Linwood Barclay - Too Close to Home

“Our son-Derek-he certainly didn’t have anything to do with this tonight,” my wife told him. “He’s in jail. And he wouldn’t exactly send someone to torture his parents. He didn’t have any more to do with what happened here than he did with what happened at the Langleys’. Barry, you have to let Derek go. He’s innocent.”

Something flashed in Barry’s eyes, like maybe he knew it, too. I hoped he wasn’t the kind of person to sacrifice the life of an innocent to protect his reputation. The arrest of our son was a feather in Barry’s cap for a couple of days there, and plucking it out was going to be embarrassing.

“We’ll see, Ellen,” he said noncommittally. “You know that there’s more to Derek’s relationship with the Langleys than meets the eye.”

We were all silent for a moment, until Ellen leaned in close to Barry, looked him in the eye, and said, “He didn’t do it, and you know it. You know it in your heart.”

Barry pushed the plate away from himself. “I want to talk to all three of you individually.” He looked at Drew. “You first.”

He took Drew outside with him.

Ellen said, “A bank robber?”

“My lawn company doesn’t yet have an advanced screening process for new hires,” I said.

“No no,” Ellen said. “I’m not second-guessing you on that. I just, I don’t know, I don’t think I ever met a bank robber before.”

“I don’t much care at this point if he’s the Boston Strangler,” I said. “I just hope Barry doesn’t do anything stupid and charge him.” I got up, leaned against the fridge, feeling exhausted. The attack on us by our two visitors would have been enough to knock the wind out of me, but the questions surrounding everything that had happened were equally draining.

Some of them needed to be directed at my wife.

“Ellen,” I said, “why’d you give the disc to Conrad?”

“I thought it was the right thing to do, for reasons that are hard to explain.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “I wonder if you still feel something for him.”

Her eyes looked tired, and almost sad. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“What?”

“I despise that man.” She paused. “More than you’ll ever know.”

“Then why are you helping him? Don’t you understand what’s going on here? Can’t you connect the dots? Don’t you see what he’s done?”

“You’re just seeing what you want to see,” Ellen said.

“No, you’re turning a blind eye,” I shot back. “Even if Conrad didn’t send those goons to get us tonight, he’s involved. Somehow, he got wind of the fact that a computer, belonging to his student, the one he stole a book from, had resurfaced. He realized what was on it, and either went over to the Langley house himself or sent someone there to get it. And it all went horribly wrong, and they all ended up dead.”

“No,” Ellen said. “He already had the computer.”

“What?”

“He told me. Earlier, on the Friday that the Langleys were murdered, Albert Langley called him.”

“Wait a minute. Langley gave him the computer?”

“Adam told his father about the computer he and Derek were messing around with, what they’d found on it. Albert immediately recognized what it was, knew the book, knew it was the same as Conrad’s. So he called Conrad, told him about it, and Conrad came by Albert’s office and took it away. He was Conrad’s lawyer. And his friend. From way back.”

I moved away from the fridge, walked slowly to the sink and back again, rubbing my forehead.

“He told you this?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You believe him?”

Ellen paused. “Yes.”

“God, this is totally. . this is completely fucking with my head,” I said. “But if those guys who came here tonight didn’t know Conrad had the disc, then they must not have known the night they went to the Langleys’ that he already had the computer, too.”

Ellen said, “I don’t know. And I don’t care about any of that. It doesn’t mean anything to me. All I care about now is getting Derek out of jail. I want him out, and then I want to put all this behind us. I don’t care about that goddamn book, I don’t care about Conrad, I don’t give a shit about any of it. None of it matters as long as Derek’s in jail.”

I approached her, slowly at first, then put my arms around her. “I know,” I said. “I know.”

But there were still questions. So maybe Conrad didn’t have anything to do with what had happened here tonight. And maybe he didn’t have anything to do with the murder of the Langleys.

But there was still the matter of his book. And who wrote it.

And if it was Brett Stockwell, and if Conrad wanted to steal his book, how, unless he’d made some deal to pay the boy off, could he allow the boy to live and expect to get away with it?

Once Barry was done with interviewing Drew, he spent some time with Ellen in the living room. That left me and Drew alone in the kitchen.

“So,” I said, smiling, standing by the counter, “a bank robber.”

“I wasn’t very good at it,” Drew said. “My first holdup, I blew it.”

“Why’d you do it?”

“I needed money,” he said, looking at me like I was some kind of an idiot. “I had a child to support.”

I recalled his comment, that he didn’t have kids anymore. Rather than pursue this, I asked, “How’d it go with Detective Duckworth?”

He shrugged, happened to glance up at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was nearly midnight. “We still workin’ tomorrow?” he asked.

I smiled tiredly. “How about I pick you up at nine instead of eight?”

“That’s okay,” he said. “If they don’t take me in.”

I wanted to say something encouraging, but I had no idea how his talk with Barry had gone.

He said to me, “You could have just said you killed him. The cops would’ve believed you without even thinking. But not me. Not with a record.” He frowned. “I was starting to think maybe you’re actually an okay person.”

If I’d made a bad impression when I’d first met Drew, I wasn’t sure how I’d done it. And besides, was that what you had to do to qualify as an okay guy in Drew’s book? Claim to kill someone when you hadn’t?

Wasn’t that a lot for Drew to ask of me, even if he had saved my life? And Ellen’s? Maybe it wasn’t. The thing was, I might have done it if I’d thought the police would buy the story. But there was still Mortie’s accomplice out there somewhere, and no matter how disreputable he might be, his version of events could end up undercutting mine.

It seemed better to stick with the truth. I just hoped it didn’t end up getting Drew screwed.

Finally, Barry and I had some one-on-one time, but we ended up covering the same ground again, and if Barry had found any inconsistencies in our stories, he wasn’t letting on.

The last thing I said to him was, “They won’t charge him, will they? Ellen and I’d probably be dead now if Drew hadn’t shown up.”

Barry shook his head slowly, as if to say no. But all he said was, “How’s your hand?”

There were marks where my fingers had been jammed into the teeth of the hedge trimmer, but the skin hadn’t been broken. “Okay,” I said.

“You were damn lucky.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got horseshoes up my ass.”

We walked back into the kitchen together. Ellen and Drew were outside on the deck, talking. A different uniformed officer, who was holding something down at his side, out of view, sidled past them and came into the kitchen.

“Detective,” he said, and presented Barry with a plastic evidence bag. There was a gun inside it.

“A Glock 19,” Barry said. “Nine mill. The Langleys were killed with a nine-millimeter weapon.”