All The Way Back

by David Kearns

  Chapter Twenty

  I found Emily standing in the hallway outside the utility closet. She had her arms crossed over her chest and was looking at Peter Stargen with an expression of morbid fascination. The dog, usually so quick-tempered in the presence of strangers, barely lifted her head from the floor when I came down the hall. “I think he must have drugged her,” Emily said. “She’s always been so upset when strangers come. Now she just lays there.”

  “Maybe he put something in her water bowl or hit her with his sap,” I said. “Do you want to see if she’d like to go down the street to the vacant lot? If she won’t get up for that, we should get her to a veterinarian.”

  Emily went to get the leash and tennis ball while I watched the stranger. Emily came back and hooked the leash on the dog’s collar. The dog got unsteadily to her feet and started for the front door.

  Once Emily was gone, I peeled the tape off of Peter’s mouth and one of his ears.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” he said. The skin around his Adam’s apple was yellow where Sandy had hit him in the throat, and his voice sounded like it was coming through several inches of gravel. “And I’ve needed to for about eight hours. I didn’t want to piss myself in this closet, but if I don’t go in the next five minutes, I will.”

  “So you’ve been tied up in this closet since last night?”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  Sandy said “Like hell,” from over my shoulder. “I’ve taken him to the can every two hours.”

  “How do you manage that?” I asked her.

  “I make him hop the chair across the hall into the bathroom. Then I tip the chair forward so he can pee into the toilet. Then I drag the chair back to the closet. I’m damned if I’m going to untie this guy. I don’t want to have to fight him again. Once was enough.”

  “I want my phone call and I want to talk to a lawyer,” he said.

  I said “We’re not the police, and you’re half an inch away from finding out if there’s an afterlife. If you help us out, you stay alive. If you don’t, this is the end of the road for you. Do we understand each other?”

  He nodded.

  “Tell me what you know about the Backett family,” I said.

  Sandy leaned in close and whispered in my ear “You can’t threaten a rabid animal into submission. I would never, ever trust this guy. He’s just waiting for a chance to turn on you and kill you. That’s the gospel truth.”

  For the first time Peter opened his blackened eyes, and I knew that he’d heard what Sandy said.

  “It’s too bad that you woke up when you did,” he said. “We could have had a lot of fun together.”

  “We still can, Peter,” Sandy said. “I’ll let you suck on the barrel of my shotgun while I play with the trigger. In fact, I’ve been trying to decide whether you should keep breathing the same air that I do, and I’ve decided that the answer is no. If you’re still feeling frisky, I can go get the shotgun.”

  He closed his eyes again, and I watched his mouth curl into a smile.

  Sandy said “This guy should be worm food” as she walked away.

  I said “What did you do to the dog, Peter?”

  He ignored me.

  “Peter, if I have to ask you again, I’m going to boil a pot of water and cook your gonads like meatballs. Am I getting through to you?”

  “Easy, cowboy,” he said. “I put cold medicine and sugar in the water bowl on the back porch.”

  I stared at him.

  “See?” he said. “I can be reasonable. You do something for me and I do something for you.”

  “I can be reasonable, too,” I said. “You keep doing what I tell you to do, and I won’t tape your mouth and nose closed.”

  “Can I ask a question?” he said.

  “Make it quick.”

  “Are you getting it with either of these ladies?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Just wondering why you’re in the middle of this thing. The Backetts will send someone else if I don’t come back. Next time they’ll come after you, too.”

  “And?”

  “You could let me go. I’ll tell the Backetts that I took care of business, and both of us could get on with our lives.”

  “Here’s the thing, Peter,” I said. “You promise has as much integrity as a politician’s handshake. And if I let you get on with your life, that implies that I endorse your hobby and don’t mind you moving on to your next victim. Because I know that you’re not going to quit doing it. The thing is, when you came through the window in your ninja suit last night, you made the choice that it was worth the risk of getting caught so you could have fun at the lady’s expense and maybe kill her, too. Some risks pay off, but this time it didn’t. You went to the well once too often, and things went badly. I guess it’s remotely possible that I’ll think of a reason to turn you loose, although if you’re the kind of person who likes numbers, that chance is about one in a million. You should start thinking about things that you could do to move the needle. Next time we talk, you need to be ready to give me something worth having.”

  I tore a fresh strip of duct tape off the roll and re-taped his mouth and ears. He didn’t resist.

  I went out to the back porch and picked up the dog bowls. I carried them inside, flushed the contents down the toilet, and rinsed the bowls out in the bathroom sink. After I’d put the dog bowls back on the porch, I went into the kitchen and called Eric Fullmeyer.

  “Delorean,” he said. “How is the girl-swapping experiment going?”

  “I need to take out some trash,” I said. “And Emily is going to have to move.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  I heard him groan.

  “Is everyone okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s the trash?”

  “Emily’s house.”

  There was a pause for a few seconds.

  “How much is there?” he asked.

  “Just one bag, but it’s too heavy for one person to carry. Someone might get hurt.”

  “Before I get there I need you to do something for me,” Eric said. “Pull Emily’s car out of the driveway so I can back the van up against the gate for the backyard.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  “We’ll be here.”