Fall Guy

trigger?
    What if?
    Timothy O'Fallon had been a survivor. That was why he'd gone to the post-traumatic-stress group where I'd met him. My guess is he had been doing things like that for much of his life, any support group in a storm, including that one, including AA, anything he could find that would help him live with his own history, not die because of it. Because if that was what he was going to do, die because of it, he would have done it decades earlier, after he'd pushed his brother to his death or seen his cousin tumble so far into depression that he killed himself, or after the suicide of his father. Not all these years later. Not when he'd spent his life atoning for that one terrible mistake.
    Timothy O'Fallon hadn't killed himself. Someone had committed an almost perfect murder, someone who had been studying O'Fallon for a long time. Had he shot him and then left the house, gone to meet someone who inconveniently never showed? Had he started a conversation with someone else in order to have an alibi?
    If not for that alibi, if not for that one thing, everything pointed to Parker. But he did have one. Jin Mei, out in the garden, near the bathroom window, had heard Tim crying. And that was during the time that Parker was seen waiting for a friend, then settling for a stranger, quintessential Parker.
    Of course, Parker didn't really need an alibi, did he? There had been more than enough reason for the cops to close the case quickly: O'Fallon's grief at his mother's death, the stress of the job, the photograph on his desk, not to mention the lack of trace evidence to prove otherwise. The photograph. A nice touch. A flair for the dramatic. That sounded like Parker.
    The real evidence, the hard evidence, that which would nail it one way or another, all washed away. But more than enough of the circumstantial kind.
    That was what was getting to me, eating away at me just beneath the surface of my consciousness. There was too much evidence, too many fingers pointing at Parker. The one thing that didn't fit, the one thing that stood out like a sore thumb was that alibi.
    But suppose he didn't have one.
    Jin Mei knew Tim had been to his mother's wake the day before. Standing in the garden near his closed bathroom window, she thought she heard him crying. But Jin Mei was hard of hearing. Perhaps what she'd really heard had been the shower running, nothing more.
    Suppose there was no alibi. Suppose instead of rushing to close the case, the police had investigated further, suspecting that Tim's death had not been a suicide. In that case, there might as well be a neon sign pointing to Parker. Discounting his fingerprints, because he had been living there, there was still ample reason to look at Parker. He'd had a fight with Tim the day before and Tim had kicked him out of the apartment. He'd been stealing from Tim, lying to him. Suppose all these things had finally caught up with him. Suppose Tim wasn't just throwing him out, but threatening to send him to jail.
    And then Parker's aunt goes missing, just when he needs her to. He moves into her apart-merit, fills the closets with his things, gets rid of everything of hers he can't use. He claims there was a note inviting him to stay, but he doesn't save it, a document, as far as the cops were concerned, that would be considered more valuable than a lease.
    But there was that cell phone message, the one that told him he couldn't live at his aunt's house, not then, not ever again. There was Elizabeth Bowles, an actress's actress, disappearing in the middle of the run of a play. Then found dead.
    Who, if not Parker, had a motive? It had to be Parker. Anyone would have come to that conclusion.
    And then Dennis turns up dead, the keys to the place where Parker is living, his aunt's apartment, found lying next to the body. Who could have dropped them there but Parker? Who might have left the little purse, his aunt's purse, hidden in Parker's closet. Who indeed? There was no end of evidence against Parker.
    All his life he'd been a liar, a thief, a con artist. Why not assume he'd finally escalated to murder? I went over the list again—evidence everywhere, nothing ambiguous. A rookie could make the case against Parker.
    That's when I sat bolt upright. Nobody could be that careless. Not even Parker. Especially not Parker.
    Parker wasn't a careless man. He was thoughtful, meticulous in the way he figured out exactly how to reinvent himself whenever he had the need. His survival