Too Close to Home

by Linwood Barclay

  “But I want to talk to you about a different kind of mistake today. A mistake of the heart. A mistake of the soul.”

  There wasn’t a person in that room not listening to every word Randall Finley had to say.

  “My wonderful wife, Jane, is here today,” Randy said, looking down at her. Jane Finley, fiftyish, plump, black hair piled on top of her head into something that looked like a bird’s nest, blushed. She had in her lap a copy of the prepared speech, and if she’d been reading along she must have been as puzzled as Maxine.

  “A lot of you know Jane, and you know how she’s always been there for me, how she’s stood by me, sometimes through very dark times, often when I didn’t deserve her support. I’m not an easy man to stand by. I live to excess. I am a man of appetites. And far too often I’ve indulged those appetites without thought to how my actions might affect others.”

  “What the hell is he doing?” Maxine whispered into my ear again. I ignored her and kept holding up the phone.

  “I don’t have to tell you people,” the mayor said, “the kind of scrutiny public figures live under. Some politicians and celebrities will tell you it’s terrible, that they want to be left alone, that their private lives are nobody’s business. Well, I’m not so sure about that. I think, when you vote for me, when you trust me to make decisions on your behalf, you’re entitled to know what kind of a man I am. My values, what I stand for, what I believe in. Like when I’ve accomplished great things, like the new hospital wing I pushed through this past term, with its state-of-the-art burn unit, or the grant I delivered only yesterday to Swanson House to help young women whose lives haven’t gotten off to the perfect start they might have hoped for.

  “But you’re also entitled to know about the less than great things I’ve done, because how can you trust me if you don’t know everything there is to know about me?”

  My phone stopped recording. I set it up to start again.

  The crowd could feel Randy getting closer to something, and judging by their rapt expressions, the suspense was killing them. I knew what was coming, and I was feeling the suspense, too.

  “So here I am before you tonight, announcing my intentions to represent you in the nation’s capital, to do greater good than I have ever done before, but I also stand before you tonight to tell you about a period of darkness in my life, a darkness I was able to emerge from only through my own personal commitment to be a better man.

  “What I have to tell you I’ve never revealed before, not even to my wife, because I’m not proud of it. I allowed my baser instincts to control me, I surrendered to a power greater than greed or alcohol. It was lust. I was unfaithful. But I was more than that. There was an occasion when I availed myself of the services of a sex worker, and as if that was not bad enough, I subsequently learned that this person was underage.”

  There was a collective gasp in the room. Jane Finley looked decidedly unwell. Maxine said, “Oh my God.”

  “I exploited this young woman in a way that shames not only me but all men everywhere. Not a day goes by that I’m not tormented by my contribution to this woman’s life of degradation. I have done detestable things. I have hurt people. But what good is a man if he cannot learn from his misdeeds? If a man cannot be redeemed, even a man such as myself, then what point is there in going on? If I knew in my heart that my past misdeeds made it impossible for me to do good in the future, I’d end it all right now, right here, on this stage. But that’s not what I believe. I believe I have the ability to make this nation safer, and stronger, and more committed to the values that have made it the greatest country on the face of the earth, and that’s why tonight, I stand before you, a humbled man, a man with many faults, but still a man with a dream, a man who is asking you for your support so that I may take my fight to Washington to make this country everything it should be!”

  At first, silence. And then, a smattering of applause.

  “I know you’re shocked by what I’ve told you,” he said, “and you’re entitled to be. You’re entitled to judge me. And some of you will judge me harshly. I certainly deserve it. But I would ask any of you here tonight who has not strayed, who has not sinned, who has not had a dark moment in his or her life, to come up on this stage right now and strike me down.”

  He paused, and we all waited for someone to rise to the challenge. No one took the bait.

  After waiting an appropriate time, Randy finished up. “Let my challengers make of this what they will. Will they be as honest with you as I’ve been tonight? Are they willing to lay bare their sins for others to judge? If there’s someone else out there willing to be more open with you than I have been tonight, then not only will he deserve your vote, he’ll have mine as well, because that’s the kind of man that I am, faults and all!”

