Linwood Barclay - Too Close to Home

I said fine.

“You talk to Lance today?” he asked.

“No,” I replied.

“You and him, you don’t get along so good,” the mayor observed. It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t say anything. “You could learn a thing or two from him, you know? He’s got terrific connections. Knows a lot of people. You need something, he can get it for you.”

“He isn’t offering anything I need,” I said, putting on the blinker.

“Need’s got nothing to do with it,” the mayor said. “It’s all about want.”

It was ten o’clock, it had been a long day, and I wanted to go home and see Ellen before she fell asleep. I asked if he wanted me to wait or drive around awhile and come back in, say, an hour?

Finley glanced at his watch. “Forty-five minutes,” he said. Then, hesitantly, “If you have to come and get me, should you happen to see Mrs. Finley drive into the parking lot, for example, I’m having a meeting in room 143. You might have to wait a bit after knocking. Or better yet, call my cell.”

“Yeah,” I said.

It didn’t take Hercule Poirot to figure out what Finley was up to. What I didn’t know was whether this rendezvous was with someone he actually had something going on with, or someone he was paying by the hour. Or by three-quarters of an hour. Chances were she wasn’t some city hall employee. The mayor was mindful of sexual harassment suits. Maybe it was someone trying to get a contract with the city. Or, more likely, someone working on behalf of someone looking for a contract. There was no limit to what some of these consulting firms would do to get a multimillion-dollar deal, and few limits to what the mayor would accept in return.

I drove down the highway a mile to get a decaf coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts, then drove back, taking a spot behind the Holiday Inn, in view of a Dumpster.

After about thirty minutes, my cell rang. I thought it might be Ellen calling to see whether I was ever going to get home. I wanted to talk to her, but at the same time was hoping it wasn’t her. I wasn’t proud to be cooling my heels while my boss got his ashes hauled, and I didn’t want to talk to her about it.

I glanced at the number on the readout, saw that it was His Honor himself calling. “Yeah?” I said.

“Get in here! I’m hurt!”

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“Just get in here! I’m bleeding.”

I was no paramedic, so I said, “You want me to get an ambulance?”

“Jesus Christ no, just get the fuck in here!”

I drove to the front of the hotel, parked on the apron by the main doors, and ran inside. Finley had said he was in room 143, so I took that to mean the first floor. I found a hallway beyond the lobby, ran down it until I got to 143.

There was a girl leaning up against the wall a few feet down the hall. Mid to late teens, I guessed, frizzy blond hair, upturned nose, heavily rouged cheeks that failed to hide a pair of dimples. She was in a strapless top, short skirt, and heels, and gave me a once-over when I knocked on the door.

“Someone’s in there,” she said.

“That’s why I’m knocking,” I said.

“She’s busy,” the girl said. “But I’m available. I’m Linda.”

From the other side of the door came a familiar, if somewhat muffled, voice. “Who is it?” Mayor Finley.

“It’s me,” I said.

He opened the door just enough to let me in, keeping himself hidden as he did so. Once I was inside the room I could see that he was in nothing but polka-dotted boxers, and there was blood soaked into the front of them.

“What the-”

“It’s not my fault.” Another voice, young and female.

The girl was on the floor beyond the foot of the bed, next to a toppled TV and stand. Short skirt, low-cut sweater, straight black hair down to her shoulders. Skinny legs, kind of gangly. Didn’t fill out the sweater. She was working her jaw around, like she was trying to get the feeling back in it.

“I think I lost a tooth, you fucker,” she said to Randall Finley.

“Serves you right,” the mayor said. “You’re not supposed to bite the goddamn thing off, you know.”

“You jumped,” she said, and sniffed. “It was an accident.”

“I called Lance, too,” the mayor told me. “He’s coming.”

“Terrific,” I said. “Let me guess. He set this up.”

The mayor said nothing. I turned my attention to the girl. What had struck me from the moment I’d seen her was how young she looked.

“How old are you?” I asked.

She was still rubbing her jaw, doing her best to ignore me.

“I asked you a question,” I said.

“Nineteen,” she snapped. I almost laughed. There was a purse on the bedside table and I grabbed it.

“Hey!” the girl said. “That’s mine!”

I unzipped it, started rooting around inside. There were lipsticks, other makeup, half a dozen condoms, a cell phone, a small coil-topped notepad, and a wallet.

“Cutter, for Christ’s sake,” the mayor said, one hand pointed at the girl, the other pressed over his crotch. “Forget about her. You need to get me to a doctor or something.”

The girl tried to grab her purse back but I swung it away. I looked in the wallet for a driver’s license. When the only ID I could find was a Social Security card and a high school ID, I figured she wasn’t yet old enough to drive. The name on the cards was Sherry Underwood.

“According to this, Sherry,” I said, putting emphasis on her name, “you’re fifteen years old.”

The same age as Derek at the time.

“Okay, so?” Sherry Underwood said.

The mayor had gone into the bathroom and was stuffing wads of toilet paper down the front of his shorts. He wasn’t in an absolute panic now, not like he’d been when he phoned me, so I was guessing he was suffering from more of a superficial wound, as opposed to anything approaching an amputation.

I looked at him as he came back out of the bathroom. “You knew this?” I asked.

“Knew what?”

“That she’s fifteen?”

The mayor feigned shock. “Fuck, no. She told me she was twenty-two.”

No one could look at that girl and think she was twenty-two. “If she’d told you she was Hillary Clinton, would you have believed that too, Randy?”

“Randy?” he said, glaring at me. “Since when did you start calling me that?”

“Would you rather I said ‘Your Worship’?”

“Jesus, you a minister?” the girl asked, her eyes wide.

Finley said nothing. Better to let her think that than tell her he was the mayor, if he hadn’t already made that blunder.

Still holding on to Sherry’s wallet and purse, I asked, “You okay?”

“He kicked me,” she said. “Right in the face.”

“How’d that happen?”

“He was, like, on his back on the bed and he jumped-”

“She caught me with her teeth,” the mayor said.

“Shut up,” I said to him.

The mayor opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

“He jumped,” I repeated for her. “Then what?”

“I took him out of my mouth and moved back and he brought up his leg and kicked me in the face.” She looked at Finley. “That’s what you did, you asshole.”

“Sherry,” I said, “you should go to the hospital, see a doctor.”

“Christ’s sake!” the mayor said, throwing some bloodied paper into the wastebasket. “I’m the one who needs medical attention. What the fuck are you doing, asking her if she needs to go to a hospital?”

I gave the mayor my best stare. “I’d be happy to take you to the ER right now if you’d like, but first I have to make a call to the Standard .”

The mayor blinked. That was all he needed, to have the press show up asking about his bit dick. He mumbled something under his breath and went back into the bathroom.