Page 112 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection
When I ask him if I can video-record our interview, he nods listlessly. After I set up my phone on the plastic dining table in the corner of his clean but soulless kitchen, I ask him again and make sure I get his verbal agreement on camera. I want this interview to be admissible; I’m more than a little worried that Fred Evans won’t still be around if Logan’s claim goes to trial.
I’m up-front with Fred, telling him that I’m interviewing him on Logan’s behalf, as part of a custody application against Miranda Porter. Fred shows no interest, nodding when I let the pauses stretch. In the morning light through the windows, his skin has a gray, flaky grain to it that reminds me of a B-movie zombie. I ask him if he’d like a glass of water or a cup of tea before we get started. He shakes his head, not offering me anything in return, which is a novelty. He’s the first person in this entire country who hasn’t offered me “a cuppa.”
“Fred, do you remember the day Miranda’s brother died?” I ask.
A frown flits across his forehead but fades into apathy. “Yeah.”
“Can you tell me about that day?”
He shrugs, his shoulders rawboned under a gray T-shirt with Mickey Mouse on the front that’s clean but so old the fabric’s worn through at the collar and seams. “There was a party. I think it was for Pete’s sixteenth.”
“Pete?”
“Pete Clarke. He was part of the group back then.”
I make a note of the name before getting him back on track. “Where did the party take place?”
“At the Porters. They had the biggest house and her parents were always out.”
“Were they out that day?”
He nods.
“Was it just Miranda and Nicholas at home?”
Fred shakes his head. “Their housekeeper was there at the beginning. Janice, I think her name was. Jane. Something like that. She set up some food and a cake.”
“Did the housekeeper leave at some point?”
“Yeah, I don’t remember when.”
“Did she put out any alcohol with the food and cake?”
“No, one of our mates brought that later.”
It was a shot in the dark, but I know what I was like at sixteen. If I’d been invited to parties.
“How many people came to the party?”
He shrugs, the points of his shoulders moving under the thin fabric of his shirt. It’s hard to see the young man he was as he slumps in his chair. The ashy skin slumping loose from his bones, the dead eyes, thinning brown hair—there’s nothing attractive left. But once this man caught Miranda Porter’s eye.
“Mebbe a dozen,” he says. “Before the food ran out, it got busy, then thinned out.”
“What did you do after the food ran out?”
“Same as we were doing before. Dancing, talking, playing games.”
“What kind of games?”
“Seven minutes in heaven. Spin the bottle. Quarters.”
Sex and drinking. Same as every teenage party.
“Did you go off with Miranda at any point?”
He nods.
“Did you and Miranda have sex during the party?”
