Too Close to Home

by Linwood Barclay

  “Did he tell her who’d written it?”

  “No. He didn’t say anything at all.”

  “Do you have any idea what he was thinking at the time? When he sent it to Elizabeth? Was he thinking, if she loves it and can get it published, I’ll be able to take credit for launching Brett Stockwell’s career? Or was he thinking, if she loves it, I’ll tell her it’s mine?”

  “I don’t know what he was thinking. I don’t even know whether he knew. There had to be something going on in the back of his mind. Maybe part of him was hoping Elizabeth would say the book was terrible, that it was unpublishable, because that would have been the end of it. He wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.”

  “But that’s not what Elizabeth said, is it?”

  “No,” Ellen said. “She said it was brilliant. That it still needed a lot of work, but it was brilliant. She said she wanted to try to sell it, that she wanted to represent the author. And she asked Conrad, ‘Who’s the author? Are you the author?’ To this day, I think, he can’t believe he said yes.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked.

  “That was when . . .” And Ellen’s voice trailed off.

  “When you were sleeping together,” I said. She said nothing. “He was sharing all this with you, these developments.”

  “Up until the time that Elizabeth reported back that the book should be published. He stopped talking about it then.”

  “Conrad didn’t want to admit to you what he was contemplating doing.”

  “No. I know he met with Brett. I’d come to see Conrad about something, to his office, and the door was slightly ajar and I could hear that he was having a meeting with a student. So I just hung around outside, waiting for them to finish, and then I realized that he was talking to Brett, about his book.”

  “What did Conrad say?” I asked.

  “Conrad told him the book was not very good.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “He told him it was amateurish, unbelievable, clichéd. He piled on every negative adjective he could think of.”

  Of all the things I’d known, and imagined, Conrad to have done, this seemed the worst. Trying to put aside my own issues briefly, it struck me that what Conrad had done to Brett, in that moment, was a far greater betrayal of trust than sleeping with my wife.

  “I watched Brett come out of that office, his laptop slung over his shoulder, and he was absolutely destroyed,” Ellen said. “There were tears running down his cheeks. Can you imagine it? You hand over your book—your life—to this man you hold in such high regard, whose opinion means everything to you, and you get completely crushed. And maybe, maybe, you could defend something like what Conrad did if the book really stunk, that there was no sense misleading a kid into thinking he had talent when he didn’t, the whole Simon Cowell approach, but the thing was, Conrad was lying.”

  Brett’s sadness, his overwhelming disappointment, reached through nearly a decade to take hold of me.

  “I can’t believe anyone could do that,” I said.

  “I confronted Conrad, told him I’d heard everything, asked him what the hell he was doing, that I knew he loved the book. And he was totally taken aback, flustered, grasping for an explanation. He said the book had its moments, but it was not that good, that the kid wasn’t going to make it as a writer if everyone went gaga over everything he did, and I realized at that moment what a horrible mistake I had made, what a despicable person Conrad Chase was, and I hated myself for involving myself with him, for betraying you.”

  I said nothing.

  “I asked Conrad what he was up to, why he’d say what he did when I knew that Elizabeth had thought the book showed so much promise. I asked him if he had any idea what he’d done to that boy, to Brett, how he’d left his office looking like he was ready to kill himself.”

  It was like a lightbulb went on. “Oh my God,” I said. “So all this time that I’ve been thinking Conrad killed that kid, he really did commit suicide. Although, in a way, Conrad did kill him. By lying to him, by telling him his book was a piece of shit. That’s what drove Brett over the edge, what drove him to jump off Promise Falls.”

  “No,” Ellen said quietly. “That’s not what happened. That’s not what happened at all.”

  “So, wait a second,” I said. “So I am right. Conrad did kill him. He pushed Brett over the falls so he could get away with stealing his book.”

  “No,” Ellen said again. “That’s not what happened, either.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I DON’T GET IT,” I said.

  Ellen reached out and touched my arm, and said, “Just let me tell the rest of it, okay?”

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “I asked Conrad what he was up to, why he was telling Brett his book was crap when I knew he thought it was brilliant. And I knew Elizabeth had read it and liked it, and then it hit me, what he was planning to do. So I asked him whether he was planning to pass off Brett’s book as his own.”

  “What did he say?”

  “About what you would expect. He was offended, outraged, said I was losing my mind. But I kept pressing him, and finally he starts hedging a bit, says he wasn’t going to rip off the book. But maybe he could make some sort of deal with him. Tell Brett that because he was so young, just a student, no publisher would ever look at his stuff, but if he fronted the book for him, he could help him get published, and they could share the royalties. Or maybe he could buy the idea from Brett, make him a cash offer now, get him to sign something, relinquishing the property. He was spouting all kinds of nonsense, but I could see it in his eyes, that he’d made up his mind that he wanted this kid’s book, that it was his ticket to finally getting some recognition at Thackeray.

  “I pressed him on what he’d told Elizabeth. Had he told her, I asked him, that Brett was the author of the book, and he said, not exactly. I told him I couldn’t believe that he was even considering something like this, especially after telling Brett his book was no good. The fact that Conrad would do this, it made me wonder . . .”

