Linwood Barclay - Too Close to Home

“So you met?”

“I went to Kelly’s at nine, not knowing whether he’d show up or not, not even sure he’d seen my note. But about five after, he came in, carrying a small backpack and his laptop, and I waved because I wasn’t positive he’d connect me to the name on the note, but I didn’t have to, he knew who I was, and he sat down across from me in the booth.

“He looked terrible. He was such a sweet kid. Frail looking, as if a strong wind would carry him away, you know?” Now she was beginning to tear up. “He was such an innocent. I mean, the way he wrote, he was so mature, but he was still a babe in the woods, you know?”

Softly, I said, “Go on.”

“He took out my note, put it on the table, asked me how I knew about his book. And I told him that Conrad was a friend of mine”-she didn’t look at me when she said it-“and he’d told me about the book, about how good it was.”

“That must have surprised him.”

“Yeah, it did. He said, ‘Well, he sure didn’t tell me anything like that. He told me the book was a pile of shit.’ I told him it wasn’t a pile of shit. He said I hadn’t read it, that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and I told him that someone who did know what was good, a literary agent from New York, was very impressed with it. He was dumbfounded. ‘How did some New York agent get my book?’ he wanted to know. And I told him Conrad had given it to Elizabeth Hunt to read.”

“He must not have known what to make of that,” I said.

“He kept saying he didn’t get it. Why would Conrad crap all over his book if he actually liked it, and had shown it to an agent? And then it was like a switch got flipped, and he looked at me, his mouth half hanging open, like he’d figured it out but couldn’t bring himself to say the words.”

“You said them for him.”

“I said to him, ‘Brett, I think Conrad wants to pass your book off as his own.’ And then he started to argue with me, he said that was impossible. He said Conrad Chase was his favorite professor, the best professor he’d ever had, there was no way he’d do something like that. I asked him whether Conrad had proposed any sort of arrangement with him, maybe to help him write the finished version, a sharing of royalties, anything like that, because I thought, okay, I’ll at least give Conrad the benefit of the doubt, he had mentioned those things to me. But Brett said no, Professor Chase hadn’t discussed any of those things with him.”

“The son of a bitch,” I said. This time, Ellen didn’t give me a look to shut up.

“Yeah,” she said. “But Brett kept saying I must be wrong, that Conrad wouldn’t betray his trust. The whole reason he’d shown the book to Conrad was because he trusted him, trusted his judgment. But the longer we sat there, the more Brett started to realize he’d made a huge mistake, started to accept that what I was telling him was the truth.”

“At least,” I said, “he knew that his book wasn’t bad. That those things Conrad had told him, that he was lying, that he had his own agenda.”

Ellen nodded, half shrugged. “Yeah, but it didn’t seem to matter. He was so crushed, he couldn’t see the good news in all of this. He started to cry, and then he just started pouring his heart out to me, about how his father had died the year before, how it was just him and his mother, how he was so mixed up, that he was gay, that he couldn’t tell his mother about it, and how he thought he’d found in Conrad someone he could trust and talk to.”

“Jesus,” I said.

“And what I wanted to say, but didn’t, was that I felt some of that, too. That I’d been sucked in by Conrad, as well, by his personality, his supposed confidence, his intellect, and that I’d made a terrible mistake. That I’d put my marriage at risk for someone this shallow, this self-centered, this monstrous.”

“Would it have made you feel better,” I asked, “if you’d put your marriage at risk for someone better?”

She bit her lip as she looked at me. “I deserve that.” She wiped away some tears from the corners of her eyes, and continued. “I told Brett he couldn’t let Conrad get away with this. He had to tell others about his book, maybe even send a copy to Elizabeth Hunt. I’d vouch for him, I said. I asked him who else had read the book, and he put his arm around his laptop like it was an infant, and said no one. He’d given Conrad a copy of the book on disc, but no one else.”

“So there was only one other copy,” I said. “On the laptop?”

“That’s what I thought at the time. But when you told me about what Derek and Adam had found on that computer, from Brett’s mother’s house, that was the first time I realized he must have had a copy of it on his home computer as well. And it was the first Conrad ever realized there was another copy of the book around.”

“And yet,” I said, “you’ve helped him. You gave him the disc. You’ve helped him cover up for this. I don’t understand.”

“I’m nearly done,” Ellen said. She rested her head in her hands a moment before continuing. “Brett wasn’t angry about what Conrad had done to him. He was too hurt to be angry. He said everybody was just out to fuck him over. That was the story of his life. He said he didn’t give a shit about his fucking book, Conrad could have it for all he fucking cared. Nothing mattered anymore, he said. And he got up suddenly and left Kelly’s.”

“What did you do?”

“First, I didn’t know what to think. He was so upset, I didn’t know whether it was better to leave him alone or go after him. I decided to go after him, in case he decided to do anything foolish.”

“What, did you think he might kill himself?”

“I didn’t really think about that. I was just worried about him. So I got up and ran after him, and when I got out of the diner I didn’t know which way he’d gone, then I caught sight of him, heading north, where the road goes over the falls.”

“Okay.”

“I ran after him, called out to him, but he was ignoring me, really hunkered down. So I kept running, and caught up to him, on the bridge, about halfway across, I grabbed his arm and told him to stop.”

“And he did?”

“Yeah, he looked at me, and it was pretty dark there by then, but I could see that he’d been crying pretty hard. There wasn’t anyone around, no one walking on the bridge, hardly any traffic. I asked Brett if he was okay, wanted to reassure myself that he wasn’t going to do anything crazy, because he’d always struck me as this sensitive, moody kid, you know?”

I waited.

“He said yeah, he was going to do something. He was going to let Conrad get his wish. He could have his fucking book. Brett said he didn’t give a shit anymore. And he slid the strap of his laptop case off his shoulder and took a step toward the railing, and I could see what he was going to do. He was going to throw his computer into Promise Falls.”

“What?”

“I shouted at him, ‘No, don’t!’ I told him that the laptop was his proof. Of course, I realize now, he still had proof, on his computer at home. I guess this was just an angry gesture, a way of expressing how betrayed he felt. But I didn’t know that, I was telling him he was the one who’d written the book, that he couldn’t get rid of the laptop, but he wasn’t listening to me, and I was thinking, he can’t do that, he can’t let Conrad get away with this, and as he let go of the strap, and the computer went over the railing, I went for it.”

I think I was holding my breath at about this point.

“I reached out beyond the railing for the strap, and I thought I had it, I just touched it, but it slipped from my hand, and dropped onto that ledge that runs along the side of the bridge, on the other side of the railing. The strap had caught on a bolt, the laptop was hanging there.”