Linwood Barclay - Too Close to Home

“Jim, Ellen,” Conrad said, a little more pleasantly than I might have expected, given the exchange we’d had the last time we’d seen each other. He gave a nod to our son, and added, “Derek.”

“Conrad, Illeana,” I said. I turned to the silver-haired woman. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Elizabeth Hunt,” she said.

“Jim Cutter,” I said. “And this is my wife, Ellen, and our son, Derek.”

“Pleased,” she said. “I understand that was quite a moving service they just had in there.”

“Elizabeth is just meeting us for lunch,” Conrad explained. “She drove in from her place on the lake.” He paused, then, “Elizabeth is my literary agent.” He said this like he was telling me he had a new car.

“Well,” I said. “That’s great.”

“It was just so sad in there,” Conrad commented, nodding in the direction of the church. “So, so sad.” Conrad’s sorrow, like so many of his emotional expressions, seemed designed for show. “But we all have to move forward in our own ways, isn’t that right?”

There were some general murmurings about how that was true, although not from me.

“Jim,” Conrad said, “Elizabeth here might be able to put you onto some agents who handle artists. What I said the other day, it may not have come out right, but I was sincere.”

“What?” Ellen said. I hadn’t repeated for her, word for word, what Conrad had said to me when we’d had our talk.

“Actually,” said Elizabeth, “I’m afraid I don’t really have that much involvement with-”

“That’s all right,” I said. I had some sympathy for her, getting dragged into Conrad’s shenanigans. “That won’t be necessary.”

Illeana spoke up. “Elizabeth has enough to deal with, prying Conrad’s latest book out of his hands.”

Ellen’s eyes widened. “You’ve finished a book? A new book?”

Conrad feigned modesty. “Well, just about. Elizabeth says there are a number of houses that want to see it.”

“Conrad,” said Elizabeth cautiously. She was clearly uncomfortable having a discussion about this with all of us present.

“That’s wonderful news,” Ellen said in an understated way. “About the book.”

“We should get back,” I said, eager to extricate all of us from this.

But Conrad wasn’t quite ready to let us go. “You heard what happened?” he asked. “What everyone was talking about as we came out?”

“McKindrick,” I said, and Conrad nodded, almost eagerly.

“That’s right,” he said. “News like that, it spreads like wildfire. You can already see what the take on this is going to be. Distraught father sees the boy who killed his son get off, goes after Albert, then takes his own life when he realizes the police are closing in on him.”

“That’s certainly one way it could play out,” I said.

Conrad looked at me. “A minute?” he said.

The two of us stepped away from the others. Quietly, Conrad said to me, “Surely this new development, if it pans out the way I think we all expect it will, puts an end to all your speculation about some damned computer with a copy of my book on it having anything to do with all this.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. That was okay, because Conrad was always ready to fill the silences.

“You should know that you got Illeana terribly upset. She heard the tail end of those accusations. I’ve told her to put them out of her mind, they’re not worth talking about. But I’m willing to put this behind us, Jim. I’d like to apologize for my outburst at your place. That was uncalled for. But you can understand, a man of my reputation doesn’t take kindly to attempts to cast aspersions upon it.”

“Yeah. Whatever you say, Conrad.”

He smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “Glad we see eye to eye on this, Jim. And to show there’s no hard feelings, I want you and Ellen to be the first, after my agent, to have a copy of my new manuscript.”

“Well, what a gesture.”

“I’d value your opinion. Very much. And I think it may figure largely into Ellen’s handling of the next festival. A new book from me is going to make it a more meaningful celebration.”

“I’m going to rejoin my family, Conrad,” I said, and excused myself.

Maybe Conrad was right. Maybe this whole thing was over. Since I’d had that argument with Conrad and a subsequent one with Ellen, I’d done nothing about the missing computer. A couple of times I’d been about to phone Barry, then held off. I didn’t know that my information meant anything, and I was second-guessing my motives, second-guessing everything. Any action I took could have a lasting impact on Ellen’s job and, no less important, my marriage.

I’d decided to let things cool down for a while, at least until the funeral for the Langleys was over.

There was still a good part of the day left, and Derek and I decided that once we were home, we’d change out of our suits, get into our work clothes, and cut a few clients’ yards.

We were doing a house on the town’s west side when I noticed Barry’s unmarked car trolling down the street, stopping at the end of the driveway.

Derek had on earmuffs while he used the noisy leaf blower to clear the sidewalk of grass clippings. I tapped him on the shoulder, pointed to Barry when he whirled around. “I’m over there,” I mouthed.

He nodded and kept working.

Barry powered down the passenger window and said, “Hey, Jim, take a ride with me.”

I opened the door, got in, the air-conditioning blasting me in the face. Before I could find the button to power the window back up, Barry had done it.

He let his foot off the brake, took us down the street, slowly, like he had no real destination in mind. “Where we going?” I asked.

“Nowhere in particular,” he said. “I just wanted to be able to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“About you puttin’ it to Donna Langley. You never mentioned that you’d slept with her.”

She’d come over because the power had gone off in their house. Donna Langley wanted to know whether we’d lost electricity, too.

I was on a day off from the security firm I’d been working for, for about the last six months, and was using my time to paint some windows-as opposed to actual landscapes-on the side of the house that faced the highway and the Langley house. Derek was at school, in the second grade, and Ellen was at her relatively new job at Thackeray, organizing their first annual literary festival.

I had been toying with the idea of killing myself.

When I was on the ladder, doing a second-story window frame, I thought about whether I’d be able to break my neck, fatally, falling from that distance. It seemed unlikely. An arm or leg, perhaps. A wrist, probably. Even if I could break my neck or back, I’d probably just end up paralyzing rather than killing myself, and what fun would that be? What were the odds I’d get another chance at this if I needed someone to feed me and wipe my ass?

While I was feeling pretty down, it was not a particularly good time for either Ellen or me. Ellen was in the thick of her dalliance with the bottle, and I was weighing the pros and cons of sticking my head in the oven.

I had found a note, about a month earlier, that Conrad Chase had written to my wife. Given that he was supposed to be some brilliant English professor-this was almost a couple of years before he managed to scale the New York Times bestseller list-I guess I was expecting something slightly more metaphorical than “I can’t wait to have you on my face again.”

He hadn’t actually signed it, but there were enough other things around the house in Conrad’s handwriting with which to make a comparison, and conclude that he was the author. And the fact that he hadn’t actually started it with “Dear Ellen” didn’t matter all that much, considering that I found the note in her purse.