Too Close to Home

“Barry,” I said patiently, “I’m not particularly interested in discussing this, but I’m telling you this much. It didn’t happen. I didn’t have an affair with Donna Langley. I didn’t sleep with her. I had an opportunity, but I didn’t take it. I know you’re doing your job, but for the life of me I don’t know what this has to do with anything, even if I had slept with her, which, I repeat, I did not. And, if the rumor mill is to be believed, your investigation into this whole thing must be about over.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Barry asked.

“It’s all anyone was talking about after the service. Colin McKindrick. The one who made threats against Albert after the kid who killed his son was acquitted.”

“What’d you hear?”

“That when you went to talk to him about this, he blew his brains out.”

“Well, that part’s certainly true,” Barry said. “Happened early this morning. Hell of a thing.”

“And that doesn’t tell you something?”

“What, suddenly you’re a psychiatrist, Jim?”

“Is it a stretch to think Colin McKindrick was feeling guilty about something? That he’d kill himself when you came asking about the Langleys?”

“Yeah, well, he might just have been depressed, Jim.”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

Barry bristled. “You seem to think you know everything. Well, wise one, here’s what I do know. I went to see him, identified myself through the intercom thing at the door, said I was with the police, looking into the Langley thing, and he told me to get the hell off his property or he’d start shooting right through the door. So I put in a call for backup, but before you could say ‘Bob’s your uncle’ the bastard shot himself. Front door was locked but I found my way in through the garage, found him in the hall, but some of his brains found their way to the kitchen.”

“Barry,” I said, not impressed by his attempt to shock me.

“But here’s what you don’t know,” Barry said. “Colin McKindrick spent from Friday night to Saturday morning in the drunk tank.”

I just looked at him.

“He was in the Promise Falls lockup. He’d been drinking downtown at Casey’s, apparently he’d been doing a lot of that since his son died, and even more since Albert got the guy off who did it. Got in his car, went weaving down Charlton Street, cop pulled him over, he blew off the scale, he got hauled in. His car, too.”

“He was in jail,” I said, more to myself than Barry. “When the Langleys were murdered.”

“The whole time. As alibis go, being in jail’s one of the better ones.”

I shook my head slowly. “Maybe he hired someone. McKindrick hired somebody to kill Albert Langley, ended up killing the bunch of them.”

Barry Duckworth made a face. “Hired killers. In Promise Falls. What do you think this is, Jim, Fargo?”

I leaned my head back against the headrest. I was feeling exhausted.

“So,” Barry said, getting back on track, “the case is open, and I’m still asking questions, which is why I’m asking you about this not-an-affair you had with Donna Langley.”

“Why don’t you tell me what her sister said, and I’ll see what I have to say,” I said.

One corner of Barry’s mouth went up a notch. “That’s good, Jim. That’s really good. But I don’t think you understand how this whole criminal investigation thing works. I don’t tell you the other person’s story first so that you can get yours to line up with it. That was one of the first things they taught me back in detective school.”

I looked straight ahead and said nothing.

“Look, Jim, we’ve known each other a pretty long time. Ever since you went to work for Finley. I think you’re a pretty good guy. I’m trying to be straight with you. I didn’t sit down at your kitchen table and ask you this question with Ellen there. I’m trying to cut you some slack. So play ball with me here.”

“You could have asked me this in front of Ellen,” I said. “Because nothing ever happened.” I paused. “Not really.”

“There’s a couple of weasel words if I ever heard them,” Barry said.

“It was a long time ago. Not long after Ellen got her job at Thackeray. I was working outside, Donna came over because her power was out, I went over, flipped a breaker-”

Barry snickered. “Is that what they’re calling it now?”

I shook my head. “She kissed me. I mean, we kissed each other. She wanted me to have sex with her, but I didn’t go through with it.”

“Okay,” said Barry skeptically.

“It’s the truth. She. . Donna seemed like a very unhappy person. There was a sadness in her. I think trying to get me into her bed was a way of dealing with that.” I thought about that for a moment. “Maybe there were other men, other than me, that she was a little more successful with.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Barry said.

“I’m telling you the truth. After it happened-almost happened-I decided to try to fix what was wrong in my marriage, to put things back together.”

“There was trouble between you and Ellen?” Barry asked.