Beyond the Truth by Bruce Robert Coffin

Author:Bruce Robert Coffin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-10-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Thursday, 8:05 p.m.,

January 19, 2017

Byron pulled into the plowed dooryard of Haggerty’s brown shingled cape on Olde Birch Lane. He exited the car, exchanging nods with the detail officer seated behind the wheel of the idling black-and-white parked directly across the street. Byron walked up the paved drive past Haggerty’s pickup to the side door where an outside light was illuminated. He ascended the crumbling brick steps and observed Haggerty seated alone at the kitchen table. Haggerty saw him too, and waved Byron inside.

“Hey, Sarge,” Haggerty said as Byron pushed open the inside door.

Byron could tell instantly that Haggerty was drunk, even before the unshaven man spoke. On the table in front of him sat an impressive quantity of sixteen-ounce Pabst Blue Ribbon beer cans, a half dozen empties, and an unholstered stainless semiautomatic handgun.

“Mind if I come inside for a minute?” Byron asked from the doorway.

“Come on in, Sarge,” Haggerty said, motioning awkwardly with his arm and slurring his words badly.

Byron stepped inside and pushed the door closed behind him in hopes that the officer sitting outside would remain there. Cautiously, he walked toward the table while keeping his eyes fixed on the burly officer’s hands. Byron was trying to avoid doing anything that might aggravate an already volatile situation. Haggerty was built like a linebacker, several inches shorter than Byron, but stocky, easily outweighing him by forty pounds. Even if he was able to reach the weapon first, Byron knew he’d never be able to overpower the younger officer if Hags resisted.

“How are you holding up, Sean?” Byron asked, knowing full well the answer.

Haggerty seemed to consider the question. “Not very good actually. Nope, not too good at all.”

“Mind if I sit?”

“Please do,” Haggerty said, waving a hand as if casting a spell, his head bobbing slightly.

Moving slowly and deliberately, Byron pulled out a wooden chair directly across from him and sat down. The eerie similarity between the scene playing out before him and the manner in which he’d found his father decades earlier was not at all lost on Byron. It was as if the past was bleeding through into the present and Byron was a teenager again searching his dad’s apartment and finding Reece seated at the table facedown in a puddle of blood, gun at his feet. Byron couldn’t help wondering what gruesome scene he might have discovered in Haggerty’s kitchen had his arrival been delayed.

“I tried calling,” Byron said.

“Shut my phone off,” Haggerty said. “Someone gave my number to the press, Sarge. They wouldn’t stop calling.”

Byron made a mental note to find the person responsible and personally rip their throat out. “What’s going on, Sean?”

“Oh, all kinds of stuff. Sharon broke up with me. Did you hear about that?”

Byron wasn’t sure where Haggerty was headed, but he decided for the time being to let him lead and not to make any waves. “I’m sorry. I’m sure this has been hard on both of you. Maybe she just needs some time to think it through.

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