Read Online Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran - Free Book Online Page B

solution to every mystery is never more than inches away.”
    I went over to the boys and sat next to them, inches away.
    â€œHi,” I said. “I’m Claire DeWitt. I’m a private eye from Brooklyn, New York.”
    They sat up and looked at me. No matter how far downhill it goes into yuppiedom, Brooklyn always impresses people. Between that and the PI business I had a good introduction to anyone under the age of forty who’d ever owned a hip-hop album.
    â€œI’m here working on a case,” I said. “A
very important
case.”
    The boys nodded, and tried to look dependable and upright.
    â€œAnd what I need to know,” I said, “is if either of you has ever seen this man.”
    I took out my picture of Vic Willing and showed it to them.
    They looked at the picture. When they did, something happened to the redhead. It was like a door shut across his face and locked tight. He didn’t blink. He didn’t wrinkle his forehead or move his eyes or any of the other normal things someone would do looking at a photograph. Instead he locked up, like a car that’d run out of oil.
    The brunette boy looked at the photo and shook his head.
    â€œUh-uh,” he said. “Sorry.” He was telling the truth.
    The redhead shook his head. “Sorry,” he muttered.
    He was lying. I looked at him. He started to look nervous. His foot tapped. Suddenly he stood up.
    â€œFuck this shit,” he said angrily to the other boy, throwing his cigarette on the ground. The brunette looked confused. “This is
bullshit
,” said the redhead. “Waiting here all fucking day to see that nigga. He ain’t even
come
visit me when I was in Charity, not once.
Fuck
this.”
    He turned and walked away without looking at me. The brunette boy, confused, trailed behind him.
    The truth may have been inches away. But I still wasn’t close enough to grasp it.
    I went back inside and read a book I’d brought with me on Mexican witchcraft. When my name was called I went through two metal detectors, both of which missed every piece of metal I had on me, and ended up in a square room that had the same smell and more lawyers and less mothers. A guard pointed to a round table near the middle, where Andray Fairview sat waiting for me where a guard had left him.
    I sat in the plastic chair across from him. He didn’t look up.
    â€œHi,” I said. He looked up, saw me, and looked back down. I didn’t know if he recognized me or not. I doubted it.
    His eyes were big and pale brown, the whites streaked with red and pink. Under the neckline of a thin T-shirt a gunshot scar blossomed on his chest. His eyes were fixed down on the linoleum floor, and his breathing was long and shallow. He sat slumped in his chair as if it took all of his energy to stay sitting up.
    â€œI’m Claire DeWitt,” I said. “I’m a private investigator.”
    That usually gets a good response. Everyone loves a mystery. But Andray just looked up and lifted his eyebrows and then let them fall back down, gradually, to his occipital ridge. If he recognized me, he gave no sign of it.
    â€œI found your fingerprints in someone’s house,” I said. “A man named Vic Willing.”
    I gave Andray time to respond. He didn’t say anything. But under the affected blankness on his face I saw something else—fear, maybe, or just loathing. He didn’t like me, I saw that. But I couldn’t quite make out if he was scared of me too.
    Andray had two sharp wrinkles going from the top of his nose to above his eyebrows. Above that three thin creases were etched horizontally across his forehead. He had a lot on his mind for an eighteen-year-old kid. Either he was smart or anxious or both.
    Usually I can read people. Most are easy. A hand to the face means they’re lying, an extra blink gives away nervousness, a raised eyebrow signifies surprise. But Andray wasn’t easy. All