Deadlock

47

After a long drive and a few more snatched hours of sleep in the car, Lock and Ty pulled up next to the former Prager residence out in Lancaster. It lay in a street of foreclosed houses with yellowing, weed-infested lawns and boarded-up windows. Even amid such generalized misery and misfortune, the house gave out a vibe all of its own. Lock, however, was more concerned with the fact that Ty had insisted on them taking his car. Given that a place like Lancaster was prime territory for white supremacist skinhead gangs, and therefore, by extension, for the Nazi Low Riders, a purple classic car was not an ideal choice.

On the drive there they had debated their next move. Lock had admitted to Ty that although there were a lot of threads, nothing pulled them all together. He therefore felt it was best to go back to the beginning, back to Prager’s investigation. Ty wasn’t sure it was the right thing to be doing, but equally he wasn’t sure what else they could do, so he’d agreed to go with Lock’s hazy outline.

Next door to where the Pragers lived, a woman was packing her kids into the car. She kept on glancing over at their car.

‘I’ll go talk to her,’ Lock said. ‘You keep the pimp-mobile running in case she thinks you’re a white slaver.’

Ty flipped him the bird as the woman slammed the rear passenger door on the two kids and hurried to get in herself.

‘Ma’am? Excuse me?’ Lock jogged the last few yards towards her. ‘Ma’am?’

‘Why can’t you people just leave us alone?’ she shouted. ‘We don’t have any money!’

Clearly, the much-vaunted economic recovery had not made it as far as Lancaster just yet.

Lock noticed the lack of a For Sale sign in her yard. He put up his hands. ‘Ma’am, I just wanted to ask you aboutyour former neighbors.’

‘Even better,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘A reporter.’

‘No, ma’am, I’m trying to understand a few things about what happened to them.’

‘You’re a private investigator?’

Lock stopped, deciding to tell the truth. ‘Aaron was my godson. I hadn’t seen his mom or dad for a few years after they moved out west.’

The woman reached in and turned on the engine so the kids could get the benefit of the air con, then she took a step towards Lock. ‘I’m sorry. I thought…’

‘It’s OK. I’d be suspicious under the circumstances as well.’

‘I’m not sure how I can help you though.’

‘You lived next door to them.’

‘Yes, but that’s kind of it.’

‘I heard that Aaron fell in with a bad crowd.’

‘Not exactly difficult round here.’ She sighed.

‘Kids at school?’

‘Maybe a few of them. There’s a couple of those skinhead gangs round here. I think he started hanging out with one of them.’

‘You know which one?’

‘I don’t know the names. But I could tell you where they like to hang out. There’s a McDonald’s down on Challenger Way, I’ve seen ’em there.’

‘What about Mrs Prager — Janet?’

‘I only really got to know her before… They said her husband was an undercover agent?’

‘That’s right. For the ATF.’

The woman looked away, then spoke again. ‘You know, it’s so weird.’

‘What is?’

The woman worried at her wedding band, twisting and turning it on her finger. ‘I’m not sure I should be telling you this.’

Lock moved closer. ‘Listen, it’s OK. No one can hurt them now.’ He clasped his hands together, mirroring the woman’s body language. ‘I really need some closure,’ he added.

The woman studied her driveway, and nodded silently. ‘The last time I saw her, she was hammered.’

‘Janet? Drunk?’ Lock was surprised. Ken’s wife had never been a drinker.

‘Yeah, as a skunk. I took her in. Tried to get some coffee into her. I didn’t want her son seeing her in that state.’

‘Something had upset her?’

‘She told me that she thought her husband was having an affair. I didn’t know he was undercover. All she said was that it was someone he’d met through work.’

Lock took in a quick breath, glancing back over his shoulder at the Pragers’ old house, the paint peeling from the eaves, the gutters choked with leaves. This changed everything.

Inside the car, the woman’s kids were starting to squabble, and Lock knew his time was about up.

‘She mention a name?’ he asked.

The woman sighed. ‘Not unless “that blonde bitch” is a name. She said that Ken had gotten her pregnant.’