Too Close to Home

TWENTY-THREE

Any other day, it would have been time to pack it in and head home. Ellen called my cell and said she’d thrown a small chicken into the oven an hour ago, and dinner would probably be ready by the time I got back.

“I’m going to try to get one more job in,” I said. I was only a few blocks from the Putnam house, which was a property of almost two acres, but I thought, cranking up the speed a bit on the Deere, I could finish it off before it started getting dark, even without help.

“Jim,” Ellen said, “come home.”

“Just set a plate aside for me,” I said. “We need money now more than ever. I don’t make a lot, but it’s better than nothing. You figure out the finances, how we’re going to pay Natalie Bondurant?”

“Yes,” Ellen said. She sounded defeated. “We’re going to have to cash in a few things.”

“Sounds like I better keep cutting grass,” I said. “I’ll be home when I’m home.”

“I’ll see ya,” she said tiredly.

I pulled up to the curb in front of the Putnam home. A big, two-story affair, double garage, a Porsche parked on one side of the drive, a Lexus on the other. Leonard Putnam was some hotshot financial adviser, far as I knew, and his wife was a much-respected psychiatrist.

I rarely ran into either one of them. The last time was probably when they hired me to look after their property for the season. I’d come out on a Saturday to meet with them, summer before last. I didn’t need to see them if all I did was cut their grass. I did the job — or Derek and I did the job — and once a month a check showed up in the mail. A hefty one, too, given the size of their property.

But because I was running behind, and getting to the Putnam house at an hour when they were likely to be home, I wasn’t surprised to see Leonard Putnam coming out the front door as I walked around to the back of the flatbed trailer to unload the Deere.

“Mr. Cutter,” he said. Not really a friendly greeting. There was a tone to it that suggested an imminent scolding. He had silver hair and was dressed in a creamy yellow sweater and white slacks. He dressed rich, looked rich. If he got a grass stain on those pants, it’d never come out.

“Evening,” I said.

“May I have a word?” he said.

This was different. Leonard Putnam wasn’t the type to talk to the hired help. Maybe he was pissed I’d come so late in the day. The noise of the mower was going to interfere with his pre-dinner cocktail.

“Sure,” I said, walking up the drive. He met me halfway, by the back end of the Porsche.

“Mr. Cutter,” he said, “I’m afraid we’re going to be going with someone else.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Another lawn company.”

“Is there a problem? If there’s something you’re unhappy with, I’m sure I can address your concerns. I wasn’t aware that you or Dr. Putnam have been anything but satisfied.”

“Oh no, nothing like that. You’ve always done a good job.”

“My rate’s competitive. Look around if you don’t believe me,” I said.

“It’s not that, either, Mr. Cutter.” He paused. “You see, Albert Langley, he was my lawyer.”

I studied him a moment, then nodded slowly. “I see. And what does that have to do with whether I look after your yard or not?”

He almost laughed. “Is that a serious question, Mr. Cutter?”

“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

“I cannot, in good conscience, maintain our relationship, given what your son has done. My wife is very troubled, to think that he has been here, with you, week after week, that there were even times when she was home when you and your boy were here, that he could have had access to our house. God knows what could have happened. My wife is most distraught. Otherwise, she’d be out here with me to deliver this news. She also knew Donna Langley quite well, personally and professionally, in fact, although I’m certainly not at liberty to discuss what that involved. She’s quite destroyed by this tragedy, as am I.”

“My son is innocent,” I said, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

“Well, I certainly don’t blame him for pleading not guilty,” Leonard Putnam said. “That’s how the game is played. Albert Langley knew that better than anyone, I suppose. I wouldn’t have expected anything different, and that’s not a reflection on you or your boy. I suppose, were I to somehow lose control of my impulses and commit an act of violence, I’d no doubt proclaim my innocence, too.”

“I didn’t say he was pleading not guilty. I said he was innocent.”

Putnam half chuckled again. “Look at me, actually having a debate with you about this. It’s quite extraordinary, really. We won’t be needing you anymore, it’s as simple as that. I’ll send you a check to cover the entire month, however. I’m a reasonable person.”

I wanted to kill him. But even more than that, I wanted to throw him to the ground and drag his white-panted ass across his lush green yard. Once I’d made a sufficient mess of him, maybe then I’d kill him.

But I didn’t knock him down, or drag him across the yard, or grab him by the neck. I turned around and walked back to my truck, nearly blind with rage. Maybe that’s why I didn’t see Lance Garrick in time.

As I was rounding the back of the trailer, I caught a momentary glimpse of something down there, hiding behind it, but there wasn’t time to react as this shadow leapt up and came at me.

I only had time to dodge slightly to the right, which meant the fist coming at me didn’t connect squarely with my nose, but caught the side of my cheek. Even though its path was slightly deflected, it still hurt like hell and kept me from seeing the other fist, coming a fraction of a second later and at the same rate of speed. That one caught me just under the ribs and completely took my breath away.

