Linwood Barclay - Too Close to Home

Ellen reached out and touched my arm. “I love you,” she said. “I love you now and I loved you then. I stayed quiet, hoping you’d never find out about any of it.”

I got up, walked around the kitchen, braced myself against the kitchen counter, looking down into the sink. “So all these things I’ve been trying to do these last few days, to show what Conrad had done, you sabotaged them,” I said, “because it would find its way back to both of us. You didn’t want me talking to him, you wanted to do that yourself. You got the disc back from Derek’s lawyer and gave it to him.”

“More or less.”

“And Albert Langley, he must have known what Conrad had done years ago, to have tipped him to the computer Derek and Adam were messing around with.”

“Yeah, Conrad confessed his sins to Albert. Not out of guilt, but to cover his ass, in case of any unexpected developments. When the book was about to come out, he started getting paranoid, went to Albert to talk it over, wanted to know if someone should accuse him of plagiarism, what were his options? Could he sue? He swore Albert to secrecy, which he didn’t exactly have to do, with Albert being his lawyer and all. Albert told him to ride it out.”

“And Albert must have known that the only other person who knew was you,” I said.

“I suppose,” Ellen said. “All these years, Conrad and I, we’ve had this sick hold on each other. When his book came out and the reviews were fabulous, and it made him rich, I had to smile through the whole thing. I wanted to quit, leave Thackeray, get away from him, but he said he wanted me to stay here, that I was doing a good job, that we could put this behind us. I think he was afraid that if I ever left, got out from under this thumb, I’d find the courage to expose him. He said I’d never get a job anywhere else, that he knew people. Maybe he couldn’t write his own book, but I believed he could make up some lies to tell anyone else I might want to work for.”

Ellen took a breath, then, “Anyway, Conrad never told Illeana what he’d done, about Brett and the book, so when she got wind of something this week, that you were supposedly trying to destroy her husband’s reputation, it didn’t much matter to her at that point whether it was true or not. She just didn’t want it coming out and ruining her perfect life with the college president. And so she got her brother and another goon to get that disc back. When Conrad found out, he went mad, couldn’t believe what she’d done, and he called me, spelled it all out for me, said if I identified her brother in the lineup, not only would things unravel, but that Illeana’s people were very dangerous. He told me they’d kill Derek if they had to.”

“Jesus, what a mess.” I sat back down at the table, took her hands in mine. “If I’d been you, I’d have done the same thing. I wouldn’t have fingered Illeana’s brother. Better to cut our losses now.”

“You remember what I said the other day?” Ellen asked. “When Derek was arrested, when he was in jail, and I said we were being punished? It was for the terrible things I’ve done, for letting that boy die.”

I squeezed her hands. “No,” I said. “No.”

What I couldn’t bring myself to say was, if we were being punished for that kind of thing, then I was going to have to shoulder some of the blame as well.

Ispoke to Derek as he was getting in the truck the next morning, about to head off to pick up Drew and cut lawns for the day.

“Hey,” I said.

“It’s gonna be another hot one,” Derek said.

“Are you okay with this, back to work this soon, with Drew, without me? Because I was thinking, maybe it’s a mistake, throwing you back into things so fast, turning the business over to you, after all you’ve been through, being in jail and all.”

“It’s okay,” Derek said. “I think, like, maybe it’s the best thing. It gets my mind off stuff, you know?”

“Sure,” I said. “That’s what I was hoping.”

“How about you? What’s it like, driving that dickhead around again?”

I laughed. “It’s okay. I don’t know whether I’ve changed, or Randy has, but he’s not bothering me the way he used to. He’s still an asshole, no question, but I’m not letting him get under my skin. Maybe because he knows he’s only got me for a short while. I think you’ve got the better deal, working with Drew.”

“Yeah,” Derek said. “I’m trying not to be a jerk with him, like asking him any more about robbing banks or anything. I kind of just let him be, you know? I’m trying not to be too pushy.”

“That’s probably best,” I said.

“But the guy can really work. I can barely keep up with him.” He paused. “I better shove off.”

I don’t know whether it hit us both at the same time to do this, but we threw our arms around each other, gave each other a couple of pats on the back, and then he got in the truck and was gone.

As I watched the truck head up past the Langley house, it occurred to me that despite all the revelations of the last twenty-four hours, all the secrets revealed, I still didn’t know anything more about what had happened in that house the other night than I did before.

Ellen came outside a moment later, ready to go to Thackeray.

I put my hands along the tops of her arms and said, “You remember when we first learned about the Langleys being killed, you were ready to move away from here. Well, now I am, but for all sorts of different reasons. You’ve got a great resume, you should be able to find work almost anywhere. Wherever you can find something, I’ll find something.”

“I don’t know,” Ellen said.

“Conrad has no hold over you anymore. If anyone’s holding the trump card now, it’s you. For what Illeana had done to us. Because you didn’t identify her brother.”

“I got to thinking in the middle of the night,” Ellen said. “About the gun.”

“The gun?”

“The one they found that night, when Mortie and Illeana’s brother Lester came to see us, right by the car Lester was driving. If that really was the gun that was used to kill the Langleys, what if. .”

“What if what?”

“What if, somehow, I let Lester and his buddy get away with that? What if, to protect all these secrets, what if that means the Langleys’ killers go free?”

“But it sounded to me like Illeana didn’t bring her brother into this until after she heard me talking to Conrad about the missing computer, and the disc Derek had. And that was well after the Langleys had been killed.”

“That’s true.”

“Maybe Drew was mistaken, thinking he saw Lester drop the gun out of the car. It was dark, we were all pretty rattled.”

Ellen thought a moment. “God, I hope I did the right thing, at the lineup. You wake up in the morning, you start seeing things differently.”

“Let’s try things the way they are now,” I said. “We lay low, we ride this out.”

“I don’t know,” Ellen said softly. “I don’t know what to do.” She looked into my eyes. “Maybe you’re right. We should start over. Someplace else.”

I took her into my arms. “Let’s talk about it tonight.”

“Okay,” she said, and while holding me continued, “Everywhere I look, I’m reminded of tragedies and horrible choices. The Langley house, your shed, Promise Falls, the college. I want to get away from all of it before anything else bad happens.”

“Nothing else is going to happen,” I said. “Nothing else is going to happen.”

There was no rush to head down to city hall. Randall Finley was keeping his schedule pretty light for the day, and those things he did have on it were various committee meetings that were held in the building. So he didn’t need my services till later. He was saving up his strength for his big early-evening announcement that he was going to run for Congress.