The Husband

With his head still bowed, Lieutenant Taggart said, “It’s rare, Mr. Rafferty, for a dog to be stolen out of its owner’s backyard on a bright spring morning. Anything rare, anything unusual makes me curious. Any outright weirdness really gets under my skin.”

Mitch raised one hand to the back of his neck and massaged the muscles because that seemed like something a relaxed man, a relaxed and unconcerned man, might do.

“It’s strange for a thief to enter a neighborhood like that on foot and walk away with a stolen pet. It’s strange that he carries no ID. It’s more than strange, it’s remarkable, that he gets shot to death three blocks later. And it’s weird, Mr. Rafferty, that you, the primary witness, knew him.”

“But I didn’t know him.”

“At one time,” Taggart insisted, “you knew him quite well.”

10 (#u59dfd530-e91d-5f2e-b5a8-9f6f571e2586)

White ceiling, white railings, white floorboards, white wicker chairs, punctuated by the gray-and-black moth: Everything about the porch was familiar, open and airy, yet it seemed dark now to Mitch, and strange.

His gaze still downcast, Taggart said, “One of the jakes on the scene eventually got a closer look at the victim and recognized him.”

“Jakes?”

“One of the uniformed officers. Said he arrested the guy on a drug-possession charge after stopping him for a traffic violation about two years ago. The guy never served any time, but his prints were in our system, so we were able to make a quick match. Mr. Barnes says you and he went to high school with the vic.”

Mitch wished that the cop would meet his eyes. As intuitive and perceptive as he was, Taggart would recognize genuine surprise when he saw it.

“His name was Jason Osteen.”

“I didn’t just go to school with him,” Mitch said. “Jason and I were roommates for a year.”

At last reestablishing eye contact, Taggart said, “I know.”

“Iggy would have told you.”

“Yes.”

Eager to be forthcoming, Mitch said, “After high school, I lived with my folks for a year, while I took some classes—”

“Horticulture.”

“That’s right. Then I got a job with a landscaping company, and I moved out. Wanted an apartment of my own. Couldn’t fully afford one, so Jason and I split rent for a year.”

The detective bowed his head again, in that contemplative pose, as if part of his strategy was to force eye contact when it made Mitch uncomfortable and to deny eye contact when Mitch wanted it.

“That wasn’t Jason dead on the sidewalk,” Mitch said.

Opening the white envelope that had been on his lap, Taggart said, “In addition to the identification by an officer and the print match, I have Mr. Barnes’s positive ID based on this.”

He withdrew an eight-by-ten color photo from the envelope and handed it to Mitch.

A police photographer had repositioned the cadaver to get better than a three-quarter image of the face. The head was turned to the left only far enough to conceal the worst of the wound.

The features had been subtly deformed by the temple entrance, transit, and post-temple exit of the high-velocity shot. The left eye was shut, the right open wide in a startled cyclopean stare.

“It could be Jason,” Mitch said.

“It is.”

“At the scene, I only saw one side of his face. The right profile, the worst side, with the exit wound.”

“And you probably didn’t look too close.”

“No. I didn’t. Once I saw he had to be dead, I didn’t want to look too close.”

“And there was blood on the face,” Taggart said. “We swabbed it off before this photo was taken.”

“The blood, the brains, that’s why I didn’t look too close.”

Mitch couldn’t take his eyes from the photo. He sensed that it was prophetic. One day there would be a photograph like this of his face. They would show it to his parents: Is this your son, Mr.and Mrs. Rafferty?

“This is Jason. I haven’t seen him in eight years, maybe nine.”

“You roomed with him when you were—what?—eighteen?”

“Eighteen, nineteen. Just for a year.”

“About ten years ago.”

“Not quite ten.”

Jason had always affected a cool demeanor, so mellow he seemed to have surfwaxed his brain, but at the same time he seemed to know the secrets of the universe. Other boardheads called him Breezer, and admired him, even envied him. Nothing had rattled Jason or surprised him.

He appeared to be surprised now. One eye wide, mouth open. He appeared to be shocked.

“You went to school together, you roomed together. Why didn’t you stay in touch?”

While Mitch had been riveted by the photo, Taggart had been watching him intently. The detective’s stare had the sharp promise of a nail gun.

“We had … different ideas about things,” Mitch said.

“It wasn’t a marriage. You were just roommates. You didn’t have to want the same things.”

“We wanted some of the same things, but we had different ideas about how to get them.”

“Jason wanted to get everything the easy way,” Taggart guessed.

“I thought he was headed for big trouble, and I didn’t want any part of it.”

“You’re a straight shooter, you walk the line,” Taggart said.

“I’m no better than anyone else, worse than some, but I don’t steal.”

“We haven’t learned much about him yet, but we know he rented a house in Huntington Harbor for seven thousand a month.”