I collapsed to the pavement, clutching my side, writhing and moaning. I looked up at Randall Finley’s driver, standing over me and grinning.

“Not fun to get sucker punched, is it?” Lance asked. “Who’s laughing now, dickwad?”

I was gasping, still trying to get my breath.

Lance had knelt down, and I could feel his hot breath on my ear as he continued, “Tough break about your kid, huh, motherfucker? Guess he’s got some of the same problems you got. Maybe, if they don’t actually give him the chair, when he gets out in twenty years, the two of you can go to anger management classes together.”

And then he spit in my ear.

From the pavement, the world at right angles, I watched him walk up the street, whistling, then get in a blue Mustang and drive off.

Driving home, feeling the pain in my gut more than the blow to my face, I phoned Natalie Bondurant. Not to get some sort of restraining order against Lance, but to ask her a question. I got her voicemail, so I left my question with her and asked her to call me when she had a chance.

Ellen met me at the door and said, “Hey, I’ll just warm up your din—”

And then she saw my face. I told her what had happened. Not just my encounter with Lance, but my discussion with Leonard Putnam. I wasn’t sure which made her angrier. Putnam, I think. She knew I had to take some of the blame for what had happened with Lance. I’d sucker punched him days earlier, and he’d returned the favor.

She got an ice pack, wrapped in a towel, for my face. I tried holding it there while I ate my dinner. It hurt to chew, but I was hungry enough to put up with the aggravation. Ellen was pouring me some coffee when there came a soft rapping on the kitchen door.

We looked at each other warily. At least we knew it wasn’t Conrad. He’d have tried to walk straight in.

“Stay,” I said to Ellen, and got up from the table. I pulled the curtain back an inch and saw Penny Tucker standing on the deck. I unlocked the door that was so rarely locked before, and opened it. “Penny. Come in.”

She did. She was a pretty girl, petite, with slightly olive colored skin, indicating, I thought, a Mediterranean background. “Thanks,” she said. “How’s Derek?”

“Not so good,” I said. “He’s in jail. The judge wouldn’t allow him to post bond.”

“How did you get past the police?” Ellen asked.

I figured she’d snuck past, just like last time, but she said, “I talked to him. He let me come down.”

Ellen and I exchanged glances. I said, “He’s really there to protect a crime scene, not run interference for us.”

“What can we do for you, Penny?” Ellen asked, her voice slightly icy. She hadn’t forgotten, and neither had I, how our son had been treated by her parents the last time he’d gone to see her.

“Look,” she said. “I’m not even supposed to be here, and my parents are going to kill me”—she paused a moment, maybe second-guessing her choice of word—“when they find out I’ve snuck out of the house.”

“You should call them,” I said, pointing to the phone. “They’ll be worried sick about you.”

“Derek, he must have told you, what happened when he came to my house.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I just felt awful about that. But the policeman, Mr. Duckworth?”

We nodded.

“He’d been to the house earlier that day, about the phone calls. He figured out Derek had phoned me from the Langleys’ house, and then he came to see us, to see me, and, like, he made me tell him everything, because my parents were there, and they said I had to tell, so I told him he’d been in the house right before they all got killed.” She was talking so quickly she was starting to run out of breath.

“It’s okay, Penny,” I said. “Just take your time.”

“But he didn’t do it!” she said.

“We know that,” Ellen said. “We know Derek couldn’t do that.”

“The detective, he just thinks I’m covering up for Derek so he won’t get in trouble, and my parents are all like, ‘You better tell the truth or you’ll be in trouble, too.’ But I am telling the truth. Derek called me later, in the middle of the night, from your house, from the kitchen, right here, he was totally freaked out. He told me about hearing the shots and someone walking around and then having to step over Adam to get out and then I came over the next night, remember?”

“Yes,” I said. When we heard noises in the night, at the back door, and called the police. “You told this to the police?”

She nodded. “Derek told me he wanted to tell you guys, but he was scared. He was scared about the killer finding out he was there, because he thought that might end up getting in the papers or on the news, you know? And he was worried about what you’d do if you found out about this plan he had, to use the house while the Langleys were away.” She looked away, embarrassed. I could have told her stories about when Ellen and I were dating, to make her feel less mortified, but this didn’t seem like the time. “I didn’t want to have to tell Mr. Duckworth all this, not in front of my parents, but I figured, if he knew the truth, even if it was, like, totally embarrassing for me and Derek, he’d understand why Derek hadn’t come forward, and he’d see that Derek didn’t kill the Langleys.”

“That’s not how it’s worked out,” I said.

Penny looked frustrated enough to stomp her foot. “That policeman, he just won’t listen.”

