“I just want to talk to him.”
“About what?”
“About a matter that I’ll discuss with him and not you.”
He stood up from his console. He came over to me and he got way too close, and this was probably the sort of thing that had worked for him in the past. He was big enough, after all, and he looked scary enough. One- quarter crazy, like the kid said.
I didn’t move. I didn’t blink.
“I need to talk to your father, Conrad.”
His eyes widened just a little bit at the sound of his given name.
“I understand you prefer to be called Connie?”
“I prefer that you’d get the hell out of here.”
“It’s not going to happen. One way or another, I’m going to talk to your father.”
“As you can see, he’s not here.”
“Yeah, I got that part. Where is he?”
“He’s at the house. He hasn’t been well. I don’t want you bothering him.”
“This won’t take long,” I said. “I just need to talk to him for a few minutes. That’s all.”
He stayed close to me. I was thinking he probably wanted me to make a move, give him a good excuse to sucker punch me.
I didn’t. I kept my cool.
“I’m going to call him,” he said. “I’ll ask him if he wants to talk to you.”
He took a step backward and pulled out his cell phone. He listened for a few seconds. He had the volume way up, so I could hear a man’s voice on the other end, asking him to leave a message.
“He’s probably asleep,” he said. “He gets tired easy.”
“How far away is the house?”
“Just across town, why?”
“Let’s go, then,” I said. “I’ll even drive.”
Better to keep an eye on him, I thought. Otherwise he’d call the cops on me, or call his father on another line to warn him off, or God knows what else he’d do.
“Why on earth would I agree to do that?”
“I’ll give you one good reason,” I said. “Because then I’ll leave and you’ll never have to see me again.”
He sat in the passenger’s seat with his arms folded. He looked at his watch and made a big deal of shaking his head and sighing.
“This won’t take long,” I said. “Just tell me where to go.”
“Take a right here,” he said as we came to the main intersection. “Then a left on Irwin Street.”
I followed the road north, almost all the way to the edge of town, then I took the left and went down half a block. Connie nodded his head as we came to the house. It was one of the biggest houses in town, I was sure of that. An old Victorian, half-restored and begging to be finished, with most of the painting done but much of the trim still missing. I pulled into the driveway. There was a detached garage. The door was open.
“Where the hell is his car?” Connie said.
“He’s not here?”
“If his car’s not here, he’s not here, genius.”
I let that one go. We ended up sitting there another minute while he tried his cell phone again. I overheard the four rings and then the voice mail picking up.
“What the hell,” he said, putting the phone down.
“Is there somewhere else he could be?”
“Yeah, I’m sure he’s somewhere.”
It was all I could do to not reach over and slap him in his smart mouth.
“He could be at the lake house,” he said, “but what would he be doing up there? He knows we’ve got work to do today.”
“Where’s the lake house?”
“Up by Port Austin.”
“How far away?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe.”
I put the truck in reverse. “Let’s go.”
“Since when are you calling the shots?”
“Since I’m the one driving. I assume I keep going north here?”
“Yeah, that’s where Port Austin is, last I checked.”
I went back to the main road and went north. It was all empty farmland now, dusted white with the snow.
“Mind if I ask you a couple questions?”
“You can ask,” he said. “I may not answer.”
“When did you last see him?”
He didn’t say anything. He kept looking out the window and I thought that was probably the only answer I was going to get.
“Couple of days ago,” he finally said.
“That’s the same day the agent came?”
“Yeah, I suppose it was.”
“So the agent came and asked his questions. Then your father disappeared.”
“He didn’t disappear.”
“I understand he’s been doing that a lot. Ever since you finished filming.”
He looked over at me. “My son tell you that?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Then you’ve already got your answer.”
“So ever since January, he’s been gone off and on, for a couple days at a time. Is that fair to say?”
“He’s been gone because he gets tired. He hates for other people to see him like that.”
“I understand he’s a pretty good actor. Is it possible he just seemed tired?”
He didn’t even try to answer that one. Another minute of silence passed.
“Tell me about your sister,” I said. “What was her name?”
“I swear to God,” he said, “if you came down here to ask my father about Corina, you can just forget it right now. Do you understand me?”
“Relax,” I said. “That’s not why I’m here.”
It wasn’t a total lie. If Clyde C. Wiley was really the person hunting down former state troopers and their children… well, then the death of his daughter was obviously a big part of the reason why. But there was no specific reason why I’d have to bring her up now.
“Sounds like a sensitive topic,” I said. “Doesn’t he ever talk about it?”
Connie shook his head.
“He must have said something to you about it.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Relax. I told you I won’t bring it up with him. But he’s not here now, right? You can talk about her.”
“There’s not much to say,” he said. “I never really got to know her.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because he basically had two separate families, okay? I grew up in California, after my mother walked out on him. Corina grew up in Michigan. She ended up getting married to the biggest loser in the world, which my father blamed himself for because the daughter always tries to marry a younger version of her father, and all that other crap. End of story.”
“So you weren’t around when she killed herself.”
