Mr. Browning pretty much disregarded that. “So,” he said to me, “I don’t believe you ever said why you didn’t write about any of this in one of your articles.”
“I couldn’t,” I told him. “Nash asked me not to. He said they wanted to keep the place private.”
“Nash asked you not to?” Mr. Browning said.
“That’s right. He’s been a good friend and a good source. I couldn’t mess that up by writing about things he asked me not to.”
“A journalist’s ethics?” Mr. Browning asked.
“Yeah, a journalist’s ethics. Some of us still have them.”
“Let’s hear about the shoe,” Smiley said. He sounded exasperated by any kind of talk about ethics. “Ashton’s running shoe in the field—it’s a pretty big coincidence you were the one who found it, don’t you think?”
“That was no coincidence,” Randy said. “Dylan’s a master at that kind of thing.”
Mr. Browning’s eyebrows raised. “Oh, really? How so?”
I didn’t want to go into how I was actually the one who discovered Hector in the Dumpster and make myself look even more suspicious, so before Randy could crank it up, I said, “It’s my job. As an investigative journalist, I have to be observant.”
But Smiley’s like, “I’ve heard about enough of this investigative-journalist manure. What we want to know is, did you find that shoe like you pretended or did you bring it with you and plant it there?”
All of a sudden it seemed about ten degrees hotter in that media room. “What are you talking about?” I said. “How could I bring a shoe out there? They didn’t allow you to carry any bags or anything with you.”
“Yeah,” Smiley said, “but you know what? There’s plenty of spare room in those baggy pants of yours—you could’ve tucked a shoe up there and shook it out of your pant leg right where you wanted it.”
In my mind, I’m like, Really? You’re making a crack about my baggy pants? Take a look at yourself, why don’t you? But what I said out loud was, “That’s ridiculous. Why would I do something like that?”
“Well, there is the reward,” Mr. Browning said.
“I didn’t even know about that until I got out there.”
“About that reward—” Randy started, but I cut him off.
“Not now, Randy. Not now.”
Smiley goes, “Let’s get down to it—maybe you had her shoe because you had her.”
No joke. That’s what he said. Now I felt like I was back in the cop shop with Detectives Hair Gel and Forehead. Nothing about who I was counted. It was all about how they saw me—a nobody with no mojo.
I’m like, “Come on, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would I write all these articles about Ashton if I had anything to do with her disappearance?”
“Maybe because you want to throw the spotlight off yourself,” Smiley said.
“How is that throwing the spotlight off myself? If I hadn’t written the articles or tried to pass along some solid info to the police, you would never know who I was.”
And Mr. Browning goes, “But you want people to know who you are, don’t you, Dylan? You want everyone talking about Dylan Jones, the investigative reporter who solved the case and got the reward.”
Suddenly, I felt naked. Fat and naked. Because he was right. He saw straight through me. I did want that. But he was wrong about what I would do to get it. After all, I was me, not him.
“Listen,” I said. “I only came over here to help you out. I didn’t come over to have people start throwing accusations at me.”
“That’s right,” Randy added. “Dylan’s a good dude. What you should be doing is looking at the Wiccan population in this city.”
Smiley’s like, “Wiccan? What’s he talking about?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Forget that. I found that shoe because I just happened to step on it. If I hadn’t been there, you might have never found it, and you wouldn’t have any clues. And that’s all I’m going to say. I’m done.”
“We’ll tell you when you’re done,” Smiley said, but Mr. Browning’s like, “No, he’s right.” He leaned back and let out this big breath like he was trying to get rid of all the tension of the past month. “I’m sorry if it looked like we were accusing you of anything, but you have to understand how important this is to me.”
“I never said it wasn’t.”
“We have to cover all our bases.”
“Well, I’m not one of your bases.”
Mr. Browning looked at Smiley. “I think we’ve taken up enough of these boys’ evening. Would you be kind enough to drive them home?”
Smiley said all right, and Mr. Browning shook my hand, then Randy’s. “I think we had a productive talk, all things considered,” he said. “And I’ll trust you and your journalistic integrity not to mention it in one of your articles.”
“That definitely wouldn’t be a good idea,” Smiley added as he clamped his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go.” And then to Mr. Browning: “You want me to call you later?”
“That would be fine,” Mr. Browning confirmed.
Outside, the air was cool, but that didn’t stop Randy from asking if we could take a dip in the pool.
“Get back to the car,” Smiley said.
CHAPTER 27
Except for Smiley’s complaints about how the inside of his car now smelled like hamburgers, the drive back to Topper’s was pretty quiet. After the way he talked to me in the guesthouse, I wasn’t in a hurry to strike up any further conversation with him. The whole experience left me feeling like I’d gotten myself into something that was over my head. With one call from the likes of Mr. Browning, Detectives Hair Gel and Forehead would be only too glad to haul me down for some more grilling.