The Fall Guy

by Barbara Fradkin

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I didn’t even take time to wipe the dust from my eyes. I just grabbed my tool kit, camera and keys and headed for my truck. Chevie was one step ahead of me, but I sent her back to sit on the porch. For some reason she finds riding around with me much more fun than trying to keep the chickens in the coop or the crows off the vegetable patch. Which is what I’d really like her to do.

  I was so upset I forgot to baby my old truck as we hammered down the lane and along the dirt road to the highway. I hung on to the steering wheel for my life as potholes sent us both flying. I covered the ten miles to Jeff Wilkins’ cottage in less than ten minutes. All the way, I worried about what I would say. Wilkins was a powerful man. Everybody bought their trucks from him. He could see that I never got another job in the county as long as he lived. If he was lying to cover his own butt, I didn’t know how I was going to prove it. I didn’t have too many friends in the county who would take my side over his. Worse, no other contractors were going to back up my design after I’d been undercutting them for years. I was small fry, and I liked it that way, but business was tight for everybody.

  I reached the Wilkins’ place before I’d thought up a plan. My nerves started to act up at the sight of the place. It was all alone on the clifftop, looking down on the lake below. More like a fort than a cottage. Huge square timber logs the color of wild honey, a red steel roof that gleamed in the sun. A triple garage where he kept his precious cars. Wilkins was tight but only when it came to others. Mrs. Wilkins had no car and had to beg every time she wanted to borrow one, but Jeff always got the latest-model toys for himself. A sports coupe, a heavy-duty truck and a high-end suv. Traded in every year.

  Lucky for me, there was no sign of any of those vehicles when I arrived. I crunched over the empty gravel parking lot and parked my truck up against the side of the house. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Now I had a plan. There would be no accusations, no arguments and denials. No tongue tied in knots by a man six inches taller than me and a million dollars richer.

  Just me, my camera and tape, and the deck where the poor woman fell to her death. I felt sick as that thought finally hit my reluctant brain. My fault or not, that poor, lonely woman was dead.

  I walked around to the front of the house overlooking the lake. The deck was beautiful. The smell of fresh cedar still hung in the air, but the space was filled with flower boxes, patio furniture, and a big red umbrella.

  Plus a gaping hole in the railing over the steepest drop.

  Yellow police tape was tied across the hole. It was too flimsy to save anyone, but I wasn’t worried as I walked across the deck. I’m not afraid of heights. I remembered the spot where the hole now was. It had been a terrible place to work. The house sat on a big slab of granite, and at this point the granite fell away in a sharp drop. I had to cantilever the edge of the deck out over the cliff and I’d reinforced it six ways to Sunday to be sure it was safe.

  Truth was, I’d wanted to put the deck farther over, on safer ground. But Wilkins held firm. The view of the lake was breathtaking from here, he said. You feel like you’re floating on air, up in the canopy of the trees growing down below.

  I stood at the edge of the deck and peered over. The drop was at least twenty feet. Below, nothing but bare rock and more police tape waving in the wind. I walked back across the deck and circled around and down the rocks till I was right below the broken spot. A couple of splinters of wood were all that was left of the railing. It looked like someone had tried to clean up all trace of the accident. But looking closely, I could see gouges and scrapes in the lichen-covered granite and smears of dark red that someone had tried to wash up. The ants were having a field day. I shuddered.

  I forced myself not to think about her. Instead, I looked up. An old white pine grew as tall and straight as a ship’s mast from the base of the cliff. Its jagged boughs spread high above the deck. Some bark had been torn from its thick trunk halfway down, where she’d tried to grab hold. Looking farther up, I saw something I’d missed before. A bird feeder, the fancy kind meant to keep squirrels away, was attached to the trunk just above the deck. It was crooked. It was hard to tell from where I was, but it seemed to be hanging from one screw, only half screwed in. Like someone hadn’t finished the job.

