Linwood Barclay - Trust Your Eyes

I hesitated. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, he believes things we know are not true, but he really believes them. Like the online map meltdown, and talking to Clinton. But some things aren’t made up at all. It was you who found out about what happened in Chicago, and now Florida.”

“Would Thomas deliberately lie to you?”

I’d never really thought about that. “I guess it’s possible. But when I asked him about this thing that happened with Dad, about pushing him on the stairs, he admitted it. Although it wasn’t like he volunteered the information.”

“He pushed your Dad down the stairs?”

I shook my head, like I didn’t have the energy to get into it now. “When there’s something Thomas doesn’t want to tell you, or own up to, he just keeps quiet. He clams up.” I stopped, watched the creek water trickling past. “Well, he lied to Dr. Grigorin. He told her he’d watched a movie with me when he hadn’t, trying to get her off his back, I guess. God, I just don’t know.”

“Are you going to talk to him?”

“I’ll try. In the meantime, like I told you, Harry knows a guy, a detective with the Promise Falls police. He’ll bounce all this off him so I don’t have to worry about making a fool of myself with another call to the cops.”

“That’s good,” Julie said. “Duckworth is a good guy. He doesn’t instinctively hate reporters.”

I said, “Some other stuff’s nagging at me.”

“Like?”

I opened my arms, gesturing to where we were standing. “This is where it happened. This is where my father died.” I pointed to the hill. “That was where the tractor rolled. Stopped about here. This is where Thomas found him.”

She looped her arm into mine. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about him. About Dad. And about Thomas. He told me when they had this incident on the stairs, it was about something that had happened to him when he was thirteen. Something he didn’t want to talk about. And Dad, according to Thomas, was trying to tell him he was sorry, that he’d understand if Thomas didn’t forgive him.”

“He didn’t say what it was about?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. But”-and I hesitated-“there’s something more.”

Julie looked at me and waited.

“I haven’t talked to anyone about this, but there was something kind of weird on Dad’s laptop.” I told her about what I’d found in the search history.

“Child prostitution?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s kinda strange.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Julie shook her head strongly. “I didn’t know your dad, Ray. Why’s this got you worried? You think he was into something weird?” Then the implications started to sink in further. “God, you don’t think your dad assaulted Thomas when he was a kid, do you? You think that’s what he was talking about when he said he’d understand if Thomas didn’t forgive him?”

“It’s a huge leap, putting it together like that,” I said, “but without any real facts, your mind starts going places it shouldn’t.”

“Did your father, with you, did he ever-”

“Never,” I said. “Absolutely never.”

“Then that’s not it,” Julie said with finality. I liked it that she’d defend my father even without knowing him. “What else?” Julie asked. “I can tell there’s something else on your mind.”

“It’s…it’s nothing.”

“Talk to me. You’ve got all these things weighing on you, and you haven’t had anyone to talk them over with. What is it?”

I slowly shook my head, looked down. “I think there’s something funny about how Dad died.”

“Funny how?”

“It’s just, okay, the way they say it happened, he rolled the tractor while he was on the side of the hill here. And that’s probably what did happen.”

“So what’s the problem, then?” she asked.

“They never brought the tractor up. It was still down here by the creek. Not upside down, of course, because Thomas had managed to get it off him before the paramedics got here.”

“Okay, I’m not getting this,” Julie said.

“I came down here to see if it would start, to take it back up to the barn. And it did start. But the key was already in the OFF position, and that thing that goes around the lawnmower blades was raised, like he’d stopped cutting grass.”

Julie thought about what I was saying. “So, you think he rolled the tractor after he’d turned it off.”

I nodded. “That’s right.”

“Isn’t that possible? That maybe the tractor was acting up, and he stopped it to see what was wrong? I don’t know a lot about riding lawnmowers, but if something gets caught in the blades, wouldn’t you have to turn everything off to see what was the matter? And wouldn’t you have to lift up that thingie so you could look under there to see what it was?”

I felt like I’d been hit in the side of the head with a two-by-four. I laughed, put my hands on Julie’s shoulders, and said, “You’re a genius.”

“I am?”

“Here I was, driving myself crazy, thinking this was some goddamn locked-room mystery, and the answer’s so fucking simple.”

“Oh,” Julie said, feigning umbrage. “So it took a simpleton to put it all together.”

“No, no, but you’re right. Okay, so he’s going along, maybe he hits a rock or a stick or something, and he figures it’s jammed into the blades. He has to stop the tractor, raise the housing, then get out and take a look. But as he’s getting off, or maybe when he was getting back on, he leans just a little too much toward the bottom of the hill, and tips the tractor on top of himself.”

If it still weren’t so tragic, I’d have had some pleasure finally putting it together. Or having it put together for me.

“That makes perfect sense,” I said, giving Julie a quick hug.

“What did you think had happened?”

“I was thinking he must have stopped because there was someone else there. Someone had walked down the side of the hill and waved to him or something, and he stopped, killed the ignition, and raised the housing. Like maybe he was going to stop and head back to the house. I’d been thinking, I don’t know, that someone was actually there and saw it happen, but didn’t tell anyone, or call the ambulance, or anything.”

Julie said, quietly, “Someone like Thomas.”

I sighed and briefly hung my head, feeling ashamed. “It had crossed my mind. That maybe he’d headed out of the house for some reason, wanted to talk to Dad, and there was an accident. God, I’m an idiot. Like there aren’t enough things to worry about, I have to invent more.”

“Maybe you’ve been doing the same thing with what you found on your father’s laptop. Lots of things have simple explanations. They just seem complicated when you don’t know what they are.”

I took Julie into my arms again and held on to her. “I know I keep saying this, but thanks.”

“Wait till you get my bill.” She put her head on my chest. “Listen, I should get back to the paper and write up a couple of things that have nothing to do with your and Thomas’s big international conspiracy. And then I’ll make those other calls, to Florida.”

“What should I do?”

“You know, honestly? Right now? Probably nothing. See what luck your lawyer has with Duckworth, and I’ll see what I find out, and you just stay here and make sure Thomas doesn’t see someone getting pushed off the Eiffel Tower or anything.”

“Don’t even joke. What about later? You want to come back?”

“Not for dinner. Your dinners suck. Why don’t I come out later, maybe around eleven? I’ve got to cover the evening session of the Promise Falls City Council. After I file my story, I’ll bring over a bottle of wine. We can try messing around again.”