Fatal Flaw Part 29

"Quite a performance," I said.

"It's not the lying that gets to me-lying I can take, who lies better than myself? But I hate to be played for the fool."

"So what do you think?"

"I don't know. Who the h.e.l.l knows? But I'd sure as h.e.l.l like to learn who the padre is ringing up on the parish phone right about now."

34.

THE LOG Cabin was a rough-looking roadhouse on the way to Clarksburg, just a gray shack off the side of an empty two-lane highway. The windows were dark, so you couldn't see whether or not there was anyone inside, but the sign advertising Cabin was a rough-looking roadhouse on the way to Clarksburg, just a gray shack off the side of an empty two-lane highway. The windows were dark, so you couldn't see whether or not there was anyone inside, but the sign advertising LEGAL BEVERAGES LEGAL BEVERAGES was lit, as was the neon was lit, as was the neon MAC MAC'S LIGHT sign. A few scattered vehicles were parked w.i.l.l.y-nilly on the gravel parking lot that spilled out to the side of the building. I walked from my car, across the gravel, and patted the dented front wheel well of a black Chevy pickup. Then I loosened my tie, rubbed my eyes, mussed my hair, and headed inside. sign. A few scattered vehicles were parked w.i.l.l.y-nilly on the gravel parking lot that spilled out to the side of the building. I walked from my car, across the gravel, and patted the dented front wheel well of a black Chevy pickup. Then I loosened my tie, rubbed my eyes, mussed my hair, and headed inside.

The place smelled of sawdust and old smoke, of spilt beer and too many long nights that should have ended early. When I entered into the smoky red darkness, heads swiveled to get a look and then swiveled away with a distinct lack of interest. There was a couple drinking quietly in the corner, there was an old man at the bar hunched over an empty shot gla.s.s, there were two kids in a booth in the back, baseball caps drawn low, long legs stretched out arrogantly on the wooden seats. And then there was the man I had come looking for, sitting in the middle of the bar, sinking softly into middle age, a cloud of despair about his head. I had dismissed him as a possibility the first time I glanced his way, thought maybe my man was one of the kids in the corner, but then I realized those kids were not long out of high school. In my mind that's what Grady Pritchett still looked like, young and arrogant in jeans and baseball cap, full of p.i.s.s and vinegar, even if with his family's money the vinegar was balsamic, but time works its black magic on us all. I eliminated one by one the other possibilities and was left with my man at the bar. I hitched up my pants and sauntered over to a stool one away from him.

"What'll it be?" said the bartender, a stocky gray man with a dented nose, who looked like he had seen trouble in his life and pounded it into submission.

"A draft," I said, pulling out a twenty from my wallet, "and keep 'em coming."

The barkeep nodded, and a moment later a coaster was spun in front of me, a full gla.s.s set atop the coaster, and the twenty changed into a pile of lesser bills and coins.

"Tough day?" said the bartender.

"They're all tough." I took a long draught and kept draining until the gla.s.s was emptied. I dropped it down upon the coaster. It wasn't a moment before the gla.s.s was filled again.

The bartender drifted to the end of the bar with the television turned to some lurid local news. The kids in the booth laughed out loud. I turned to the man next to me and said, "You know any good places to eat around here?"

"Where you headed?" said Grady Pritchett.

"Clarksburg."

"The Rib-Eye up the road a ways. They make a steak almost worth eating."

"Thanks," I said and took a long drink of my beer.

When the bartender came over to refill the beer, I gestured him to give the man next to me whatever he was drinking.

Grady Pritchett had a paunch and his hair was going. You could see he had once maybe been good-looking, but his face was now all bloated and s.h.i.+ny. He wore gray dress pants and a short-sleeved s.h.i.+rt with a tie, and there was a ring on his finger, but he was in no hurry to get home to the wifey-poo. Life had happened to Grady Pritchett in the worst way.

"Thanks, man," he said to me when a fresh Scotch and soda was placed before him. "Where you from?"

"Chicago."

"You come down this ways much?"

"First time."

Grady Pritchett raised his gla.s.s. "Welcome to paradise."

I was an investigator, working for a Chicago law firm that specialized in trusts and estates, seeking out missing heirs. That was the story. Generally we could do what we needed over the phone or on the Internet, but sometimes you just had get out there yourself and check the records that needed to be checked or, more important, meet up with the heirs and review with them their options. I dreaded these trips, the long roads and cheap hotels, the dust in the old county record rooms, the local lawyers who started sticking their noses in something that was none of their business. I didn't tell him all this in one swoop of words, that's not the way it's done. But it was there, the whole story, there in the sighs, the silences, the weary slump of my back. In Charleston I found the death certificate I was looking for. In a few small towns along the way I had talked to some people who needed talking to. In Clarksburg there was a lady who refused to tell me over the phone the whereabouts of another lady who was up for a pretty nifty sum. In Gettysburg I needed to check on a old man who'd disappeared from his nursing home six months ago. And then in Philadelphia I had the lovely task of trying to sift through three generations of Olaffsons to find the one that really mattered. I had been putting it off, this trip, letting the work pile up until I could put it off no longer. There were deadlines looming and commissions due, if certain parties that I found signed certain doc.u.ments. So here I was on Route 19, making my way from Charleston to Clarksburg and thinking for the thousandth time I should find myself a more congenial line of work, like slaughtering pigs.

