Linwood Barclay - Lone Wolf

“Zack, there’s always work. We live in cynical times. Did you know that people don’t trust each other anymore? It’s a very disturbing development, but it pays the bills. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m up in Braynor. You know Braynor.”

“I know I got called one all the time when I was in high school. The teachers thought I might be gifted, and I always did my homework. Of course, I also got ‘browner,’ but that might have had more to do with my skin tone.”

“Braynor’s an hour and a half north of the city. Lakes and mountains. Fishing. Wildlife.”

“Sounds nice. I’m not due for a vacation.”

“I’m up here at my dad’s place. He’s got some cabins he rents out. Lawrence, there’s a whole lot of shit going on up here and I think I could use your help.”

“I see. What sort of shit?”

“Well, there’s some people up here you might find interesting. They think the world’s going to hell in a handcart because of blacks and gays.”

“Hmmm,” said Lawrence. “That makes me a kind of double-header worst nightmare for them. Tell me more.”

I did.

“I could come up tonight, maybe tomorrow,” Lawrence said.

“I haven’t cleared this with Dad,” I said. “But I think he’d be prepared to hire you. He was ready to pay a lawyer. And if he’s a bit short, I can-”

“Zack, shut up. Every day I get, I thank you.”

I swallowed. “Okay.”

When I was finished talking to Lawrence, I found Dad plopped onto the couch, reading the Braynor Times I’d bought him at the grocery store.

“Poured you your coffee,” he said, nose in the paper. “Cream and sugar’s already in it.”

I grabbed my mug off the counter and sat down opposite him. “I’ve called in the cavalry,” I said.

“I figured, with your newspaper connections, it’d be Superman,” Dad said.

I told him about Lawrence Jones. That he was an ex-cop, an experienced private investigator, and, as a bonus in dealing with whatever the Wickenses might throw at us, black and gay.

“That’s comforting,” Dad said. “We’re gonna be rescued by a poofster.” I decided to let that one go, figuring Lawrence himself would be able to dispel the stereotypes once he got here.

As I took a sip of my coffee, Dad said, “I did a little checking on the Internet while you were outside.”

“Yeah?” The notion of Dad surfing the net was still difficult to imagine.

“I looked up ammonium nitrate. Fertilizer.”

I said, “Go on.”

“What McVeigh did was, he used four thousand pounds of the stuff and mixed it with diesel fuel, and some blasting caps, then put everything in fifty-five-gallon plastic drums, loaded it up into that Ryder truck, lit a fuse, and ran like stink.”

“I’ll bet,” I said, “even if you stole a lot less than four thousand pounds of that stuff, you could still make a hell of an explosion.”

“I suspect,” Dad said.

“A day ago, you didn’t even want to consider the possibility that something other than a bear ripped that man apart, and now look where your mind’s taking you.”

“You haven’t thought the same thing?”

“Of course I’ve thought the same thing. You know what kind of paranoid I am. I’m this close to pinning the Lindbergh kidnapping on the Wickenses. But we don’t have anything to suggest that Wickens had a thing to do with the murder of Tiff Riley. If we hadn’t seen that picture of Timothy McVeigh on their wall, hanging where most people might hang a picture of Jesus Christ, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. You know, the Wickenses aren’t the only crazy people in the world, probably not the only crazy people in this county.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Maybe we should be calling the FBI or something,” I said. “Don’t they handle this sort of thing? Or Homeland Security? What color alert are we at when the neighbors have murderous pit bulls?”

“Let’s give Orville another chance,” Dad said. “You were almost nice to him on the phone, which must have nearly killed you. We’ll lay it all out for him. You know, you really haven’t given him a chance. From the moment you got here you’ve been picking on him. And by the way, who loaded that dishwasher last? You or Lana?”

“Wasn’t me,” I said.

Dad shook his head. “She put the knives in blade up. Almost slit my wrist unloading it.”

“So many faults, so little time to correct them,” I said.

Dad tossed the paper at me. “Read the piece on the front.”

I grabbed the paper off the coffee table that separated us. “Which?” I said.

“The main piece.”

Had I bothered to read the headlines before asking Dad, I would have been able to figure out which one he meant. The headline on the lead story, written by Tracy, who also had all the other bylines on the front page, was “Mayor Mulls Canceling Parade.” It read:

Braynor mayor Alice Holland says she may cancel the fall fair parade on Saturday if she thinks the appearance of a gay activist group could lead to violence.

“Either the Fifty Lakes Gay and Lesbian Coalition will be in the parade,” the mayor said, “or there won’t be any parade at all.”

Mayor Holland said to exclude the coalition from the parade, something many people in Braynor want, would subject the town to a potential civil rights suit that could bankrupt the municipality.

“People are going around collecting names on petitions to keep the parade straight, and if they don’t mind seeing their property taxes double to pay the costs of going to court to defend a foolhardy decision, well then, fine. But if they have a problem with that, and still want the coalition banned from walking down Main Street, then we don’t have to have a parade at all.”

Charles Henry, manager of Henry’s Grocery, which puts a float in the parade every year, has been spearheading the petition to “Keep the Parade Straight” and he reacted angrily to the mayor’s comments.

“I can’t help but wonder,” he said, “whether the mayor is a lesbian. It would explain a lot.”

Henry said the mayor may not need to cancel the parade, that many of the participants may back out instead. “She can ride in her convertible all alone,” he said, but refused to say whether Henry’s Grocery would withdraw its own float, which this year was to depict a large cow, its body covered with dotted lines to depict different cuts of meat.

Stuart Lethbridge, of Red Lake, who heads the Fifty Lakes Gay and Lesbian Coalition, promises a tasteful display. “There’ll be a good crowd of people in the parade, carrying the Rainbow Flag, plus we’ll be displaying the number for our counseling line, which, as you can imagine in a community like Braynor, gets a lot of calls from gays and lesbians looking for a sympathetic ear.” Lethbridge said the coalition would not back out of the parade, even if that’s the only way it can be saved.

The Braynor council is divided on what to do. Most members are united in wanting to avoid a lawsuit, but a number are in favor of scrapping the parade altogether, even though it is a tradition.

But even if the parade is canceled, all other fall fair activities, including the pie-eating contest, the lawn tractor races, chainsaw competition, and cow-pie-tossing contest, will go ahead as planned.

“What’s a cow pie?” I asked.

“Shit,” Dad said.

I nodded. “And this chainsaw competition. What do they do? Juggle them?”

“You’re starting to annoy me.”

“And I see the lawn tractor races are still on. Too bad I won’t be able to help you there. I have a predisposition to whiplash.”

“I might be well enough by then,” Dad said. “I was putting some weight on my ankle today, and it didn’t seem that bad.”