“Oh, okay. I can do that. He works over at the mall. At a video game store.”
“Didn’t know you had a mall here.”
“It’s just a strip mall. Half the stores are closed, but kids like their video games, I guess.”
She gave Reel directions and also told her she would call her son so he would be expecting her. Reel drove there in about twenty-five minutes, mostly on winding back roads that weaved in and out of forested land interspersed with swamps.
As Angie had said, the strip mall was half boarded up. The sidewalks were cracked, with grass growing in the crevices. The parking lot’s asphalt was lumpy and she could count the number of cars at the mall on two hands. But they were all parked in front of the video game shop, which seemed to have a lot of activity.
When she walked in a bell on the door tinkled. Reel looked around approvingly. The shop was clean, the displays sharp and eye-catching, and the games neatly racked. There were about twenty customers in the shop, mostly teenagers but some adults, too.
A tall, burly young man came up to her. “Are you Jessica?”
“Yes, you must be Bill.”
“Mom called. She said you had a computer problem?”
“Will Robie does. Which means it’s my problem, too.” She looked around. “But you look pretty busy. Is this a good time?”
“Oh, yeah. They all know what they want. They’re just wastin’ time, playin’ games. And the longer they stay the more they tend to buy. And there’re two other people on duty. Come on back.”
He led her into the rear of the shop where there were some desks and shelves and stacks of boxes. On each desk was a shiny Apple computer.
“So what’s the problem?” asked Little Bill.
Reel pulled out the flash drive. “There’s information on here that we need, but it seems to be in code. I know that’s not exactly a computer problem, but we thought we’d ask.”
“Can I see it?”
She handed it across. Little Bill sat down and popped the drive into the desktop’s USB slot. With a few clicks he brought the file page up.
“Uh, Mom said you were goin’ to pay me?”
“How about two hundred bucks?”
“Damn, sounds good to me!”
“You know about codes?” asked Reel, who was staring over his shoulder.
“I know how to code. Which isn’t the same thing, I realize. But a lot of the games we sell here have codes you have to break, so I know some things about that.”
He studied the files and keyed up one.
“Looks like gibberish to me,” said Reel.
“Where’d this come from?” asked Little Bill.
“I’d prefer not to say.”
He stared up at her. “Why?”
“I’d also prefer not to answer that.”
“Is this somethin’ illegal?”
“It’s something that could lead to the truth coming out,” she replied diplomatically.
“Is this somethin’ about Will Robie’s daddy?”
“Could be.”
“It would help if you told me where you got it.”
“Why?”
“It just would.”
Reel debated and then said, “Pete Clancy.”
Little Bill smiled. “Well, then I think I can get it to make sense.”
“Why?”
“Because Pete is one of my best customers. And this ‘gibberish’ looks like a tactic code from one of the games I sold him.”
“Tactic code?”
“Yep. Pete’s lazy. He wouldn’t have taken the time to create his own code. He’d just piggyback on somethin’ else.”
“Whatever happened to just playing Pac-Man?”
“We’ve got Pac-Man. It’s in the classics session. Has a whole new interface and some really sick turboed graphics.”
“Thanks, but it was a rhetorical question.”
Little Bill turned back to the screen.
“How long do you think it will take you to crack it?”
“About an hour should do it. You want to leave and come back?”
“No, I’m going to sit here while you do it. And Bill?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t remember anything you might see on these files.”
“Why?”
“It would not be good for your health if this whole thing blows up in our faces.”
“I appreciate your seeing me, Mr. Longstreet.”
Robie sat across from the lawyer in the latter’s large, paneled office. Stuart Longstreet was in his sixties, with creamy white hair, a clean-shaven chin, a pair of listless blue eyes, and a large belly that protruded between the flaps of his suit coat, which looked like it had been tailored to his flabby proportions. His expression was one of privileged contentment.
“It’s certainly a tragedy with what happened to your father,” he said in a tone that made Robie believe the lawyer was actually enjoying the development.
“Well, I’m hoping that justice will be served.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” the man said hastily and without a trace of sincerity. His manner suggested he wanted to hasten this interview to an end. “Now, you have some legal issue?”
“Well, I guess it’s more of an information issue.”
“Oh, yes?” said Longstreet, looking curiously at him.
“The Barksdale family?”
The expression of privileged content withdrew and was replaced by one of heightened suspicion. The listless blue eyes transformed into a pair of flickering propane gas jets. Robie could just see the wheels turning in the legal brain.
“The Barksdales, you say?”
“I knew the family when I was growing up here. I dated Laura Barksdale. I just wondered what had happened to them. As you know, my father bought their old home.”
“The Willows, yes,” said Longstreet absently. “Still a lovely place. Even with the changes they’ve made.” He sniffed, his expression one of disapproval. “I was stunned along with many others of my…circle when he purchased it.”
“I’m sure.”
“The oil platform case.”
“Yes.”
Longstreet’s features hardened. “Cost Cantrell a lot of jobs. Some say it ruined the town.”
“And the men who lost their lives would no doubt say differently. As would their survivors.”
“Yes, of course. No, I have to admire his, um, professional tenacity.”
And you would have caved a minute after the company’s hardasses came to your office and said Boo, thought Robie.
He said, “But the Barksdales? I understand you handled their legal work?”
“Who told you that?”
“Was that information wrong?”
Robie noted the lawyer’s hand had made a fist so tightly that his index finger was turning pink as the circulation constricted.
“No, no. Our firm has proudly handled the Barksdales’ legal matters for well over a century. My grandfather worked on it as did his father before him.”
“But not anymore?”
“Well, no. They’re no longer here.”
“Which is why I’m here to see you. Do you know what happened to them?”
“No, I don’t,” said the man.
He rubbed at his nose.
Lying caused a physiological reaction that cut the flow of blood to the capillaries located at the end of the nose. It caused a tingling feeling that usually made the liar rub at the spot.
Robie knew this.
Longstreet obviously did not.
“I heard they just up and left one night. And no one has seen them since.”
“Indeed?” said Longstreet.
“Is that what you understand happened?”
“I really couldn’t say.”
“Did you hear from any of them before they left?”
“If I did, and I’m not sayin’ that I did, that would be privileged and I would be barred from revealin’ it.”