Switchback Ch18

Things may or may not have changed much in Leyton Falls since the last time Alex was out here. Maybe a fence had been painted, maybe the trees were one year taller, maybe a new house had popped-up somewhere along Woodsman Drive, and maybe she’d have noticed if she wasn’t so engrossed in wondering why Adam Carter was in the Pineview Lodge, or in Leyton Falls for that matter. He hadn’t seen her, she was sure of that; he seemed too captivated by his food.

          Five years ago she’d been on her way to the Richmond offices of CNN for her third and final interview when she heard sirens at the top of the street. She’d taken out her cell phone to film what was happening on the off-chance it might help her job prospects. What she captured that morning was used on every CNN bulletin for the following forty-eight hours, and along with the job, it also gained her the recognition she’d craved at the time.

          Adam Carter, then in narcotics, wasn’t happy to see the death of his wife and child being used to “Rack-up viewer ratings” as he’d put it, but the footage was also used to identify Carlos Esteban as he climbed from his smashed vehicle and escaped into the subway system. A stash of cocaine was found in the car with the street value of two-million dollars. Esteban was sentenced to eighteen years, with another twelve to run concurrently for the double manslaughter.

          Since then, Alex hadn’t looked back.

          At the top of Woodsman Drive there was a cruiser parked up outside the Evans house, its driver still at the wheel. The house itself looked much the same as it did a year ago save the yellow police tape criss-crossed over the front door. Whatever it was that had happened in the house made little difference to her plans, they were ready to go, but if this cruiser was going to be here the whole time, then she had a problem. She decided on the bold approach and climbed out to go speak to the officer, and, just in case he hadn’t noticed her in his rear-view, she closed her door with an amount of force she wouldn’t normally use. And when she reached the gap between the two cars she looked across the street to see the burned-out shell of a house.

          Last year when she came to confirm some of the things on the list Foley had given her, Mrs Winkle had been a fountain of information about the Evans’, even though it had all happened so long ago. She hoped she hadn’t been in the house when the blaze took hold.

          When she reached the driver’s closed window she heard the low idle thrum of the engine, but the day had been a hot one and he probably had the air-con on full-blast. She didn’t think he’d thank her for making him wind down his window, but she bent and knocked nevertheless. After a second the window opened and a light gust of cool air rolled over her face. She thought the officer sitting inside the car didn’t look much older than Sammi did.

          ‘Yes, ma’am?’

          ‘I was wondering,’ she said. ‘The lady across the street, Mrs Winkle?’

          ‘Are you related, ma’am?’

          ‘No, I’m just a friend, but is she alright.’

          He shook his head. ‘No, ma’am, Mrs Winkle died in the fire. You have my condolences.’

          ‘Thank you,’ she said, she looked at the Evans house. ‘What happened here?’

          ‘I can’t really say, ma’am. It’s an on-going investigation.’

          ‘I see. And did your boss stick you out here to watch over the place all day?’

          ‘Yes, but he ain’t my boss, ma’am, my boss is in hospital.’

          ‘Call me Alex, please. Such a handsome young man calling me ma’am makes me feel old.’

          He blushed. ‘Sorry, ma… Alex.’

          ‘And you are?’

          ‘Larkin, Howard Larkin. Friends call me Howie.’

          ‘Is it okay if I call you Howie?’

          He raised a shoulder, dropped it. ‘I guess so.’

          Alex thought back but doesn’t remember speaking to Howie’s boss, but luckily enough she did remember his name. ‘Is Mitch okay, Howie?’

          He perked up at this. ‘You know the sheriff, ma’am?’

          She guessed Howie just wasn’t going to get the Alex thing. Something that seemed to excite him, even a little, also wiped his short-term memory.

          ‘I used to know him quite well, but I haven’t seen him for about a year now. Is he okay? I hope it’s nothing serious.’

          Howie flicked the lid of a gold pocket watch open and shut with his thumb, his tone all of a sudden sulky. ‘I don’t know if it’s serious or not,’ he said. ‘The doctors won’t tell me nothin’.’

          She pointed. ‘Was it to do with what happened in there?’

         ‘Uh-huh. Do you think you could phone the hospital? Tell ‘em he’s a distant cousin or somethin’?’