  “Wonder what?” I asked.

  “I just . . . I just wasn’t sure.”

  “Were you thinking then that Conrad might actually kill him?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t know what I was thinking. But then he came out from around his desk, he came right up to me and said, ‘Don’t screw this up for me, Ellen.’ He was holding me by the shoulders, and he looked so, I don’t know, it was as though something had come over him. He just had this look. It scared me.”

  I’d seen that look that day in the shed, when I confronted him with the news of the missing computer, and what was on it. And I’d seen it earlier this evening, when he’d gotten so angry at Illeana.

  “But he didn’t scare me so much that I wasn’t prepared to do something about it,” she said, and shook her head sadly. “If only I’d just left it alone.”

  “What?” I said. “What did you do?”

  She put her hands over her face, like she was steeling herself for the rest of what she had to tell.

  “I got in touch with Brett. All the students have these cubbyholes, so I left him a note, told him to meet me downtown the following night, at Kelly’s.” Where I’d had pie with Barry, where single mom Linda had last seen Sherry Underwood. “I was thinking we should meet off campus, where it was less likely we’d be seen. I said in my note it was really important that I talk to him about his book. He barely knew who I was, just that I’d been working with Conrad. We’d said hello a couple of times, but that was it. But I felt I knew this kid because Conrad had spoken about him so often, and when I saw him walk out of that office, humiliated and destroyed, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I felt, because I’d been having a relationship with Conrad, that somehow I was complicit, and I hated that feeling.”

  “So you met?”

  “I went to Kelly’s at nine, not knowing whether he’d show up or not, not even sure he’d seen my note. But about five after,
he came in, carrying a small backpack and his laptop, and I waved because I wasn’t positive he’d connect me to the name on the note, but I didn’t have to, he knew who I was, and he sat down across from me in the booth.

  “He looked terrible. He was such a sweet kid. Frail looking, as if a strong wind would carry him away, you know?” Now she was beginning to tear up. “He was such an innocent. I mean, the way he wrote, he was so mature, but he was still a babe in the woods, you know?”

  Softly, I said, “Go on.”

  “He took out my note, put it on the table, asked me how I knew about his book. And I told him that Conrad was a friend of mine”—she didn’t look at me when she said it—“and he’d told me about the book, about how good it was.”

  “That must have surprised him.”

  “Yeah, it did. He said, ‘Well, he sure didn’t tell me anything like that. He told me the book was a pile of shit.’ I told him it wasn’t a pile of shit. He said I hadn’t read it, that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and I told him that someone who did know what was good, a literary agent from New York, was very impressed with it. He was dumbfounded. ‘How did some New York agent get my book?’ he wanted to know. And I told him Conrad had given it to Elizabeth Hunt to read.”

  “He must not have known what to make of that,” I said.

  “He kept saying he didn’t get it. Why would Conrad crap all over his book if he actually liked it, and had shown it to an agent? And then it was like a switch got flipped, and he looked at me, his mouth half hanging open, like he’d figured it out but couldn’t bring himself to say the words.”

  “You said them for him.”

  “I said to him, ‘Brett, I think Conrad wants to pass your book off as his own.’ And then he started to argue with me, he said that was impossible. He said Conrad Chase was his favorite professor, the best professor he’d ever had, there was no way he’d do something like that. I asked him whether Conrad had proposed any sort of arrangement with him, maybe to help him write the finished version, a sharing of royalties, anything like that, because I thought, okay, I’ll at least give Conrad the benefit of the doubt, he had mentioned those things to me. But Brett said no, Professor Chase hadn’t discussed any of those things with him.”

  “The son of a bitch,” I said. This time, Ellen didn’t give me a look to shut up.

  “Yeah,” she said. “But Brett kept saying I must be wrong, that Conrad wouldn’t betray his trust. The whole reason he’d shown the book to Conrad was because he trusted him, trusted his judgment. But the longer we sat there, the more Brett started to realize he’d made a huge mistake, started to accept that what I was telling him was the truth.”

  “At least,” I said, “he knew that his book wasn’t bad. That those things Conrad had told him, that he was lying, that he had his own agenda.”

  Ellen nodded, half shrugged. “Yeah, but it didn’t seem to matter. He was so crushed, he couldn’t see the good news in all of this. He started to cry, and then he just started pouring his heart out to me, about how his father had died the year before, how it was just him and his mother, how he was so mixed up, that he was gay, that he couldn’t tell his mother about it, and how he thought he’d found in Conrad someone he could trust and talk to.”

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “And what I wanted to say, but didn’t, was that I felt some of that, too. That I’d been sucked in by Conrad, as well, by his personality, his supposed confidence, his intellect, and that I’d made a terrible mistake. That I’d put my marriage at risk for someone this shallow, this self-centered, this monstrous.”

  “Would it have made you feel better,” I asked, “if you’d put your marriage at risk for someone better?”

