October skies

CHAPTER 62

Thursday

Palo Cedro, California

Rose smiled and slurped on an iced Becks. ‘So, I’m not exactly sure what Forensic Linguistics is. It sounds impressive.’

The young man grinned. A chiselled dimple in each cheek made him look like a youthful Brad Pitt. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘it’s real interesting. They’re just beginning to use it more in other countries. The FBI’s been using it for years.’

Rose smiled. Lance, the guy from the diner, was good-looking, pretty smart too, but already she was finding him a little on the self-absorbed side.

Let’s talk about me… me… me…

‘They use it in corporate security too, filtering emails for phrases and communication patterns that are suspicious.’ He nodded his head. ‘That’s where I wanna be at. Big dollars in corporate security, fuck yeah.’

‘Wow,’ she offered.

‘It’s really clever shit though, Rose,’ he said, chugging his Becks from the bottle. ‘The way people communicate, the choice of words they use when they’re, like, talking the truth and when telling a lie. Going through a bogus email, or a fabricated suicide note, when you know how it works, how the brain processes stuff… it’s so obvious.’

He leaned forward, putting his feet up on the rungs of her bar stool either side of her legs and casually planted a hand on her thigh. ‘Take a faked suicide note. We studied one taken from an actual real crime. This husband knew his wife was cheating on him, so he decided to kill her ’cause he was pissed about it, but also because he had a big ol’ life insurance policy on her. So one night, when he had an alibi covering his ass, he sneaked home and forced her to write her own suicide note, before blowing her brains out with the family shotgun.’

‘Nice.’

Lance grinned. ‘He went out again, then came home from his alibi, found her body and called the police. This guy nearly got away with it. The police were sure they were looking at a suicide until the note was run past the Feds. And this is the cool bit,’ he said, nodding. ‘They didn’t find any tissue, fibre or prints to link to her husband. The handwriting was hers, of course. There was nothing there they could get him on, except… the language she used in the note.’

The language? Rose was intrigued. ‘How do you mean?’

‘It wasn’t suicide language.’

‘Uh?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘the language was, like, too depressed to be genuine.’

‘Too depressed?’ Rose shook her head. ‘Er… she supposedly shot herself. Surely depressed is exactly how she’d sound in her note?’

‘No, see, that’s the common mistake. Most people think a person about to take their own life is miserable as shit. But that isn’t the case, because they’ve found a way through what’s troubling them. See? They’ve found a solution, so it’s, like, all right now — everything is, you know, cool… I got myself a way out.’

‘The solution being suicide?’

‘That’s right! So, when they’re writing the note, it’s full of, like, positives, it’s optimistic, happy even.’ He grinned that winning, sexy smile of his, inches away from her face.

‘And that’s a genuine suicide note. This husband guy forced his wife to write a doom-n-gloom, I-hate-this-evil-world-and-I’m-gonna-end-it-all-right-now kind of letter.’

He sat back and laughed. ‘Dude was a dumb-ass. That’s how the Feds got him.’

She looked at him, an idea germinating. ‘So, you’re telling me you can look at the language of a written piece of work and tell whether the writer is telling the truth, or making it up?’

‘Sure. Like I say, Forensic Linguistics is the future.’

He took another swig, planting the bottle heavily on the counter. ‘See, somebody lying will use one of two or three deception strategies. It’s just a case of spotting which strategy is being used, counting the ratio of adjectives to nouns… stuff like that. Simple when you know how it works.’

‘All right then,’ she said, delving into her bag. She took out a folder, flipped through a dozen pages, settled on one and then pulled it out. ‘Would you have a look at this?’

He looked at the sheet of paper, bemused. ‘Now? Here?’

Rose looked around the bar. Being early evening, it was relatively quiet. She imagined in a small nowhere place like this, it wasn’t likely to get much busier tonight. ‘Yeah, why not?’

He smiled and shrugged. ‘Yeah, okay. I’ll take a look at what you got, if you like.’

