Too Close to Home

“You heard me.”

Lance got out and started walking around the car. For a second I thought, fuck it, I can open my own goddamn door, then figured, why not let Lance do what he’s paid to do?

The door opened and I got out. As Lance closed it, he leaned in close to me from behind, his chin over my shoulder, and whispered in my ear, “That’s a first. Don’t think I ever opened the door for a fucking lawn boy before.”

I drove my elbow back, fast and hard, taking him just below the rib cage. The air went out of him and he dropped.

“Sorry,” I said. “That’s my weed-whacking arm. It gets twitchy.”

FOURTEEN

Once Lance had gotten himself off the pavement and driven away with Finley, I got out my phone again, ready to dial the number on Barry’s card. Then I stopped myself.

What did I actually intend to tell him?

There was the short version of the story, of course. That it had occurred to Derek, after our tour of the Langley house, that he hadn’t seen one of the computers that had been in Adam’s room a couple of days earlier. “For what it’s worth,” I could say to Barry.

And he could do what he pleased with the information.

The truth was, I didn’t know that the computer had anything to do with the Langleys’ deaths. For all we knew, Adam had put it in his closet. Barry hadn’t opened it up for us to examine.

And if the computer didn’t have a damn thing to do with this, was there any point in getting into this can of worms of what Derek and Adam had found on it? Other than to cause some possible grief for Conrad Chase? I might enjoy seeing him squirm, but at the same time, I wasn’t vindictive enough to drag an innocent man into a murder investigation purely for my own entertainment. Almost, but not quite.

I decided the best course of action was to know a little more before calling Barry Duckworth. That’s why, for now, going to see Mr. Burgess, Brent Stockwell’s high school teacher, seemed like a plan.

Mothers always think their sons are brilliant. Sometimes they even turn out to be right, but Burgess could supply an unbiased assessment. He could tell me whether Brett really was the gifted writer his mother believed him to be. If he didn’t share that opinion, then there had to be some other explanation for Conrad’s book being on the boy’s computer. I’d realize my rush to judgment, my conclusion that Conrad had stolen his bestseller from a student, was totally off base.

And then, holding off on calling Barry would look like a wise move.

I found the Burgess I was looking for when I called the second of the three numbers I’d taken down from Agnes Stockwell’s phone book. He wasn’t much more than a ten-minute drive from her house, and I didn’t need a map to find it. I’d lived and worked in Promise Falls long enough to know my way around.

I didn’t know what exactly to tell him when I got him on the phone. Once I’d told him my name, and determined that he was an English teacher from Promise Falls High School, I said I needed to talk to him about one of his former pupils. When he’d asked for more information, I’d said it would be a lot easier if I could talk to him about this in person.

“Fine, come on over,” he said. But I could hear the suspicion and distrust in his voice.

Along the way, I was feeling a buzz about what had happened with Lance. It wasn’t exactly a buzz of excitement. Mostly it was a feeling of agitation, with dollops of anxiety and regret thrown into the mix.

It was a stupid thing to have done, to have sucker punched him with my elbow. Briefly satisfying, yes, but I should have been above that kind of behavior. The thing was, he’d pushed my buttons once too often. I guess, when you’re driving around an asshole mayor, there aren’t that many occupations you can feel superior to. So sticking it to a guy who cuts grass for a living, well, that’s an opportunity too sweet to pass up.

I wasn’t particularly worried that Lance would press charges. He’d have a much better chance seeing me convicted of assault with a solid witness in his corner, and I knew he didn’t have one in Mayor Finley. He wasn’t going to jeopardize my pledge to keep my mouth shut by testifying against me for the likes of mullet-headed Lance.

Lance had to know that. But the thing was, a guy like Lance Garrick no doubt had plenty of other ways to seek justice that were outside the court system. Now, because I’d felt the need to show I had some balls, I was going to have to be watching my back for the indefinite future.

It was an aggravation I really could have done without at the moment.