sexual relations. Consensually. Some of these things I did say to him, but trust me… It was all aboveboard,” Crane muttered. He looked up and saw that Frank was trying to hide his disgust. He sighed. “Listen, he made movies all the time. 3D renders. I know he recorded us having sex a number of times—maybe he even bugged my cell somehow with that app he installed on it. He could have put my voice over the videos… And I came home one day and found him covered in paint. He must have painted the room in the garage and spent time, alone, making these videos. He is responsible for all this. Max is responsible.”
“Then how do you explain the state we found him in? He was beaten and raped. The semen they found matches your DNA.”
“We’d had sex that morning!” Crane growled, his patience wearing out. He stood up and leaned on the table, bringing his face closer to Frank’s. “We fucked. Then men showed up that afternoon and the rape was a fucking performance, I would bet my life on it. They wore condoms, for Christ’s sake, that’s why there’s no evidence! Jesus fucking Christ, I didn’t rape or kidnap Max.”
“I’m going to ask you to lower your voice,” Frank said, the polite smile disappearing beneath his mustache. “And you’re going to listen to me, you piece of shit. I’m going to do my job, and I’m going to do it as well as I can, but I hope you rot in hell for what you did.”
Blinking, Crane sat down. What chance did he have if his lawyer believed he was guilty?
“Your phone is full of blatant, incriminating evidence. The condo was rented in your name. They found no significant traces of Duvernay except for in the room where he was kept. The hair samples they did find in the condo could have come from your clothing after one of your ‘visits’ with Duvernay. You used his credit card on numerous occasions. There were half a dozen USB drives full of disturbing porn videos that are now being investigated for evidence of human trafficking and domestic abuse. You had a whole display case of miniatures depicting rape and murder, and there is no record of Duvernay or anyone named ‘Max’ employed at this game workshop where you say he made them. Even your DVD collection had a running theme: serial killers. Crane, I can’t make this shit up.”
“So that’s it… I’m fucked,” whispered Crane.
“In my professional opinion, yes.”
The tests of the whisky glass had come back negative for drugs, but Crane was certain Max had drugged him—he’d done it before. How else would he have gone over the condo, meticulously removing all of his belongings? Crane knew Max had taken the living room rug because he’d bled on it and the two men had left their condoms on it after the “assault”. Max’s “malnourished” state was from all the crap they’d started eating when Max had stopped cooking… For all he knew, Max had reduced his food intake overall. Crane had been too fucked-up to notice. Had Max stopped cleaning the condo so that his fingerprints were only on certain things? Or maybe he’d never cleaned it at all. Maybe by the time Crane had come over, Max had only been living there a few days? It had been pristine.
Then there was the old man… Max had killed Bertrand, that much was obvious, but hiding the evidence—was it another time he was drugged? There was video footage from the underground garage showing Crane dragging something heavy, and they’d found his fingerprints and hair on the body—he remembered lying half-conscious on cold concrete with dirt under his nails. He covered his eyes, thinking of anything that might save him.
“Mary!” Crane looked at Frank. “Mary talked to Max over the phone. He was pretending to be a hotel clerk to cover for me one weekend. Why wouldn’t he have asked for help?”
“You could have been coercing him.”
Crane ground his teeth in frustration. “Ok, but what about Mrs. Ouimet? I met her… She saw that Max was with me of his own free will.”
Frank sighed and shuffled through the thick sheaf of pages in front of him.
“In her statement, she says, and I quote: Dr. Crane seemed nervous and I believe that he was manipulating my son.”
“Oh God. That is bullshit. She invited me to stay over and said she would provide condoms, for fuck’s sake…” Then he had a flash