Too Close to Home

by Linwood Barclay

  When she didn’t say anything, I guessed she expected me to respond. “That’s right.”

  “So why’s that?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t see any reason to get into it. Let’s just say yeah, he’s right, I don’t think he wrote it.”

  “That’s a very serious allegation,” Elizabeth said.

  “So sue me.”

  “There’s a lot of buzz about his new book. It’s not very helpful, tossing around allegations that the man is a fraud.”

  I shrugged. “You really think anyone’s going to listen to a grass-cutting chauffeur?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Ms. Hunt,” I said, growing weary and wanting to get home to see how Derek’s first day on the job with Drew had gone, “cut to the chase, no pun intended.”

  “He wants you to read his new book,” she said. “You and your wife, Ellen, but you in particular.”

  I glanced over at her again. “He mentioned something about that. I thought he was kidding.”

  “He’s not. I think he feels he has to prove something to you. He wants you to read it, and then, I guess, you’ll believe that he wrote A Missing Part, too.”

  “I’m sure he did write this book, and I don’t care.”

  Elizabeth Hunt sighed. At that moment, I felt some sympathy for her. It wasn’t her fault Conrad Chase was an asshole. “I could make the book available to you on disc, I could e-mail it to you, or I could give you an actual paper copy of the manuscript.”

  “I’m not interested,” I said.

  “All right then,” she said. “I asked.”

  I flashed her a smile. “You can tell him you gave it your best shot.”

  We rode along in silence for a moment. I was heading back to the ramp where she’d first spotted me.

  She said, “You really despise him, don’t you? You think he’s a fraud?”

  I thought about that as I steered the car over to the curb. “I think he’s worse than a fraud,” I said. “I think he’s a killer.”

  Elizabeth Hunt blinked. She had nothing to say. We were back where we’d started from. She unbuckled her seatbelt and got out.

  “HE DOESN’T TALK MUCH,” Derek said over a dinner of baked chicken and rice. “I mean, Drew’s a good guy and all, and he’s a really good worker, like, I could hardly keep up with him, but he doesn’t have a whole lot to say.”

  “I’ve noticed,” I said. “I don’t think he’s a very happy guy.”

  “I thought we’d have lots in common,” Derek said, “because we’ve both done time.”

  “Derek!” Ellen said. “You have not done time.”

  “I was in jail,” he said. “Not for as long as Drew, but I was there.”

  “You were never convicted of anything,” Ellen told him. “Drew was. That’s a big difference. He did something wrong. You didn’t.”

  “Yes I did,” Derek said. “I did plenty wrong.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Ellen said. I couldn’t have agreed more.

  “I asked him about what it was like, killing that guy, the one who scared you the other night,” Derek said.

  “Jesus, Derek,” I said. “Don’t ask him stuff like that. He’s probably having a hard time dealing with it.”

  We were all quiet for a moment, until Ellen asked, “What did he say?”

  “He didn’t really say anything,” Derek said. “He just asked me a question instead, what it was like, being in the Langley house when they all got killed.”

  If Derek could ask difficult questions, I suppose Drew was entitled to do the same.

  “And what did you say?” Ellen asked.

  “I said I’d probably have nightmares about it for the rest of my life.”

  Ellen reached out and grabbed Derek’s arm and squeezed. I was about to do the same, but the phone had started ringing.

  We’d been pretty much ignoring the home phone the last few days, not eager to talk to reporters, or endure abusive comments from the nutbars of Promise Falls who knew how to block their caller ID. But now that all the charges against Derek had been dropped, and that fact was becoming increasingly known, we weren’t quite so anxious every time we picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “It’s Barry.”

  “Hi,” I said. I didn’t want to say his name out loud, expecting it would spark angry scowls from Ellen, if not Derek as well.

  “You and Ellen busy?” he asked.

  “Just finishing up dinner,” I said.

  “I need you to come into the station. Got somebody for you to have a look at in a lineup.”

  “Who?”

