Murder Takes a Break (14 page)

"Henry who?"

"Don't kid with me, Chad.
 
You know exactly who I'm talking about."

"No, I don't.
 
You're talking crazy, about parties and stuff that I don't know anything about.
 
And I don't think you're here from any student retention office, either."

Chad wasn't exactly quick on the uptake, but he'd eventually found me out.
 
I decided to reward him by telling him the truth, or part of it.

"You catch on fast, Chad," I said.
 
A little flattery might not hurt.
 
"I'm actually a private detective.
 
I've been hired by Randall's parents to find out what happened to him."

"I don't know what happened to him.
 
I don't know about any party or any girl named Kelly Davis."

"Who said her name was Davis?" I asked.

Chad looked panicked.
 
"You did."

"I don't think so, Chad.
 
I left that little detail out."

"Then the cops must've mentioned her.
 
I went over all that stuff about Randall with the cops a long time ago."

"But you didn't tell them the truth.
 
You lied to them about not knowing what happened to Randall.
 
You know he disappeared after that party."

Chad wiped his forehead with one of his hard hands, then wiped his hand across the leg of his jeans.
 

"I don't know what
you're
talking about.
 
I was never at any party.
 
I don't know if Randall was, either.
 
And I don't know anything about this Kelly person."

Chad was talking a little more, but he wasn't helping me.
 
He was as stubborn as his hand was hard.
 
Maybe a few more lies would crack him.

"There was someone else at the party," I said.
 
"Someone who came forward just last week and talked to the police in Galveston.
 
So you might as well tell me what happened.
 
I already know most of it."

Chad's mouth twisted.
 
"That bitch."

"Which bitch are you talking about?"

"You know which one.
 
That damn Sharon.
 
I knew she couldn't keep quiet."

I felt for just a second as if someone had sucker-punched me in the solar plexus, but I tried not to show it.
 
There were probably hundreds of girls named Sharon in Galveston.
 
This one didn't have to be the one I was thinking of, though if she were, it would explain something that had been bothering me.

"Blondish hair?" I said.
 
"Blue eyes?
 
Tall?"

"Yeah, yeah.
 
That's her."

I asked him what her last name was.

"Matthews, I think.
 
I don't remember."

I'd been afraid he was going to say that.
 

"I shoulda known she'd talk sooner or later," he said.

I took a deep breath.
 
"She did.
 
So why don't you?"

Chad slumped in his chair and looked at his feet.
 

"OK," he said.
 
"I'll tell you."

S
ometimes I'm not nearly as clever as I think I am, and this was one of those times.
 
I hadn't lost Henry J. at all.
 
He was waiting for me when I came out of the house.
 

The Cadillac Seville was parked around the corner, right in front of my truck.
 
Henry J. was leaning against the side of the S-10, picking his teeth and looking up at a squirrel in one of the oak trees.
 
When he saw me, he lost interest in the squirrel.
 
He grinned at me, snapped the toothpick in two, and threw it on the street.

"There's a pretty stiff fine for littering in West U," I told him.

"Yeah?
 
I wish you hadn't told me that.
 
Now I'm scared half to death."

He didn't look scared at all.
 
He actually looked quite happy to see me.

"You should be scared," I said.
 
"The cops here don't like litterbugs."

His grin got wider.
 
"Guess I'll have to mop up the street, then.
 
With you."

I'd spent the night with my Mauser beside the bed, but I hadn't thought to bring it with me.
 
Even if I'd brought it, it would have been inside the truck where I couldn't get to it.
 
I wondered if I could convince Henry J. that my clipboard was a lethal weapon.
 
I didn't really think so.

In fact, I hadn't really been thinking at all.
 
If I had been, I would have realized that Henry J. didn't have to follow me.
 
He would have guessed that if I'd visited Patrick Mullen, the next logical stop would be at Chad Peavy's house, and he obviously had the address.
 
He'd probably been there before.

"The cops are pretty tough in West U," I said.
 
"You wouldn't want to start something that might get both of us thrown in jail."

Today, Henry J. was wearing a T-shirt that showed a target silhouette with a red bullseye on it.
 
A black hole was in the center of the bulls eye, and printed above and below the silhouette were the words "Gun Control Means Hitting Your Target."
 
Matched automatic pistols in holsters dangled from the "u" in
Gun
and the "o" in
Control
.

Henry J. wasn't wearing a pistol, though.
 
Not that I could see.
 
And I would have seen it if he'd been wearing one.
 
His jeans and T-shirt were skin tight.
 
I was sure he didn't think he'd need a gun for me.

He started toward me, still grinning, completely relaxed, light on his feet, his hands swinging loosely at his sides, ready to snap me in two just like he'd done the toothpick.
 
He knew I wasn't going to get away from him this time.

His problem was that he wasn't a fast learner.
 
He should have known from his experience in Seawolf Park that I was a tricky son-of-a-gun.

I pressed the clasp on the clipboard, and the legal pad fell to the sidewalk.

