Free Die a Stranger by Steve Hamilton Page B

if I talked to him again, it would come to me.
    I parked by the police department entrance and went inside. The officer on duty told me Chief Benally was unavailable. That got my mind racing again. He’s with Vinnie right now, I thought. Vinnie contacted him again and the chief has raced off to go help him.
    “Just tell him to call me,” I said to the officer. “As soon as he gets back.”
    I left my cell phone number. I thanked the man. The whole transaction was perfectly polite and reasonable, but as I walked out, there were two other officers coming in. They held the door open for me. I know I was just imagining it, but it felt like they were giving me a little extra space. Like right this way, sir. Have a good day and don’t hurry back.
    *   *   *
     
    I am my own worst enemy. I realize that. I get something in my head and I can’t let go of it and I drive myself and everyone else around me absolutely crazy. Even when I know I’m doing it, I just can’t stop. That’s what led me to drive into the Soo and to stop in at the multiplex. I wasn’t there to see a movie, God knows. I was there to see Leon Prudell.
    When I did my little ill-fated stint as a private investigator, working for a local lawyer, Leon was the man whose job I took. He paid me a visit at the Glasgow one night and tried to take me apart in the parking lot. From that auspicious beginning, a strange sort of friendship grew. I hated being a private eye, even before the whole thing blew up in my face. On the other hand, being a private eye was the only thing Leon ever wanted, ever since he was a kid. He even tried to set up his own practice in a rented office on Ashmun Street. There just isn’t enough business around here, even if you double as a bail bondsman. He’d been working a string of odd jobs ever since. His latest was right here at the multiplex, serving popcorn with yellow sludge on top to teenagers.
    You look at him and you see an overweight local guy in a flannel shirt, with that wild orange hair on his head, and you might think this kind of job is the only thing he’s qualified to do. But he has a nose for investigation. He still knows how to break down a situation and look at it from every angle. That’s why I still go to him whenever I need help.
    The lobby was pretty much empty, with another sunny July day going on outside. I asked the kid at the ticket booth if Leon was going to be around today, but he seemed not to know who I was talking about. We circled around that point for a while, because how many orange-haired adult men could actually work there? Eventually, I got passed off to a manager who told me that Leon had quit about a week ago.
    Good for him, I thought as I walked out. I got back into the truck and drove out of town, just south to Rosedale. I pulled up in front of the Prudell house, with that tire swing in the front yard, hanging from the lowest branch. The car was gone, but I knocked on the door anyway. Nobody answered. As I stood on the front porch, I looked around. Something seemed out of place. That’s when I remembered the camper that was usually parked next to the driveway. One of those fold-up things you tow behind your car. It was gone now, which could mean only one thing. Leon and his entire family were on vacation.
    After I got back into the truck, I just sat there for a while, staring out the windshield at nothing. If Leon was really your friend, you’d already know he was on vacation. You would have talked about it. He would have told you where he was going and how excited his kids were. You would have wished him a great trip. Maybe you’d even be stopping by his house just to make sure the mail was stopped and the newspapers weren’t piling up at the front door.
    But no, you come see him only when you want something from him. When you need his help, you know he’ll be only too willing to oblige. Then you forget about him until the next time.
    Hell, you did the same thing to Janet last night.