Brad Parks - The Girl Next Door

I put as much force behind it as I could, but McNabb wasn’t fooled.

“Yeah, that’s why you call him Lunky, huh? Because he’s so smart?”

Natch.

The rain slacked off for a few seconds, then pounded on the roof with renewed intensity, like a thousand tiny percussionists all doing a drum roll at the same time. The windshield wipers thumped from side to side, with little effectiveness. Our breath had fogged over the inside of the windows.

“Look, killing me is only going to make things worse for you. You could spin Nancy as manslaughter. They’d give you ten years, and you’d be out in five for good behavior. You kill me and it’s a double homicide. First degree. They’ll put you away for the rest of your life.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said, and I felt myself getting hopeful until he finished: “You’re going to commit suicide.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because, Carter Ross, at this point, you have one choice to make in what is left of your short, miserable little life. You can die quick and painless-and I’ll make it look like a suicide. Or you can die the slowest, most agonizing death you could possibly imagine.”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I’ll take the mystery prize behind door number three.”

In one fast move, McNabb chunked me on the head with the butt of his gun. He didn’t have enough room in the car to get any momentum behind it, but it still wasn’t the most pleasant feeling in the world.

“Ow,” I said.

“It’s going to hurt a lot worse when I blow off both your kneecaps. And that’s only a start. You see that trailer we just passed?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s open. And it’s abandoned. I checked it out earlier today. After I do your kneecaps, I’ll take you in there, and we can have a real good time all night long. I left some rope in there to tie you up with, and I have a hunting knife strapped to my calf. I’ll carve off a piece of you at a time until there’s nothing left. Or we can get it over with quickly. Now what’s it going to be?”

I thought about dying a messy death in that railroad trailer and about all the blood I’d leave behind. McNabb didn’t have any cleaning products with him. If someone ever did enter that trailer, they’d be sure to notice that it looked like a calf had been slaughtered there, and maybe let the police know about it. Then again, it still fell into the category of Things That Don’t Matter When You’re Already Dead.

“No one will believe a guy like me committed suicide,” I said. “I’m too happy-go-lucky.”

“Oh yeah? I don’t know about that. You just lost your job. Your girlfriend dumped you. You’re probably going to lose your house. That sounds to me like a guy who’s pretty down on his luck.”

“The detective investigating Nancy’s death is Owen Smiley, a friend of mine. We play on the softball team. He knows me too well. He’ll never believe I killed myself.”

“Oh, he’ll believe it.”

“How you figure?”

“Because,” McNabb said, pressing the barrel of the gun against my head. “You’re going to write a suicide note. In your note, you’re going to say you’ve lost everything that matters to you and decided to end it. Oh, and one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re going to admit to killing Nancy Marino.”

* * *

The condensation on the inside of the car had grown thick enough that small beads of sweat were rolling down the windows. My palms were still pressed against the roof of the car, and my shoulders were starting to ache from keeping them there.

“That’s absurd,” I said. “Why would I kill Nancy Marino? I didn’t even know her.”

“Yes you did. You live in the same town. You met her at the diner and fell in love with her. You finally summoned the nerve to ask her out. She rejected your advances. You’re a love-struck loser. If you couldn’t have her, no one could have her. Why else would you have written an obituary about her? It was your guilt coming out.”

“That’s … that’s, like, the worst episode of Law amp; Order I’ve ever heard. That doesn’t even sound like me. Besides, everyone knows I drive this crappy old car-not a pimp-daddy Cadillac Escalade. How would I have gotten my hands on a ride like that?”

McNabb eased the gun back so it was no longer directly touching my scalp, but kept it aimed at the same spot.

“Maybe you rented it, maybe you stole it,” he said. “I’m not trying to get you found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This thing isn’t ever going to trial-you’ll be dead. I’m just throwing people off the trail. Don’t you get it yet? People are easily distracted. You give them a story that makes sense, that fills in just enough blanks, and they accept it and move on. Look at how well it worked on you. I told you one lie about Jackman that seemed plausible, and you just ran with it.”

“Not everyone is as dumb as me.”

“No, most people are much, much dumber. And a whole lot less persistent. You just kept coming at me, kept digging. So what did I do? I distracted you some more, with that e-mail from Jackman.”

“Was that real, by the way?”

“Sure was,” McNabb said, and turned his gun toward my right knee. “But, of course, you were nice enough to let your overly active imagination run wild with it. Then somehow you thought that diner owner was involved. That was great. I didn’t even have to do anything to get you spinning on that one. That was fun.”

He chuckled, then abruptly stopped.

“Now, you’ve got five seconds to decide. You want to die quick or slow? Suicide or torture?”

Some choice. Then again, I wasn’t exactly enamored of dying in that little trailer in the middle of a swamp, alone and in agony, tormented by this horrid man. He’d toss my mutilated carcass into that retention pond where my softer parts would get gnawed on by various critters. I’m not saying I needed to leave behind a corpse worthy of the V. I. Lenin treatment. But if this was the end, it would at least be nice for my parents to have something to bury.

“Okay. Suicide it is,” I said. “How are we doing this-this note thing? You got a pen and paper for me?”

“Nope, you’re going to draft an e-mail on that shiny new iPhone of yours. I want to be able to edit this thing, and I can’t do that if you handwrite.”

“Okay, e-mail. Mind if I take my arms down now?”

“Go ahead.”

My shoulders felt instant relief. Sort of like when you stop hitting yourself on the head with a hammer.

“I’m going to grab my iPhone now,” I said.

“No, let me give it to you.”

McNabb kept the gun trained on me and bent slightly to grab the phone, taking his eyes off me for a split second. Maybe this is the point where a real tough guy-like an ex-military cop or something-would exploit the one small moment of his opponent’s weakness to execute some kind of quick, devastating backhanded karate chop that severs the spinal cord between C-4 and C-5. Alas, that’s not something they teach newspaper reporters.

He hastily tossed the phone in my lap, then, before I knew what was happening, he hit the unlock button, exited the car, and reentered in the backseat. Again, the tough guy would have been alert enough to turn the situation around. But by the time I even knew what he was doing, he was behind me, with the gun still firm in his right hand.

“Hit the lock button,” he said, and I did as I was told. “Now, start writing. I’m watching everything you do, so don’t try anything.”

“Okay. To whom am I addressing this farewell missive?”

“Send it to that Lunky fellow, if you’re really that fond of him. And you better make it good. You’re a writer. I expect to see some real inner torment being expressed.”