She passed him the sheet of paper, and immediately he frowned as his eyes scanned the page. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s transcript taken from a diary that I’m busy researching. I’d love to know whether the author was writing what he saw or’ — she looked at him — ‘whether this might be made up.’

Lance nodded. ‘Just this page, right?’

‘If you’re game for it?’ she said, smiling sweetly.

‘Right… take me about five minutes, at a guess.’

‘Okay. I’ll order us another beer whilst you’re at it.’

He asked the barman for a pen. ‘Need some quiet. I’ll be there,’ he said, pointing to an alcove away from the bar and the noisy television sitting on a shelf behind it. She watched him go, sit down and begin to examine the words, underlining one every now and then with the pen.

Rose felt a further twinge of guilt, watching him. The kid clearly thought he was going to score tonight, but Rose had decided at least an hour ago that this had been something of a mistake. He was after a novelty notch to put on his bed — that was all.

She had been on the point of deploying a polite exit strategy when he’d moved on from regaling her about his frat-boy life-style to discussing his course on linguistics.

And that had most definitely piqued her interest.

She turned back round to the bar and ordered another two beers, as promised. Her attention drifted to the TV behind the bar. Report Card was on, a satirical news show that featured a couple of vaguely recognisable comedians as news anchors.

‘… and in a surprising announcement this week, William Shepherd, the Mormon independent candidate from Utah, decided to take time out from his early campaigning to talk with his strategy team: God.’

There was a ripple of laughter that Rose recognised as canned.

‘That’s right, Steve. It seems Shepherd’s taking a rest between rounds like Rocky Balboa and grabbing a little coach time.’

The image on TV changed to show the corner of a boxing ring and one of the comedians, sweating and gasping with the iconic Rocky bruised-and-battered make-up job. A well-groomed silver wig on his head and a Bible under one arm signalled that they were spoofing Shepherd. Into shot appeared the other comedian, sporting an impossibly bushy white beard and monstrous Old Testament eyebrows beneath a grubby woollen hat. He vigorously worked on ‘Shepherd’s’ shoulders.

‘Ya gotta get out there again, Sheppy!’ he barked with a grizzly Philly accent. ‘Them big bastards’ll drop like a sack o’ grain if you land ’em one on the kisser.’

‘I dunno, God,’ gasped Sheppy, ‘they’re killin’ me out there, man.’

God held a spittoon out and Sheppy spat. ‘Ya got’s ta hit ’em where it hurts, Sheppy? Ya unnerstand? Hit ’em where it hurts.’

‘But where’s that?’

God shrugged. ‘Hell, I don’t know. Use ya damned brain, fool. Dat’s why I gave ya people one.’

A bell rang and Sheppy disappeared out of shot. God watched and winced at the sound of heavy blows being traded. Another bell and Shepherd limped back into shot, even more battered and bruised.

‘They’re big sons-of-bitches, God. They’re kickin’ my ass.’ God scratched his bristles for a moment. ‘Sheee-it. Wan’ me to tag for ya?’

Sheppy nodded. ‘I gotta rest up.’

The bell rang and God climbed through the ropes. ‘Wish me luck.’

Out of shot, for a few seconds there was the sound of blows being traded, then a blinding flash flickered on screen followed by the sound of thunder. A waft of smoke crossed in front of Sheppy’s face.

God walked back into shot with smoke rising from sooty boxing gloves.

‘Bunch a’ pussies.’

Canned laughter mixed in as the image cut back to the two comedian anchors.

‘Sheeeesh, Steve. You get God pitching on your side, you just can’t lose, eh?’

‘S’right. God, and about two billion pledged campaign dollars.’

The image on the screen cut to footage of Shepherd talking at a rally earlier in the week, camera flashes popping and strobing. Shepherd talked energetically, flinging his hands in the air, but his voice was dubbed over by one of the comedians.

