‘Wanted to ask you a question,’ I said, looking through the windshield. The pavement was deserted.
‘Shoot.’ He looked tired but game. My mother always used to say that real estate wasn’t a business for people who wanted to keep predictable hours.
‘You said you just got the exclusive on The Halls. So there used to be another firm looking after it?’
‘That’s right.’ He looked confused. ‘What of it?’
‘They ever get any sales that you know of?’
‘No, sir. They didn’t even have the account very long.’
‘So how come they’re not still representing it?’
‘Guy died, business got wound up. Can’t sell homes if you’re dead.’
I nodded, feeling very quiet inside. ‘How much would your commission be on one of those places? A fair sum, I’d imagine?’
‘Quite a piece,’ he allowed, carefully.
I let a pause settle. ‘Enough to kill someone for?’
‘What? ’
‘You heard me.’ I wasn’t smiling any more.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You think … what? What the hell are you saying?’
There was something about his denial I didn’t like, and you’d be amazed, and saddened, if you knew how good people are at lying, in even the most difficult circumstances. I’d waited. I’d been good. Now I was fed up with playing games.
I grabbed the back of Chip’s head and yanked it forward, smacking his forehead hard into the steering wheel. I angled this so that the hard plastic caught him dead on the bridge of the nose. Then I wrenched his head back.
‘I’m going to ask you a question,’ I said, pulling his head forward to smack it into the steering column again. He made a quiet moaning sound as I held it there. ‘This time, I need to believe your answer. I need to know you’re telling me the truth, and you have just this one opportunity to convince me. Otherwise I’ll kill you. Understand?’
I could feel his fevered nod. I pulled him back up by the hair once more. His nose was bleeding, and there was a livid welt across his forehead. His eyes were very wide.
‘Did you kill Don Hopkins?’
He shook his head. Shook it, and kept shaking it, with the frantic and jerky movements of a child. I watched this for a while. I’ve dealt with many liars in my time, have been one myself for long periods. I have a good eye for it.
Chip hadn’t killed my father. At least, not personally.
‘Okay,’ I said, before he broke his own neck. ‘But I think you know something about what happened to him. Here’s the deal. I want you to take a message. You going to do that for me?’
He nodded. Blinked.
‘Tell the Nazis up in the mountains that someone is taking an interest in them. Tell them that I don’t believe my parents died by accident, and that I will exact payment for what happened. Got that?’
He nodded again. I let go of his head, opened the door, and climbed out into the rain.
When I was standing outside I leaned down and looked at him. His mouth was downturned with fear and shock, blood running down his chin.
I turned away with my hands shaking, and went to find someone human.
Bobby was leaning against the counter in my parents’ house, sipping a glass of mineral water. He glanced up when I walked in, watched me stand and drip on the floor. It had rained virtually the entire time I had been walking.
‘What have you done?’ he asked mildly.
‘Nothing.’
‘Right,’ he said, eventually. I took the glass and drank the remainder of the water in one swallow. Only when it was gone did I remember it had come from my parents’ last shopping list.
‘Is there any more of that?’
‘A little,’ he said.
‘Don’t drink it.’ I put the glass on the counter and sat down at the table. As an afterthought I took my coat off, almost as if I’d heard a voice warning me that I’d catch my death. Through the window I could see that Mary’s sitting-room light was on. I hoped she didn’t find out I was still in town. It would have looked rude that I hadn’t dropped by. Then I realized that I was sitting in a house with several lights on and a car outside, and so she probably knew already. I wasn’t thinking very clearly.
Bobby waited, arms folded.
‘So,’ I asked. ‘How was your day?’
‘Come on, Ward,’ he said irritably.
I shook my head. He shrugged and let it go. ‘I checked out the scene of the accident. Given the position of the car they ran into, it’s entirely conceivable your mother could have simply screwed up the turn. It’s kind of sharp, it was dark, and it was pretty misty by all accounts.’
‘Right,’ I said, wearily. ‘And she had only been driving for, like, forty years. Probably never come across a sharp turn before, never crossed that junction in all the time they’d been living here. I guess the cranberry juice and the mist was just all too much for her. I see it all now. It’s a miracle the car didn’t flip clean over the first row of buildings and bounce all the way to the sea.’
Bobby ignored me. ‘There was a small gas station kitty-corner to the crash site, and a video rental a little further along the way. It goes without saying that neither of the guys I talked to were there the night of the accident. The video store is an independent run by two brothers. The one I talked to was certain that his brother hadn’t known anything about it until he saw a police car arriving.’
‘He didn’t hear the sound of one heavy metal object running into another, think maybe something might be afoot?’
‘You know what these places are like. Big old TV hung from the ceiling, John Woo movie playing ear-bleeding loud, guy behind the counter getting through the evening with beer and a joint the size of a burrito. Chances are you could have cracked him over the head with a hammer and he’d’ve barely blinked. So I went over to the gas station, and the guy gave me his manager’s number. I called him and got the address of the guy on duty at the time.’
‘Telling him what?’
‘That I was assisting the police with their inquiries.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘That’s going to get the local PD right up my ass.’
‘Ward, who fucking cares?’
‘I’m not Agency any more, Bobby. Out here in the real world, the cops can do things to you.’
Bobby flipped a hand, indicating this was a negligible concern. ‘So I visited him. I confirmed that he saw nothing either. He heard a noise, but thought it was maybe someone dicking around at the back of the station. Dithered about calling the cops, and by the time he realized there’d been an accident outside and the station was safe, the police were already on the scene.’
‘Okay,’ I said. I hadn’t expected anything to come of Bobby looking into the crash, but he’d been insistent. ‘So what else?’
‘So then, as agreed, I came here and looked around.’
‘Find anything?’
He shook his head. ‘Nope. Absolutely nothing.’
‘I