Busted (21 page)

He tried to take a step towards his door, but the world spun around and he nearly tripped over the cuffs of the too-big sweats he was wearing. He caught the wall as a wave of vertigo threatened to pitch him onto the ground.

“Sorry,” Joe said, sounding a little chagrined. “I’m kind of wobbly.” There was an itch growing in the back of his head, but he couldn’t

“That’s fine, sir,” said the maintenance man. He smiled again, and it must’ve been a trick of the light but the smile seemed to stretch past the man’s ears like some sort of Cheshire Cat grin. “Here, let me help you,” he said, taking Joe’s arm and guiding him to door.

When Joe touched his key to the lock a small spark arced across with a small snap. It made Joe’s fingers tingle and seemed to burn off the fog in his head. That’s when the accent clicked. The maintenance man sounded like Chris. Not exactly, but the flat tones and measured cadence were similar. More than that, almost everything he said was wrong, in a way he couldn’t quite put a finger on, but together it was more than enough to make Joe’s jaw clench, and his fury roared back stronger than ever.

“Y’know, I just don’t have time for this right now,” Joe said.

“But sir—”

“But nothing. This is a bad time, I don’t care, and you can fucking well
wait.
” And with that Joe stormed through hs door and slammed it shut behind him. The harlequin mask that hung on its back swung on its hook. The scraping of the metal mask against the back of the door sounded like rough laughter.

“Oh, shut up,” Joe said to it.

So
, had a fun weekend?" Steve was munching on the last chocolate chocolate chip muffin as he watched the steam rise off his coffee. At least he presumed it was steam. There was always the possibility that the Styrofoam was smoking as the coffee ate away at it.

"Don't even start," Chris growled. He still felt like hell. Toby hadn't made it any better – he'd spent all of Sunday telling Chris about how his Uncle Joe taught him how to play soccer, and their fierce battle for Candyland, and how he made the monster under the bed go away. Chris had caught himself snapping more than once.

"I can't believe his goddamn nerve. He took my favorite t-shirt and left me with his laundry!" Chris gave his coffee a savage stir, nearly punching through the bottom of the flimsy cup.

"Well, it's not like it fits you," Steve said mildly. "You got it in high school, back when people still cared about Metallica."

"It was a concert t-shirt. And he just went through my drawers and took it. He slept in my house, with my kid, and he took my stuff," Chris ranted. Worse than that, though he’d not admit it, is the fact that he didn’t mind that badly. He’d always hated it when Megan had gone through his things.

"You were drunk, Chris. It was nice of him to stay.
You
weren't up to it." Steve was beginning to get testy. He was willing to cut Chris a lot of slack; he'd had a bad few months ever since Megan had served him the divorce papers. Still, here were limits to his patience.

"That's not the point. Toby could've stayed with you. And he could've worn his own damn clothes."

"This is getting tiresome," Steve said.

"It sounds like you're defending him," Chris snapped.

Steve rounded on Chris and laid into him. "I am. You know why he was staying over? Because you were fucking passed out drunk. You want to know why he was wearing that t-shirt? Because
I
gave it to him. You know why? Because
you
fucking puked on him."

"I what?" Chris hoped that wasn’t true, but he’d been sick enough Sunday morning that it might have been. Steve certainly believed it.

"You threw up on him.
After
you tried humping him on the stairs and in the hall. He was willing to watch your kid and help haul your sorry drunken ass to bed, and what he got for it was getting pawed and puked on. Don't start with that 'poor put upon me' crap. I don't want to hear it, and I wasn't even the one who cleaned up after you."

"Uh?" Chris’ brain had siezed up solid at the mental image ‘humping him on the stairs’ evoked. It was an image that made his boxers far snugger than he liked. He knew there were more words past that but they hadn’t registered.

"You think I mopped up after you? Think again. Jesus, Chris, I don't know what your goddamn problem is. He's a good guy and Toby likes him. Get the fuck over yourself and just own up to it."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Chris snapped back into the conversation stull a little dazed.

"I'm talking about Joe, you ass. He thinks he's dating your twin brother. You don't
have
a twin, and we both know it. Alex isn't real."

"I'm glad we agree on that," Chris muttered. Talking about Alex made him nervous. He'd never said anything to Steve about him in all the time they'd known each other. He didn't want to start now.

"But it sure as hell is
someone
in the pictures on Joe's wall, Chris,” Steve said. “And he looks happy."

"That's not—" Chris started to protest. There weren’t any pictures of him with Joe, he knew that for a fact.

"Don't even, Gagnon,” Steve said, cutting Chris’ protests off with a vicious wave. “You don't have a twin. There isn't anyone in the world who looks exactly like you. There are pictures of someone who looks exactly like you on Joe's walls."

"That wasn't—" Chris sputtered.

Steve didn’t let him continue. "Yeah. Like it wasn't you and Matthew back in high school. Y'know what, Chris? Nobody fucking cares. Hell, after Megan they'd be happy if you were dating a fucking
goat
."

