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I grin. “Make yourself at home.”
He nods toward my hand. “What’s that?”
“I think Lila was here,” I say, holding up the remains of her cigarette. “She used to smoke these. The lipstick looks right.”
He looks a bit stunned. “You think Lila killed your brother?”
I shake my head, but what I mean is that I don’t think that the cigarette proves anything. It doesn’t prove that she did and it doesn’t prove that she didn’t.
“She must have been here after the place got swept for evidence,” I say. “She came in here, sat on this couch, and smoked a cigarette. Why?”
“Returning to the scene of the crime,” Sam says, like he’s a television detective.
“I thought you liked Lila,” I say.
“I do,” he says, and suddenly looks serious. “I do like Lila, Cassel. But it’s weird that she was in your brother’s house after he was murdered.”
“We’re in my brother’s house after he was murdered.”
Sam shrugs his massive shoulders. “You should just ask her about it.”
Lila loves me. She has to; she’s been worked to. I don’t think she would do something that would hurt me, but I can’t explain that to Sam without explaining the rest. And I won’t tell him about the envelope.
I don’t want to even think about those three pages and what they might mean. I don’t want to imagine my mother being the woman in the red gloves. I want the murderer to be someone I have never met, a hired gun. So long as it’s no one I know, I am free to hate them, at least as much as I hated my brother.
* * *
Back in the car I get Sam to drive me into the parking lot of a large supermarket I spot on the way to the highway. Behind the store is a sad stretch of trees and several large Dumpsters. He watches while I fumble through my backpack for matches and make a small fire as discreetly as I can, adding scraps of nearby debris, the immunity agreement, and Philip’s scrawled confession. When it’s hot enough, I drop the cigarette butt into it.
“You’re destroying evidence,” he says.
I look up at him. “Yeah?”
He smacks his hand into his forehead. “You can’t do that! What do those papers even say?”
Sam, despite everything he’s seen, is a good citizen.
I watch the edges of the paper curl and the filter smoke. I knew Philip had bargained away his own secrets—and mine—but I never thought he’d bargain away Mom’s, too. “The papers say that my brother was a hypocrite. He was so pissed off that I’d dare betray our family. Turns out he was just mad I did it first.”
“Cassel, do you know who killed him?” There’s something odd in Sam’s voice.
I look at him and realize what he’s thinking. I laugh. “They found video footage of a woman entering his apartment the night of his death. So not me.”
“I didn’t think it was you,” he says too quickly.
“Whatever.” I stand. I honestly don’t blame him for being suspicious. “It’d be okay if you did. And thanks for being my wheelman.”
He snorts as I disperse the blackened remains of my findings with one shoe. “Do you care if we go to Daneca’s?” he asks. “I told her I was going to stop over.”
“She’s going to be disappointed if I tag along,” I say with a smile.
He shakes his head. “She’s going to want to know what you found. Remember how obsessed she was with those files?”
“You’re going to tell her about this little bonfire, aren’t you? Man, no wonder you want me to come along. You just want her yelling at the right person.” I’m not really mad, though. I like that Sam doesn’t lie to his girlfriend. I like that they are in love. I even like the way that Daneca gets on my case.
“If you tell me not to, I won’t tell her,” Sam says, “but I’m not sure you’re really objective about this, uh, investigation.”
I feel a rush of gratitude that makes me want to tell him everything, but the ashes behind us remind me not to trust anyone completely.
