a sigh and rolling his eyes. "There's a bunch of us who are like the second string, who can't serve in court but can give advice and hook people up with resources or whatever. So I was working with Andray on this bulls.h.i.t charge he's in there for now, and then today he mentions to me that a crazy white lady came to accuse him of murder. And, well-"

"And I'm still the first crazy white lady you think of," I finished for him. "That is practically f.u.c.king moving, Mick. Really. It's almost touching."

Mick sat up.

"Listen," he said. "Claire. Andray Fairview did not kill Vic Willing."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"I know him," Mick insisted. "He did not kill Vic Willing."

He sounded anxious. He hoped he was telling the truth, but he was far from sure.

It doesn't matter what people want to hear. It doesn't matter if people like you. It doesn't matter if the whole world thinks you're crazy. It doesn't matter whose heart you break. What matters is the truth.

I lay back on the bed and looked at the ceiling. Mick lay next to me and tried to catch my eye. We lay next to each other and pa.s.sed the joint back and forth. A carriage trotted down Frenchman Street. Two drunks argued as they walked past the hotel, slurred words indecipherable.

"Are you going to tell the cops?" Mick asked after a while.

"No," I said. "I won't do anything until I'm sure he did it. Even then, I'll probably leave it up to the client."

"He's a good kid," Mick said. "If you get to know him, you'll like him."

"I don't like anyone," I said. "Especially kids. And especially good ones."

"He's different," Mick said.

"No one's different," I said. "Except worse. That kind of different."

He rolled over onto his side and looked at me. He was starting to wrinkle around his temples, lines spreading out through his tattoo. But he still looked good. I didn't say anything.

"You know me," Mick said finally. "Give him a chance, okay?"

I sat up on the bed and pretended to be interested in my fingernails and didn't say anything.