Linwood Barclay - Too Close to Home

“But he could talk to you.”

“Yes. We talked.”

I tried to keep my expression as even as possible, but Burgess was able to read my mind.

“No,” he said. “He and I did not have a relationship. It was always professional. But I did counsel him, just as many teachers find themselves counseling troubled students. Sometimes young people need to talk to an adult they’re not related to. Lots of high school girls who find themselves pregnant have told a teacher before they’ve told their parents.”

“Sure,” I said. “I remember telling my teachers stuff I never told my folks.”

The way Burgess was looking at me suggested he did not think I was being sincere. “I know what you’re thinking.” He shook his head tiredly. “You already know about me, don’t you?”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Why I left teaching. Most people, they know. It’s an open secret.”

“I’m afraid I don’t.” And I wasn’t asking. All I’d come for was some insight into Brett’s skills as a writer. This other stuff was of no concern to me. I wasn’t a cop. I wasn’t Barry Duckworth. Whatever had happened in Walter Burgess’s past was none of my business.

Burgess laughed softly to himself. “Well, aren’t I crafty. The one person left in Promise Falls who doesn’t know my business, and I have to open my yap.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “Keep your secret.”

Burgess waved his hand at me. “Doesn’t really matter now anyway. It’s been five years.” He cleared his throat. “I met a young man at Whistle’s.” A downtown bar, known to appeal to a gay clientele. “It wasn’t anything important. Just a connection. But we met a few times, were seen together, people talked. He’d just graduated from Spring Park.” The same high school Derek went to. “So I’d been seen in the company of someone fresh out of high school. Didn’t matter that it wasn’t my school. That I’d never been this young man’s teacher. But just the same, it drew the attention of the morality police. My behavior was deemed unprofessional, inappropriate. I could let them fire me, fight it, or I could take them up on their offer of early retirement. I was only a couple of years away from being eligible anyway. So I took it. I got out. And I never could have gotten through it without Trey’s support.” He paused. “He’s not always that grumpy.”

I just nodded.

“But I never, ever, took advantage of Brett,” Walter Burgess insisted. “And that’s the God’s honest truth.”

“I want to thank you for your time,” I said. I got up from the table and turned in the direction of the front door.

Once we were both outside, Burgess glanced at my truck and asked, “What do you charge?”

“Huh?”

“Your lawn service, how much to do a house like this, once a week?”

I gave him a price.

He nodded, considering it. “My knee gives me a lot of trouble, and I hate nagging Trey to do it. Be a lot more peaceful around here, I just hired someone to do it, you know?”

“Sure,” I said. “I can add you to the list if you like.”

He thought about it once more, nodded. “Deal. Trey’ll say we don’t have money for it in the budget, but he says that about everything. He’s cheap, but more than cheap, he’s lazy, so he’ll go for it.”

I shook his hand, and as I headed for the truck, Burgess said, “Brett’s book. Would it be possible to get a copy of it? I’d very much like to read it.”

I turned and asked him, “You ever read A Missing Part ?” He blinked, and nodded. “If you’ve read that, you’ve basically read Brett’s book.”

Burgess appeared thoughtful. “What, similar themes?”

“You could say that.”

Burgess nodded. “I can see where Brett might have been interested in the kind of material that Chase explored in that book. The thing I could never figure out was why Chase wrote it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, it’s not the kind of book I think a heterosexual man would be able to write,” Burgess said. “Unless Conrad Chase is possessed of insights I’d never have thought him capable of.”

“You know him?”

“I’ve met him socially a few times over the years. He’s not gay.”

“No,” I said. “That’s true.”

Ellen was proof of that.

As I was driving home, my cell, now on, rang.

“Did His Worship find you?” Ellen asked.

“He did.”

“I tried your cell but-”

“I forgot to turn it on when I left.”

Ellen said, “Randy said he just had to talk to you and I couldn’t bring myself to lie and say I didn’t know where you were.”

“It’s okay.”

“What did he want?”

“He’s going to run for Congress.”

“Get out,” Ellen said. “On what platform? That there’s not enough corruption in politics, and he can change that?”

I needed the laugh. “I like that. You should suggest it. ‘Vote Finley: Keep Government Slimy.’ Not a bad bumper sticker.”

“What did he want from you?”

“My silence, basically.”

“And what do you get in return?”

“I don’t have to vote for him.”

“Well, that’s something,” Ellen said.

“He offered me a job,” I said. “Not my old one, not as a driver. He’s got Lance for that. But other stuff, with the campaign, I guess.”

“And you said?”

“I said no.”

“Did he mention anything about salary?”

“Ellen, there’s not enough money in the world.”

“I know. I was only asking. Every day you came home after driving him around, you were just so fed up.”

“No kidding.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell Ellen how I’d left Lance, doubled over, the wind knocked out of him.

“Listen,” Ellen said. “I’ve been thinking about what we were talking about, before you went out, about Donna coming to the house with the package from the courier. How he mistook the Langleys’ house for ours, because of the mailbox. Unless you know our house is down the lane here, it’s pretty easy for people to assume the Langleys’ house is our place.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Ellen said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know that I’m thinking anything, at least about that. But this whole computer thing is bothering me. The fact that it wasn’t there, that it had the book Conrad wrote on it. The fact that the computer was given to Derek, not Adam. I saw Agnes, asked her whether she’d told anybody that she’d given that computer to Derek.”

“What did Agnes say?”

“She said she hadn’t.”

Then I thought, what about Derek? What about Adam? Had either of them told any of their friends? Had Derek told Penny? And had Penny passed that information on to anyone? Had any of them gone online and blabbed to all their friends at once about the discovery?

“Listen, Jim, where are you going with this?” Ellen asked. “I mean, if there were anything to any of this, that this missing computer has something to do with what happened to the Langleys, what are you suggesting? Because some book that bears a strong resemblance to Conrad’s is on it, the Langleys were all killed? Can’t you see where that sort of thinking is going to lead someone?”

I’d already connected those dots.

“Jim?” Ellen said. “You there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I thought I’d lost you.”

“No, I’m here. I was just driving, that’s all.”

“You heard what I said? What that would mean?”

“I’m not sure what it would mean,” I lied, waiting to see whether Ellen was thinking along the same lines I was.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Jim. You know what it would mean. That somehow Conrad’s connected to what happened to the Langleys.”