Andrew Klavan - The long way home

The picture of him on the laptop monitor bounced up and down as Josh approached him.

"If he didn't walk like such a geek, we could see something," muttered Rick.

"I'm starting to get motion sickness," said Miler.

"You guys are so mean," said Beth. "I thought Josh was your friend."

"We let him live, don't we?" said Rick and Miler at the same time.

Then we all fell silent again, so that the only noise in the empty parlor was Josh's panting breaths coming through the two-way speaker and the sound of his laptop slapping against his side.

Crewcut Guy got larger and larger on the monitor as Josh drew near.

"That him?" Josh muttered.

"Yeah," I told him. "Be careful, Josh. He's not as nice as he looks."

"He doesn't look very nice."

"Right."

"Oh. I get it. Yikes."

Now Crewcut Guy nearly filled the screen. He turned and looked directly at us through his squinty eyes as he noticed Josh coming toward him.

"Hi!" We heard Josh's voice cracking over the two-way speaker. "You wouldn't happen to be Paul Hunt or Frederick Brown, would you?"

"Hunt," he grunted. "What're you looking for?"

"Well, I'm doing a story for my school newspaper…"

The look on Hunt's face changed. He looked around, as if he thought someone was pulling a not-very-funny practical joke on him, as if he expected to find a group of his friends watching from a distance and laughing at him. The narrowed stare returned to Josh, coming straight at us on the laptop screen. "Say what?"

"I'm doing a story…"

"You up for something or not?"

"Yeah," said Josh. "I'm up to talk to you for a couple of minutes for my school newspaper."

Next to me, Rick rolled his eyes. Miler put his head in his hands.

"Josh, you idiot, he means drugs," I said into the two-way.

"Drugs?" said Josh.

"What do you need?" said Hunt.

"No, I didn't mean you," said Josh.

"Say what?" said Hunt. "Hey, what is this?"

"I'm doing a story for my school newspaper. It's about the murder of Alex Hauser."

Now, once again, Hunt's expression changed. When Josh mentioned Alex's name, he seemed to grow both wary and interested.

"What're you talking about? What kind of a story?"

"A retrospective," said Josh.

Hunt said, "Oh. Yeah," and he nodded. But even on the laptop monitor, I could see that he didn't know what the word retrospective meant.

"We're just gonna talk about, you know, like, where the case stands now and so on."

Hunt gave an elaborate shrug-like someone pretending he wasn't interested when he really was. He brought out a cigarette and shot the filter between his lips. "What's to talk about? They got the guy, right? He and Alex fought over some piece they both wanted."

"Oh, nice," said Beth. "I'm a 'piece' now."

I held my finger to my lips.

"Ask him if he believes they got the right guy," I said into the two-way.

"Do you believe they got the right guy?" said Josh.

Hunt clicked open a big metal lighter and torched his cigarette. He shrugged again. "Sure. Why not? I met him. He was a real…" Well, I won't write what he called me. It's not the sort of thing I'm planning to put on my resume- if I live to have a resume.

All this time, I was watching Hunt's face. I could tell a lot about him just by looking at him. He had this kind of swaggering, belligerent attitude as if he was a big shot, really tough and important. But when you watched his eyes, they looked nervous, as if down deep he really felt small and insecure and afraid. I think those things go together a lot, you know? Swaggering around and secretly feeling scared. I think people act big when they feel small.

Anyway, it gave me an idea. I murmured into the two-way. "Josh, I think we gotta flatter this guy. Act like we think he's important. He's insecure-he'll fall for that. Tell him the reason you want to interview him is because you think he has real inside knowledge of the case. Use the word interview. Like it's some big deal. He'll like that."

We kidded Josh a lot, but there was no question he was smart. He understood exactly what I wanted. His camera went down for a moment, and we could see his hands. We saw him take a narrow pad and pen out of his coat pocket, just like a real reporter might use. "Listen, I know you're a very busy person-everyone talks about how important you are around here-so I'm really grateful you consented to this interview."

Perfect. You could see the flattery working right away. Hunt shifted his shoulders almost as if Josh had massaged them.

"Yeah," he said with this sort of haughty frown. "Yeah. Sure. I consent."

"See, the thing is, when I was researching the case, it was pretty obvious that you were the guy with the most inside knowledge."

"That's great, Josh," I said. "Now ask him if he thinks there was any other reason someone might've killed Alex. Besides the piece, I mean."

Beth leaned over and punched my shoulder. I had to grit my teeth to keep from letting out a yelp into the two-way. She had a pretty good punch for a girl.

Over the two-way speaker, I heard Josh repeating the question, really laying the flattery on thick, making it sound as if Hunt were some expert on criminology or something.

"In your considered opinion, judging Alex Hauser's psychology and all the other aspects of the crime, do you think it possible the police overlooked some other of his activities that might've led to the murder?"

Hunt preened and shifted his shoulders some more, feeling important. Josh had him now. Hunt wanted to show him what an expert he was. He wagged his cigarette at Josh as if giving him a lecture. "Well, you know, I'll tell you something. Not everybody understood Alex the way I did. He was a very deep guy."

"Really? Deep, huh."

As Josh pretended to take notes, the camera went up and down. Watching in the parlor, we could see Hunt's face and then the pad where Josh was scribbling stuff and then Hunt's face again.

"Oh yeah," said Hunt. "A real deep thinker type. You look around here…" Hunt gestured at the playing field. "Most of these guys, they wouldn't know an idea if it jumped out of the ground and bit them. They go around doing stuff until they get arrested or get out of town. But Alex was smart, you know. He wasn't into gangs or any really heavy drugs or anything like that. He knew where the real action in town was. That's what he was after."

"Ask him…" I started to say.

But Josh was already there. "What do you mean, 'the real action'?"

Now Hunt had been totally sucked in. He was really proud of his inside knowledge, really eager to show it off to Josh. He took a quick hit of his cigarette every time he spoke. He seemed to think this made him look smarter. "See, here's the thing. A person like you, you might look at a town like Spring Hill and think it's a pretty regular, straight-arrow place. But people like me and Alex, we see past the surface, you understand what I'm saying? We know things aren't always what they seem."

"I'm not sure I understand, Mr. Hunt. Could you explain that?"

"Mr. Hunt!" Miler laughed. "Go, Josh."

"Well," Mr. Hunt explained in a ridiculously lofty tone, "you look around this town, if you don't have inside knowledge like me, you see guys walking down the street, you might think they're upstanding citizens. But the truth is: you never really know what business someone is into. I mean, the kids around here, they may do some small-time stuff. But if you want the really dirty business- the stuff where the real money is-you gotta go to the people who look clean and respectable. They're the ones pulling the strings."

"Ah," said Josh. "I see."

"Alex wasn't wasting his time doing business around here with high school kids. No way."

"You mean, he was doing business with adults?"