the noise, comes down, yells at dad to stop. Dad won’t. Son’s been seeing this all his life, tonight he’s not taking it any more. He goes to the closet and gets his father’s gun. Comes back and says he means it – stop beating up on Mom. They fight, dad grabs hold of the gun, or it goes off accidentally, whatever. Son gets shot. Wife’s screaming the place down, his son’s lying on the floor, Anderson knows he’s not walking away from this. So he sets a fire in the part of the house that’s known to be his domain to make it look like an intruder, then makes sure there’s no witnesses to tell the story another way. Right now he’s the other side of the country and drunk and practically out of his mind with remorse, or else halfway to convincing himself they brought it on themselves. He’ll either commit suicide within the week or get caught in eighteen months living quietly with a waitress in North Carolina.’
Fisher was silent for a moment. ‘That works, I guess,’ he said. ‘But I don’t believe it. Three reasons. First is Anderson is the nerds’ poster nerd, a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. He doesn’t present as someone who could physically dominate two other people.’
‘Body weight is irrelevant,’ I said. ‘Domination is mental. Always.’
‘Which also doesn’t sound like Anderson, but I’ll let that pass. The second reason is there’s a witness who claims to have seen someone who looked like Anderson entering the street at around twenty to eleven. No one’s paying much attention to this woman because she’s old and seminuts and loaded to her back teeth with lithium, but she claims she saw him get far enough down the road to see his house, then turn and run away.’
‘Not someone you’re going to put on the stand,’ I said. ‘And even if she did see him, it could be Anderson setting up an alibi. What else you got?’
‘Just this. Joshua Anderson died from the burn injuries in the end, but he was already leaving the world care of the gunshot wound to the face. But no bullet was found at the scene. The pathology report suggests it got trapped in the skull, bounced around, never made it out the other side. There’s no exit wound. But there are indications of subsequent trauma from a sharp instrument. So the person who killed him then stuck a knife in the mess and dug out the shell, while the kid’s clothes were on fire. That doesn’t sound to me like something a physics lecturer could do. To his son.’
He sat back in his chair. ‘Especially when he didn’t own a gun in the first place.’
I shrugged.
‘Sure,’ I admitted. ‘There’s loose ends. There always are. But the smart money stays on the husband. What’s your interest in this, anyhow?’
‘It relates to an estate we’re handling back home,’ he said. ‘I can’t get into it more than that right now.’
For just a moment Fisher seemed evasive, but the details of his professional life were not my concern. ‘So why are you telling me about it?’
‘I want your help.’
‘With what?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
I shook my head. ‘Not really.’
‘It would benefit me, benefit us, to find out what actually took place that night.’
‘The police are on it, aren’t they?’
‘The cops are all about proving Anderson murdered his wife and son, and I don’t think that’s what happened.’
I smiled. ‘So I gather. But that doesn’t mean you’re right. And I still don’t get why you’re here.’
‘You’re a cop.’
‘No. I was a cop.’
‘Same thing. You have investigative experience.’
‘For once your research fails you, Gary. I was with Patrol Division all the way. A street grunt.’
‘Not formal experience, no. I know you never made detective. I also know you never even applied.’
I looked hard at him. ‘Gary, if you’re going to tell me you somehow got access to my personnel files, then …’
‘I didn’t need to, Jack. You’re a smart guy. You wanted to make detective, you would have. You didn’t, so I figure you didn’t try.’
‘I’m not very susceptible to flattery,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘I know that too. And I remember you would rather not try than try and fail, and maybe that’s the real reason you spent nearly a decade on the streets.’
It had been a while since someone had spoken to me that way. He saw this in my face.
‘Look,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘This isn’t coming out right. I’m sorry. What happened to the Andersons isn’t actually a huge deal to me. It’s just a little weird and might make my life simpler if I could get it unravelled. I read your book. It seemed to me you might be interested. That’s all.’
‘I appreciate the thought,’ I said. ‘But that feels like another life now. Plus I was on the job in LA, not Seattle. I don’t know the city and I don’t know the people. I couldn’t do much more than you, and I can do a lot less than the cops. If you genuinely think there’s a problem with the way they’re investigating this, it’s them you should be talking to.’
‘I tried,’ he said. ‘They think the same as you.’
‘So probably that’s the way it is. A sad story. The end.’
Fisher nodded slowly, his eyes on the view outside the window. The light was beginning to turn, the sky heading towards a more leaden grey. ‘Looks like heavy weather. I should probably be heading back. I don’t want to be driving over that mountain in the dark.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, standing. ‘After that drive I guess you were hoping for more.’
‘I wanted an opinion, and I got one. Too bad it wasn’t the one I was looking for.’
‘Could have got you this far on the phone,’ I smiled. ‘Like I said.’
‘Yeah, I know. But hey – been good to see you after all this time. To catch up. Let’s keep in touch.’
I said yes it had, and yes we should, and that was that. We small-talked a bit longer and then I walked him to the door and watched as he drove away.
I stayed outside for a few moments after he’d gone, though it was cold. I felt a little as if a bigger kid had come up to me in the playground and asked if I wanted to join his game, and I had said no out of pride. Growing older, it appears, does not mean growing up.
I went back indoors and returned to my desk. There I wasted probably the last straightforward afternoon of my life gazing out of the window, waiting vaguely for time to pass.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d been working harder that morning, let the machine take Fisher’s call. Even if he’d left a message I’d have been unlikely to get around to calling him back. Most of the time I don’t think this would have made any difference. I believe this thing was heading towards
