Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

a witness. The witness had something to say.
    “You know I didn’t kill those people,” he began.
    “I believe you, but we’re going to have to keep you for a while longer. Murder cases have to be handled just so. You don’t even have any identification. I need to talk to you about the body you found. Maybe you have information that you don’t even know is important. Bear with me for a few more hours.”
    Joe was already shaking his head, but the sheriff held up a hand, determined to finish speaking his piece. “Mr. Mantooth, you and I both know that you withheld evidence important to a murder case. You’re not in the best legal position here. By tomorrow, I may have helped your situation substantially. Today, right now, I’m going to talk to everybody I questioned in 1964 about the disappearance of Abby Williford, starting with Douglass Everett. I’ll check them for alibis, then we’ll see if they’ve been buying unusual quantities of Clorox. By the time I finish, the question of your innocence may be a moot point.”
    “But Faye needs me. She needs me now.”
    “How do you know?”
    Joe leaned forward and pointed to the marina. “You know which boat slip is hers. Look. It’s empty. That means she’s not ashore. I’ve got to find her before this weather gets worse.”
    “That hurricane’s headed for Grand Isle. This is probably as much wind as we’ll get. Being east of the eye, we might see some rain. It depends. Faye’s a smart girl. She’ll be fine.”
    Joe gave a disgusted grunt and flopped back in his seat.
    The sheriff had learned not to argue with a twenty-five-year-old wearing a sullen expression, so he told the technician to crank the boat. Nothing happened. He stood up, leaning over the tech, and opened the choke to offer the engine more gas. He was rewarded with a sound, but not the sound he was expecting.
    It was the sound of Joe leaving the boat headfirst, diving into the five-foot waves. The purloined fuel lines tucked in the waistband of his pants flapped in the wind.
    The sheriff would have feared for anyone’s life but Joe’s. His long arms and legs ate up the water as if the waves weren’t there, as if he were enjoying his morning laps at the country club.
    The technician rose from his seat and began ripping off his shirt.
    “Sit down, son. Look at that water. Would you like to drown today?”
    Sheriff Mike raised his dispatcher on the radio, saying, “I have an escapee and I’m floating in a disabled craft just offshore of Wally’s Marina. Send some officers to patrol the swamp west of the marina. He may wash ashore there. And send somebody to pick me up.”
    Joe had already swum into the distance, swallowed by the rising and falling water.

    The feel of Cyril’s arms around her made Faye’s breath shiver in her throat. No, not Cyril. This man was not Cyril. Could he feel her skin shrinking away from his touch?
    What had happened to Cyril and his family? The official story, the one this man had told her, said the family had detonated in the mid-Sixties, flinging parents and children in all directions. The mother had left her abusive husband, taking the youngest son with her. The father, a renowned scoundrel, had run off, leaving older brother Cedrick to carry on alone until he finished school and took a job working offshore. Except maybe he’d come back long enough to kill Abby Williford.
    So who was this man pretending to be Cyril Kirby? She’d never doubted he was who he said he was, because he looked so much like the pictures of Cyril and his brother, Cedrick. The plastic surgery scar now told her the tale. In 1964, Cyril was ten and Cedrick was eighteen. If Cedrick was masquerading as his younger brother, then he was now well over fifty. With every year, it had to be harder to hide his real age.
    She tried not to moan as the man standing behind her leaned forward and brushed her back with his body. If she were only big enough, strong enough to throw him overboard, she would do it in a heartbeat, because she knew why he’d stolen his little brother’s name. Suppose a man has committed a celebrated crime, a crime that every soul for miles around took to heart. What better way to evade retribution than to become simply too young to be a plausible suspect?
    Say Cedrick killed Abby and fled with few possessions other than his brother’s birth certificate, waiting for his alter ego to grow up. How long would it take? A decade? Could most people tell the