Page 50 of Body Count

He was still gone.Still running his errands.The house was silent except for the whisper of air in the ducts.

I went into his office.His laptop was on, the screen locked.I entered the passcode.I opened up a browser.I went to his credit card company.I logged in.He had one of those password managers, and this was his device, so all the two-factor stuff was already done.

The charge was still pending, and it was for a Hampton Inn, two nights ago.A hundred dollars and change, probably because the hotel was on a stretch of highway between Butt Fuck and Nowhere.He’d told me that he’d driven for a while, and that must have been true.The Hampton was, according to Google Maps, almost ninety miles away.Could he have driven out there and back before I got home?

I leaned back in his chair.And I heard a voice in my head asking, Now what the fuck kind of question was that?

The Google Maps result had a phone number.I placed the call and navigated through the automatic menu until a woman said, “Hello?”

“Hi.My name’s Darnell Kirby, and I had a room booked the other night.I didn’t end up using it, and I was wondering if I could get that refunded.”

“Let me check that for you, Mr.Kirby.”I figured that was probably the politest no I was ever going to hear in my life, but I was wrong when she said, “I’m so sorry, Mr.Kirby, there must be a mistake.”

I waited for her to tell me that yes, as a matter of fact, Ihadchecked in, and I’d slept the whole night peacefully in the room, and several hotel employees conveniently remembered seeing me.

“There’s a note on your reservation asking us not to cancel the room, even in the event of a no-show.And unfortunately, we do have a policy on refunds—”

I disconnected.

He hadn’t gone to the hotel.

He’d lied.

He’d prepared a lie.

No.The leather of his office chair stuck to my skin as I peeled myself away and stood.No, that wasn’t right.He’d prepared an alibi.

20

The idea that Darnell had lied was too big for me to take in all at once.

I grabbed my keys and wallet and went out to the car.The heat was even worse inside the oven of glass and steel.Sweat dripped into my eyes and stung.Shoes, I thought from a far-off place inside my head.I forgot shoes again.

Then I put the key in the ignition and started the car.I backed out of the driveway and drove out of the neighborhood.Harvey was probably watching, a distant part of me thought.He’d tell everybody I forgot to use a fucking turn signal.

For a while, I didn’t know where I was going.My body moved like I was on autopilot.The city melted and flowed around me, a river of meaningless information until something popped out at me: the spinning orange of a Popeye’s sign, the weed-choked lot of an empty arcade, some dumb kid in a Statue of Liberty costume dancing on the corner with a sign for a nearby barbecue place.The kid was probably Tip’s age, red faced, sweating buckets.The Fourth of July was just around the corner, and restaurants were drumming up business.How much was the barbecue joint paying this kid to get heat stroke?

Then I was out of the city, past the belt of light-industrial and ag buildings—post-frame warehouses and old barns and even a brick shithouse, which I’d always thought was just a saying.The air conditioning started to work.The cold air was almost too much; my skin stung, as though I really had gotten sunburned.In the mirror, for a second, I didn’t recognize myself.And then, distantly, I remembered and thought, Oh, right.

Why lie?

Because he had something to hide.

I flexed my hands around the steering wheel.I caught myself shaking my head.What would Darnell have to hide?A hookup?Okay, maybe.Yes, we had an open relationship.But Darnell had made it painfully clear that he wasn’t taking advantage of the benefits of that arrangement.I got the impression he thought it gave him the moral high ground; I could have told him, if I wanted to, that he already had the moral high ground.I mean, look at me—I was an oxy-sniffing deadbeat.But I was also fully aware that I would cut a bitch if Darnell started catting around, so he wasn’t entirely wrong.

Maybe a hookup.Maybe he’d finally decided to give it a try, see what was out there.Maybe that was a good thing, right?He’d get his nut.He’d loosen up.He’d fall in love with some dewy-eyed twink who weighed a hundred and twenty pounds and had those spaghetti arms and needed help getting his favorite dildo out of the toy box.

I caught the tail end of that line of thinking and wondered if maybe I did need to snort a little oxy.At least pop a zannie.Just to cool the jets.

As tempting as it was to think Darnell was simply out there finding a convenient hole, it didn’t track.Sure, maybe he’d leave town to do it—I could see him wanting some privacy, not wanting anyone to know.But the closest thing to that Hampton Inn had been a company that repaired grain silos.I mean, sure, maybe he’d had something prearranged.Maybe some horny little fucker who worked on grain silos had needed his cork popped.Or his silo, uh, plundered.Or whatever.

But what were the odds?

That was the problem.What were the odds that Darnell’s first hookup would be the same night someone left Tip’s body in our house?And why pretend he was at a hotel when he wasn’t?If you took law enforcement out of the equation, maybe.Maybe he’d have kept up the lie if he thought, somehow, it was for my sake.But shit was serious.Brother Gary and Red Alvin were not fucking around.They were looking at me and Darnell for this.So, why lie about an alibi that wouldn’t hold up to even the most cursory check?

I didn’t know.Maybe we’d figure it out in fucking therapy.Yeah, doc, I do have one question.Darnell lied to the police.What do you think that’s about?

Were you supposed to call them doc?Probably not.

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