30. It's All Gone A Bit Agatha Christie

The list of suspects suddenly becomes infinite or at least vast

Time is now a twiddled waxed moustache

Waingard leans and peaks around the edge of the booth and looks down toward the bar. The pub is busy with a convivial hubbub, a few deep, men, women, of all ages, all creeds, musical allegiances written in their clothes and haircuts. Moses follows her gaze and feels how ludicrous it is to suggest any of them could be cold-blooded killers. Regular folk, every last one of them. As individuals, all remarkable in their own humble ways. But just regular folk, trying to get half-pissed or full on rotten with it, chat shit about bands and football and socialism and something on the TV that week.

“If I pointed randomly at any of those men at the bar, you could tell me their motive?” Waingard says, her eyes still turned away from the boys.

“That’s not quite what I was saying,” Moses says.

Waingard turns back to the table and fixes her eyes on Vardaman.

“Could you?” she says to him.

He thinks for a moment. “Yeah,” he says. “But you can turn anyone into a killer if you break them down like that.”

“You must have your suspicions,” Waingard says. “Discussed it even, since you heard the news?”

Shrugs.

“Not really,” says Moses.

“Really?” says Waingard.

“Really,” says Moses.

“I wondered if it might be Marvin,” Vardaman says.

“Vardaman,” Moses says, and pulls back quickly thinking he sounds like a pearl-clutcher.

“What?” Vardaman hunches up and raises his hands almost to his shoulders. “She’s asking and I’m just saying. Do I think Marv killed Aaron, obviously not, but she’s making a point… you’re making a point, right? That we could turn a motive for anyone in here. But Marv is a good guy. Obviously, he didn’t do it.”

A few seconds of silence follow.

“Who is Marv?” Waingard says.

“Agh, look what you’ve done now,” Moses cries.

“I’m just answering questions.”

“You’ve pointed her to Bill and now Marv. What the fuck is wrong with you, dude?”

“They didn’t do anything,” Vardaman says slowly for affect. The boys don’t make eye contact for a bit.

“Does Marv have a surname?” Waingard says.

“I don’t know,” Vardaman says, sulking, looking down into his pint, turning the end of his cigarette around the edge of the ashtray.

Moses feels bad. They should be sticking together. All their lives they’ve been friends, but this is the first time they’ve been questioned by the police – together, anyway – and they’re prizing apart like idiots.

“It’s Price,” Moses says. “I think so, anyway.”

“Marvin Price?”

“Yeah.”

“And why do you think he could have done this?”

“I don’t,” Vardaman says, agitated. “I was just saying, you can twist anything if you want to. Marv is just another fucking weirdo and weirdos do weird shit.”

“Nothing more weird than murder,” Waingard says.

“Look, we have to get going,” Moses says. “We DJ tonight.”

Waingard is so amenable it’s like they’re meeting an estate agent or something.

“We can talk another time,” she says.

Moses is surprised.

“You don’t have everything you need?” he says.

Waingard smiles at him as the boys finish their pints and gather their stuff into their pockets. That smile again – flirtatious? Half squinted, her hair falls over one eye, her little nose creases up like a croissant.

“You guys seem to me like the ones I need to talk to,” she says. “You know this town. You might not even know you know what you know.”

The boys stand.

“I don’t know,” Moses says.

“Mo, she’s a copper. If she wants to ask us more questions, I don’t see how we get out of that.”

Moses glares at Vardaman and stops himself from thanking him for pointing out the bleeding obvious. He looks down at Waingard, and she’s got that smile, that half-soaked smile, and Moses thinks again about waking up with her and talking about real things, things that matter, things that don’t.

“So, I can catch up with you guys at a later time?” she says.

“Sure.”

“Sure.”

As they walk away from the table toward the exit, Moses looks back over his shoulder and she’s peering around the booth again, he and Waingard lock eyes and Moses is wondering what the hell is going on.