          ‘I don’t think that would work, Howie, they’ll have a list of his relatives and I don’t think distant cousins would be on it.’

          Larkin said nothing.

          ‘Was what happened in the house serious?’

          ‘Might as well tell you,’ he said, his tone unchanged. ‘S’gonna be in the newspaper tomorrow anyways.’

          Alex bent at the knee and rested her arms at the bottom of the rolled-down window. The cold air felt good, very good.

          ‘There was some shootin’ in there last night, three got killed and Mitch was injured pretty bad. Don’t know what it’s like in there, and I don’t wanna know.’

          Alex wasn’t interested what it was like in there, either. All she was interested in was getting a look at those mirrors, to see for herself if they actually existed. She didn’t need proof of what Foley had told her, she believed everything he’d said, but she wanted proof, wanted to know that all she’d planned for over the last year since she first interviewed him was here, upstairs, inside this house.

          ‘So it was his replacement who put you out here to watch over the place, then?’

          He looked at the pocket watch. ‘Uh-huh, but I’m just sittin’ here thinkin’ about stuff, mostly. My shift ends soon, gonna head home, say a prayer for Mitch.’

          ‘That sounds like a good idea, Howie. You go home and say that prayer, I’ve got to get back myself, anyway.’ She rose. ‘But don’t worry; I’m sure he’ll be okay.’

          ‘That’s all I keep hearin’,’ he said, and rolled up his window.

          Alex drove down the street until she found a place she could hide the car as she waited for Howie to finish his shift. After ten minutes his cruiser rolled by and left a small dust cloud in its wake, and by the time that dust had settled, she’d already hidden the car at the side of Mrs Winkle’s and climbed out.

           “CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS” insisted the yellow tape, but if she had to she’d tear it and the door down. As it happens there were gaps big enough to allow her through without having to disturb it and the front door had been split around the lock and now hung open an inch.

          She looked down the street to her left where the only things moving were the small dust devils whipped-up by the breeze and the residual heat-haze as it shimmered and blurred the distant ground. To her right the early evening sun had already dropped below the treeline at the end of Woodsman Drive and the crickets had started their dusk-time chorus. The air outside was still warm, still humid, and inside the house, where she now stood, it didn’t feel any cooler.

 

Spooner had shed his shirt and shoes and now lay on his double bed in his trousers and a white flannel vest, his fingers laced behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. In the room with him were his son Josh and another of his deputies, Stuart Malvern. Malvern wasn’t in uniform; instead he wore jeans and a check shirt and was explaining why the two guys he’d been tasked to hire to watch the judge’s house were now both lying in hospital beds.

          ‘There was four of ‘em, Mr Spooner. We never stood a chance.’

          ‘So tell me, Malvern, how come you escaped all the hurt?’

          He held up his fists, boxing style. ‘Because I always give as good as I get, sometimes even better.’

Spooner sighed, sat up, feet on the floor. ‘Who were they?’

          ‘Don’t know, ain’t seen ‘em before, probably up from the city for the fishin’.’

          ‘Who started it, your two?’

          ‘No, sir, we was just mindin’ are own.’

          He went to the window, looked out. ‘All you had to do was stick them in a car, point them in the direction of the judge’s house and tell them to photograph who comes and goes. So tell me, what was so difficult about that?’

          ‘Nothin’, boss, but…’ he trailed off.

          ‘Well guess what, Cassius, you’re gonna drive out there and watch the place.’

          ‘But he’ll hear my car comin’ from a mile away.’

          ‘Then park a God-damn mile away.’

          ‘If I do I ain’t gonna see much from that far away.’

          He shook his head, turned to his son. ‘Will you go with him, all I want are pictures of anyone who turns up at his house over the next couple of days. Take a Cherokee, get back to Putnam and get yourselves another car. You can leave his piece of shit where it is for now.’

          ‘Okay, Pa.’ Josh took his hat from off the bed post. ‘Come on, Malvern, I gotta go get changed.’

          Spooner slipped a clean shirt on, looked at his watch. ‘I’m going out to the Ferris place; the ME said she finished up there hours ago, and that Larkin kid should be back home about now.’ Josh was almost out the door. ‘Don’t forget, Son, photographs, got it?’

          ‘Got it, Pa.’