Linwood Barclay - Lone Wolf

“What the hell is ammonium nitrate?” Orville asked.

“If Timothy McVeigh were still alive,” I said, “you could ask him.”

Driving back into town, I said to Dad, “Wasn’t one of the reasons you moved up to Braynor so that you wouldn’t have so much to worry about?”

Dad snorted. “Wasn’t that why you moved to the suburbs?” We hadn’t talked a lot over the years, Dad and I, but he knew all about what had happened when I moved my family from downtown to the suburban enclave of Oakwood, where my friend Trixie still lived and plied her trade. The plan had been to find a safer place to live, and it had backfired rather spectacularly.

“Things don’t always work out the way you expect, do they?” I said, offering him a grin.

“I didn’t move up here trying to avoid a high crime rate,” Dad said. “I just wanted a simpler life.”

“I was remembering that time we came up around here with the tent trailer,” I said. “I found you down by the lake, your feet in the water, just sitting there, and you looked more peaceful than I’d ever seen you. And then, once we got home, you were your old, cranky self.”

Dad smiled. “I don’t know how I did it for so long. The whole nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday thing, commuting, the suit and tie, the ass-kissing, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year of numbers. Numbers, numbers, numbers.”

“I’m guess you get a lot of those in accounting,” I said.

“And I loved numbers. I guess I still love numbers. Numbers impose order. They make everything work. They create this, this sense of balance in the universe. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as when things add up the way they’re supposed to. But one day, I’m sitting at my desk, doing the Fiderberg account, they had this chain of office supply stores, and I’m looking at the numbers, and it was like I’d never seen them before. I was looking at a three, the way it’s like two incomplete circles stacked atop each other, and I thought, why is that a three? Who decided that three things would be represented by a symbol that looked like that? Why couldn’t it have been a straight line coming down into a semicircle, like a cup? It would have made just as much sense. And then I started looking at all the numbers that way. Why is a seven a line across and then down on an angle? What does that have to do with seven things?”

“You’re scarin’ me, Dad,” I said, but when he looked at me he could see that I was kidding.

“I decided I’d had enough. Your mother was gone, I was ready to do something else, to leave all that bullshit behind. And I remembered how at peace I felt up here, how I might be able to relax in a way I’d never been able to before. I found Denny’s Cabins, and I liked the fact that there was just five of them. A single digit. Something manageable.” Dad pointed to Henry’s Grocery. “We need a couple things.”

“Perfect,” I said. “I can get a toothbrush.”

I pulled over to the curb, put the truck in park, killed the ignition, but made no move to open the door.

“Do you think Mom would have liked living up here?” I asked.

Dad lips went in and out while he pondered that. “I’ve thought about that. Because,” he struggled for a moment here, “I still miss her. I mean, Lana’s terrific, and we have fun together.”

I smiled, and resisted the temptation to tease.

“But there was only one woman like your mother.” Dad blew his nose into a handkerchief, shoved it back into his pocket. “She put up with a lot with me.” He looked out his window so I couldn’t see his face. “And anything she ever did, it was nothing compared to what a pain in the ass I could be to her. That’s why I think she might have liked it up here, because living here has made me a better person, I think.”

“We all have our moments,” I said. “You should talk to Sarah about me.”

Dad nodded, still looking away. “I don’t know whether you’ve ever noticed this,” he said, “but I can be a bit difficult to get along with at times.”

“Really,” I said. “Where I work, this is where someone would shout ‘Stop the presses!’ ”

He smiled tiredly. “Yeah, that’s a bulletin all right. I just kind of like things done a certain way, and all the things I’ve ever done, as a husband and as a father, it’s been to make sure you and your mom and Cindy were safe.”

“Yeah, well, I think I understand.”

“And that meant that sometimes I may have nitpicked a bit,” Dad said. “I was hard on your mother.”

He was being so forthright, I thought maybe I could broach that period of my youth that remained the most shrouded in mystery, when Mom left for six months.

“Is that why Mom went away, that time?” I said. “Why she walked out on us?”

Dad seemed to be focused on the lock to the glove box, staring at it. “That’s hard for me to talk about.”

“This is going to come out sounding, you know, accusatory,” I said, hesitantly, “but what did you do that made Mom leave?”

Dad kept looking at the glove box, poking his tongue around the inside of his cheek. “Let me tell you what we need,” he said.

“Hmm?”

“We need some milk, some cream for coffee, since that’s the way you take yours, something for dinner. You pick something. I don’t care. Pork chops, a roast chicken, whatever the hell you want. I’ll just wait here and listen to the radio. Wait, let me give you some money.” He was reaching around to his back pocket for his wallet.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

“No, no, you’re my guest. I can pay for the damn groceries.”

“Dad, forget it.” I had the door open and was crossing the street before he could protest any further.

I grabbed a small plastic basket, figuring I wouldn’t be buying enough to justify a big wobbly cart. I bought myself a toothbrush and toothpaste and a basic plastic comb, then headed for the meat section. I looked at steak and pork tenderloin and cuts of chicken, settled on some thick butterfly chops, then checked out the varieties of instant side dishes. I had a package of Uncle Ben’s wild rice in my hand when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, something short standing next to me.

I turned and saw young Jeffrey Wickens standing there, and not far behind him, pushing a cart, his mother, May.

“Hi,” said Jeffrey. “Remember me?”

“Of course I do,” I said. “You’re my Star Wars guy. How are you, Jeffrey?”

“Good.” He nodded. “I’ve already done all my school for today.”

“Isn’t that great,” I said, smiling at May as she drew closer. “Most kids, they’re probably still in school now, will be for a couple more hours.”

“I know,” he said. “Sometimes I wish I got recess, though, so I could play with other kids.”

I nodded my understanding. May, a smile still evidently beyond her, said, “Hello, Mr. Walker.”

“Zack, please,” I said. “Nice to see you again. Picking up a few groceries?” A keen observer, that’s me.

May Wickens nodded. “We need a few things,” she said flatly. “Jeffrey likes to come with me when I shop. It’s nice for him to get away from the house.” She paused. “Nice for all of us.”

There was something about her eyes. A pleading quality. They were tired, and sad, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why, losing her boyfriend earlier in the week. But there was more than mere grief in May Wickens’s eyes. She had the look of a hostage who doesn’t expect the ransom will ever come.

“I’d just like to say, once again, thank you for dinner last night,” I said, putting the image of the impaled mouse aside for a moment, “and tell you how sorry I am about Mr. Dewart.”