  This time, a bit more than a mere smattering of applause.

  “I know that this room is filled with good people. I know each and every one of you wishes you could go back in time and change at least one thing, one thing that you wish you could undo, a time when you hurt someone close to you, a time maybe when you were deceitful, a time maybe when you broke the law even though you knew better, and believe me, if I had such a time machine, I’d be putting so many miles on it it’d be out of warranty in no time.”

  No applause, but actually a few chuckles.

  “But no matter what you’ve done, what mistakes you may have made, I will represent you. I will be there for you, just as I’ve always been there for you in the past. And I’m going to be there for you in the future, because my name is Randall Finley, and if you make the decision not to give up on me, I swear to God I will never give up on you!”

  Real applause this time, slowly spreading across the room.

  “I thank you!” he said, waving his arms. “God bless you all!” Now nearly everyone was applauding, and about half the room was on its feet. Someone shouted, “Give ’em hell, Randy!”

  Maxine looked like she’d swallowed a frog.

  “Thank you!” Randy said over the applause. “Good night!”

  They were still applauding as he strode off the stage, pausing long enough to whisper in my ear, “Put that in your cock and smoke it.”

  FORTY-TWO

  SO WHADDYA THINK?” the mayor said, getting into the back of the Grand Marquis. “You know what I think? I think I’ve still got it.”

  I got behind the wheel, turned the ignition, kept quiet.

  “What?” he said from the backseat. “You got nothing to say?”

  “You’re something else, Randy.”

  He settled back into his seat. “Take me home, Cutter,” he said.

  “We’re not quite done, Randy,” I said.

  “What are you talking about? I said the thing. You got a picture of me saying it, right? On your phone? Isn’t that what this psycho wants? Can’t you just send that from your phone to his phone or something? You don’t even have to go out to your place. Guy sees that, he lets them go, he goes home, this whole thing is over.”

  I feared it wasn’t going to be that simple. And given that Randy’s admission had not exactly resulted in his total humiliation, I wasn’t sure how Drew was going to react to his speech once he saw it.

  “He wants to meet with you,” I said. “Face-to-face.”

  “No fucking way,” Randy said, and I thought, when I caught a look at him in the mirror, that I saw some fear there.

  “He still has my family, Randy,” I said.

  “Look, Cutter, I’m not unsympathetic.” I glanced at him again in the mirror. “But I really think this is a matter between you and him, you know? Did I or did I not do my thing? Didn’t I do what you asked? And even though I did my best to spin this thing in my direction, you think my little speech isn’t going to end up on CNN? Those lefty bastards, that son of a bitch Wolf Blitzer, you wait, they’ll only see the negative in what I said.”

  Within the hour, I figured.

  “No, I think I’ll just have you take me home,” he said. “I�
�m going to have to talk to Jane. I figured it was best, let Maxine take her home, give her some time to cool off, you know. I’ve caused her a lot of shit but nothing quite like this, nothing this public. All my other stunts, as long as they weren’t happening under her nose, she could more or less deal with them. But this . . .”

  “Randy, I know you think this is one hundred percent about you, but maybe I haven’t made myself clear enough about—”

  Randy’s cell phone rang. He had the phone out and to his ear in a second. “Yeah, honey, hi,” he said. Mrs. Finley, evidently. “Whoa, whoa, hang on a second. . . . There’s a lot more to this than meets the eye. . . . No, I haven’t lost my mind. . . . It’s a long story, I’ll explain it all later, but Jesus Christ, honey, this is actually a kind of life-and-death situation here and when you know the whole story you’ll understand. . . . Was it true? Okay, some of what I said, I embellished a bit, but the God’s honest truth is I was coerced, honey. Like I said, it’s complicated. You go home, take a couple of those pills the doctor gave you to settle your nerves. . . . That’s right. I’ll see you soon.” He flipped the phone shut. “I hope you’re happy,” he said. “The sooner I get home, the better, get this all sorted out.”

