Page 57 of What Have You Done?

Evan volunteers, ‘It’s no problem. I’m on lunch now, and I’ve got a free period after that.’

‘I was hoping you could pick up a few things for me.’

‘Of course,’ Riley answers.

She hands her a list, some money, and some cloth bags. ‘You’re such a help, you two,’ she tells them gratefully, sitting down heavily at the kitchen table. She’s quiet for a moment, fighting tears. At last she asks plaintively, ‘Do you think we’ll ever know who killed her?’

They both look back at her gravely. Finally, Evan nods. ‘I think we will, Mrs Brewer. You’ve got to have faith.’ And then they leave to get her groceries.

She wanders around the house, talking out loud to Diana. Asking her, if she’s there, to give her a sign.

I’m back at the police station. The detectives have brought in that horrible Joe Prior. I watch him sit down in the interview room. He’s just like I remember him, big, unkempt, with shaggy red hair and a scruffy beard. His jeans and shirt are dirty, and his jacket has seen better days. He’s got small eyes. He smells of days-old sweat, as if he doesn’t bathe enough or wash his clothes. I recognize that stench, from when he would bother me at the cash register at Home Depot. I could always smell him coming. I associate that odour with a feeling of dread. Even after he left, the stale smell would linger.

Now, I watch him sitting in the interview room and try to remember if I ever noticed that awful smell of him anywhere else. I read somewhere once that smell triggers memories. I breathe it in reluctantly and hope it triggers something now. But it doesn’t. All I feel is disgust. Revulsion.

Detective Stone tilts his head at him. ‘So,’ he begins, ‘your alibi didn’t pan out.’

Prior looks annoyed.

‘With friends like that, who needs enemies, huh?’ Stone says.

‘Well, I shouldn’t have asked him to lie for me,’ Prior says. ‘It was a stupid thing to do, especially since I don’t have anything to hide anyways.’

‘Right. You have nothing to hide, so you asked someone to lie for you,’ Stone says.

‘Look. Try to see it from my point of view.’ Joe makes his voice sound reasonable. ‘My photo had been all over the news in connection with this dead girl. It looked like I was a suspect, for Chrissake. That’s why I came in voluntarily to talk to you as soon as I could, as I’m sure you remember.’ Stone regards him steadily. ‘I had nothing to do with it and just wanted to get you guys off my back. I didn’t have an alibi because I was home alone that night. But I thought if I could get someone to vouch for me that would be the end of it.’ He leans back in his seat. ‘You have no idea what it’s like, having your picture on the news for something like this. People look at you funny. My foreman was asking me about it. People at work were talking about me. I just wanted it all to go away. I had nothing to do with this dead girl.’

‘You harassed her at her job. You showed interest in her, and it wasn’t reciprocated.’

He shrugs.

And then I remember something I’d forgotten, about that smell.

Stone says, ‘We’ve been looking into you. You’re a loner. You move around. We’re in the process of tracking your previous addresses, your movements.’

‘Knock yourselves out,’ Joe says.

I gaze down at Prior. I remember where else I found his particular, offensive odour. It was one night after work, when Aaron, my manager, walked me to my car. I never bothered locking it. There was nothing in the car worth stealing, and it was an old beater anyway, not worth stealing either. I got in the car and there was this stink. I thought maybe some homeless person had been inside my car, and I rolled down the windows to let the air in. After that I always kept it locked. But now I think it was him – Joe Prior. He was in my car. What was he doing there? And then I realize. I kept the ownership and registration in the glove box. He could have found my address.

I want to scream this at the detectives. And I do, but they can’t hear me. They don’t even flinch. It enrages me that I can’t reach them. But now I’m remembering something else, something frightening.

I’m standing at my bedroom window, late at night, looking out at the backyard, and someone is there. I see the dark shape of a man, looking up at me. I don’t know who it is, and I’m terrified.

Now, looking at Joe Prior, I feel the same terror that I did then.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

JOE PRIOR HAS had a shit day.

He hadn’t enjoyed being grilled by the detectives, but they’d let him go, and he’d returned to work.

Now, as work finishes at four o’clock, he waits for Roddy at Roddy’s truck. When the bastard sees him, he stops in his tracks and looks like he’s about to shit his pants.

‘So,’ Joe says, his tone both pleasant and menacing. He’s furious at the betrayal. Furious, too, that he can’t even beat the crap out of Roddy because if he does the police will find out. Roddy will tell them and then it will look like this alibi is really important to him. And he doesn’t want to be charged with assault. So he can’t touch the fucking bastard. But Roddy’s too stupid to figure that out, so at least he can scare him a bit.

‘I’m sorry, man,’ Roddy says. ‘I didn’t want to rat you out. I didn’t have a choice.’ He sounds terrified.

‘There’s always a choice, Roddy,’ Joe says, ‘and you made the wrong one.’ It takes all of his self-control, but Joe knows he has to let this go. He has to minimize it. He’s already admitted to the detectives that he got Roddy to lie for him just to get the police off his back after his photo went out on the news. He gives Roddy one last contemptuous look and walks away, to his own truck, and doesn’t look back.

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