  “Maybe the partner of that guy who ended up dead in your shed. How’s an hour?”

  “We’ll be there,” I said.

  I hung up and told Ellen. She went white. The idea of being anywhere near the other man involved in the attack on us, even if there was a sheet of one-way glass separating us from him, filled her with dread.

  “I don’t know if I can do it,” she said.

  “It’ll be okay. It’ll be like on TV. He won’t be able to see us. We’ll just be able to see him.”

  “He wore that mask the whole time,” she said.

  “But they can get him to say a few words,” I said. “We heard him talk plenty. And there was the tattoo on his arm.”

  Ellen nodded. I leaned in, kissed her on the neck. “It’ll be okay. I’m gonna jump into the shower, put on some fresh clothes.”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ll clean up here.”

  As I was about to step into the shower, I heard the phone again, but someone grabbed it after the first ring, so I got in and let the water rain down on me for a good five minutes. When I got out, the bathroom was filled with steam, the mirror clouded over. I used a towel to make a clear spot on the glass and took a look at myself. My face was still bruised from my run-in with the late Lance, there were bags under my eyes, and my cheekbones seemed more prominent than they had two weeks ago.

  “You,” I said, “need a vacation.”

  ON THE WAY TO THE STATION, I said to Ellen, “Who phoned?”

  “Fucking telemarketer,” she said. “Windows.”

  Barry met us at the station entrance, led us down a hallway, up some stairs, talking the whole way.

  “Cops in New York picked him up for us, shipped him back up here for you to have a look at.”

  “Who is it?” Ellen asked. “What’s his name?”

  “I’d rather not say anything at this point,” Barry said. “I’d like you to view the lineup cold.”

  Barry had already told me that they were interested in a partner of Mortie’s by the name of Lester Tiffin, believed to be related to Conrad’s wife, Illeana Tiff. I had not, as yet, shared this information with Ellen. I was worried that throwing this kind of unsubstantiated detail into the conversation might be like tossing a stick of dynamite into a campfire.

  We were taken into a room that really was like the one in the movies, one wall a sheet of glass that looked out on a mini-stage wide enough to hold half a dozen people. Barry was in the room, as well as another, unidentified man in a well-tailored suit. A lawyer, I was betting.

  Barry grabbed a phone handset hanging from the wall and said to someone in another room, “Showtime.”

  Six men walked into the room on the other side of the glass. All white, all with dark hair, all around six feet tall. Three had short-sleeved shirts on, three had sleeves that went down to their wrists.

  “Face forward,” someone barked at them.

  “Have a close look,” Barry said to us.

  I scanned the faces of all six men and recognized no one. “You know he was wearing a mask,” I said. “A stocking mask.”

  “I know,” Barry said. “I thought we’d get them all to say a few words for you.”

  Ellen nodded. “That might help.”

  “What would you like them to say?” Barry aske
d.

  “Have them say,” I said, “‘This mask is so fucking hot.’”

  Barry grinned, nodded, picked up the handset, and repeated my instructions.

  In turn, each of the six men said, “This mask is so fucking hot.”

  There was something about the way the fourth man, who was wearing his shirtsleeves down to his wrists, said it.

  “That guy,” I said.

  Ellen said, “Maybe, I’m not sure.” The guy in the suit made a snorting noise.

  “Would it be possible,” I asked, “for all of them to put on stocking masks?” The suit looked at me like I was an idiot. “All I was thinking was, there might be something familiar in the way their faces get mashed down.”

  The suit said, “That’s ridiculous. Everyone up there will look like the suspect, including my client. I’ll make laughingstocks of all of you all the way to Albany.”

  Barry said, “I don’t think that’ll fly, Jim.”

  I nodded. “What about their arms? The other man, he had a tattoo of a knife on his arm. His right arm.”

  Barry spoke into the handset and then a voice on the other side of the glass instructed the men wearing long sleeves to roll them up.

  The fourth guy, the one whose voice sounded familiar, was very slow about it.

