The Writer (21 page)

“Depends on
what?”

“On how often your memory is
giving out.”

Dan almost laughed. “My
memory’s not giving out. Why do you say that?” His tone was just
harsh enough to be intimidating.

“But you said—“

“You know anyone in Gendry?”
Dan interrupted.

“I don’t know anyone
there.”

“Allan Longbottom. Heard of
him? Hard to forget anyone with that name, right? Poor man, almost
makes you think he’d be better off now he’s dead. Know
him?”

“I’ve never heard of the
man. Who is he?”

“He’d be the dead guy. The
victim.”

“Is there anything else I
can help you with, officer?”

Dan looked at him without
emotion and then pleasantly said, “Doesn’t seem to be.” He slowly
folded up his notebook. “Thank you for your time. What is it you do
for a job, anyway, sir? If you don’t mind my asking?”

“I’m a writer.”

“Really? Anything I
know?”

Max went to one of the full
bookcases and handed him a book. It was a hardcover named
Anger
Angel
and the cover depicted ghastly ghosts hovering over an
old church. Dan flipped through it and took far more time than was
needed to get an idea of what it was about.

“Not my style,” he said as
he handed it back. “I prefer—what is it, non-fiction?—to something
made up. Real life is always more interesting.”

“Then I guess I can’t help
you at all.”

Dan made another big thing
of searching through his pockets before finding a card. “Here’s my
card. You think of anything, give me a call. And if I think of
anything, I’ll be back in touch. Just a funny murder, you know? No
motive at all. And the leads? Nothing to speak of. That’s why I’m
doing this follow-up stuff. Have to chase down all the leads, no
matter how way-off they are. Thank you for your time.”

Dan waited until he was
inside his car before he let out his frustration with a loud
shout.

“He knows something,” he
said to himself. “I can smell it all over him. Lie to me, will
you?”

He belted the armrest on his
door which caused a loud crack. It let off a bit of his frustration
as he knew that he now had no way out of travelling all the way to
Gendry.

Dan hated anything to do
with trains so he had no problem in driving the entire five-hours
to Gendry. He figured that if he made it there around lunch then he
could have a quick conversation with what passed as the local law
enforcement, and then get back in time for whatever his wife was
cooking for his dinner. Being on official police business meant
that he could punch up the speed, and that was the excuse he would
give if he was ever caught.

Gendry was the kind of place
that Dan would ignore when passing on his way somewhere more
interesting. He didn’t know why people liked to talk about Gendry
and not neighbouring towns like Hillyer or Lake Tarrant, both of
which boasted stunning views. Gendry, as far as Dan knew, had no
view of anything stunning, except maybe the gullibility of the
population who had hardly made it into the twentieth century when
the twenty-first arrived.

When he rolled into the
centre of town at the fantastic time of eleven-fifty-five he spent
a few minutes looking longingly at Sal’s. It was the only place he
had seen in town to eat, and from the looks of it even Dan knew
that there didn’t need to be anywhere else. A place like that, he’s
only going to start up a conversation, and before he’ll know it,
the day will be gone and he’d have to look for a place to spend the
night. If was a tough decision for Dan, and the only reason that he
didn’t go to the food place was the hope that the police station
had some free coffee for him, and maybe snacks too. Perhaps, if he
was lucky, the snacks might have come from Sal’s.

A plump and highly
unattractive little woman sat behind the first desk in the tiny
building that passed as the police station. She was shaped very
much like that of a cone, and was decorated with so much makeup
that it made her look like a bad cake. Her attitude was too
dismissive for Dan’s liking, when he inquired where the sheriff
might be. Without bothering to look up from reading a magazine, she
told him that he was either out on patrol or in the station’s
garage. His daily run, she added in a tired fashion, was far and
wide and he could be gone all day.

“But he’s probably doing
whatever it is men do in garages,” she finished slowly, like she
was describing some form of subhuman life.

Dan was polite in his exit,
although he had every right not to be, especially since he saw no
trace of a coffee machine, let alone snacks from Sal’s.

Sheriff Andrew Handisides
was wearing stained overalls without a shirt. Dan first assumed
that he was the local mechanic. More than the outfit, it was his
large girth and slow way of moving that gave that impression. They
introduced themselves pleasantly and Dan realised his mistake
without letting on. Nor did he show that he was a bit shocked at
the sheriff’s large toothy smile.

“You have any coffee out
here?” asked Dan.

“Sal’s for that,” said Andy,
resuming his study of a blackened old engine that was sitting alone
from any kind of vehicle, or even any other parts.

“Are you wondering why the
visit?”

“I’m guessing you’re going
to tell me. If not, you could help me with this.”

“Why, what is
it?”

“Engine,” Andy said with
surprise that Dan didn’t know.

Dan was surprised at the
coldness but then guessed it was for the best since he really did
need to return to the city as soon as he could. “You handled the
Longbottom case?”

Andy looked at him with a
small smile. “Careful how you say that, won’t you.”

“Sorry?”

“That was a hit and run.
Some lout speeding through our quiet paradise. What do you do with
that? Go looking for a speeder? Who knows how far away he’d be by
the time anyone knew anything’s happened, rate he must have been
going? He could have been bumping people all over the place,
through all kinds of small towns like ours, for all we know. And we
were lucky to find the body. Aside from the antics of two of our
local residents, two boys who are destined either for greatness or
prison, old Mr Longbottom would be rotting away in his weedy grave
to this day.”

Dan was amazed at his
flippancy. “You talked to everybody in town?”

