Stray Bullets by Robert Rotenberg

said, deliberately switchingto the plural “we” to emphasize that he wasn’t alone. “If I have to call out the emergency task force, it’ll be very messy.”
    Booth refused to meet Kennicott’s eyes.
    “Dewey was last seen leaving the scene of a shooting, wearing a long blue-and-white English soccer league scarf.” Kennicott kicked at the fire and exposed the striped cloth. “Gunshot residue doesn’t usually last more than twenty-four hours because of the lead in it. It’s so heavy it falls off. But there can be traces. The only way to be sure to eliminate it is to burn your clothes.”
    Booth bent down for the pitchfork.
    “Don’t touch that.” Kennicott moved in his way. “I have to warn you, Mr. Booth, the charge of accessory after the fact for a first-degree murder charge could get you five years in jail. Easy.”
    “Aubrey and I tried so hard with the boy. We were getting somewhere, we really were. Then he got swept away in the undertow.” Booth covered his face. Kennicott could hear him crying. “The last seven years have been a nightmare.”
    “I need to find Dewey,” Kennicott said.
    Booth flicked his head to his left.
    Kennicott wasn’t sure what he was doing.
    “He loves to climb,” Booth said. “Can get up on anything.”
    Kennicott was confused, then it hit him. “The lighthouse. That’s the only place to climb here, isn’t it?”
    “Dewey’s favorite spot on earth. Where he could be alone with the sand and the waves and the big lake.”
    “How far is it?”
    “Hundred yards down the road, then you hit the path.”
    Kennicott took off. He sped past a historic plaque at the end of the road on his way down a wooden walkway, the sky almost invisible now under the overgrown hanging vines and trees. A plague of small airborne bugs hit him in the face. One went down his throat, and he gagged on it as he ran. It was sunset. Bug hour. Just like when he and his brother were kids at the family cottage.
    The path turned and in few seconds he was on the beach. An old sign that warned swimmers of the danger of the undertow was attached to a lifesaving station with a long pole and a buoy. The sand was littered with broken shells. To his left the tower came into view, surrounded by rocks and boulders. Dewey Booth, his red hair tossed by the wind, was leaning over the metal railing that ringed the top ofthe lighthouse. A thick climbing rope hung down, threaded through three round spikes on the way up.
    “Who the fuck are you?” he yelled when he spotted Kennicott.
    “Toronto police, Homicide,” Kennicott said, not wanting to get too close in case Booth had the gun.
    “Who ratted me out?” he said. “My fucking father?”
    “Actually it was your pal Larkin. He told us you’d be down here.”
    “Bullshit. We don’t rat, man.”
    “How do you think I knew how to get down here this fast?”
    Booth shook his head in the wind and looked south across the lake.
    “Just now I caught your dad trying to burn your scarf,” Kennicott said. “I’m going to arrest him for accessory after the fact to first-degree murder.”
    “Leave the old goat alone.”
    “It’s worth five years in jail,” Kennicott said.
    “Fuck you, cop.”
    “You don’t want me to arrest him? Throw the gun over the edge and climb down nice and slow.”
    “I don’t have the gun.”
    “That’s what Larkin said too.” In fact, St. Clair hadn’t told them a thing about the gun.
    “Ha!”
    Even from this distance, he could see that Booth was glaring at him. He reached for his phone. “You’ve got ten seconds, then I call in backup.”
    “If I come down, will you leave the old fag alone?”
    “One hundred percent.”
    “And I get my call to my lawyer as soon as I hit the ground.”
    “No problem.”
    “Okay, here take this.” He reached both hands to his belt.
    Kennicott ducked. A moment later something came flying off the top of the lighthouse. It was his shirt. Next came Booth’s shoes, socks, and pants.