Linwood Barclay - Never Saw It Coming

Still, it had been a good plan, moving in with Keisha. He’d been as nice as he could be when he met her, helping her with that flat tire. And it was no act, his treating her with respect. She had it going on. Nice bod, pretty face. That first night at her place, he found out she could cook a half-decent meal, too. He went slow, not wanting her to think the only thing he cared about was getting into her pants, but once she told him the kid was asleep, he knew she wanted it, and he was happy to oblige. The thing Kirk never got around to mentioning was, he didn’t actually have a place of his own. He’d gotten the boot from his ex-girlfriend, and had taken to sleeping on the couches of various guys who worked for Garber Contracting, except for Glen himself, who wasn’t taking in boarders when he had a young girl in the house, no offense intended. He couldn’t keep doing that forever, so when Keisha started hinting that since he was staying over most nights anyway, maybe he should just…

“Yeah, okay,” he’d said.

Things were okay those first few weeks, before Glen cut back his hours. Then he hurt his foot, and in some ways that came at a good time, because he could tell Keisha had been starting to reassess, to wonder if maybe inviting him into her home had been such a great idea after all. She wasn’t going to kick him out while he was recovering. She was too nice to do that.

And now, his foot pretty much healed, he was sensing she might be thinking, once again, about dissolving this relationship. But now, well, she needed him now. Big time. What woman is going to throw out onto the street the man who’s helping her cover up a murder?

Oh yeah, he was in for the long haul. No doubt about that.

Hey, that looked like a good spot.

A short plaza on the right with a nail salon, a takeout-only pizza place, a T-shirt operation, and a shop that sold radio-controlled cars.

Always wanted to get one of those, Kirk thought. Now that I’ve got my wheels for the truck, time to treat myself to something else.

A row of shops like this had to have some kind of Dumpster out back, especially with the pizza joint. They’d have a lot of trash, right? Leftover food at the end of the day, cardboard, cheese that had gone moldy?

He hit the blinker, turned into the lot, drove down the side of the building and around back, coming to a stop by a battered metal refuse container the size of this shitbox car he was driving. It sat about thirty feet out from the building, and was surrounded by other trash. Abandoned pallets, scraps of rusted pipe, an old oven, half a dozen tires.

Kirk got out and came around to the passenger side of the car. He opened the door, grabbed the bag, and approached the container. He was about to lift the lid and toss it in when he was interrupted.

“The hell you doing?”

One of the four back doors was open. Judging from its position, Kirk guessed it was the rear entry to the pizza place. A black man in jeans, a black T-shirt and white apron splotched with pizza sauce was looking at him.

“Just throwing this in,” Kirk said.

“No. You’re not.”

“It’s just one bag. Chill out, man.”

“What, you think our bin’s here for your convenience? You got garbage, put it out front of your own yard.”

“Hey, pal, why don’t-”

“Don’t fucking ‘pal’ me, asshole. We pay to get this trash hauled away. You want to put that bag in? Ten bucks.” He stepped forward, allowing the metal door to swing shut behind him. “People like you doing this all the time. Thinking this is a public dump. You got ten bucks?”

“Yeah, I do. And you know where you can put it?” Kirk asked.

The pizza guy laughed. “Oh, that’s good. And I got an idea where you can put that bag of trash.”

He’d closed the distance between them. Kirk still had one hand on the bag, the other on the metal lid, but he hadn’t raised it far enough to toss the bag in. The other man slapped his hand on top of it and it slammed shut with a resounding clang. If Kirk hadn’t yanked his hand away quickly enough, he’d be minus a thumb.

“What’s your problem?” Kirk asked. He thought of a good Family Feud question: “Name a place where dickheads are most likely to work?” He’d shout: “Takeout pizza joint!”

But what he said was, “You got a pepperoni stick up your ass or something?” He really wanted to have a go at this guy. Kick his ass good.

“This what you want?” the man asked. “You want to get into it over this? Because if that’s what you want, then that’s okay by me.”

The bag concealing the bloody clothes and bloody purse and bloody cleaning clothes dropped from Kirk’s hand to the asphalt so he’d have both fists ready.

The back door to the pizza place opened again, and a second man came out. White guy, about twice the size of the black guy.

Kirk thought, Shit.

“Hey, Mick, help me out with this asshole!” the black guy said.

If it mattered to Mick that he had no idea what this dispute was about, he showed no sign. He was too busy looking, immediately, for something to use to hit Kirk, and he found it up against the wall. A discarded two-foot length of lead pipe. He raised it like a club, looked at Kirk, and smiled.

Kirk bolted.

He jumped back into the car, slammed the door, did a fast three-point turn, narrowly missing Mick as the front end swung past him in reverse, then floored it, racing back up the side of the building and onto the street.

He was two blocks away before he realized he’d left the bag sitting there next to the Dumpster.

The crime scene people had arrived at the Garfield house. Rona Wedmore stepped back so they could do their job. Eight uniformed officers had also shown up, and Wedmore had them fanned out across the neighborhood, knocking on doors, trying to find anyone who might have seen anything. The last thing she did before leaving was ask Joy Bennings, the lead crime scene investigator, to let her know what was on the card she’d noticed tucked into Wendell Garfield’s shirt. Wedmore had been able to make out a couple of digits-the beginning of a phone number-in one corner, but that was it. She’d left it in the shirt. Smeared with blood that might not be the victim’s own, she didn’t want to interfere with it. She asked Joy to call her the moment she was able to make out what the card said.

Then she got in her car and drove back to the station so that she could have a further conversation with Melissa.

But on her way to see Melissa, she was told a Mrs. Beaudry was waiting to see her. She’d identified herself at the front desk as Melissa’s aunt, said that she had come to the station looking for Melissa or her father.

Wedmore found the woman pacing in the station lobby. Mid-forties, not much more than five feet, with a tiny frame and a long, hooked nose. She looked, Wedmore thought, bird-like. If you squeezed her too tight, she’d break in your arms.

“Excuse me,” Wedmore said. “You’re Mrs. Beaudry? Are you Melissa Garfield’s aunt?”

The woman’s eyes went wide with expectation. “Yes! I’ve been waiting to talk to someone about-”

“You’re Ellie Garfield’s sister?”

“No, I’m Wendell’s sister. I’m Gail. I tried to reach Wendell at the house and when there was no answer-he doesn’t own a cell phone-I figured they were both down here. And all they’ll tell me is that Melissa is here but not her father and they won’t let me talk to her. What’s going on?”

“Would you like to sit down, Mrs. Beaudry?”

“No, I would not like to sit down! Where’s Melissa? Is she okay? Her father’s not with her?”

“Melissa’s perfectly safe. I need to ask you some questions, Mrs. Beaudry.”