Andy tossed down an old
screwdriver and looked at Dan like he was preventing his important
work. Dan knew that kind of screwdriver wouldn’t do much to that
old engine, aside from scrape away some of the caked
grease.

“Always talk to them,” said
Andy, “so it wasn’t really much of a challenge.” His sarcasm was
noticeably hostile.

“And no one saw
anything?”

Andy squinted, insulted at
the questioning. “You know, I’ve already told you, there wasn’t
anything to it. What do you want from me? Speeders rip through here
all the time. Bound to hit one of our citizens. Just a matter of
time. More chance of that than winning the lottery.”

“What did you know about
Longbottom? What kind of a man was he? Did he have
enemies?”

“How should I
know?”

“But you talked to
…”

“The victim was a loner.
Guess anyone who didn’t like him was whoever took offence at
getting bills, since he was a mailman. There you go: find someone
who’s bought a whole lot of expensive goods recently and can’t pay
off that fancy widescreen TV just yet. Looking for someone to
blame, who better than the poor fool who brought in the
bills.”

Dan nodded and began to
casually look around the garage, now that his eyes were fully
adjusted to the light. He saw that Andy was nothing of a workman.
Everything was so dirty it was all nearly black. The floor was
thick with dirt and dried grease, and littered with the odd nut and
bolt, and other tools of uncertain origin. There were all kinds of
motorbikes, all in different stages of decomposition, older than
the both of them.

“Ever heard of a Max
Marshall?” Dan asked.

“Who?” Andy asked and gave a
pained expression.

Dan could see that he
obviously had not heard of him. “How about any recent visitors from
the city?”

“Don’t know if we’ve had any
lately. Only young Sophie.”

“What do you know about
her?”

“Why? What’s Sophie done
wrong?”

“You know her?”

“Susan Tyle’s granddaughter.
What she done wrong?”

“Was she here recently? In
town?”

“She was staying with Susan.
That’s what visitors do, since there’s nowhere else to stay. What
she done wrong?”

“Nothing that I know
of.”

“Then why bring her
up?”

“I see you like your bikes,”
Dan said as he kicked at one, hoping that a change of subject would
change Andy’s demeanour.

“What about my bikes?” he
asked like he was offended.

“I’m just throwing around
ideas, that’s all,” Dan said with a shrug.

“I’ve had most these bikes a
long time. They’re in no hurry to go anywhere. What is it you want,
exactly, Ironwright? I don’t need city police coming here
questioning the way I work. This is a small town and by and large
it’s a happy town, and a downright nice place to live, you ask me.
I’m the one who keeps it that way. I do a good job here and
everybody knows that. Go ask anyone out there, ask them what they
think of Sheriff Andy and I tell you right now, it’ll be a good
report. Nobody’s going to say anything bad about Handisides and the
work he does because there’s no reason to. Get that? Write that
down for your little report, ok?”

Now it was Dan’s turn to be
hostile.

“That’s just a beautiful
speech, little man,” he said, his voice rising with each word. Now
Dan had his attention he continued, “What I want to know is
everyone you talked to for this case and what they said. I want all
your notes, all your doodling, all your little scratches, any
little dirt marks, grease marks, whatever marks; anything at all
pertaining to this case. That’s exactly what I want. Got
that?”

“Since when do you care
about the case?” Andy asked with a change of approach, now softer
and more chatty. “It’s a no-brainer. It’s never going to get
solved. Hit-and-run, out-of-towner. That much we know.”

Dan considered that and
calmed a little. “At what point did you decide it was an
accident?”

Andy glared at him and
without a word quickly walked out of the garage and to the station
house. Dan followed him but by the time he got to the door Andy was
already coming back out.

“Don’t worry about him,
Gail,” Andy was saying to the plump woman, and didn’t see Dan
coming toward him.

Dan gave him a relaxed smile
and thought the hostility had ended. Andy seemed to take great
insult that Dan had not stayed in the garage. He threw a brown
folder onto the dirt ground. A good half-dozen of loose pages fell
out. Dan looked at Andy for an explanation. When he saw he wasn’t
going to get one he started to kick at a few of the loose pages
that were lying at his feet.

“Do yourself a favour,” Andy
said with a soft tone that was the most threatening out of anything
that Dan had heard from him. “Leave them there. Longbottom was in
the wrong place at the wrong time. No one knew the man well enough
to generate any hatred over him so there was nothing sinister to
it. There’s no case. Just an accident. You came up here for no
reason. Have a nice journey back to your city.”

Dan was dreading being
called into Dun’s office and all through the morning he kept
himself busy in checking through a few old case files, and helping
out with any odd jobs in the office. Someone always needed to have
a call returned, or some background check done, or even to take the
next big case to come in. Dun called him at ten minutes before the
lunch break, when Dan’s tummy had already been growling for the
last half-hour. To make it worse, this was to be no private
conference in his office, where Dan could work his manipulative
magic. Any subtle hints and suggestions on Dan’s part tended to be
severely nullified when accompanied by chortles from his peers. Dun
was walking out of his office and heading in a direct line to Dan’s
desk. He had no escape.

“How’d your visit to Gendry
go?” Dun asked as he leaned with both hands on Dan’s
desk.

“It’s so pretty this time of
year.”

Dun smiled only because he
understood that such an answer meant that Dan was avoiding his
question, and that meant he didn’t want to talk about it, and that
meant he was reluctant to let it go. “You have something, don’t
you,” he asked with a somewhat evil grin.

“The scenery was the only
reason to go there, really it was.”

“I know when you’re lying to
me. Your left eye twitches. You really shouldn’t bother trying that
with me. What you got? I know you’ve got the file, so what did you
find? Dale missed something?”