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Chapter Three
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
“I’M BEGINNINGto think this is a waste of time,” Gary muttered as he locked the car.
Dan was inclined to think the same thing. So far they’d interviewed four of the men who’d been present on the day James Sebring died, and not one of them had anything illuminating to add to their original statement. Gary had suggested not mentioning Dan’s psychic abilities for fear they might prove reluctant to shake hands with him, which was sort of the point. Luck was on their side—no one seemed to recognize Dan, which was a miracle after all the media attention that had ensued that summer.
Shaking hands had been a bust too, at least as far as their case was concerned. On the other hand, Dan had gotten a quick glimpse into some of their minds and had retreated just as fast from a couple of them. Nothing dark or dangerous, but very private.
There were times when his gift made him feel like a shabby peeping tom, although he knew that was an exaggeration. On those infrequent occasions, he beat a hasty retreat.
He peered at the wire fence separating them from the construction site. Beyond it, men were hard at work, carrying planks, sawing, talking loudly, laughing, and calling out to others. “So who are we here to see?”
“Luke Weiss,” Gary informed him. “He’s the last one on the list for today. Still haven’t managed to locate Chris Reed. We’re seeing Dex Forrest tomorrow. He was the foreman.” He walked up to the metal gate and waited.
A guy in a safety hat approached them. “You from the police?”
Gary nodded. “I called yesterday.” He flashed his badge.
“Yeah, I took the call. You wanna see Luke, right? He’s on a break right now.” He pointed to a mobile office. “You can talk to him in there. I’ll send him to you.”
Gary thanked him, and they opened the door to the mobile building and stepped inside. It obviously served as an office: A desk sat at one end, covered in blueprints and sheaves of paper. Three chairs stood in front of it.
Dan took one of them and sat. “I hope this one knows more than the others.”
“You and me both.”
A moment later the door opened and a guy entered, wearing dirty jeans, a stained white tee, a denim jacket, and heavy boots. He was maybe in his late thirties, with a crop of straggly dark blond hair that covered his eyes, his jawline rough with stubble. He stood there, his hands thrust into his pockets. “You wanna talk about Al, right? We told the cops everything when it happened. And I can’t tell you anything you haven’t already heard from the other guys.”
News travels fast.
“We’re just reviewing the case,” Gary told him. He gestured to a chair. “Please, take a seat. All we want is for you to tell us what happened that day.”
“Fine, but I got nothing new to tell you.” Luke flopped into the chair, hands still out of sight, his legs stretched out in front of him. “Okay. It was a totally normal day. We were on our lunch break. Al had finished eating and had wandered off someplace. I think he’d said something about having to make a call.”
“Al? You keep saying Al. Do you mean James?”
Luke arched his eyebrows. “James.No onecalled him James, except maybe Chris Reed. He was always singing that song by Paul Simon, you know, ‘You Can Call Me Al’? Well, it kinda stuck. I remember someone—Chris maybe—asked one time if he could call him Betty, you know, like in the song, and James said only if he wanted a new asshole. From then on, he was Al.”
Gary made a note. “So Al wasn’t with the others.”
“No. We were working on a development of ten houses, and what we usually did was use one of the unfinished plots for our breaks. Well, that day we were sitting around plot seven on crates and piles of planks. Then Chris started looking for his newspaper. Figured he’d left it somewhere on plot three, where we’d been working, so he went to look for it.”
“How long was he gone?” Gary scribbled on his notepad.
“A few minutes.”
“Did he seem okay when he returned?” Dan inquired. The conversation had taken an interesting turn. None of the previous witnesses had mentioned Chris leaving them.
Luke’s brow wrinkled. “Funny you should ask that. Chris sat back down with his paper, but… I don’t think he was really reading it, you know? He seemed kinda distracted.” Then he widened his eyes. “Hey, wait a minute. He didn’t stroll back to us after pushing Al off the rafters, if that’s what you’re thinking. Those two were neighbors, buddies even. And Chris is no killer.”
“What happened then?” Gary asked.
“Not long after that, Dex—he was the foreman—told us all to get our asses back to work, so we headed to plot three.”
“How much time elapsed between Chris returning and you going back to work, do you think?”
Luke scrunched up his eyebrows. “Ten minutes, maybe? No more than that.” He paused. “And then we found Al. Lying on the ground, his neck at a funny angle. Matt checked for a pulse, but you only had to look at Al to know he was dead.” Luke swallowed. “He was the last person you’d expect to have an accident.”