"You dropped something, Smith," Henry J. said.
 
"Or did you just piss your pants?"

"Damn," I said.
 
"Those are my notes.
 
I gotta have those."

I bent slightly forward as if I were going to pick up the pad, and in the same motion I flung the clipboard toward Henry J. as hard as I could.
 
It flew at him like some kind of deformed Frisbee.

Henry J. was the kind of guy who could probably catch flies out of midair with his bare hands, given the opportunity.
 
But he'd been distracted by the thought that I might have some important notes, which Big Al would certainly want to see, and his eyes were on them.

So he didn't quite see the clipboard coming at him in time to do anything about it.
 
Its edge cracked against the bridge of his nose with a sound like a tree branch breaking.
 
His nose hadn't been beautiful before.
 
It was going to look a lot worse now.

Henry J. screamed and dropped to his knees.
 
His hands went to his face, and I could see blood running between his fingers as I stepped by him.

"You can have the notes," I told him as I got in the truck. "The clipboard, too."

 
I don't think he heard me, though.

I
left West U by way of Bissonett Street.
 
At Kirby I drove by a store with a giant shoe rotating above it.
 
Just beyond it I passed a store called Murder by the Book, and before long I was at the Museum of Fine Arts, then the colorful Children's Museum, and then at the edge of the Medical Center.
 
When I came to Highway 288, I crossed over, turned left and headed for the interstate.

I looked in the rearview mirror, but there was no sign of the Cadillac Seville.
 
I wasn't surprised.
 
I didn't think Henry J. would be up to driving for a while.
 
For all I knew he was still kneeling on the sidewalk, feeling his nose.

Henry J. had never liked me, and I had a feeling that the events of the last couple of days weren't going to elevate me in his esteem.
 
I wasn't going to worry about it, however.
 
I had too many other things on my mind.

Like Chad Peavy, who had admitted being at the party that Randall Kirbo and Kelly Davis had attended, as I'd guessed he had been.
 
He'd eventually told me most of what he knew about what went on there.
 
Unfortunately, he didn't know as much as I'd hoped, or pretended that he didn't.

He did tell me where the beach house was, however, so I could probably confirm whether it belonged to Big Al, not that I had any doubts.

He also admitted that he'd seen Davis and Kirbo together there.
 
They hadn't been together at the beginning, because Chad and Randall had gone in Chad's car.

And Chad had stopped short of saying that his earlier memory lapses had come about because he'd been threatened by Henry J.
 
I wondered if Henry J. would be paying him a little visit that afternoon.
 
It didn't seem likely, considering the condition of Henry J.'s nose.

According to Chad, there had been plenty of drinking at the party, as I'd suspected, and a few drugs other than alcohol had been ingested, though not, of course, by him.

"There was some Ecstasy," he said, "and some other stuff. I don't mess with those things."

I didn't really believe him, but I didn't think it mattered what he'd done.
 
I wanted to know about Davis and Kirbo.
 
And that's what he couldn't tell me.

"They weren't there long," he said.
 
"They must've left.
 
Or if they were there, they went upstairs.
 
I don't know what was going on up there."

"Sure you do, Chad."

"Nope.
 
I was downstairs the whole time.
 
I don't have any idea about the upstairs.
 
I don't even know if they went up there."

Somehow I didn't believe a word of it.
 
Both Chad Peavy and Patrick Mullen knew more than they were telling, and I was afraid that Henry J. was the reason.
 
I would have been afraid of him, too, if I'd still been a college kid.
 
For that matter, I
was
afraid of him, and I was long past my college days.

The S-10 sailed down the interstate, taking me back past League City, Dickinson, and Texas City.
 
The traffic on my side of the highway wasn't bad, but I was glad I wasn't on the other side, which was three lanes of bumper-to-bumper automobiles, all of them tourists who had spent a day at Dickens on the Strand, and all of them now on their way back home.
 
Their average speed was probably around fifty-five, which must have been torture to most of them.
 
I cruised along at a steady seventy, thinking.

When I wasn't thinking about Chad Peavy and Patrick Mullen, I was thinking about Dino, my old buddy Dino, my childhood pal, and about what I was going to do when I saw him.
 
I still hadn't quite made up my mind when I stopped the truck in front of his house.

It was a good thing I'd left the Mauser at home, though.
 
If I'd had it with me, I might have shot him.

D
ino opened his door and I shoved past him and into his living room.
 

"You're looking spiffy, Tru," he called after me.
 
"What's the occasion?"
 

When I didn't answer, he followed me in and said, "Hey, Tru, what's the matter?"

"You," I said.
 
"You're the matter."

The giant television set was playing some infomercial on which an incredible irritating young man with a long pony-tail was screaming about the wonders of some weird piece of exercise equipment.
 
Dino went to the coffee table and touched a button on the remote control.
 
The pony-tailed disappeared as the TV screen went black.
 
I was grateful for that, at least.

"What do you mean
I'm
the matter?" Dino asked.
 
"What are you talking about?"