"You know any places to eat in Clarksburg?" I asked.

"The Holiday Inn ain't all bad."

"How about Gettysburg."

"Never been. They got that Civil War battlefield there."

"Yes they do. I'll be taking pictures for the kiddies. What about Philadelphia, you ever been in Philadelphia?"

"Sure. Lots of times."

"Business?"

"Sort of."

"That's the best kind, isn't it? I used to have a girl from Philadelphia with a mouth like wet velvet. I never been there, but it got so every time I heard the name Philadelphia I popped a woody."

"What happened to her?"

"Who, the girl from Philadelphia?"

"Yeah."

"Dead."

Grady Pritchett's face paled for an instant, and his mouth quivered.

"Cancer," I said. "It just ate through her insides like it had teeth, but she was married to someone else, so I was glad to let him hold her hand through it to the end. Still, when I hear Philadephia..."

There was a long silence, where Grady and I just sat and drank. Maybe he was thinking about an old girlfriend in Philly who now was dead. Maybe he was thinking about how it was that he had caused it. See, I had come up with a theory about Grady Pritchett. What if Hailey Prouix, in her youth, had concocted an alibi for Grady Pritchett in exchange for a college and graduate school education from his wealthy father? And what if, later, when pressed by Guy Forrest for some missing cash, Hailey Prouix had gone back to the source that had worked so well before, the Pritchetts, to fill her empty accounts? And what if Hailey Prouix had told Grady she needed the money and would recant the alibi if he refused, and what if Grady had decided that enough was enough, and what if he had gone to Philadelphia himself to finish the job? They say after the first killing it gets easier, and it seemed to me that maybe Jesse Sterrett was the first for Grady Pritchett, and so killing Hailey Prouix might not have been so hard after that. It was just a theory, sure, but I had to contain my anger as I sat beside the man who might have murdered Hailey Prouix.

"You from around here?" I said.

"You won't find too many tourists in this place. I live in Weston."

"Born there?"

"No."

"Where?"

"Pierce."

"Pierce? Pierce, West Viriginia? Now, how did I hear about Pierce?"

"You didn't."

"No, I did, I did."

"No one ever has."

"Let me see. Pierce. I think I heard about some family there up for a small inheritance. Is that possible? Nothing much, but it turned out one of the kids I was looking for died in a quarry."

Grady didn't say anything, he just stared straight ahead.

"He got his head smashed in and fell into the water there. You ever hear anything like that?"

"I think you're asking too many questions."

"Just trying to be friendly," I said, showing him my palms. "No need to come at me like a block of stone."

Grady gripped his drink and narrowed his eyes.

"I suppose that was an unfortunate term to use," I said, "considering the circ.u.mstances."

"I had heard there were two of you asking questions."

"Yeah, well, tonight I'm solo. So tell me something, Grady, which of your pals was worried enough to give you the warning?"

"Leave me the h.e.l.l alone, okay? That's all I'm asking."

Just then the bartender leaned in between us, staring at me with his gray eyes even as he spoke to Grady. "Is there a problem here, Mr. Pritchett?"

"No, Jimmy, I was just leaving, thanks," said Grady, sliding off his stool and dumping some cash on the bar before turning to me. "This is what I'll tell you, same thing I told them fifteen years ago. I had nothing to do with what happened to Jesse Sterrett. Not a thing. There was bad blood, yeah, but still, I didn't have nothing to do with what happened. What happened to him destroyed me as bad as it did him, worse, because I had to keep living with all the doubts, but I had nothing to do with it. Believe me or not, I don't give a d.a.m.n, but leave me the h.e.l.l alone."

He wasn't halfway to the door before I jumped off my stool and started after him. He glanced back, saw me coming after him, spun around and punched me in the face.

The blow sent me reeling to the floor. The pain exploded from a dot beneath my eye to cover the whole of my face. I turned over onto my back, sprawled backward, and watched as the door slammed shut.

"d.a.m.n it," I said out loud. As fast as I could scramble to my feet, I followed him out the door. It had grown dark while I was inside, and the artificial light in the lot was feeble, but I could still see the front door slamming on the black pickup truck and Grady Pritchett's silhouette in the front seat.