"She wasn't—"

"Yes, she
was
. Dammit, man, last summer picnic she tried going down on the chief's grandson."

Chris winced at the memory. She hadn’t even the excuse of being drunk. Chris had to keep Toby busy so he couldn’t see his mother fondle and grope her way through almost any guy over the age of sixteen who was even halfway fit. That he wasn’t one of the men she went after wasn’t something that had been lost on him, but he’d lost even the vaguest desire for sex with her months before the party. She’d made sure to tell that to anyone who’d listen.

His divorce had almost been as much a relief for his co-workers as it had been for Chris.

Steve pitched his half-eaten muffin into the trash and grabbed his jacket. "I’m your friend, and I want you to be happy, but you keep fucking yourself over. I've had enough of it. I've got people to talk to and crap to do. I'm out of here," he said.

He stormed off, leaving Chris alone and feeling very, very small. Everything Steve had said to him was the truth, he knew that and it made the words hurt even more.

* * *

Steve sat in one of the diner’s ratty booths, staring at a pile of interview notes and an untouched pizza. The place was mostly empty, with only the kitchen staff puttering in the back.

The fight he’d had with Chris rattled around in his brain all morning. He’d said Chris didn’t have a twin, and Chris had agreed, but did he know that for sure? Steve had seen the pictures in Joe’s apartment, and had seen Joe and Alex together in the club. He’d was sure it had been Chris, but it had been dark and Steve was painfully aware how unreliable witnesses could be. Alex’s hair had also been longer, and while it could’ve been a wig the thought Joe would’ve noticed that.

Steve had known Chris since he moved to Connecticut, and Chris’ grandmother had certainly talked a lot about Chris and his family. He hadn’t paid all that much attention — he’d been ten and hadn’t really cared — but the complaints had been repeated enough that they’d stuck in his head. Layabout son, suffering daughter-in-law, and poor grandson.

There was never a mention of a brother, or a twin, but Chris had been born in a small town in the middle of nowhere. If Chris’ father was as bad as his own mother had claimed, he surely could have slept around with one of Chris’ aunts or cousins.

There wasn’t a good way for Steve to question Chris’ relatives. He didn’t have names or a good reason to be calling random numbers out of the phone book. He did, though, have a pair of corpses with a vague enough history to have a very good reason to check with the local sheriff.

Steve gathered up all his folders and headed out to his car. He had some privacy there, and more importantly he had his car computer system. It was mostly a piece of crap, but it was tied into

“Winslow Sheriff’s department. Martinez speaking.” The voice on the phone had a relaxed southwestern drawl to it.

“Sherrif Martinez. This is Detective Steve Russell of the Old Baybrook police department.”

“Detective,” Martinez said. His voice was a little wary. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve got a pair of corpses I’m trying to get some background on, and I was hoping you could help me out,” Steve said. That the two parts of that sentence were entirely unrelated wasn’t something he felt the need to mention.

“And they’re from around here?”

“Well, could be. FBI says ‘Arizona’. You know how helpful they are.”

There was a snort from the other end of the line. “They’re sharp, that’s for sure.”

“So… I’m stuck calling every department in the state. Lucky me.”

Martinez laughed. “Maybe you’ll get lucky,” he said. “Got names?”

“And pictures. A Manny and Juanita Ramirez. Nobody special, just a pair of punks dead in a bad drug deal.”

There was a little bit of silence on the phone. “Send the pictures through. Can you fax ‘em?”

“Hold on a sec.” Chris said. He pulled up the case photos for the Ramirez killings and punched in Martinez’ fax number from the contact info he had. A progress bar popped up on the screen as the computer claimed to be faxung the pictures. “It should be coming through now, if this damn thing’s working right.
”

In the background Chris heard the distinctive whir of a fax machine. There was the sound of rustling papers, then Martinez swore softly in spanish. “I think I know these two,” he said finally.

“Locals making it bad in the city?” Steve asked. He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. He hadn’t expected to get lucky — the Ramirez corpses had been an excuse, and a pretty feeble one at that.

“No, not that.” The sheriff gave a sigh with enough pain in it that Steve knew something big was there.

“I’ll keep it as quiet as I can,” Steve said. “No promises, they may have been the first in a set. I’ve got a half dozen other corpses.”

“Ah, shit. Crazy
brujah
.” Martinez started swearing quietly under his breath. Steve couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it wasn’t happy.

“So, I’m thinking you have something to tell me,” Steve said as the cursing subsided.

“Might be I do,” Martinez said slowly. “I have a stupid brother.”

Steve laughed. “So does my wife. This isn’t the normal kind of stupid, though, is it?”

Martinez sighed. “Only wish it were. They’re two whack jobs my little brother was hanging around. They were up to weird shit — rituals and peyote and baying at the moon with the spirits.” The contempt in his voice made it really clear what he thought about that.

“They were up to more than that,” Steve said. “The two had an impressive list of pettys against them. Thirty or forty between the two.”