Chapter 33
The address that Celeste Simmons gave Jojo and Conor for Kyle Barnes was an apartment building on the north side of Somerset.
It wasn’t dilapidated, but it was old, and the lobby had an unpleasant odor.
Maybe Conor didn’t pick up on it, but Jojo did.
It was the scent of old furniture polish, disinfectant, and despair.
The room was on the first floor. Conor lifted his fist to knock, but Jojo noticed the door was ajar and simply pushed it open. The thrum of electronic gunfire filled the small room, and the pungent aroma of marijuana was so thick Jojo feared they’d both leave the place high.
The young man was speaking, maybe to himself or maybe to teammates playing online with him. “C’mon, c’mon … Almost got the streak … Don’t you peek that corner?—”
Conor cleared his throat. “Are you Kyle Barnes?”
The sound hit the young man like a slap, and he jumped. The armored character on the screen stopped moving, a red reticle suddenly appeared around his head, a piercing ping erupted from the speakers, and the character’s helmet shattered in a burst of blue shards.
Red words in all caps flashed on the screen … something about “STREAK brOKEN.”
“Are you kidding me?” The young man ripped off the headset and looked up for the first time at Conor and Jojo. “Do you know how long it took me to get that streak? You just made me lose a fifty-point bonus!”
Jojo and Conor exchanged a glance.
“I was winning. Like, dominating. One more kill and I would’ve hit the top rank. But no, you show up, and boom. Sniped in the face.”
It wasn’t until then that the young man really looked at them, noticed Conor’s state police uniform. Maybe felt a twinge of concern, given the fog of weed smoke in the air.
“Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want?” he asked.
“This won’t take long,” Conor said. “I’m Pennsylvania State Police Lieutenant Conor McCaffrey. This is Jojo Kaufmann. You are Kyle Barnes, right?”
“I’m Kyle.”
“Mr. Barnes. I want to talk to you about the lawsuit you filed against?—”
“I didn’t file any lawsuit. My father filed the lawsuit.”
“All right. The lawsuit your father filed against Vanguard Construction Company.”
The young man let out a sigh, muttered, “Thanks a bunch for interrupting.” Then he clicked on something and the screen in front of him went blank. “What do you want to talk to me about?”
“I understand that the lawsuit was settled in favor of Vanguard Construction Company about a week ago.”
“Uh-huh, so why does that mean the state police are suddenly standing in my living room?”
“You do know that Tom Garner was one of the men shot at Royal Oaks Ski Resort last Wednesday.”
“Hell yes, I know. I celebrated. Hip, hip hooray. Glad the old son of a bitch is dead. Wish I could have been the one put the bullet in him.”
Jojo and Conor looked at each other.
“That’s quite an admission,” Conor said.
“Just telling you the truth, that old bastard made my father nuts.”
“It sounds a little like your father was more interested in this lawsuit than you were.”
“Hell yes, he was.” The young man shook his head. “I knew we didn’t have a case. I tried to tell him we didn’t. But he couldn’t deal with what had happened to me. It had to be somebody’s fault.”
“It sounded from the court proceeding like it was your fault.”
“It was my fault. I told my father that. I told him I unhooked the harness, but he went ahead with the lawsuit anyway. You don’t know my father. He was in a rage at the hospital when they brought me in. Furious! Was looking for somebody he could choke, somebody he could punch out!”
“But you said you were glad Mr. Garner got shot.”
“Hell yeah, I was glad. The old bastard was such a hard ass nobody could work for him. His crews were revolving doors. He deserved to get shot. Wish I could have done the honors.”
“But you say it wasn’t you.”
The young man looked at them quizzically. “Are you serious? You think I …?”
He threw his head back and roared with laughter.
In between peals of laughter, he gasped out, “So this shooter dude … I heard he climbed up on the top of the roof of one of those chalets. That right?”
Conor nodded.
“Well, I ain’t done a whole lot of climbing lately.
” The young man turned then and wheeled out around the table, and Jojo and Conor saw then that he was in a wheelchair.
“I fell eighteen feet onto a pile of boards and broke my back. I ain’t never gonna walk again, and my father filed a lawsuit just ’cause he wanted somebody to pay for that. ”
Jojo launched a question out into the air. “Do you think it’s possible your father shot Tom Garner?”
Kyle thought for a moment, cocked his head to the side, and when he spoke again, he sounded more serious and a lot less high.
“Look, I’m sure my father wouldn’t have …
He’s not that kind of man. He’s not violent.
He’s all hat and no cattle, you know what I mean.
Just blusters but wouldn’t really hurt a fly. ”
Jojo and Conor left the apartment and went back out to the cruiser. They’d both independently reached the same conclusion. Throughout their questioning of Kyle Barnes, he had been telling the truth … until he answered Jojo’s final question.
At that point, he was lying.