It was during this time, while still awake, that I started thinking about things that I had no business worrying about. For me, this should all be over, and yet…
Roger Carpington. They’d charged Roger Carpington with murder. They’d found the shovel in the trunk of his car.
I’d seen that shovel. It had been there, on the floor, next to Stefanie Knight’s body. How had it traveled from there into the trunk of Roger Carpington’s car?
Maybe, after I’d left, he’d come back. Maybe he was concerned that he’d left his fingerprints on it, so he came back, snuck inside, grabbed the shovel and threw it in his trunk.
I suppose.
Except by the time I’d left Stefanie Knight’s house, there was an Oakwood Town Council meeting under way. Carpington’s wife had told me, when I’d phoned his house looking for him, that the meeting had started at 6:30 P.M. The councilman would have had to excuse himself in the middle of a council meeting, drive across town, retrieve the shovel, drive back across town, take his seat again in the council chambers.
And he couldn’t have grabbed the shovel after the council meeting, after I’d seen him, because by then the police were already at the scene. Sarah had phoned when I was at the interview with Paul’s science teacher-Ms. Winslow or Wilton or whatever-and told me she’d sent a reporter to cover it.
The next morning, after a nearly sleepless night, I phoned the town clerk.
“Did Roger Carpington leave during the council meeting for a long time?” I asked.
“I’m not sure I should be answering your questions, Mr. Walker. This is a police matter.”
“I’m only asking the one question. Was he there for the whole meeting, or did he skip out for a while?”
The clerk sighed. “He was there the whole time.”
“Thank you.”
I called my good friend Detective Flint and told him what I had uncovered. He was not impressed. “Mr. Walker, really, you’ve done more than enough. We can look after this investigation on our own, thanks very much.”
“But what about that shovel? I saw it with my own eyes. I was there, in the garage, and saw it.”
“You must have the times screwed up, then. Maybe you were in her house earlier than you think. Listen, Mr. Walker, once again, we thank you for your help and all, but we’ve got our guy.”
SO I LET IT GO.
Maybe I was wrong about the time. Or maybe, just like there could have been a second shooter on the grassy knoll, there was a second shovel.
Did it really matter?
Carpington was a weasel. Did it make any difference, if they were already going to send him away for five years for municipal corruption, if they left him there for another five for murder? What was it to me?
I mentioned to Sarah, in the kitchen, that we should go away. Leave the kids with her parents, go someplace for a week or two. Maybe rent a cottage, or spend some time in New York. She could use her contacts in the entertainment department to wangle some tickets to a couple of shows. Or maybe even Europe. Spend a week in London, or better, a week in Paris. How did that sound? Tom Darling thought the Missionary sequel was going to do better than expected, what with-I hate to say it-all the media exposure I’d gotten in the last week. So there was bound to be a little extra money coming in.
Sarah said she didn’t know, and went outside.
I WANTED TO THROW A little party. Okay, “party” is too strong a word. But I wanted to do something for Trixie and Earl. Have them over for a drink. I mentioned this to Sarah.
“So we’re going to throw a bash for a pot grower and a hooker,” she said.
“Well,” I said, “to the best of my knowledge, she just ties them up and spanks them, but she doesn’t fuck them.”
“Oh, my mistake. I’ll get out the good china.”
But she was actually pretty decent about it. At some level, Sarah seemed to understand that once I was in this mess I’d created for myself, I had to find a way out of it, and that Trixie and Earl were the unlikely pair who’d been there when I needed help. So we invited them over for a Wednesday evening, early. Trixie explained that she had a nine o’clock, and there was a lot of prep work. Costuming and all. Sarah made a lasagna and we uncorked a few bottles of wine.
Earl had said no, at first. He was glad to have helped out, but he wasn’t sure he felt comfortable coming over. He knew Sarah was pissed. But I leaned on him a bit, reminded him that, up to now, I’d managed to avoid mentioning his role to the police, and I was pretty sure they weren’t going to hear about him from Greenway or Carpington, who’d both hired high-priced lawyers and weren’t saying a word to anyone.
Trixie, too, had concerns about coming over. “Sarah knows what I do?”
“Yeah.”
“And the kids?”
“I’m less sure. I haven’t told them directly. But they’re not stupid. I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but as long as you’re not going to be their guidance counselor, I think it’s okay.”
And so they came. We even invited over some of the other neighbors, the ones who’d stood out on the sidewalk the morning everything happened. We thought they might like to get to know what we were like when there weren’t so many emergency vehicles around. We finally met the people directly next door, in the house between ours and Trixie’s-the Petersons-a couple who worked as control room technicians for a Christian television network. I so wanted to tell them what their other neighbor did for a living, but held my tongue.
We didn’t all sit around the same table. It was informal. You grabbed a drink, scooped out a heap of lasagna and some salad on a plate, and ate it wherever you wanted. In the kitchen, in front of the TV, whatever.
“You’re back to work?” I heard Trixie ask Sarah from across the kitchen.
She nodded. “I took a week, went back. But Zack and I, we’re thinking maybe of taking a vacation.”
I stopped chewing so I could hear more.
“Maybe a cottage, maybe even a week in Paris.”
“That would be fabulous,” Trixie said. It sure would, I thought.
Earl came up to me, kept me from hearing anything else. There was a bit of tomato sauce on the cigarette he had between his lips. “So you’re sure you kept me out of it?”
“So far,” I said. “What if I have to tell at some point?”
Earl shrugged. “Thing is, I’m thinking of moving on. Let the Asians get somebody else to run the house. I don’t own it. I can walk away. Chances are, by the time you have to tell all, I won’t be around.”
I smiled. All I could think to say was “Yeah.”
Angie strolled by, rubbed her hand on my shoulder. I’d noticed both the kids were more physical lately. A hug here, a pat on the back there. I touched her hair as she passed me.
Paul, his plate heaped with lasagna and two rolls, came around the corner.
“Man of the hour,” Earl said.
Paul grinned. “For once, I didn’t get reamed out about leaving my backpack at the top of the stairs.”
Earl blew out some smoke, shoved a piece of bread into his mouth.
“You still going to help me with the yard?” Paul asked. “I want to put in some rosebushes, maybe.”
“I don’t know, sport,” Earl said. “I don’t think I’m the kind of guy your dad wants you to associate with.” I had, once the dust settled, told the kids how Earl made his living.
“Jeez, Dad, they’re going to legalize the stuff any day now.”
I felt awkward. “I think Earl’s thinking of moving on, anyway. Maybe I’ll have to learn a little about yard work myself. Or you can teach me, and I’ll just push the wheelbarrow around.”
“You know, Dad,” Paul said. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”
I eyed him warily. “What?”
“The way I see it, if it hadn’t been for me, you and Mom, like, you probably wouldn’t be here now. So I was thinking some kind of reward was in order.”