“Oh, he’s here. You’ll find him at a picnic table in the side yard.”
I retraced my steps, going out the office door and around to the left as specified by the thumb she’d hooked over her shoulder. Against the side of the building there was a large metal trash bin and a rolling cart filled with tires. Four vehicles parked along the fence were covered with canvas car cozies. I crossed the cracked asphalt driveway to a grassy patch where a wooden picnic table had been planted with a bench attached on either side.
Troy had his metal lunchbox set out on a square of waxed paper that he was using as a place mat. He’d placed his sandwich, a cluster of green grapes, a Baggie full of carrot sticks, and an oatmeal cookie in a semicircle along the edge, the whole of it anchored by a small milk carton of the sort you get in elementary school. The exterior of the lunchbox featured characters from Sesame Street: Ernie, Oscar the Grouch, Big Bird, and the Cookie Monster.
He pushed the last of the sandwich into his mouth and took a swallow of milk while he watched me approach. His coppery red hair contrasted nicely with his navy blue coveralls. He wiped his hands on a paper napkin, saying, “Help you?”
“Kinsey Millhone. You’re Troy.”
“That’s right.” His chin and jaw were well defined and his blue eyes were small, sheltered under pale brows. His hands were oil-stained, his fingernails edged in black. His smile revealed endearingly crooked teeth. Even from across the table, I could smell peanut butter on his breath.
“Sorry to interrupt your lunch.”
“I’ll keep on eating, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Please do,” I said. I sat down at the table and turned sideways so I could lift my feet over the bench, which was permanently affixed.
He tossed a grape in the air, moving his head so he could catch it in his mouth. He missed and the grape bounced off the table and out of sight. He smiled sheepishly and held out the grape cluster. I took three.
He popped a grape in his mouth and looked at me with interest. “I’m guessing social worker, parole officer, or US Marshal. Which?”
I looked down at myself. “In this outfit? None of the above.”
“Private eye.”
“Right.”
“Then you must be here about Fritz.”
I pointed at him by way of reply. “Have you seen him since he came home?”
“Nope. Even as a free man, I stick to parole conditions. No alcohol, no firearms, and no contact with convicted felons.”
“I’m impressed.”
“No need. I told a fib. We did talk. He called yesterday and told me about the tape. He said his parents hired a detective. Putz that I am, I was picturing a guy.”
“Happens that way sometimes. I’m used to it,” I said.
“How’d you end up working for the McCabes?”
“I was recommended by an attorney who’s a friend of mine.”
He broke his cookie in half and took a bite. “That’s tough—the demand for hush money. You have any idea what they’ll do?”
“They don’t want to pay, that’s for sure. I take it you weren’t slapped with a similar demand?”
“No point. I’m broke. You think I should hire an attorney?”
“I don’t know what an attorney could do for you until we see where this goes.”
He smiled ruefully. “I can’t afford one anyway, so scratch that idea.”
“Who represented you at the trial?”
“A public defender, but she’s moved on to private practice. She did a shit job anyway, at least from my perspective,” he said.
“People who go to jail often say the same thing.”
“I’m ignoring that remark,” he said. “So what’s the plan? Sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop?”
“There’s a chance I’ll catch up with the blackmailer first and that might change the game.”
“Scale of one to ten. How likely is that? Ten being guaranteed.”
“I’d give it a three.”
He laughed.
“You have family?” I asked.
“Mom and four brothers. She’s still in town, though I don’t see much of her. Couple of times a year at best. Brothers are spread all over and I don’t see much of them, either. I’m the son who disappointed everyone. They keep telling me I let the family down, like I’m not aware of it.”
“I’m sure you learned something.”
“No doubt, but I’m not sure what. I take that back. I learned how easy it is to do nothing. We all knew Austin was a creep.”
“What kind of creep?”
“A dangerous one. What you have to understand about the guy is that he liked to ferret out our secrets and use them to lord it over us. He had this thing he used to do with Bayard. He’d raise his index finger and say, ‘One call, dude. One call.’”
“Meaning it would only take one call to blow the whistle on him?”
“Pretty much,” he said. “And no, I don’t know what Bayard’s secret was.”
“Did he have something on you?”
“Well, yeah, but I’d just as soon not get into it.”
“Come on. This is just between us. I won’t tell anyone.”
He thought for a moment and then said, with some reluctance, “Okay. Here it is. I stole five hundred bucks.”
“When was this?”
“After my dad died, my mom was strapped for cash. He’d left enough insurance to pay off the house but she needed a short-term loan to cover the house payment until the money came in. I was soliciting donations for our church to provide Thanksgiving dinner to needy families. The treasurer assumed we’d be honest about how much we’d collected. I shorted her by five bills, which I always intended to pay back. Guess I better get on it now I brought it up. The point is, I was ashamed of myself. Mortified that I’d done it.”
“Did Austin use that against you?”
“Once. That’s how I ended up driving my truck that night.”
“He sounds like a bully.”
“That was our fault in part. We just didn’t have the guts to stand up to him. How can I atone for that? I keep saying I’m sorry, for all the good it does. The dead don’t come back. Done is done and what I did was bad.”
“Sounds like you’ve taken responsibility.”
“Which doesn’t erase regret. I don’t know what else to do but get on with life and be the best person I know how.”
“Are you married?”
“Wife and two little boys. The older is two and the little guy is three months. He has some medical issues that are costing us an arm and a leg, but what can you do? Half the couples we know are up to their eyeballs in debt. My wife’s great. Kerry’s one of a kind. She knows I went to prison for what I did. We dated before I went in and then kept in touch. I couldn’t have made it without her.”