  I started to pick my way back across the rocks to the stone steps so I could get a better look. The rumble of an engine stopped me in my tracks. It was deep and rough, like a lion purring. It had faulty timing and a hole just starting in its muffler. A big engine, but not a truck. An old Ford V8 if I was right. I tried to think who drove a car like that but drew a blank.

  It crunched across the gravel and came to a stop. I ducked behind some bushes out of sight. I knew that was pretty pointless since my truck was sitting there in plain view in the parking lot. But I wanted to know what I was up against. I wanted to see the driver before he saw me. So I listened.

  The engine knocked a few times before it died. Silence closed in. Even the birds seemed to be waiting. A car door slammed with a heavy clunk, and I heard footsteps on the gravel. Slow and uneven, as if the guy was marking time. I held my breath as the footsteps came near. I’m not a big guy, hitting five-ten if I stand on my toes, but I wished I’d picked a bigger bush to hide behind. The sun was low in the sky, glaring off the lake and turning everything to bright gold. The footsteps stopped, and I could imagine the guy eyeing my truck. I peeked over the bush, but couldn’t see around the house.

  Then the car door opened again. Springs squawked as he got back in. The engine roared to life, revved by a heavy, impatient foot on the gas. I listened as the tires spun, spraying gravel against the metal of my truck. The car rocketed down the lane, sliding on the curves and thudding over the bumps, once even bottoming out on the big rock in the middle of the road. The guy must have been going over forty miles an hour. On that rocky, one-lane track, he was either nuts or in a serious rush.

  I let out my breath. I stood up slowly, unfolding my stiff muscles. Who the hell was that, and what was he up to? After three weeks on the job, I knew Wilkins’ three vehicles by sound as well as by sight. None of them had that rich, muscle-car growl.

  Some people are ghouls. They like to see blood and gore. They want to set eyes on the place where death had been. I thought it was disgusting, but there’s no accounting for taste. When my mother piled into that rock face on the highway up past the village, people came from all over just to shake their heads. And to wonder how come she didn’t see it staring right at her. How come she missed that easy turn. I never went there. Not after the first time the police took me to id what was left of the car. I knew my mother hadn’t seen the rock. Or the turn. It was January and the scrub farm was under three feet of snow. She’d have been off in a daydream, picturing herself on a tropical beach somewhere with a mai tai in her hand and a rich guy massaging her feet.

  I stood looking down at the ants crawling over the bloodstained rock. That’s probably what it was. Some rubber-necker come to see where Mrs. Wilkins’ head cracked open on the rocks. Maybe they thought no one was home, until they spotted my truck. I thought about going up to the parking lot to check out the damage to my truck, but decided not to. A few more dings weren’t going to make any difference, and the sun was almost set. The last fingers of sunlight barely reached the rock. Soon I wouldn’t be able to see, and the mosquitoes would arrive for their evening feast.

  I tried to picture what had happened. What Mrs. Wilkins had been doing on the deck. Most days I was working, she’d stayed inside. It was hot out, and my sander and table saw were always running. They aren’t the newest, so there was lots of sawdust and noise. Sometimes I saw her through the glass, pouring herself a drink. Nothing heavy, just wine. As often as not she’d give me a little wave. I never saw her falling down drunk, but maybe that day she had more than most. Or maybe she didn’t care enough to be careful. I got the feeling she didn’t care about much.

  Most of the railing bits had been cleared
away from the rocks, like someone was trying to get rid of the reminder. I picked up a short piece of two-by-two. Part of a spindle. One end was splintered, but the other was tapered where it would have been attached to the bottom rail. There was a hole for the screw, but it looked wrong. Too wide. I use decking screws. They’re three inches long and thin so they won’t split the wood as I drill them in. I’ve looked at a thousand holes made by decking screws. They were smaller and finer than this one.

  I set the piece of wood down on the rock, puzzled. Maybe the screw had worked itself loose. Maybe Mrs. Wilkins had leaned over the edge to look at the view. In her excitement she tugged at the rail until the screw widened the hole. I shook my head in disbelief. It didn’t make sense! The spindles were three inches apart. Even if one worked loose, fifteen others would hold.