  “Let’s go,” someone barked at him.

  He rolled up the sleeve, and once it was past his elbow the tip of the knife appeared. He rolled it up farther, exposing more of the blue blade, then the handle.

  “That’s it,” I said, my pulse quickening. “That’s the tattoo I saw on the guy.”

  Barry said to Ellen, “You recognize it?”

  Ellen shook her head slowly, and said, “No.”

  I whirled around. “What?”

  “I don’t recognize it.”

  “What are you talking about? You were with him even more than I was. He went back into the house to get you, he brought you out to the shed.”

  “It was dark,” she said. “And I was so scared, I don’t know.”

  Barry sidled up next to Ellen and whispered, “He’s denying everything, we haven’t got anyone who can put him with his pal Mortie, so if you can’t—”

  “Detective Duckworth, something you’d like to share with the class?” the suit asked.

  “Ellen,” I persisted, “how could you not recognize—”

  “I think we’re done here,” said the suit. “It’s clear the woman can’t make any kind of ID, Detective Duckworth.”

  “Ellen, are you sure that’s not the guy?” Barry asked. “Jim recognizes the tattoo.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s all wrong. That’s not how I remember it at all. It was much longer, and skinnier. It went down below his elbow.”

  “Ellen,” I said, trying to control my voice, “what the hell are you doing?”

  The suit, heading for the door, said, “I’ll expect you to be releasing my client momentarily.” And then he was gone.

  I was still looking at Ellen, but she couldn’t look me in the eye.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ONCE WE WERE OUT in the parking lot, I grabbed Ellen by the arm and forced her to look at me. “What the fuck just happened in there?”

  Darkness had fallen in the time we’d been in the police station, but I could see, by the glow of the parking lot lights, the tears on Ellen’s cheeks. She was struggling to free herself from my grip. “Leave me alone!”

  “The fuck I will! You let that guy walk! He and his buddy nearly took off my fucking fingers! They probably were going to kill us!”

  “Stop it!”

  “You have any idea who that was?” I couldn’t stop myself from shouting. “I do. My guess is that was Lester Tiffin. And you know who the fuck Lester Tiffin is? He’s related to Illeana. A brother, maybe. A hood from New York. She didn’t exactly come from the best of families before she landed in Hollywood and finally ended up with your Conrad.”

  “Don’t call him that. He’s not my Conrad.”

  “Who called tonight when I was taking a shower? Illeana? Conrad?”

  “It was a mistake!” Ellen shouted. “The whole thing was a mistake!”

  “What?” I said. “What was a mistake?”

  “Them coming to the house. Coming for the disc. It was all a stupid mistake.”

  “Is that what you call it? When someone tapes your hand to a hedge trimmer? A fucking boo-boo?”

  “You okay over there?” It was a cop, approaching us across the tarmac. “Ma’am, are you all right?”

  I released my grip, dropped my arm to my side.

  “It’s okay,” Ellen said. “Everything’s okay, Officer.”

  He stood there a moment, making sure, then turned and walked over to a patrol car.

  “I want to know what the hell’s going on,” I said.

  “It was him,” she said quietly.

  “In there? In that lineup? That was the guy? You recognized him?”

  “At least his arm. And it sure sounded like him.”

  “You know he’s going to get away with this. What he did to us. You can sleep at night knowing he’s walking around free?”

  “He won’t bother us again,” Ellen said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, that’s good to know. I’ll sleep soundly tonight.” I shook my head in disgust. “Ellen, don’t you get it? Those two, the one Drew killed, and that guy you just let walk, there’s every reason to believe they killed the Langleys.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m sure they didn’t.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I mean, I’m pretty sure,” she said, sniffing. “I need a tissue,” she said.

  I found an unused one in my pocket and handed it to her. We stood there a moment, not talking, while Ellen blew her nose, dabbed the tears from around her eyes.

