The Truth That Lies Between by W. D. McComb

Author:W. D. McComb [McComb, W. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Truth That Lies Between
Publisher: W. D. McComb
Published: 2019-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

I crossed the living room three times before I finally sat down, attempting to appear nonchalant. I wasn’t afraid of my father, but his uncanny ability to recognize lies and unravel them was unnerving. I had too many questions and far too few answers, though, and I suspected that if anyone could help me, he could. The trick would be getting what I needed without raising suspicion.

“What’s eatin’ at you, son?” Dad asked.

I was ready with my answer. “Nothing much.”

“That’s not true. Something’s bothering you. It’s written all over your face.”

“Well, I’m just worried about you a little bit.”

“Worried about me? Why in the world?” Dad kicked down the leg rest of his leather recliner and sat upright.

“Well, you know, my friends and I talk sometimes about what our fathers do for a living. And I’ve realized none of them really have dangerous jobs like you do.”

“Dangerous? What makes you think my job is dangerous? Did somebody say something?”

“Well, you deal with criminals all the time. You can’t tell me none of them want to hurt you.”

“Aww, most of them are pretty harmless. They don’t bother me.”

“But you do investigate murders and stuff sometimes, huh?”

“That’s true, but not very often around here,” Dad said.

There, the segue I was hoping for. The guy whose partner had called him Red had implied that he had killed one or more of his adversaries. I assumed that since he wasn’t in jail, he had either gotten away with it or served some time and gotten out. My gut told me it was the former. “But when you do get a murder case, you put them away. So they can’t hurt anybody else?”

“We try, son.”

Now ask the question. “Have you had any murder cases go unsolved?” I eyed him closely.

Dad’s expression hardened. “Not many.”

“But you have had some?”

“Not enough for you to worry about.”

He clearly did not want to talk about this topic, but I thought I might be on to something. “Not enough” meant the number wasn’t zero.

“C’mon, Dad. I’m fourteen. I’m not a little kid anymore. Can you tell me something?”

He sighed and stared past me, as if studying the horizon through the wall. “Believe it or not, there’s really just one. I’ll tell you about it, and I’ll tell you that you don’t need to worry about me. There was a case a few years ago. A case that most everybody thought was an accident but it wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. Most everybody thinks the death was an accident, but it wasn’t. I mean, it’s not a complete secret. The papers reported an accident, but our investigation lasted too long for it to have been an open-and-shut case of accidental death, so rumors flew and a lot of people figured it out.”

“Who was it, Dad? Anybody I’ve ever heard of?”

He didn’t say anything for a time. The thin line of his mouth spoke of conflict, of a reluctance to share the details of a dark moment straining against a desire to honor my plea and give me a glimpse of his world, to treat me as a young man.

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