I ran straight at it.

Grady was leaning forward, fighting to jab his key into the slot beneath the steering wheel.

I dashed at the truck, grabbed the handle, pulled. The door flew open and threw me off balance.

The engine turned over and shook to life.

I lunged at the open door, grabbed Grady Pritchett's collar, pulled him right out of the front seat until his face slammed into the gravel.

"That'll teach you to use your d.a.m.n seat belt, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," I yelled as I stood over him like Ali over Liston.

He rolled over slowly and looked up at me, fear smeared across his soft features like a stain, arms raised in defense. "Don't," he said softly."Don't."

Don't what? What was I going to do to him? Hit him, kick him, beat him b.l.o.o.d.y until he confessed? What the h.e.l.l had I just done, rus.h.i.+ng out at him like that? I'd been pus.h.i.+ng him inside the roadhouse, hoping for something to come loose, and instead he had acted perfectly reasonably. But still I had chased after him like a deranged avenger. What had come over me? I had lost my head, absolutely, and not for the first time since I found Hailey Prouix dead. Who was I so d.a.m.n angry at? Him, for what he might have done to Hailey, or Hailey herself, for dragging me into this whole rotten story? I had lost myself in the anger of the moment and had no idea of what was supposed to come next.

I stepped back.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean...I didn't...All I wanted was to ask some questions."

He looked so helpless, so pathetic, his arms raised defensively like a battered child's, that I backed off some more. But this time I backed into a wall where there shouldn't have been a wall. I twisted my head around to see what I had backed into. It wasn't a wall, it was Jimmy, the bartender with the boxer's nose.

He grabbed my arms and pulled them back so that he could hold them both with one of his thick arms, jerking my shoulders until they screamed with pain. The other arm he now wrapped around my neck and squeezed, only lightly, I could tell, but I grew suddenly woozy.

Grady Pritchett was still on the ground, but sitting now, hand to his forehead, legs outstretched like a young boy in a sandbox.

"I didn't mean to-" was all I could get out in a raspy gasp before Jimmy choked me into silence.

Grady pushed himself to standing and staggered at me, slowly, as if drunk, but he wasn't drunk, and maybe his stagger was an attempt at a swagger, because the next thing he did was rear back and slam his fist into my stomach.

The air flew out of my lungs so fast I could hear the whoosh. My body tried to bend over from the blow, but the granite grip of the bartender kept me standing straight even as my knees buckled from the shot of pain. Nausea flooded through me as Grady Pritchett gripped my hair with his left hand and c.o.c.ked his right hand to finish the job he had started on my face.

I closed my eyes and heard the smack of something hard against something not so hard and felt my arms wrench and my body hurtle to the ground. I must have been unconscious already, I figured, because I couldn't feel the pain I knew had to be writhing through my face, the pain of ripping flesh and tearing muscle and collapsing bone. I thought I was unconscious until I opened my eyes and saw Grady Pritchett flying backward toward his black pickup truck as if propelled by some strange magnetic force.

Seeing him fly like that was right out of a comic book. I looked around dazedly for my comic-book hero. And there he was, brown jacket still b.u.t.toned, brown fedora still in place, white teeth glowing in the dim parking lot as if lit by black light, standing insouciantly with a large wooden oar in his hands.

Skink.

"How you doing there, mate?" he said, looking down at me.

I spun my head around to take in the scene. Grady was sitting on the ground, dazed. Jimmy the bartender was out cold on the ground, his arms still loose around me.

I squirmed from his grip and to my feet. "Am I bleeding? Did he hit me?"

"Nah, I nailed the b.a.s.t.a.r.d holding you afore our friend Pritchett had himself a chance to improve your face."

"You took your time."

"Well, I didn't know I'd be dealing with two, did I? I needed to find something to even up them odds." As he spoke, he tossed the oar onto the gravel. "But maybe we ought to make our getaway afore someone else charges out of that front door. Can you drive?"

I pressed my stomach, felt my ribs, my face. My eye was swelling from the first blow, my ribs were tender, my stomach was filled with an unpleasant c.o.c.ktail of pain and nausea, but I could drive.

"I'll take Pritchett in his truck," said Skink. "You follow me."

"What are we doing?"

Skink walked to Grady Pritchett, on the ground by the black truck with its engine still running, and lifted Grady gently by the arm. Grady gave no fight. Skink helped him onto the bench seat of the truck and scooted him over so that Skink himself could get into the driver's seat. He leaned over solicitously and hitched up Grady's seat belt before quietly closing the truck's door.

"This is kidnapping," I said.

"Nah, that would be a federal crime," said Skink through the open window of the truck's front door. "Do we look like the type to commit a federal crime?"