Where the Bodies Lie by Mark Lisac

Author:Mark Lisac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NeWest Press
Published: 2016-02-29T16:00:00+00:00

23

ASHER TOOK THE PHONE CALL THE NEXT MORNING. “AN Angela Apson calling for you,” the receptionist said. “She said you know her.”

Angela did not waste time after saying hello. “Can you come down here tonight?” she asked.

“What’s up?”

“Gordon’s about to do something dangerous. I want you to talk sense into him.”

She described the situation. Asher agreed he should drive to Barnsdale to talk to her brother. He felt mildly guilty that he had not agreed to talk Finley out of the meeting, only to talk to him.

The drive would give him time to think. He cancelled his afternoon appointments and asked the new office administrator to arrange for a rental SUV with winter tires through the firm’s standing account at the agency around the corner. The XKE was enjoyable to drive but not the best choice in the bleakest depth of winter when there was a good chance of encountering ice and bands of packed snow on the highway. With his morning’s work done, he drove the vehicle home and made himself lunch.

Then he went down to the car bay in the basement, opened the storage locker, and took out the sawed-off handle of the wooden hockey stick that was his souvenir of the last time he had played shinny when he was still capable of really playing. He had kept playing from time to time after that, but knew his old skills were nearly gone. He also retrieved the box of fishing weights that were his last link to his former father-in-law, whom he had liked. He took the stick and the weights back up to his condo and taped the lead to the cut end. Now the stick had taped knobs at each end, but one end was decidedly heavier. He hefted the stick. It was just long enough that it would be difficult to hide under his down jacket. He thought about its puffy sleeves.

He went to the cutlery drawer in the kitchen and pulled out the sharpening steel that Sandra had given him one Christmas. He had lost track of how many years ago that had been. But he remembered her laughing about making sure that that year he would have a sharp knife for carving the turkey rather than tearing at it. He hadn’t had much use for the steel since Sandra and he had split up, nor much use for a large knife. He kept it because… because I sometimes have trouble coping with reality, he thought.

He held the steel next to his bad arm. The black handle fit with an easy grip into the palm of his right hand. It would just fit into his jacket sleeve, extending from the heel of his left palm to his elbow. These preparations did not match what Angela expected, he knew. He told himself they were a fallback.

The early afternoon traffic out of the city was light enough to let him leave large gaps between his vehicle and the ones ahead of him.

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