Page 107 of Fifty-Fifty

‘You still think Sofia is innocent?’ I said.

Harry stood, attached Clarence’s lead to his collar and made a few grumbling sounds as he straightened up. Harry wasn’t getting any younger.

‘I had my doubts in the beginning, but I trust your judgment. The more time I spend with her, the more I think she’s just a mixed-up kid from a bad family. She needs help. She needed her father. I can’t visualize Sofia hurting anyone.

Alexandra – I can picture it more easily,’ said Harry.

‘Why?’

‘Whoever did this must’ve known they’d get caught. You don’t kill your father with another witness in the house. No one does that. Even if you’re in a blind rage – it would be stupid as hell unless you killed the witness too. I don’t get why both women are still alive. One of them is a liar and a killer. Sofia is volatile, but Alexandra gives me the impression of someone who can be calculated in their actions. There’s a lot about this case doesn’t make sense, unless there’s a whole other side to it that we can’t see. Anyway, I’m not going to see much more tonight. Adios. Me and my amigo are hitting the sack.’

Harry and Clarence left the office just after eleven. I looked over the trial bundle again, then when I raised my head and checked my watch I saw it was coming up on midnight. I should sleep.

The thought of lying down in that cot in the back – I couldn’t face it. Not tonight. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Harper’s face. It was beyond grief now. It had become something else. I had cried for her, for weeks. It felt like bleeding. That some part of me had been hurt, and it was only making me sicker

and sicker and I didn’t know how to fix it. The pain of losing her had given way to guilt. No way to know when that happened, but I felt it all the same. I’d already lost or pushed away one family for fear of them getting hurt. Three years ago Amy had been taken by the Russian mob. If it hadn’t been for Jimmy the Hat I would never have gotten her back. That changed things in my marriage.

The biggest threat to Christine and Amy was my work, and the bad people who

came along with it. Part of me had cut off my family, for their own safety. Now I was paying the price. I was a weekend dad, with all of the troubles and worry that came with it.

Did Harper’s death have something to do with me, too? Would she still be alive if she hadn’t met me?

That was a question I wanted to ask myself, but I was afraid of the answer.

I played the video again, for the fifth time that day.

It was us. Harry, Harper and me in Frank Avellino’s house. Taking pictures.

Whispering theories so the sound guy wouldn’t pick it up on the recording. This was one of the last things Harper ever did. These were the last images of her.

I cracked open the Scotch, poured a glass way too big and settled back in my seat to watch, my laptop perched on the desk in front of me. I studied every movement she made. I’d never noticed how graceful she was. I knew she was beautiful, but this was something else. She moved like she wasn’t human, and yet was more human than any of us. Her heart was right there in her smile.

Cops thought Harper’s murder was a robbery gone bad. There had been a spate of home invasions, but then again, there were always home invasions. It was part of the turf. Maybe it was my guilt, maybe it was grief, but I couldn’t shake the feeling this was down to me. Every time I felt this I tried to rationalize.

Tell myself what I wanted to hear. That it couldn’t really be connected to the Avellino case. There was no reason to target her. If someone had killed Harper

because of this case, I couldn’t figure out why. Why target Harper? Why not me?

It should’ve been me.

Slam.

It should’ve been me.

Slam.

It. Slam. Should’ve. Slam. Been. Slam.

I stopped when I heard the crack. Didn’t know if it was the desk or my hand. I looked down and the wood at the corner of the desk had split along with my knuckles. In the bathroom I put on a Band-Aid and returned to my chair. The image of Harper, frozen on screen.

My head went gently to the desk, resting on the back of my hands. I wanted to sleep, but I knew it wouldn’t happen.

The killer took some cash from a bureau in her bedroom. Five hundred in twenties. Maybe they’d thought about taking her necklace, and then thought again. And they smashed her phone.

The images from the night of her murder would never leave me. I saw blood on her hallway floor. The broken necklace in the blood, the little gold cross in the middle of the chain. There was something else I needed to remember.

Something important. I squeezed my eyes shut.