Wicked Things by Thomas Tessier

Author:Thomas Tessier [Tessier, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: supernatural, suspense
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2018-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

Maybe I should have spent the day with her. It was very tempting, but I was in Winship on business and I told Kelly I had work to do.

“What kind of work?”

“Insurance.”

“Oh yeah. Tell me about it.”

“It’s too boring to go into,” I said.

“I don’t care. I’d like to hear. It sounds so normal.”

“Maybe later,” I said, trying not to read anything into her curiosity about my work. “I’ll be back at the Birch Inn around five this afternoon. If you’re free, give me a call and maybe we can do something.”

She pouted. “Okay.” Little girl voice.

I left, and from that point on things went downhill for me that day. Maybe the next day, or both, I’m not sure. I had a sense of control, as much as any person ever can have, and I knew my world and I was used to it. It didn’t work brilliantly, but it worked just well enough, and I was able to live with that. But I seemed to be losing that control; I felt eroded with doubt.

Item: A message from Dr. Gow at the inn. I call him back. He tells me that he cashed in a couple of favors to have the toxicology tests on Joe Bellman and Chris Innes speeded up. The results are negative for both. Chris had a blood-alcohol level of.05, which is below the legal definition of intoxication. But since she did not die until early in the morning, it is quite possible that she had been drunk much of the evening. No drugs, no medicines. The results mean nothing, though Gow sees them as conclusive. By way of consolation, perhaps, he invites me to dinner. I thought of Kelly, but Gow was part of my work, so I had to go.

Item: Det. Miller has no news for me, because there’s nothing left to investigate. Has any witness come forward to say Joe and Chris were having an affair? Well, not yet. Where did Chris get the gun? It doesn’t really matter. There was no bottle with her in the car, so where did she drink? Oh, somewhere. I wanted to press him on this, but he cut me off.

“You still don’t get it, do you,” he said. “None of this is about murder the way you’re thinking. It was a case of love gone bad, that’s all. Yeah, Chris shot him. She killed him and that’s murder, but the girl went off the deep end over love. There just isn’t any cover-up or conspiracy like you’re trying to sell.”

I asked him about Penny Lane. He told me that the street was zoned for adult entertainment, had been for several years. No trouble, no spread, no rise in crime. On the plus side: good business and increased tax revenues. What about the illegal stuff—the live sex, the prostitution? When it gets out of hand, they clamp down on it, and then life gets back to normal. Miller looked somewhat disappointed in me, as if he had once considered me a man of the world and now I was coming on like some fussy old prude.

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