Page 52 of Not Quite Dead Yet

Andrew shrugged. ‘I don’t know nothing about that.’

Jet wasn’t convinced; of course the killer would say that, pretend to know nothing about it. Didn’t alcoholics have to get good at pretending? Until they stopped caring, that was, like this man in front of her.

Andrew picked up his beer, took a swig. Jet clocked which hand he’d used.

‘You’re right-handed,’ she said.

‘So’s everyone.’ A fair point.

‘Sergeant Finney escorted you home from the fair, walked you back to your apartment upstairs.’ Jet glanced up through the ceiling. ‘What time did he leave, after getting you home?’

Andrew sniffed. ‘I don’t think Jack Finney woulda done that to you. He’s a cop.’

Jet leaned forward, said in an almost-whisper: ‘I’m not asking about Jack Finney.’

‘Me?’ Andrew laughed, an uneasy wheezing sound. He looked at Billy. ‘She thinks it was me? I was passed out all night.’

‘So you won’t mind answering what time my dad left you in your apartment?’ Billy’s way was softer, but it seemed to work.

‘You should ask him. I was drunk, don’t remember.’ Andrew put his beer down with a thunk. ‘But I do remember texting a friend, rightafterhe left. Hold on.’ He reached behind him into his pocket, came back with a phone.

His face lit up with a silver under-glow, strange upward shadows playing on his forehead as he tapped at the screen.

‘Yeah. I sent that text at 10:29. Mr Finney must have left just before that.’

Seventeen minutes until the first strike hit Jet’s head. It only took ten minutes to walk to the Masons’ house from here, less if you ran – plenty of time for Andrew to make it through their back door. Jet memorized the time, would write it in her notebook later, fingers twitching in her lap.

‘And then you were alone?’ Jet pressed.

‘Yes, sweetheart.’ That eerie whistling laugh again. ‘Cop escorting me home is a pretty solid alibi, I’d say.’

‘It’s not an alibi,’ Jet corrected him, ‘if you were alone and have no witnesses to co-cor-co – back you up, by the way.’

‘Why? What time were you attacked?’

‘I’m asking the questions here,’ she said. She didn’t want to tell him that they knew the exact time. It seemed smarter to keep that back. Also smart to hold on to the fact that Jet was dead, if he didn’t know that already, if he thought they were just talking about an assault. The wordmurdermight make him panic, make him stop talking and start planning. Better to let him think he failed – if itwasAndrew.

‘Don’t know why you care so much,’ he said, returningto his beer. ‘Number of times I’ve woken up with a bloody head and a black eye, and don’t know who did it.’

‘Because someone tried to kill me.’

‘But they didn’t.’

Jet caught Billy’s eye, gave him a tiny shake of her head. She looked around the room, searching her mind for another way in, eyes idling across the bar, skipping over beer tap logos and a pinned-up flyer with a picture of a guitar and a microphone.Live music tonight, it said.

‘Why do you hate my family so much?’ Jet turned back to Andrew, treading carefully around any accusation. ‘At the fair, you said we destroy everything. What did you mean?’

Andrew snorted, the sound echoing in his beer bottle, almost empty. He didn’t follow it up, didn’t speak.

‘I thought our families used to be close,’ Jet continued. ‘You and my parents have known each other forever. My sister – Emily – and Nina …’

Andrew winced at the sound of his daughter’s name.

‘They were best friends. I was only young, but I remember Nina at our house all the time, in the pool, sleeping over. Your wife too, when she came to pick her up, used to get stuck chatting with my mom. Emily and Nina were inseparable, weren’t they?’

‘And where are they both now?’ Andrew spat, a flash of something darker in his eyes. ‘Don’t speak about my daughter to me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jet said. ‘I know it must have been really hard, when she –’

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