That nearly brought a smile to my sore and wounded face. “Yeah, well, we know how you feel,” I said.

“What if I talked to the judge?” Penny said. “What if I told him I was with him after, that the things he told me, I could tell he didn’t do it?”

“You can’t talk to the judge, but you can talk to Derek’s lawyer,” I said. “She’ll be more interested in hearing what you have to say in Derek’s defense than Barry is. He thinks he has this thing all figured out.”

“What if my parents won’t let me talk to her?” Penny asked.

“They can’t do that,” Ellen said, then, looking at me, “Can they?”

“Why would your parents want to stop you?” I asked.

“They’ve never really approved of me going out with Derek anyway, you know?” she said.

“No,” Ellen said, trying to keep her voice even. “We didn’t know. Why would that be?”

“I guess they thought we were spending too much time together, that I wasn’t paying attention to school, which is totally not true, because my marks are as good as they’ve ever—”

I held up a hand. “It’s okay,” I said. “I think most boys are viewed with suspicion by the parents of their girlfriends. It’s been that way for a thousand years.”

“But then, after the detective came to the house, they wouldn’t even let me talk to him. Because he was, you know, a suspect.”

“Penny,” I said, “you should call your folks, tell them where you are. We can drive you home, or they can come and get you.”

“I took my mom’s car,” she said. “It’s parked on the side of the road, down a ways.”

“Let me ask you something,” I said, “before you go.”

“Okay.”

“Did Derek tell you about the computer he got from Agnes Stockwell, the one with the novel on it? That he and Adam had been reading?”

“Yeah,” she said. “He said it was really weird.”

“Did you read it?”

“No. I wasn’t really interested, you know?”

“Did you tell anyone about the book, that Derek and Adam had found it? Any of your own friends, your parents?”

She thought a moment. “I’m not sure. I mean, I’ve told them about Derek’s hobby. My dad one time, he even got Derek to restart his computer, when it was all frozen? I thought that would make my dad like him better, but it didn’t really last.”

“So you’re saying you might have told them?”

“Well, if I did, I sure didn’t tell them what it was about.”

“Sure,” I said. “I understand. Okay. Thanks. It was good of you to come by. We’ll tell Derek you were asking about him.”

Penny nodded, sniffed, wiped a tear from her cheek, and said goodbye. As Ellen walked her to the door my cell phone went off.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Hey,” a man’s voice said. “It’s Drew? Drew Lockus?”

It took me a moment. The man who’d pulled my tractor off me. “Yeah, Drew, how’s it going?”

“Look,” he said, “I talked it over with my mom, and she said if I want to earn a few extra bucks cutting grass, it’s okay with her, so yeah, if you still want me.”

“Sure,” I said. As long as I didn’t have more clients cancel like the Putnams, I thought. “Why don’t I pick you up out front of your place tomorrow morning, eight o’clock?”

“Okay,” he said. He sounded more resigned than pleased by the prospect. “See you then.”

I’d barely set the phone down on the counter when it rang again. I flipped it open. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Cutter, Natalie Bondurant, returning your call.”

I took a second to collect my thoughts. “Thanks for calling. Hey, Derek’s girlfriend, Penny Tucker, was just here. I think she’s got things to say that could help Derek.”

“She’s already on my list. I’ll set something up. As for your question, the one you left on my voicemail, the answer is yes.”

My heart sank.

“Officially, yes, New York State has the death penalty, but in 2004 the courts ruled it unconstitutional, so even if it’s on the books, it’s not being used.”

“I see.” Ever since Lance had raised the likelihood of my son facing the death penalty, I hadn’t been able to put it out of my mind. But I’d not shared my thoughts with Ellen.

“So, on that score,” Natalie said, “you can rest easy.”

“What do you mean, ‘on that score’? Is there something else?”

“The police found an earring. Very small, a peace sign.”

“Go on.”

“Did Derek lose one recently?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

Ellen was mouthing, “What?” I held up my hand to her.

“The police found one in the Langley house.”

“Okay,” I said, trying not to panic. “He’s already admitted he was there. How does a found earring make things any worse?”

“First of all, it’s not yet confirmed that it’s his. They’re doing DNA analysis on it.”

“They can get that?” I asked. “Off an earring?”

“They’re working on it.”

“But I still don’t understand. So what if they prove it’s his? He’s admitted he was in the house.”

Natalie Bondurant paused. “It’s where they found it in the house.”

I felt my heart skip a beat. “Go on.”

“In Donna and Albert Langley’s bedroom. In the folds of the bed skirt. And Derek’s fingerprints are on the bedroom dresser.”

I felt numb.

Natalie said, “If the DNA test comes back and says that’s Derek’s earring, the prosecutor’s going to wonder just how it got there. And before you know it, they’re going to have a whole lot more interesting motive than what they’ve got now.”