  “Not yet, Randy. We’re going back to my place. This guy wants to talk to you. He wants to give you a piece of his mind. Maybe, considering that he lost a daughter, you could give him that much.”

  “No thanks,” he said. I could see, in my mirror, he still had the phone in his hand. “Time to bring the cops into this. Let them sort it out. I already confessed my sins, so I don’t see what the fuck there is to lose now, you know? What’s Barry’s number? He can bring in a SWAT team or whatever it is they do, get a sniper, aim through a window, take him out, stupid bastard’ll finally get what’s coming to him.”

  I thought about what Drew had said, that if he saw any police moving in on the house, he’d kill Ellen and Derek.

  When I saw Randy flip his phone open, I hit the brakes and nosed the car into the curb. I was out the door in a second, had Randy’s open, leaned in across the empty seat and grabbed for the phone in his hand.

  “Jesus, Cutter, knock it off!” he shouted as we wrestled.

  Once I had the phone, I withdrew from the backseat, slammed the door, and pitched the gadget as far as I could into an empty lot.

  “Goddamn it, Cutter!” Randy shouted, opening his door. “I can’t do it! I can’t face that guy! The son of a bitch’ll kill me! You know he will!”

  I shoved him back into the car and was ready to slam the door but he kicked it back open again. I dove into the backseat, on top of him, grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket.

  I dragged him across the seat, Randy flailing at me the whole way, and when I had him on the other side of the car I lifted him up and slammed him up against the window. The back of his head hit the glass hard and all of a sudden he stopped squirming and struggling. His eyelids fluttered.

  Christ, I thought, I’ve killed him.

  But he was doing some low-level moaning, and was at least conscious enough to reach a hand to the back of his head to feel his wound as he slid down into the upholstery.

  Confident that Randy was not going to make a run for it in the next minute or so, I got out of the backseat and settled in again behind the wheel.

  As I put the town car in drive, a very bad feeling washed over me. I knew that not only was it very likely I was delivering Randall Finley into the hands of his executioner, I was delivering myself as well.

  But I’d sensed that Drew was being straight when he told me he’d spare Ellen and Derek if I did what he asked.

  If I had to sacrifice Randy’s life, and my own, to save my wife and son, then that was what I was going to have to do.

  I WAS PULLING into my own driveway when Randy fully realized where he was. He sat bolt upright in the back, looked out the window, saw the Langley house.

  “Goddamn it, Cutter,” he said.

  My pickup and trailer were parked in the lane only a short ways down from the road, so we were going to have to walk in. Maybe that had been Drew’s plan, to have Derek block the driveway to allow Drew plenty of time to see anyone, cops in particular, approaching the place.

  “How’s your head?” I asked, stopping the car and turning around in the seat.

  Randy rubbed it. “You goddamn son of a bitch, you attacked me,” he said.

  “You’re able to form complete sentences,” I said, “so it doesn’t sound like you sustained any brain damage.”

  “I can’t go in there,” he said.

  “You’re going in there,” I told him.

  “Okay, okay,” Randy said, doing what he did best, which was try to put a good spin on the situation. “Okay, let me just think for a minute.”

  I waited.

  “Let’s say I meet with this guy, I talk to him, I persuade him to give himself up. That’ll look good, right? Congressional candidate gets killer to surrender. That would work.”

  “That sounds good, Randy,” I said.

  “I pulled it off back there, right?” he asked, referring to his recent speech. “Maybe I can do it again.” But his voice lacked confidence this time.

  “You’re the man, Randy,” I said.