  The last of the setting sun was shining on the granite, lighting up its black and pink streaks. Deep in the crack between two rocks, I saw a flash of silver. I reached in and pulled out the piece of metal. Not silver at all, but steel. A stubby screw that still had bits of cedar stuck to its threads. The decking screws I used were brass, rustresistant and three inches long. This one was a cheap alloy, half an inch too short and way too thick.

  Someone had changed the screws on my railing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As I stood there staring at the screw, my brain refused to understand. Why would someone change the screws? To get me in trouble? To get out of paying me the miserable few thousand I was owed? I thought about Wilkins’ lawsuit, slapped on me before the blood was even dry in his wife’s death. That guy had sure been fast off the mark.

  I should tell the police. I knew the screw was evidence, proof that I hadn’t been negligent and that someone else had caused the accident. Then I remembered Constable Swan’s expression as she’d looked around my farm. She thought I was an idiot. Or at best, a wing nut. She’d ordered me to stay away from Wilkins’ place. She might think I’d planted the screw. I should put it back where I found it and tell the police to take another look around.

  Tires growled on the gravel up above. I shoved the screw in my pocket and was heading for my bush again when I heard a car door slam.

  “O’Toole?” A raw roar.

  Wilkins. He steamed around the edge of the house like a bull on a charge, all six feet four inches and three hundred pounds of him. Most of that fat, but still…At one-fifty after a full platter of wings, I wouldn’t stand a chance. I hustled back up onto the deck and tried to look harmless. He skidded to a stop six inches from my face. The past couple of days hadn’t been good ones for him. His face was puffy and purple, like he’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. His eyes were bloodshot, and a blast of booze breath rolled over me.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing!”

  “S-sorry about your wife, Mr. Wilkins,” I started. “I just came to see—”

  “See what? See how she died? With her head cracked open on those rocks is how!” Spittle flew. “Your goddamn useless railing came off right in her hands when she leaned on it!”

  “I don’t understand how—”

  “You’re going down, O’Toole! The cops showed me the screws. Cheap, half screwed in, some missing altogether. Folks warned me about you. About how your head’s in the clouds and you’re always dreaming up cockamamy schemes to fix things that never work. Everything you touch turns to shit, O’Toole! I should never have hired you.”

  I could feel the red starting up my neck. He was hulking over me. I had to force myself not to back up. I stared up at him. “I didn’t use cheap screws, Mr. Wilkins. You saw how careful I was. You even said you were glad I was taking my time to get it right. Instead of trying to rush the job like other guys might.” It was a long speech for me, but I was mad, and I always talk better when I’m mad.

  “If you did such a great job, why did the railing crack like kindling the first time she leaned on it, you moron?” He stormed across the deck and waved out over the cliff. “She was just hanging this bird feeder, for Pete’s sake. For me!” He stopped. Snorted like a bull trying to catch his breath. He was shaking all over. “I bought it for her birthday. I don’t even care about goddamn birds, and she died for them!”

  He was doing a good imitation of a guy who cared about his wife. I even thought I saw a tear shining in his eyes, but they were pretty bloodshot anyway. He’d hardly paid any attention to her while she was alive. But now suddenly he was all broken up. I remembered the cheap screw in my pocket. Someone had done that deliberately.

  I started to get an uneasy feeling. “Did you know she was going to hang it on that tree?”

  “Yeah. She said this way we could watch the birds from the deck and from the dining-room window.”

  I walked over to join him. He seemed calmer now, less likely to pick me up and throw me over the edge. I looked up at the feeder and out over the cliff, trying to picture how it played out. Mrs. Wilkins was really short, and she would have had to stretch to reach the tree. Juggling the feeder, the screwdriver and the screw would have been tricky. No hand left over to hang on with. Add to that the bottle of wine she usually put away over the afternoon…

  “Was it getting dark?” I asked. By evening, she was well into the second bottle.