  “Conrad phoned,” she said. “It was Illeana’s idea. She didn’t know I’d given Conrad the disc. She called her brother, Lester—”

  “Get in the car,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Get in the goddamn car.”

  She did as she was told. I got behind the wheel of the Mazda and sped out of the lot, the tires squealing as I rounded the corner and headed in the direction of Thackeray College.

  The president lived in a grand house that always put me in mind of Wayne Manor of Batman fame. Maybe not quite as big, but imposing. The kind of house that said, I live here and you don’t.

  I drove up the semicircular driveway so quickly I nearly swerved onto the well-manicured lawn. I hit the brakes at the front-door steps. Ellen threw her hands forward toward the dashboard. We hadn’t said a word on the drive over. Ellen knew where we had to be going, and she must have realized there was little she could say to get me to change my mind.

  I was prepared to drag her out of the car, but she had her door open before I got around to her side and was mounting the steps alongside me. Before I could bang on the door or storm right in, Conrad-style, it opened.

  The man stood there before us.

  “Illeana and I have been expecting you,” he said. “Please, come in.”

  All the way over, I’d been picturing myself bursting in, guns ablazin’, but his manner threw me off my game. So Ellen and I went through the door and were led into the expansive living room.

  Illeana was standing there, and she looked shaken. Her eyes were bloodshot, her usually perfect hair unkempt, and there was a large glass of what appeared to be scotch in her hand.

  “Ellen, Jim,” she said. But she didn’t approach. She was frightened. Of us, or Conrad, or both.

  “Her brother’s lawyer just phoned,” Conrad said. “Lester’s being released.” Looking at Ellen, he said, “Thank you very much.”

  Ellen said nothing.

  Then Conrad turned to his wife and said, “Tell them.”

  “Conrad, wouldn’t it be better if you told them what—”

  Then, suddenly booming like thunder, Conrad shouted, “Tell them! Tell them what y
ou did, you stupid cunt!”

  If I hadn’t been paying attention before, I was now.

  Illeana, the ice in her drink clinking from her trembling, said, “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just . . . I was just trying to protect my husband.”

  Ellen and I waited. Ellen, I suspected, already knew the basic story.

  “When I heard you arguing,” she said to me, “with Conrad, when we came out to your place, about this disc, I couldn’t stop worrying about it. I wondered what was on it, whether there was any truth to the fact that it was Conrad’s book. No matter how his book got on that disc, I thought it might damage him, especially with his new book coming out and—”

  “Get to it,” Conrad said.

  “And then I came out to see you, to ask you for it, this disc, and you refused to give it to me. So then I decided to find another way to get it back.” She looked away a moment, took a drink of her scotch. “I need to sit down,” she said, and deposited herself into one of half a dozen overstuffed, velvety chairs that dotted the room. “I called my brother. He . . . he knows, and has friends who know, how to handle things like this. He said he and his friend Mortie could come up from New York and get the disc from you.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said.

  “They weren’t supposed to hurt you,” she said. “They were just supposed to scare you. He said if anyone could get you to tell them where the disc was, it was Mortie.”

  I said, holding up the fingers of my right hand, “If my wife hadn’t pulled the plug in time, I wouldn’t have any of these.”

  Illeana said, “I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry?” I said.

  “She didn’t know,” Conrad said. “She didn’t know that Ellen had given me the disc earlier in the day. She’d gotten it back from your lawyer.”

  “Conrad had no idea I was doing this,” Illeana said. “Not until that detective, Mr. Duckworth, not until he came out here and asked about my brother, that he was known to hang out with Mortie DeLuca, the one your friend killed in your garage.” Another tear ran down her cheek. “Oh my God, I never dreamed someone would end up dead because of this.”

  I must have looked stupefied. I know that was pretty much how I felt. “So what, we’re supposed to forget all about this? Because why? Because we’re all such good friends? Because my wife works for you?” I looked at Conrad. “You put in a call to her, tell her not to identify the suspect, Illeana’s fucking brother goes free?”