‘… and ah promise you good folks out there that ah’m gonna have me a big ol’ talk with God about a’ bunch a’ things. Oh yeah. We gonna talk about puttin’ things straight here in the US of A. First up, ah’m putting God in charge of the Federal Ree-serve. Maybe he can go rustle us up some real dollars, ’stead of the paper shee-it we call money now. Then, ah’m gonna get him to do some ass-whuppin’ over in the Middle East…’

The barman leaned across and switched channels. ‘Assholes, ’ he mumbled.

‘You a fan?’ asked Rose.

‘Of the show or Shepherd?’

‘The show.’

‘Usually those two guys’re pretty funny.’

‘But not tonight?’

‘No.’ He switched over to a sports channel. ‘That guy Shepherd’s the only fella runnin’ for the job who’s worth a red cent. The others? Bunch of parasites or bleedin’ heart liberals. Don’t trust either party any more.’

She sipped her beer. ‘Do you think he stands a chance?’

‘I hope so. He’s sure as hell got my vote,’ the barman said. Rose heard the muted trill of a phone coming from the other end of the bar. The man excused himself and went to answer it.

A moment later Lance joined her and reached for the beer she’d got him.

‘Wow,’ she said, ‘that was bloody quick.’

He grinned. ‘Hell, I’m in a bar with, like, a real sexy English lady,’ he said. ‘I can work real quick when I have to.’

Rose smiled. His clumsy frat-boy smooth-talk had a certain charm. ‘So, what’s your verdict, Lance?’

He shook his head, laying the sheet of paper out on the bar and sitting down again on the stool beside her. She could see words circled and underlined and a tally of something in the margin. ‘You know, this is pretty gross reading,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘This something that happened a while back? ’Cos, the language is a bit, you know, like… old style.’

Rose nodded. ‘It was written about a century and a half ago.’

His eyes widened. ‘Hey, that’s cool.’

‘So?’

‘So… you wanna know if the person who wrote this was writing the truth?’

‘Yes.’

Lance bit his lip for a moment. ‘Well, it ain’t conclusive, but, looking at some of the words the writer has chosen, I’d say some of this could be made up. There’s words here that sort of distance the author, and what we call displacement details, where the writer is focusing too much on small, irrelevant stuff instead of the main thing which’ — he looked up at her — ‘would be, like, describing this body, I guess.’

‘So, you’re saying this might be an untruthful account of what happened?’

‘Hey… some of it might be, is what I’m saying. That’s all.’ Rose surprised herself by feeling a stab of disappointment. She’d read enough of Lambert’s journal so far to feel she somehow knew him as a person, perhaps knew him better than she knew a lot of her friends back home.

Trusted him.

Lance placed his hand back on her thigh once more. ‘But look, it’s just a quick assessment in a bar. And shit, I’ve had a couple of beers.’ He shrugged casually and flashed her a mischievous smile. ‘My mind’s on other things here. Ain’t going to be a hundred per cent accurate, you know?’

‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

His hand wandered a little too far along her thigh in the wrong direction and she gently grabbed a hold of it and squeezed.

‘Look, uh… Lance,’ she said awkwardly, ‘you’re a gorgeous guy and I’m sure you break hearts right across the state, and I’ve really been enjoying talking to you…’

His friendly grin slackened a little. ‘But?’

‘But…’ She nodded. ‘I don’t want to come back with you tonight.’ She forced a rueful smile onto her lips. ‘If that’s all right.’

He sighed. ‘Shit, that’s a kicker.’

She guessed by the look on his perfectly chiselled face that being knocked back wasn’t an experience he was too familiar with. She felt the slightest pang of guilt for exploiting the boy’s hormones and despite Lance’s chivalrous protest, she settled the bar tab.

She thanked him for a lovely evening, wandered out of the bar to where her car was parked, and decided she was more than sober enough to drive back to Blue Valley. All the while, she was wondering about the seed of doubt the young man had inadvertently placed in her head.