Page 12 of The Burnt
When?
He turned the knob and gently applied his weight to the door and the lock eased its way out of its hole and dropped to the floor inside.
Someone else has already been here.
He took one last look around, pushed the door open and entered.
Declan set the box on the floor, took out a small flashlight and flicked it on. A quick look at the door lock from the inside told him that the damage wasn’t recent. The door had been forced open a long time ago. Where the screws used to be, there were now just ragged holes. The lock had just been shoved back into place for show.
“You lazy bugger.” Obviously, Archie hadn’t been too concerned about his security. Maybe he should have been.
Declan removed a pair of disposable booties from the box. He slid them over his shoes, then walked up the half-flight of stairs into the main floor hallway. He pulled out his phone and photographed as he went.
The place smelled of cigarette smoke and greasy cooking. He poked his nose into the kitchen. There was a day’s worth of dishes in the sink. Declan was surprised there wasn’t more.
He walked down the hall. All the doors were open, except one. He started with what he thought might be Archie’s bedroom. The bed was unmade and some clothes had been tossed onto a chair in the corner. On the single nightstand was an ashtray.
Bad move, Archie. You don’t want to burn, do you?he thought as he remembered Freddy.
Behind the ashtray stood an old bedside lamp and beside it, a four-by-five framed picture of Freddy. Declan picked it up. It was different than the school photo of the boy that Declan had back in his office. Both photos showed Freddy from the waist up, but this was more informal. In this picture, Freddy was laughing and wore a brightly coloured T-shirt. He looked more alive.
Before placing the photo back on the nightstand, Declan took a picture of it.
How could your dad do what he did to you? And why did he keep a reminder of it so close?
Declan doubted if his own father had ever had a picture ofhimon his bedside table.
He left Archie’s room and headed down the hall, past the bathroom, to the room with the closed door. Declan grabbed the doorknob, turned the handle and walked inside.
It was a bedroom, and plain, like the other rooms. The only difference between this room and the rest of the house was that this one was tidy. The bed was made and there was a small stuffed bear leaning up against the pillow. On the nightstand was a red toy car and a picture of a woman holding a baby. He picked up the picture and turned it over in his hand. He opened the frame to look at the back of the picture. In small neat print were the words
Marsha and Freddy—three days old.
He placed it back in the frame and put the photo back on the nightstand. The room was a shrine to a kid that Archie had supposedly hated. Something didn’t fit.
A voice cut through the darkness. “And who the fuck are you?”
Declan spun to look back through the door to the hallway. The woman who had been ripping down the police tape stood in front of him. This time she was holding an old shotgun and it was pointed at his chest.
“Do you have to point that thing at me? Guns make me nervous,” Declan said.
In truth, guns didn’t make him nervous. Scared people with guns did.
“I’ll be the one askin’ the questions here,” she said.
“Okay. And I’ll be the one answering them.”
“Let’s start with who the hell are you and what the fuck are you doin’ in Archie’s house?”
“I’m Declan Hunt. I’m a private investigator. I used to be a cop. I was the guy who found the body of Archie’s kid, Freddy.”
The gun in the woman’s hand started to waver. Given the lightness of her build, Declan figured that she was noticing the weight of the gun. He hoped that it didn’t cause her to do anything stupid, like accidentally pull the trigger.
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doin’ here.”
She braced the gun against her shoulder and sighted down the barrel. If she’d never used a shotgun before, she was doing a damned good job of pretending she had.
Declan put his hands in the air. “I heard from the police today. They told me that Archie had been killed. But before he died, he passed on a message to the cops that was meant for me.”