  “I should get rid of the damn thing. She was waiting for me to hang it, and she got fed up. I kept meaning to, but work’s been busy. I didn’t expect her…” He snorted again and swung on me. “Who expects this? I meant to hang it! She should have known that. I’m a busy man, but goddamn it, I would have done it! But she never was any good at waiting. Always wanting things right now.”

  I thought about Mrs. Wilkins wandering around the TV room hour after hour, doing her nails and playing solitaire. Only the wine bottle and her phone to keep her company while she waited for him to come home. Often late in the evening, when I was packing up my tools, there was still no sign of him. And if he did come home, all he wanted was supper. Which, more often than not, she forgot to cook.

  I didn’t say anything. I was still trying to find out what happened. Those screws hadn’t changed themselves, but I didn’t want to come right out and accuse him. “Did you show the deck to anyone? Before it broke, I mean. Did anyone say anything about the screws or the railing?”

  He peered at me through narrowed eyes. “Nobody looked at the outside, if that’s what you mean. She was planning a party this weekend to show it off, that’s why she wanted the bird feeder up. But nobody had seen the finished product yet. You can’t weasel out of this one, O’Toole.”

  “Maybe she showed someone? While you were at work, I mean?”

  “She always complained nobody would come out here. I don’t even think she had any friends anymore. But what the hell does that matter? You made the deck. She fell to her death!”

  He turned away from the railing and headed across the deck toward the cottage. Night had fallen, and the sensor lights from the security system blinded us. For a second he looked like a monster, his face a mask of rage in the yellow light.

  “Get the hell out of here, O’Toole,” he snarled. “I know what you’re trying to do. Weasel out and see if you can pin the blame on someone else for your own screwup. If I see you here again, Lori-Anne might not be the only one with her head cracked open on the rocks!”

  I scurried away. Gunning my truck down his gravel drive, I couldn’t help thinking he’d taken the thought straight out of my head. Only it was him who was responsible, and him trying to pin the blame on someone else. Me. But I didn’t think it was a screwup.I think it had worked out just the way he wanted.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Halfway home, I started to shake. That’s when it hit me what a big mess I was in. I had no design plans. No final inspection reports. No proof I used the right screws and someone else had replaced them. The only man who could vouch for my construction specs was at the top of my suspect list. First off, that grieving-widower act stank more than three-day-old fish. He’d treated the woman like something on a junk heap
. Now suddenly he’s all broken up about her death. He knew she was the impatient type, but he’d stalled for days about hanging her new bird feeder. Had he guessed she’d get fed up and try it herself ? Did he know it would be nearly impossible without using two hands and leaning hard on the rail?

  Does a guy need a reason to bump off his wife? Since I’d never had a real girlfriend, I couldn’t guess. I remember wanting to kill Mary Ellen Potts when she dumped me after only two weeks. She’d been the one asking me out in the first place. Until she found out Mom’s farm wasn’t worth a penny. Some women would do just about anything to move up in the world, Aunt Penny explained. Which hardly made me feel better.

  I didn’t know much about Lori-Anne Wilkins, but maybe she was the same. Aunt Penny said she flamed early and burned out quick. She grew up somewhere down east but had followed a sweet-talker who told her about the good life in the city. They never made it past the trailer park on the west side of town. After ten years he took off, leaving her with two kids, a pile of maxed-out credit cards and a junk-heap car that didn’t run when the temperature went below freezing. She earned money cleaning houses and tending bar till Jeff Wilkins turned up. He must have seemed like the answer to her dreams.

  Some dream.

  The road was pitch-black and the only light was from farms along the way. There was only one other car, shining its high beams far in the distance behind me.

  I peered at Aunt Penny’s store as I passed by, hoping the light was still on. The store was dark, but her windows were lit up on the second floor where she lived. I pulled into the gravel parking lot.

  “Twice in one day, Ricky,” she said as I climbed the stairs.

  I knew I was going to owe her, but I was wound up too tight to care.

  “I think Jeff Wilkins is trying to set me up,” I said.

  She didn’t roll her eyes. She didn’t snort or reach over to feel my forehead. She poured me a glass of whisky and looked me in the eye.