Linwood Barclay - Far From True

As always, I’d brought a book, one I’d picked up at Naman’s. A Philip Roth novel. I’d only gotten around to him recently, starting with The Plot Against America , but today I was into Nemesis , about a polio epidemic in 1940s Newark. I guess I’d been thinking that reading about people whose problems were as bad as my own or worse might have the effect of putting things into perspective.

No, don’t think that way, I told myself. No self-pity. It was like I’d told Celeste. Had to look forward, not backward. No sense worrying about things that could not be undone.

I grabbed a spot on the bench from where I could keep an eye on my two washers, set the box of soap and the bottle of softener next to me, and opened the novel to where I’d last left my bookmark.

I’d read only a couple of pages when I heard, “What do you think?”

I looked up. It was Sam.

“It’s good,” I said.

“Some people say he’s a misogynist, but I don’t buy it,” Sam said. “Have you read The Human Stain ?”

I shook my head.

“It’s about a college professor who has an affair with this woman who’s a janitor. He gets accused of racism by two black students, but what no one realizes is — whoa, I shouldn’t tell you if you haven’t read it.”

“Okay,” I said. “I might get to it at some point.” I managed a smile. “I’ve only read a couple of books by him. You?”

“Most of them,” she said. “The one on baseball did nothing for me. And there’s a satire about Watergate or something, which I couldn’t care less about.” Sam leaned her head back, like she was sizing me up. “You’re thinking, a woman who runs a Laundromat reads?”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” I said.

“Or if she does read, it’s just Fifty Shades shit,” she said.

“I really wasn’t giving your reading habits much thought, one way or another,” I said. “But thanks for the recommendation. The Human Stain , you said?”

“Yeah.” Sam smiled. “Sorry, didn’t mean to give you a hard time there.”

“It’s okay.”

The opening of the Laundromat door caught her eye. It was a man, six feet, pushing two fifty, dark, greasy black hair, stubble on his neck and cheeks, jeans and jean jacket.

I noticed he didn’t have any laundry with him. Just a swagger.

“Excuse me,” Sam said, and walked toward the door. “Get out of here, Ed,” she told the man.

Ed opened his arms wide in innocence. “Hey, just dropping by to say hello.”

“I told you, get out.”

“I thought I might do my laundry?”

“Where is it?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“Your fucking laundry. You forget that?”

Ed grinned. “Guessin’ I did.” The grin broadened. “Brandon’s folks say hi.”

“You can tell Brandon’s psycho parents, and Brandon, too, that they can kiss my ass.”

“Not me, too? Because I wouldn’t mind.”

I put the book down.

“I know the lawyers have been in touch,” Ed said, “but I thought I’d drop by to reinforce what they had to say. Carl’s going home.”

“Carl is home. If he’s with me, he’s home.”

“Well, from what I understand, that home is not suitable, Samantha. It’s an unfit environment.”

“You think Carl’d be better off being raised by his dad? Getting some time every day in the exercise yard? Making license plates in the machine shop? Sounds like real father-son bonding time.”

“Now you’re just being silly. Brandon’s folks are ready to step up and do the right thing just as soon as you come to your senses. And right now, they’re playing nice, just using the lawyers. You don’t want it to go beyond that, do you?”

I said, “Is there a problem here?”

I was standing just behind and to the side of Sam, my hands positioned unthreateningly behind my back. She turned when she heard my voice, and Ed squinted at me.

“I think there is now,” Ed said. “The lady and I are talkin’, pal. I think it’s time you moved your panties into the dryer.”

I said to Sam, “Is this man bothering you?”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Ed’s leaving.”

“That right, Ed?” I asked.

He looked back at Sam and said, “You fucking this one, too?”

Sam opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“You don’t speak to a lady that way,” I said.

Ed fixed his eyes on me again. “Excuse me?”

“Apologize.”

“Apologize?”

“About a block down, there’s a clinic where you can get your ears tested, if there’s something wrong with your hearing.”

That was when he decided to have a go at me. Started to pull his right arm back, planted his left foot forward. When the punch was just starting to come my way, I brought my hands out from behind my back and tossed the powdered soap I’d been keeping in my right into his face.

“Shit!” he said, stopping the swing halfway, putting both hands to his eyes.

That was when I drove a fist into his considerable gut. It was like punching a massive Pillsbury Doughboy. Or maybe the Michelin Man.

Didn’t really matter.

What mattered was that he dropped to the floor like a sack of cement, gasping for air, still unable to see.

I felt like giving him a good swift kick while he was down there, and might have, but the ding from my cell phone indicated I’d just received a text. I reached into my pocket, glanced at the screen, which read Lucy Brighton .

The message was: Please call. URGENT.

I said to Ed, “Don’t move or I’ll add fabric softener.” He kept wiping his eyes.

I brought up Lucy Brighton’s number from my contacts list, dialed.

“Oh, Cal, thank you,” Lucy said, her voice shaky. “You remember me?”

“Of course,” I said. A recent investigation involving a student and the school board had brought us together. A former teacher and guidance counselor, she now worked as an administrator at the board office. “What’s wrong? Another school thing?”

“No, not this time. It’s... more personal.”

“You want to meet?” I asked, watching Ed brush soap powder from his eyes.

She didn’t immediately answer. I had the sense she was trying to hold it together.

“I think something has happened. At my parents’ house. Well, my father and his wife.” She paused, collecting herself. “His third wife, actually. Something’s not right there. At the house. Something might have been taken — I’m not sure. There might have been a break-in. It’s... very hard to explain.”

“And you’re taking this on instead of your father, and his wife, why?”

“Because they’re dead,” Lucy Brighton said. “Last night. At the drive-in. My father’s car was crushed.”

“You’re awfully quiet,” Arlene Harwood remarked.

“It was a late night,” her son, David, said.

They were in the kitchen of his house. David’s nine-year-old son, Ethan, was already off to school, and David’s father, Don, was back at the elder couple’s house, checking in on the rebuilding of the kitchen since the fire. Arlene would probably head over and join him shortly.

“It must have been awful,” she said.

“Which part?”

Of course, he knew the worst part was what had happened to those people in the cars that had been crushed by the toppling screen. But almost as horrible were the antics of his new boss. Finley had no sense of propriety. No idea of what constituted appropriate behavior.

In other words, he had no shame.

At least Finley’d had the good sense to get out of there before Duckworth slapped the cuffs on him. All the people with phones out — for sure someone would have gotten a picture. So the dumbass dodged a bullet there.