  She bit her lip as she looked at me. “I deserve that.” She wiped away some tears from the corners of her eyes, and continued. “I told Brett he couldn’t let Conrad get away with this. He had to tell others about his book, maybe even send a copy to Elizabeth Hunt. I’d vouch for him, I said. I asked him who else had read the book, and he put his arm around his laptop like it was an infant, and said no one. He’d given Conrad a copy of the book on disc, but no one else.”

  “So there was only one other copy,” I said. “On the laptop?”

  “That’s what I thought at the time. But when you told me about what Derek and Adam had found on that computer, from Brett’s mother’s house, that was the first time I realized he must have had a copy of it on his home computer as well. And it was the first Conrad ever realized there was another copy of the book around.”

  “And yet,” I said, “you’ve helped him. You gave him the disc. You’ve helped him cover up for this. I don’t understand.”

  “I’m nearly done,” Ellen said. She rested her head in her hands a moment before continuing. “Brett wasn’t angry about what Conrad had done to him. He was too hurt to be angry. He said everybody was just out to fuck him over. That was the story of his life. He said he didn’t give a shit about his fucking book, Conrad could have it for all he fucking cared. Nothing mattered anymore, he said. And he got up suddenly and left Kelly’s.”

  “What did you do?”

  “First, I didn’t know what to think. He was so upset, I didn’t know whether it was better to leave him alone or go after him. I decided to go after him, in case he decided to do anything foolish.”

  “What, did you think he might kill himself?”

  “I didn’t really think about that. I was just worried about him. So I got up and ran after him, and when I got out of the diner I didn’t know which way he’d gone, then I caught sight of him, heading north, where the road goes over the falls.”

  “Okay.”

  “I ran after him, called out to him, but he was ignoring me, really hunkered down. So I kept running, and caught up to him, on the bridge, about halfway across, I grabbed his arm and told him to stop.”

  “And he did?”

  “Yeah, he looked at me, and it was pretty dark there by then, but I could see that he’d been crying pretty hard. There wasn’t anyone around, no one walking on the bridge, hardly any traffic. I asked Brett if he was okay, wanted to reassure myself that he wasn’t going to do anything crazy, because he’d always struck me as this sensitive, moody kid, you know?”

  I waited.

  “He said yeah, he was going to do something. He was going to let Conrad get his wish. He could have his fucking book. Brett said he didn’t give a shit anymore. And he slid the strap of his laptop case off his shoulder and took a step toward the railing, and I could see what he was going to do. He was going to throw his computer into Promise Falls.”

  “What?”

  “I shouted at him, ‘No, don’t!’ I told him that the laptop was his proof. Of course, I realize now, he still had proof, on his computer at home. I guess this was just an angry gesture, a way of expressing how betrayed he felt. But I didn’t know that, I was telling him he was the one who’d written the book, that he couldn’t get rid of the laptop, but he wasn’t listening to me, and I was thinking, he can’t do that, he can’t let Conrad get away with this, and as he let go of the strap, and the computer went over the railing, I went for it.”

  I think I was holding my breath at about this point.

  “I reached out beyond the railing for the strap, and I thought I had it, I just touched it, but it slipped from my hand, and dropped onto that ledge that runs along the side of the bridge, on the other side of the railing. The strap had caught on a bolt, the laptop was hanging there.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said.

  “I was trying to reach for it through the railing, but Brett was walking away, he said he didn’t give a shit, but I was determined to get the computer. So I tried reaching over the railing instead of through it, and I still couldn’t reach it, so I swung a leg over.”

  “No,” I said, as if I could stop her now, years later, from doing something so dangerous.

  “I thought if I could stand on the ledge, hold on to the railing with one hand, I could cro
uch down and grab the strap.”

  I was slowly shaking my head with belated worry.

  “I got it, and wrapped it around my wrist, and somehow, as I was trying to stand back up, I slipped a bit, my foot went off the edge, my head dropped below the top of the railing, and I guess I screamed. That’s when Brett, who’d nearly walked off the bridge by this point, turned around, saw what I was doing, and started running back.”

  “Go on.”

  “I had the laptop strap tight around my wrist, but the computer had dropped down below the ledge and caught on something, so I couldn’t move my arm up, couldn’t stand up, and was barely holding on to one of the railing posts with my other hand. Brett saw the fix I was in, he was shouting ‘Hang on! Hang on!’ while he was swinging his legs over the railing to help me, but he did it too fast, and when his feet landed on the ledge, he lost his balance.”

  Ellen stopped. With her elbows on the table, she made a cradle for her face with her hands and began to sob.

  “Ellen,” I said. I shifted my chair closer, put a hand on her shoulder. “Ellen,” I said again.

  “You see, he went to reach for me, to help me, almost instinctively. But he hadn’t taken a moment to steady himself. And then I saw it in his eyes, as he realized he was teetering in the direction of the falls,” she wept. “He tried to reach out for the railing, and he almost had ahold of it, but he was such a slight boy, he had such small hands.”

  Ellen looked away for a moment. “But the momentum was carrying him away. He couldn’t get a grip. And then he was gone.” She looked at me with her red, puffy eyes. “And you know what?”