Page 56

“The school is just going to stand empty for the rest of the summer?” All else aside, Danny hates to think of that. WHS is a good old lady, and there’s so much wear and tear in the course of a school year. It’s July and he’s barely gotten started. “And what about in the fall?”

“Not your concern,” Eggers says. “Thank you for calling, Mr. Coughlin. I hope your current problems work out. Goodbye.”

“Wait just a damn—”

But there’s no point, because Susan Eggers is gone.

28

Early on Thursday evening of the week from hell, Danny is in the Manitou IGA, doing his weekly shopping. He likes to do this chore on Thursdays because for most working people the eagle screams on Friday and the market isn’t very busy. His own paycheck—one of his last five or six—will go into Citizens National via direct deposit the following day. He also has a little over three thousand put aside, combined savings and checking, which won’t stretch very far. He doesn’t pay hellimony to his ex, but he sends her fifty or sixty bucks every week or two. He owes her that just for the trouble he’s caused her. He won’t be able to do it much longer and he dreads the call to her he’ll have to make, explaining his situation. Although she probably knows already. Good news goes Pony Express, bad news takes a jet. And he no longer has to support Stevie. Danny’s younger brother is still living in the group home in Melody Heights, but he’s probably bringing home more than Danny’s weekly wage.

Maybe he’ll end up supporting me, Danny thinks. That would be a hoot.

He’s at the meat counter, trying to decide between a one- or two-pound package of ground chuck (it’s the cheapest) when a loud voice behind him says, “Daniel Coughlin? Need to ask you a few questions.”

It’s Jalbert. Of course it is. This evening he’s exchanged his baggy black coat for a blue windbreaker with KBI on the left breast. Although Danny can’t see the back of the windbreaker, he knows the same letters will be there, only bigger. Jalbert could have come up beside him and spoken in a normal tone, but he also could have chosen the parking lot. Other browsers along the meat counter are looking around, which is what Jalbert wants.

“I’ve already answered your questions.” Danny drops a package of meat into his cart—one pound instead of two, it’s time to start economizing. “If you want to ask more, I’ll want my lawyer present.”

“You have that right,” Jalbert says in that same loud voice. Danny thinks the man’s reddish wooly hair looks almost like an arrowhead, or the business end of a rusty spear. The deepset eyes stare at Danny the way they might stare at a new species of bug. “The right to an attorney. You’ll have to wait at the police station until he gets there, though.”

Same overloud voice. People have begun to congregate at the head and foot of the meat aisle, some pushing their carts, some just gawking. “Or we can do it here. Your choice.”

With everyone listening, Danny thinks. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

“Split the difference. Let’s step outside.”

Danny doesn’t give Jalbert a chance to object, just walks past him (restraining the urge to bump his shoulder on the way by) and heads for the door. It isn’t as if the inspector can restrain him; Danny outweighs him by fifty or sixty pounds, and Jalbert once again isn’t wearing a gun, just his badge clipped to his belt. Also his ID on a lanyard hung around his neck. Danny doesn’t look to see if Jalbert is following him.

The checkout women have stopped working their registers. Two of them he knows from the high school. He knows a lot of people from the high school, because he’s worked at WHS since leaving Wichita. As the OUT doors slide apart to let him emerge into the warm Kansas night, it occurs to him that nobody he passed in the aisles said hello to him, although he recognized several of them, including a couple of teachers.

Past the white light falling on the sidewalk from the front windows of the market, he turns to face Jalbert. “You’re hounding me.”

“I am pursuing my case. If anyone got hounded, it was poor Miss Yvonne. You hounded her to death. Didn’t you?”

Recalling some TV show, Danny responds, “Asked and answered.”

“We’ve been through your phone. There are a great many gaps in the location log. I’ll need you to explain each one. If you can.”

“No.”

Jalbert’s brows—as wooly and tangled as his receding flow of hair—fly up. An odd thought comes to Danny: He may be hounding me, but maybe I’m returning the favor. Those circles under his eyes are deeper and darker, I think.

“No? No? Don’t you want to be eliminated as a suspect, Danny?”

“You don’t want that. It’s the last thing you want.” He points at the bright yellow KBI on the breast of Jalbert’s windbreaker. “You might as well be wearing a billboard. Hey, have you lost weight?”

Jalbert does his best not to look surprised at this unexpected question, but Danny thinks he is. Wishful thinking? Maybe.

“I need you to fill in those blank spots, Danny. As many as possi—”

“No.”

“Then you’ll be seeing a lot of me. You know that, don’t you?”

“How about a polygraph? I’ve got my truck back, and I’ll be able to go just about any day next week, since you saw to it I lost my job.”

Jalbert shows the pegs that pass for his teeth. He must eat a lot of soft food, Danny thinks. “It’s interesting how people such as yourself—sociopaths—are able to blame all their misfortunes on others.”