On Harrow Hill

He led the way along a dim-lit hallway, smelling of pine-scented floor cleaner, to the first open door and stood aside to let Gurney enter. The windowless room was furnished with a small desk, a filing cabinet, a bookcase, two chairs, a sagging couch, and a coffee table with cracked veneer. On a narrow table behind the desk there was a dated-looking computer and a framed photo of two men shaking hands. The room was lit by a single fixture in the center of the ceiling.

The man sat down in the chair behind the desk and waved his hand toward the other chair and the couch. “Take your choice.”

It was then that Gurney recognized the voice of the man he’d spoken to on the phone. “Mr. Smith,” he said with a smile. “I appreciate your taking the time to see me.”

“No problem. But like I told you, I haven’t spoken to Billy in ten years. And I don’t know anything about this crazy stuff in the news. That’s not the kid I remember.”

“How did you happen to know him?”

“I was his dealer.” Smith said this matter-of-factly, with neither the swagger nor attempt at justification that Gurney usually heard with such admissions.

“Tate was an addict?”

“More of an experimenter. He liked being on the edge. You know these pictures of people hanging off a balcony, standing next to a crocodile, that kind of shit? That was Billy.”

“That’s the way he was on drugs?”

“That’s the way he was without drugs. He was crazier off them than on. Sober, he was like other guys on meth. I think he was experimenting with drugs to see what they would do for him. But the boy had a weird brain. Meth, coke, they didn’t do anything for him.”

“Did he try downers?”

“Sure. Oxy, heroin, tranks. They calmed him down, but Billy wasn’t into calm. He was wild. Scared the shit out of people.”

“Did he scare you?”

“I don’t scare easy.” It came across as a statement of fact, not street talk.

“Was he a bully?”

Smith didn’t answer right away. “I wouldn’t say he was. Bullies like to threaten little people. Billy threatened everybody. Just the way the boy’s engine ran.”

“Did he ever threaten you?”

Smith let out a humorless laugh. “He’d trash-talk, you know? But I never felt the need to deal with it.”

“Why is that?”

“For something to be a threat, you got to feel it that way, and I never did.”

“How dangerous was he?”

“Push the wrong button, everybody’s dangerous. You’re a cop. You know.”

“How dangerous was he, compared to other people you’ve known?”

“Compared to the kind of gangbanger who might shoot a man because he blinked wrong, Billy wasn’t that kind of animal. He had a line.”

“A firm line?”

“Looked that way to me. But most people didn’t see it. Billy had a way of laying down a threat on somebody with a smile—like telling them he was gonna cut their dick off and shove it up their momma’s ass—like it was such a sweet idea he couldn’t wait to do it.”

“It was just talk?”

“Far as I know, all them men still have their dicks.”

There was the sound of a vacuum starting up in a nearby room.

Smith glanced at the plastic watch on his wrist. “Cleaning time. Most residents are out at their jobs. Jobs are part of the deal here. Men that haven’t found employment are assigned house maintenance.” He paused. “You have any more questions?”

“You’re aware that Tate is the prime suspect in three murders?”

“I saw that on TV.”

“Did you find it surprising?”

“Price of being Billy is you’re going to be the suspect for whatever bad shit goes down within a mile of you. But if he did them murders, then I’d say something in that boy’s head must have changed.”

“When you think back, can you recall any people he was close to?”

Smith shook his head. “He wasn’t a close kind of person.”

“Any idea where he might run to, if he needed to hide?”

“He used to have a thing with his stepmother. Maybe he still does.”

“Anyone else?”

“Had a hard-on for Lori Strane. But so did half the county.”

“Did you know her?”

“From a distance. I’d be careful around her, if I were you.”

“Why is that?”

“A man of the cloth might say she has no soul.”

“Did you know Angus Russell?”

“Knew of him. Had a rep. Not a man to fuck with. When I heard he and Lori got hooked up, I thought, holy shit, there’s a match made in hell.”

Gurney wasn’t sure whether Smith had clarified his image of Tate or confused it further. As he was taking a final look around the office, his gaze stopped at the framed photo on the table behind Smith. He leaned forward for a closer look. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

The other man looked familiar. “Can I see it?”

Smith handed it over.

Gurney realized why the man looked familiar. He was the state governor.

Perhaps in reaction to the surprise on Gurney’s face, Smith spoke up. “We’ve had some success here, helping men who were incarcerated for drug-related crimes adjust to the outside world. People have no idea how hard that can be. Our program got the governor’s attention early on. He dropped by with a camera crew. Gave our fundraising a big boost.”

“I’m impressed.”