  “And if I can do that, maybe get this guy to surrender, the press won’t be so inclined to put a negative spin on that other stuff.” He ran his hand nervously over his mouth. “And it gets better.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This girl, this guy’s daughter? The hooker?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well, she’s dead, right? She got sick and died? Isn’t that what you told me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s good news, right? It’s not like she’s going to be able to give details of when we hooked up. You know what else? Everything I said in my speech, I can just deny the whole thing. Who’s to say otherwise? I just say I was forced, I had to make that statement, that I was doing it to save your wife and kid. Even if this nutjob gets out of this alive, it’s just hearsay, right? What his daughter told him? Well, that’s not going to stand up in court, am I right? And then Lance, he’s no longer around, either, so he’s not going to be able to say shit about this.”

  Randy was turning into a blathering idiot.

  “This could actually work to my advantage. People see this guy, me, willing to jeopardize his career to save his driver’s family. That’s going to play very well, don’t you think?”

  “You’re forgetting there’s one other witness, Randy,” I said. He appeared baffled. “Who’s that?”

  “Me,” I said. “Remember, I was there? When you were with Sherry Underwood? She bit your dick? I punched you in the nose?”

  I saw his face come close to a grin. “Oh, I’m not worried about you, Cutter. I already got your promise to be discreet. You forget about that?”

  I said nothing.

  “I got an idea,” Randy said. “Why don’t you go in first, sound him out, show him your little phone video, get a sense of what he’s thinking, then come back out here and fill me in.”

  By that time, Randy would have thumbed a ride back into Promise Falls.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  I decided to do my job properly now, and went round and opened the door for Randy, real respectful. But he sat there until I reached in and grabbed the back of his jacket by the neck.

  “Okay, okay!” he said as I dragged him out. Once he was on the gravel, I saw him glance back at the highway, at the occasional car and truck racing past. I knew what he had on his mind. Run up there, flag someone down.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said.

  I grabbed hold of him again, pushed him ahead of me, my house just a few yards ahead of us.

  I hoped that, when I next came back out of this house, it wasn’t in a box.

  FORTY-THREE

  I MOUNTED THE STEPS of the front porch, holding on to Randy by the arm, and knocked on my own fron
t door.

  I shouted, “It’s me, Drew! It’s Jim Cutter! I’m here with the mayor!”

  I heard the deadbolt turn back, and the door opened. It was Derek. “Hey, Dad,” he said. He looked okay, if frightened. I stepped into the room, saw Ellen sitting in a chair across from the television, and Drew, in the doorway to the kitchen, a gun in his hand.

  “Hey,” he said, raising the weapon in the general direction of Randy and myself. “Both of you, keep your hands up in the air.”

  We did as we were asked. He approached, and tentatively, in a half-crouching position so his own body and gun were as far away from us as possible, he patted both of us down to see whether either of us was carrying a weapon.

  Satisfied that we were not, he moved several feet away and said, “You got it?”

  I took the phone, which he’d already patted over, from my jacket pocket. “Yeah,” I said. “It’s in a couple of bits, and I’m sure the eleven o’clock news is going to have it, too.”

  “Show it to me,” he said.

  I handed the phone to Derek. It always took me forever to figure out how to access data that was already in the phone, even basic numbers. While my son fiddled with it, I said to Ellen, “How you doing, hon?”

  She gave me a very weak smile. “Been better.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head. She nodded toward Derek and said, “We’re okay.” She didn’t say it, but there was an implied “so far” at the end of her sentence.

  “Okay, I think I’ve got it here,” Derek said, looking at the phone.

  “Hand it to me,” Drew said, reaching out with his free hand. But Derek was still fiddling.

  And I thought, did I have a plan? I realized I did not. I was hoping Drew would be a man of his word, although I also knew that might be a lot to expect from someone who’d been on a killing spree. Maybe it was naive to believe that if I delivered the mayor to him, and the video of his speech, he’d honor his promise and let Ellen and Derek go. There’d been something in his voice, when we’d spoken on the phone, that suggested to me that he was at the end of this. I tried to tell myself he was done taking vengeance on those who had used and abused his daughter, that maybe he didn’t much care what happened to him now.