Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay Page B

said.
    Barry nodded, almost apologetically. “Sorry to disturb you folks so early,” he said.
    “Come on in,” I said.
    “Coffee?” Ellen said.
    “That’d be nice,” Barry said. “Black.” He stepped into the kitchen, moving tentatively toward the table and me. Only eight in the morning and already his white shirt was starting to stick to his ample stomach. Ellen handed him a mug of black coffee as he glanced at my breakfast, drenched in maple syrup. Ellen noticed, and said, “A slice of French toast, Barry?”
    “I really shouldn’t,” he said.
    “It’s no trouble.”
    “Well, if you insist,” he said. “All I had before I left home was a tiny bowl of bran with some strawberries on it.”
    “Sounds healthy,” I said.
    “Maureen’s trying to get me to lose some weight,” he said. “So I eat healthy at home, then get something else later.”
    I smiled and motioned to the chair across from me. Barry took a load off. I saw Ellen dipping two slices of bread into some eggs, turn the heat back on under the frying pan.
    “How’s it going?” I asked.
    Barry ran his hand over his nearly bald pate. “Well, we’re following a number of enquiries,” he said. “Isn’t that how the Brits say it?”
    “I think so,” I said.
    “You can’t have been a lawyer as long as Albert was and not made a few enemies over the years. I’m sure he knew plenty of folks who might be capable of this sort of thing.”
    Ellen said, “I can’t imagine anyone being capable of what happened over there.”
    “Yeah, well,” Barry said. “I know what you mean. I was gonna say, when you’re in my line of work, you start accepting that people are capable of all sorts of horrible things, but the God’s honest truth is, I’ve never seen anything like this. Not a whole family. Not like that. Not in Promise Falls.”
    “This is America,” Ellen said, putting the two slices of bread into the frying plan. “These kinds of things can happen anywhere.”
    “We’ve had more than our share the last little while,” he said. I perked up at that. “You have?”
    “Well, a couple anyway,” Barry Duckworth said. “There was that one out back of the Trenton, three weeks ago.” A bar on the north side of town. Not an area where I get many calls to cut people’s lawns. “Guy named Edgar Winsome. Forty-two, married, couple of kids, cement worker. Shot in the chest.”
    “Jesus,” I said. “A bar fight?”
    Barry shook his head. “Maybe. But it didn’t spill out of the bar. No one saw him having it out with anybody. Nobody remembers him getting into an argument or anything. Came in, had half a dozen beers, talked with a few of his buddies, leaves, they find him later, out back. Loud music, no one heard a thing.”
    “He must have pissed off somebody,” I said.
    Barry nodded at that. “Seems a reasonable assumption. He wasn’t robbed. Still had his wallet, cash, and charge cards.”
    “Well,” said Ellen, flipping the toast.
    “And we haven’t gotten anywhere with it,” Barry said.
    “A couple,” I said.
    “Huh?” said Barry, taking a sip of his black coffee.
    “You said there were a couple.”
    “Yeah. The other one, older guy, fifty, last name of Knight, has a machine shop about five miles west of town, on 29. He was locking up one evening, everyone else had already left, still light out, someone comes along and pops him in the head. This was about a week before the Trenton guy bought it, a Friday night.”
    Ellen put the French toast on a plate. “Powdered sugar and syrup?” she asked.
    “Oh, yes, please,” Barry said. Ellen dressed his toast and set the plate in front of him. “Good God, this looks magnificent,” he said.
    “How come I don’t know about this?” I asked him.
    He was about to put the first forkful of toast and egg and syrup into his mouth, and he looked at me. “I can’t help it you’re uninformed.” He savored his mouthful, swallowed, raised the mug to his lips, had some more