Too Close to Home

“That just got printed off. It was on the hard drive of a computer that Agnes Stockwell gave Derek, which he gave to Adam to keep over at his house, and now it’s missing.”

Ellen stared at me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Agnes Stockwell gave Derek a computer? That’s where he got that one he brought home a couple of weeks ago? If somebody told me that, I don’t remember.”

“We probably didn’t. It wasn’t a big deal, then.”

“Is it a big deal now?”

I took a breath. “You remember Brett Stockwell?”

Ellen nodded.

“Agnes saved all his stuff after he committed suicide, but it’s been so long, she’s finally clearing it out, at least the stuff that doesn’t hold any sentimental value. She had his old computer in her garage, and when she found out Derek’s into that kind of thing, she gave it to him. The novel, Conrad’s novel, what looks to be Conrad’s novel, is on the computer. And now that computer’s missing from the Langley house.” I paused, then added, “Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”

Again with the stare. Then, “Which part? That it was on the kid’s computer, or that the computer is missing?”

“All of it.”

“What kind of computer? A desktop? Not a laptop?”

“No, not a laptop,” I said. “The tower part.”

“And how the hell do you have a printout of it if the computer’s missing?”

“Derek had made a copy.”

Ellen sat down on the edge of the bed. “What are you suggesting? I can’t get my head around this. You must be suggesting something.”

“I don’t know what I’m suggesting,” I said. “I’m trying to get my head around it, too. But I can’t help but wonder, maybe Conrad isn’t the great literary genius everyone thinks he is. Maybe A Missing Part isn’t his.”

Ellen was speechless for a moment. It was, I had to admit, a somewhat stunning hypothesis, to be all professorial about it.

“Jesus, what are you saying?” she said. “That some kid wrote it? That’s ridiculous. That book was on the New York Times bestseller list.”

“I’m just putting it out there,” I said. “I’m just saying, it’s kind of a strange thing for it to be on that computer.”

“Maybe,” Ellen said, “he had a student who was such a fan, he typed it out, word for word. Or had a copy of it, a Word file or something. Did they offer books back then as e-books? Maybe Brett Stockwell downloaded it. Did you ever think of that?”

“When did Conrad’s book come out?” I asked. “When was it published?”

Ellen tried to think. “Was it nine, ten years ago? Hang on.” She got up, walked out of the room, went downstairs. I followed her down to the living room, where she was scanning the wall that’s lined with bookshelves. They’re pretty much overflowing, books tucked in sideways on top of other books, so it took Ellen a moment, cocking her head so that she could read the spines, before she could put her hands on our copy of A Missing Part.

She flipped it open to the copyright page. “It was in 2000,” she said. “The hardcover. Trade paperback a year later.”

“Brett Stockwell killed himself ten years ago,” I pointed out. “Two years before the book came out.”

“There must be a simple explanation,” Ellen said.

“Sure,” I said. “Maybe so. It’s just funny, is all. And there’s the fact that the computer’s gone missing.”

“Someone stole it?”

I shrugged. “It was in the Langley house as recently as Thursday, Derek says, and now it’s gone.”

“Did Barry say it was stolen when the Langleys were killed?”

“No. Derek noticed that it was missing when Barry took us through the house.”

She looked away from me and shook her head. “This is crazy. What did Barry say when Derek noticed that it was gone?”

“He didn’t tell Barry. He told me afterwards. He wanted to talk to me about it first, because he was too embarrassed to talk to you about a book with that kind of content. He didn’t know it was a published novel. I mean, he was what, nine when it came out? I think maybe he was reading the Hardy Boys then, and Frank and Joe weren’t exactly waking up in the morning with their dicks missing. Derek just thought it was some student’s attempt at porn, although as porn goes, Derek said it kind of missed the mark.”

Ellen almost smiled, but then it faded away. “What are you going to do about this?”

“I guess I should tell Barry, don’t you think?” I said. “It may not actually mean anything. And the fact that the computer’s missing doesn’t mean it has to have anything to do with what happened at the Langleys’. It might have disappeared between the last time Derek was in Adam’s room, which was Thursday, when he saw the computer there, and the murders, which were Friday night. Maybe it’s someplace else in the house where Barry didn’t take us.”

Ellen paced about the room, then said, “You should let Conrad know.”

“What?”

“Before going to Barry. Conrad deserves to know, because there really may be a simple explanation. If there is, we’ll be glad we went to him directly instead of involving the police.”

“We?”

Ellen looked at me. “Don’t be like that.”