Shattered Glass(58)

“I don’t get it,” I said, my voice hovering between horror-struck and disbelief. “You were okay with him killing your father because your father killed his?”

“No. Cai…Cai is super smart, Austin, but he’s not street smart. He didn’t kill my father for revenge. He did it because he thought it was right. He was eight. And angry and scared. Intellectually he was off the charts smart, but emotionally he was just eight years old.”

I thought back to the show I’d watched about this killing. Some news magazine show aired it about a year after I was graduated from the Police Academy. Cai’s voice on the 911 call was so small, but eerily cool.

“Hello? I just killed my Uncle Nikki.”

This whole story didn’t mesh with the Cai I had met. “They’ll have his fingerprints in the system. They’ll get a match eventually,” I said, still in a state of shock.

“How long will that take?”

“A week, probably less. They’ll run it in AFIS, but then someone will have to visually identify the prints. It’ll depend on how many partial matches AFIS spits out and the quality of the old crime scene prints. And all they’ll have are the prints at the scene, not a name to match. Unless he’s been arrested before?”

“No, never arrested.”

“They’ll have his prints from back then. That’s all.”

“They find out who he is, and all they’ll see is the boy who drugged and killed Nikki the Nail. They won’t understand. And they won’t believe he didn’t kill Iss.”

“I don’t believe he didn’t kill Iss. A neighbor saw him leaving the premises. And with what you’ve shared tonight, his being capable is no longer a question for me.”

“I’m telling you he didn’t do it!” Peter jumped off the counter, fists clenched at his side.

“How do you know? You obviously think he’s capable of it, too. You keep saying ‘didn’t’. ‘He didn’t’. Not he couldn’t,” I said, repeating myself.

“Cai doesn’t lie to me, Austin. He’d never lie to me.” I made a scoffing sound. “You don’t even understand. He had a break down after what he did to my father.” Peter folded his hands in front of his face as if in prayer and took a deep breath. “For a year afterward he’d start crying hysterically just out of the blue. Then he’d go silent for days on end. We had to drag this rocking chair through ten states because he wouldn’t sleep without me or Darryl rocking him.”

“He’s bipolar,” I argued.

“The cycles don’t last that long in kids. Trust me, I know all about his condition, Austin. It’s asking a lot, but just trust me. Please. He didn’t do it.”

“Because you know who did?”

“No. I’d fucking turn them in if I did.”

“Even if it was Darryl?” I asked quietly, remembering the ‘emaciated’ blond that Millicent had described.

“Darryl was with me,” he reminded me.

“The whole night?”

Peter had the grace to blush, though I didn’t read it as embarrassment as much as shame. “We…did a show.”

Oh, Christ. I downed the rest of my beer and went in search of something stronger.





Johnny Walker and Austin Glass: A Love Story

“I don’t want to know,” I said, pointing my bottle of whiskey at him from the coffee table.

“I needed a mortgage payment.” He followed me, trying to take the bottle.

I moved it out of reach and countered with, “What you need is a fucking leash and some goddamn morals!”

“Morals are for rich trust fund babies whose worst problem is their daddy doesn’t love them,” he spat.

Whiskey, glass, pour, toss back, glare. Repeat. “Cop out,” I slurred in retaliation, pointing the empty glass at Peter.

“Don’t get drunk. Fuck. I need you sober,” he yelled, snatching the glass out of my hand.

“There’s the problem right there. You need me sober. You need my help. You need something from me.” I laughed, tossing the bottle on the sofa, ignoring the glug glug glug as it emptied over my cushions. “And I just need you.”

“Need me to what?” He asked with a huff, tipping the bottle right-side up.

“Nothing. I just need you,” I whispered and flopped into a nearby recliner.

I heard his swallow over the drumbeat of blood in my ears. “You don’t even know me.”

“Which makes it really weird to be falling for you, don’t you think?” A pleasant numbness spread throughout my body. I didn’t care about what I just said to Peter. Didn’t notice the awkward silence or care that I was giggling and suspended from my job and being used by a whore to help a sociopath. I just closed my eyes to it all and let Johnny Walker lead me back to our honeymoon suite.