Barclay, Linwood Novel 08 - Never saw it coming

What? She confessed?
    Wedmore: She told us a few things.
    Justin: She told you she killed that Garfield guy?
    Wedmore: No, she didn’t confess to that, Justin.
    Justin: Well what the hell else would she confess to? She killed that guy.
    Wedmore: We can get back to that in a moment. No, what Keisha confessed to was the trick you played on your mother and stepfather.
    Justin: I don’t . . . I don’t know what you mean.
    Wedmore: Keisha says you approached her with an idea about how you could take them for five thousand dollars.
    Justin: She
told
you about that?
    Wedmore: Where’d you get the idea?
    Justin: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Like I said, I was depressed, I ran away from home for a while. My parents hired that woman to find me. She had this vision of me in an empty office my mom used to rent out to some plastic surgery place.
    Wedmore: Where’d you go to school, Justin?
    Justin: School?
    Wedmore: Did you ever have a teacher named Terry Archer?
    Justin: Mr. Archer? Yeah, I had an English teacher named Mr. Archer.
    Wedmore: I just got off the phone with him. He remembers you.
    Justin: He does?
    Wedmore: Yeah. He says he remembers a class where he got talking about that horrible thing that happened to him and his wife. He says you were in that class, that you had lots of questions.
    Justin: I remember something about that. His wife’s family disappeared or something.
    Wedmore: Very good. You remember. And I guess you remember the part where Mr. Archer told his students about a psychic who said she’d tell them what happened to the family for a thousand dollars?
    Justin: I didn’t always pay attention in school.
    Wedmore: Mr. Archer says you actually asked him, after class, for the name of the psychic.
    Justin: I suppose that’s possible, but I don’t remember.
    Wedmore: Didn’t you tell your stepfather, Mr. Taggart, about her? I understand your father has an interest in that sort of thing.
    Justin: I don’t know where you’re going with this.
    Wedmore: When Keisha Ceylon led your parents to you, it wasn’t the first time you’d met her, was it?
    Justin: Uh . . .
    Wedmore: You knew what she did, the kind of scams she ran, and you came up with an idea to get five thousand dollars from your parents. After some persuading, Ms. Ceylon went along with it.
    Justin: Look, my mom, my stepdad, they’ve got tons of money, and anything I might have done where they’re concerned, that’s our business. It’s not like the public got ripped off or anything. Keisha—she really told you about all this?
    Wedmore: She said you’re an admirer of her work. A fan. That she inspired you. That after you ran this game on your parents, you wanted to do more work with her, but she said no. Does that sound about right?
    Justin: I wouldn’t say that.
    Wedmore : What part do I have wrong? Straighten me out here.
    Justin: I don’t know. I just . . . none of that rings a bell.
    Wedmore: No? You saying you didn’t go to Mr. Garfield’s house and offer to provide the same kind of service Keisha did?
    Justin: Shit, no. Don’t you see what she’s doing? She’s confessed to this other thing, with my mom and her husband and me, because she figures—because it’ll make her look almost honest. You know? She’s willing to admit all that, so you’ll believe her when she says she didn’t do the really big thing, killing that guy.
    Wedmore: You didn’t drop by her house and tell her you were the new fake psychic in town? That you got a thousand bucks out of Mr. Garfield before she did? And that made her boyfriend so angry, you cutting in on his girlfriend’s territory, that he attacked you? That there was a fight, and you knocked that bookshelf over on him?
    Justin: Okay, that’s totally not—there was a fight, yeah, but not the way you’re laying it out.
    Wedmore: You didn’t threaten her son if she gave you a hard time about it?
    Justin: Threaten her—what?
    Wedmore: Is that why there’s a picture of him on your phone? That you emailed to her. So she’d know you were watching him, and not turn you in?
    Justin: This is totally—the kid asked me to take his picture.
    Wedmore: I’ve got a couple of things in this box here I want to show you. Hang on . . . here we go. You ever seen this money before, Justin?
    Justin: Where’s that from?
    Wedmore: I’m asking, have you ever seen it.
    Justin: It’s money. Money’s money. It all looks the same.
    Wedmore: You notice the blood on the edge of some of