Chapter 3
Chapter Three
“I’m beginning to 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 one called 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. ”
“Why do you say that?” Dan leaned forward.
Luke huffed. “Because Al was the OSHA guy on site. He was always riding us about taking precautions, staying safe, not taking any risks….”
“OSHA?”
“Occupational Safety and Health Administration,” Gary told Dan. He focused his attention on Luke. “What did you do then?”
“We went to find the boss in the mobile office. We thought he was ripping someone a new one when we got closer, but when Dex peered in the window, the boss was on the phone. Someone was getting a lot of grief. We waited till he’d finished—Al wasn’t going anywhere, was he?
—then we knocked and went in. The boss was the one who called the paramedics. ”
That part of the account had varied little, all the witnesses recounting the same thing.
“We’re seeing Dex tomorrow,” Gary informed Luke.
“Then that’s it? You’ve interviewed all of us?”
“Not quite. We haven’t managed to contact Chris Reed yet.” Gary slipped his notepad into his pocket.
Luke’s face fell. “Well, if you wanna talk to Chris, you’re gonna need to be quick about it.”
Gary frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Did none of the others tell you? Chris got diagnosed with lung cancer couple of years ago. Turns out he hasn’t got long left. Poor bastard.”
“Do you know where we can find him?”
“Sure. He’s in some community care place near Newton. Good Shepherd, I think it’s called.” Luke’s face tightened. “I’ve only visited him the one time, last month. I know these kinda places are good at what they do, but honestly it felt awful seeing him with a load of people waiting to die.”
Dan held out his hand. “Thanks for talking to us, Luke.”
“You’re welcome. Sorry I couldn’t help.” They shook, and Luke stood.
“What do you think happened?” Dan asked him as he headed for the door.
Luke shrugged. “The only thing I can think of is something distracted him and he lost his footing. But that doesn’t answer the one question we’ve all been asking ourselves since it happened.”
“And what’s that?”
“What was he doing up on the roof rafters in the first place?” He inclined his head toward the door. “Can I go now?”
Gary nodded. “Thanks again for your time. Sorry if our visit robbed you of a break.”
Luke waved a hand. “You probably saved me from losing a packet. Some of these guys play cards during their breaks, and my luck’s been crap lately.” With a final nod to both of them, Luke stepped out into the sunlight and closed the door after him.
Gary gave Dan a speculative glance. “Well?”
“He seems genuine enough, but then they all did. No one’s hiding anything—at least nothing to do with our case.”
Interest flickered in Gary’s eyes. “That sounds intriguing.”
“It can sound as intriguing as you like. I’m not about to share what I saw.” Then warmth flooded through him when Gary squeezed his hand.
“Which only goes to confirm what I already knew. You’re an honorable man, Dan Porter.
” Gary released Dan’s hand, then scraped his fingers through his red hair, pushing it back from his forehead.
“What I found interesting about this interview was that the only person we haven’t talked to is the one person who left the others that day. ”
“We haven’t spoken to the foreman yet, but I agree.
No one else mentioned Chris leaving them at any time.
” He gazed inquiringly at Gary. “You think Chris could’ve gone back to plot three, pushed James off the rafters, then returned to the others and continued eating his lunch?
” Dan folded his arms. “Does that sound likely?”
Gary stroked his beard. “Ten minutes, Luke said, between Chris returning and them discovering the body. No one heard James call out when he fell, did they? They have no idea when he died. For all they knew, he could already have been dead when Chris went back to the plot.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong, but….” It was no use.
Something didn’t add up. “Luke didn’t believe Chris to be capable of murder.
And he worked construction for years with no issue.
But I do realize we have to cover every possibility, so maybe we should pay him a visit tomorrow. How far is Newton from the precinct?”
“Less than twenty minutes, given favorable traffic. And if it was Chris, then it looks as if fate has caught up with him.”
They stepped out of the mobile office and walked toward the metal gate where they’d entered. The guy in the safety hat caught up with them.
“Everything okay?”
Gary nodded. “Thanks for your help.”
“No problem.” He opened the gate for them, and they headed for Gary’s car.
As they drew nearer, Gary’s phone rang. He pulled it from his jacket pocket and frowned.
“Unknown number.” He stabbed at the screen.
“Hello?” Gary listened for a moment. “I’m with Dan right now.
I’ll put you on speaker.” He glanced at Dan. “It’s Linda Sebring.”
“Hi, Linda,” Dan greeted her. “Everything okay?”
“You’ve been interviewing the guys who worked with James, haven’t you?”
“Yes. That’s standard procedure,” Gary told her.
“Well, I’ve just had a call from a friend of mine, Carla Reed. Her husband worked with James. She told me one of the men you interviewed came to see Chris last night at the hospice, and Chris became very agitated. Carla and Chris are our neighbors. We’ve known them a long time.”
Dan blinked at the coincidence.
“I still don’t understand why you’re calling,” Gary said in a patient tone.
“You need to visit Chris. You need to talk to him about that day.”
“Linda, we’ve spoken with most of the men who were there. None of them have a clue what happened.”
“You haven’t talked to all of them, have you? You haven’t talked to Chris.”
“But we are going to interview him,” Gary assured her. “What makes you think he’ll tell us anything different?”
“I’m getting to that. Carla called to tell me that after what she just heard, she doesn’t think James’s death was an accident either.”