Brian Freeman - Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7)

‘You saying she didn’t do it?’ Clyde asked. ‘Or is it just that she’s a rich white doctor, so you have to treat her like the queen?’

‘I’m saying we’re still gathering evidence, and that takes time. We have to work our way through a lot of potential suspects.’

‘Including a few cops,’ Clyde said.

Stride didn’t respond to the taunt, even though it was true. ‘Jay made a lot of enemies with the things he wrote.’

Clyde labored on an over-tight screw with a wrench that had seen a lot of seasons. He wore coveralls that were greasy with oil stains and a pair of old Converse sneakers. He was shorter and skinnier than his handsome older brother. He wore his hair in a bushy Afro that looked like a throwback to the 1980s. His beard was scraggly and untrimmed. He had a reddish birthmark on his cheek shaped like a turtle with its head and legs poked out.

‘Yeah, Jay was honest, and that scares people,’ Clyde said. ‘People around here don’t like a black man messing with their privileged little lives.’

‘I’m not sure many people in Duluth see themselves as privileged,’ Stride said.

‘Well, that’s the point, right? Jay was just telling it like it is. Like that cop of yours. Skinner. Jay knew what that boy was all about.’

‘Nathan Skinner made a mistake,’ Stride said. ‘I never said he didn’t.’

‘His mistake was getting caught. You know Skinner came after Jay after you gave him the boot, right? Took a swing at him over by the Saratoga bar?’

‘I do. Nathan was drunk. He spent a night in jail.’

Clyde spit on the floor. ‘One night.’

‘We’re talking to Nathan,’ Stride said. ‘We’re talking to everyone who might have had a grudge against Jay. Is there anyone you think wanted Jay dead?’

‘Other than that bitch of a wife? Yeah, okay, it was a long list with Jay. He pushed people’s buttons. Got everybody riled up. That was his job . Remember that column he did on suburban drug addicts last July?’

Clyde got to his feet and wiped his hands. He strolled to a bulletin board in the back of the garage. Stride could see that Clyde kept many of his brother’s newspaper columns pinned there on thumbtacks. The man pawed through yellowed clippings and grabbed one, tearing it and leaving a scrap behind on the board. He brought it to Stride.

‘Folks were talking about this one for weeks,’ Clyde said.

Stride read it, and he remembered the column.

Think you’re safe? You’re not.

Think you know who you should be afraid of? You don’t.

Case in point: I was in line behind a woman at a pharmacy this week. Me, I like my New York steaks, and if that means 40mg of Lipitor a day, so be it. This woman ahead of me, let’s call her Holly. That’s not her real name, but it doesn’t matter. You know who she is. She could be your next door neighbor. Your wife. Your sister. Your boss. Mrs. Everywoman.

Holly had a prescription for Vicodin. The pain med that makes you feel no pain. Weird, she didn’t look like she was in pain, but I guess you can’t always tell. Holly paid cash. Sometimes you just know something’s not right, and my radar told me that Holly wasn’t right. Ping ping ping, that’s how it works. I picked up my all-the-meat-you-can-eat drug, and then I followed Holly. To the parking lot. To her car. Followed her all the way across town to another pharmacy.

That’s right. You guessed it. Another prescription. Vicodin. Cash.

Yep, sweet-faced all-American housewife Holly is an addict. Don’t be so shocked. There are Hollys everywhere. But who cares, you say, right? If she’s a pill popper, nobody gets hurt except herself. We’ve all got our vices.

Oh, but I left out the best part. Guess what Holly does for a living? She drives a school bus. You hand your kids over to her every day, and she’s an addict. She could fall asleep at the wheel. She could forget to stop at a railroad crossing. Maybe she already has.

How are you feeling now?

All right, cards on the table. I lied. I don’t know who Holly is. Or what she does. Maybe she’s a secretary. Or a waitress. Or a pilot. Or a cop. That’s the point, she’s the only one who knows.

But I’ve got your license plate, Holly. I can rat you out any time I want to. Get help, okay?

Clyde laughed. ‘I bet half the pill poppers in town started looking over their shoulders at Walgreen’s after this column came out.’

‘Did Jay ever tell you who Holly was?’

Clyde shook his head. ‘No, he’d never spill something like that.’

‘Did you and your brother have a close relationship?’ Stride asked.

The man wiped sweat from his brow and grabbed an open can of beer from a metal shelf.

‘Me and Jay? Not so much, really. I saw him every couple of months. He had better things to do than hang out with me.’

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘Right after New Year’s. Dude almost killed me.’

Stride cocked his head. ‘How so?’

‘Jay took me ice-fishing in the harbor. Didn’t look safe to me, but Jay wanted to go. Winter started out pretty warm, remember? Next thing you know, ice started cracking, shanty started going down. We barely got out with our necks. He lost his truck and his fish house, but that was Jay. He liked risks, liked going all in. It was the same way when he was growing up. Smart as hell, way smarter than me, but all you cops knew his name because of the stupid shit he pulled. He near got thrown out of UMD half a dozen times, but they were scared he’d write about them in the college paper.’

‘Jay made something of himself,’ Stride said. ‘That wasn’t easy.’

‘Oh, sure, Jay was going places. He had the looks, the brains, the mojo.’

‘What about Dr. Snow?’ Stride asked.

‘What about her?’

‘I gather you don’t like her.’

‘Oh, hell, no. Rich Southern bitch, that’s who she is. I warned him off her when they started dating, but he didn’t care. I met her exactly once. Treated me like a turd she was stepping round on the sidewalk.’

‘So what did Jay see in her?’

‘You can’t figure it out? That face, that body? Jay said she was wild in the sack. And let’s face it, the money was a big thing. Jay liked money. Everybody knew his name because of the newspaper, but he didn’t have a dime to call his own until he met her.’

‘I heard their relationship was rocky,’ Stride said.

‘Oh, yeah, the two of them could fight.’

‘Jay signed a prenup, though, right? If he walked out, he got nothing.’

‘Jay wasn’t walking out,’ Clyde said. ‘No way. Fact is, for all the shit, he loved her. Or maybe he just loved shoving it in everyone’s face, white doc with her black stud. He didn’t want a divorce. No, sir. He was never going to give her up. If anything, she was a bronco he was determined to bust.’

‘What about Dr. Snow? Did she want out of the marriage?’

‘Yeah, she offered to buy him out with a fat settlement. He didn’t want it. I told him, take the money and run, but he was stubborn. Both of them were. Neither one wanted to lose to the other, you know? Guess she finally figured out there was only one way to get rid of him.’

Stride frowned. ‘You know we haven’t found the murder weapon.’

‘So? She’s smart. She dumped it somewhere good.’

‘Dr. Snow says there was no gun in the house.’

‘She’s lying.’

‘You know that for a fact?’ Stride asked.

‘Damn right. Jay had a gun. Big fat old revolver. Had it for years.’

‘She says she made him get rid of his gun when they got married.’

‘I don’t know what Jay told her,’ Clyde said, ‘but he didn’t get rid of it. No way. He always had his gun with him. He didn’t like going to certain places in the city without a little protection.’