Free The Haunting of James Hastings by Christopher Ransom

After a few minutes she quieted down again. I went back in and glared at her.
     
    ‘What I am supposed to do with this knowledge?’
     
    ‘What I said,’ she hiccuped. ‘Anything, whatever you feel is right. I’ll do anything you want me to do. It’s your right.’
     
    ‘What is this, your idea of some tribal custom? Your people are responsible for my loss, you’re my compensation? Is that what you think I need? Bullshit. You’re lonely. You have nothing left. Your life is shit and now you want me to make it better. You want forgiveness for your husband and that’s not fucking going to happen.’
     
    Her eyes never wavered from mine. ‘I will do whatever you want .’
     
    I watched her for a moment. I wanted lots of things from her. Good things, bad things. Mostly bad.
     
    ‘All right,’ I said. ‘What I want is for you to leave.’
     
    She didn’t move.
     
    ‘Get out of my house. Right now.’
     
    She stood, fighting the urge to try one more time. Then she saw that if she were to stay, if she were to go against my wishes in this moment, I would hurt her.
     
    ‘I’ll be next door,’ she said. ‘Whatever you . . .’
     
    She walked quickly to the front door and exited, leaving me to decide her fate.
     

8
     
    ‘She answered all my questions,’ my old friend Detective Bergen said. His hair was shorter. All his blond curls except the little baby pompadour at the front of his forehead had been buzzed off. ‘I reviewed the report. I referenced the husband’s note with his bank signatures. I reviewed her original statements to the officers who responded to the call. She offered to let us poly her. I told her that was up to you. I can arrange that, if you decide to go that far. But it’s rare for someone to come forward like this, especially considering she had to know that if we hadn’t found the truck or a witness after a year, we weren’t likely to. She’s smart enough to know we’re going to double-check everything, make sure it fits, which I have. The only crime she’s committed is withholding evidence and knowledge, which she did for, what, three weeks? Not quite a month anyway. We could push that, but given her state of mind, what she’s been through, I’m not sure the DA’s going to go to bat for us in any meaningful way. I’m not sure what else I can tell you right now, James.’
     
    ‘Her story checks out,’ I said.
     
    ‘Looks that way.’
     
    We were seated on the deck at Johnny’s, the patio bar overlooking Venice Beach, where firm, barefoot waitresses with ratty braids were used to serving me cheap beer and cheap oysters. The morning after Annette’s magical appearance, I called Bergen and told him her story. He didn’t seem surprised. I guess he’d heard stranger things. Two hours later I watched through the window as he rolled up to speak with her next door, unannounced. She stepped out on the porch. He showed her his badge. She invited him inside and then I couldn’t see anything. Her shades were drawn. He was in the house for an hour and a half. When he finished, he headed toward his car, paused as if remembering me and then walked across my lawn. I opened the front door. He told me to sit tight, avoid talking to her until he could go over everything. He said he would get back to me in twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and here we were.
     
    ‘How’d he do it?’ I said.
     
    ‘The accident?’
     
    ‘Kill himself.’
     
    ‘Blew his head off in the garage. Had a forty-four he used for target practice. That was . . . uncommon, being that he was a little guy. Forty-four is a cannon, more at home in a set of mitts. Arthur had little lady hands, but ballistics tested positive for powder and it was registered in his name. The signature matched. He was wearing a light blue suit. A funeral suit. That’s a delusion, there. The preparation without thinking about the mess.’
     
    I made a face. ‘She found him like that?’
     
    Bergen nodded. ‘Bad, bad deal