Free The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 by Elizabeth George Page B

now began narrating his own criminal record and the various OG motherfuckers with whom he had compiled this record.
    â€œYou’ve been in prison?” Loomis said.
    â€œOh, hell yeah,” Bobito said. “I’m a ex-con. Did a dog’s year in Pondville. That’s like seven on the outside, chief.”
    â€œWhat’d they get you for?”
    â€œFelony two. Check fraud. Tried to buy some body spray for my boo at Bed, Bath & Beyond, where, by the way, I fucking
worked.
The whole thing was a reverse sting. These corporate lawyers do not fuck around. They flat-out gangster.” Bobito finished his cigarette and flicked the butt into the koi pond. “I been thinking about your situation,” he said. “I’m prepared to help you out in the form of personal security services.” He produced a crisp business card with the image of a rooster in boxing trunks. “Check out the website.”
    â€œThank you,” Loomis said. “I’ll do that.”
    â€œCheap and deep, chief. That’s how I do what got to get done.”
    Â 
    Loomis spent the afternoon compiling suspects. He came up with two: his father-in-law, Kent, and The Lesbian Anita.
    Kent was a soft-spoken Kansan who sang in a barbershop quartet and had the mustache to prove it. He had grown up on a farm but worked at a car dealership now, sweet-talking gullible sophomores into sleek Korean shitboxes. Kate was his only daughter; she looked almost exactly like his late wife, Mindy. He’d called her “Mindy” the previous Christmas, then wept without embarrassment, a practice endorsed by his men’s group. Kent despised Loomis in that affable midwestern manner that often passed for affection on the coasts.
    â€œWell hello there, stranger,” he said when Loomis greeted him. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”
    â€œNo reason. Kate mentioned you had a little surgery.”
    â€œOh, jiminy. I wouldn’t call a colonoscopy surgery. They just run a thingamabob up your bottom and broadcast your guts on a little TV.”
    â€œStill.”
    â€œThere’s only three things that can kill a farmer,” Kent said. “Lightning. Rolling a tractor. And old age.”
    Loomis wanted to say,
What about cancer?
This was how his mind worked. It had made him popular in college. “Hey, by the way, thanks for sending Izzy that birthday check. It was very generous.”
    â€œNonsense.”
    â€œBetween you and my mom she’s gonna bank her first million by twelve.”
    â€œIt’s a good thing to save with the economy the way it is.”
    Loomis cleared his throat. “I hope you got the thank-you card Izzy sent along.”
    â€œI did. Lovely. I’m going to put it on the wall here.” Kent gestured at his wall over there in Kansas.
    â€œGood,” Loomis said. “Because I wouldn’t want you to be angry
on account of a thank-you card.
”
    After a pause, Kent said, “Why are you talking like that?”
    â€œLike what?” Loomis said.
    â€œLike a dimwit. Like someone sounding out the words.”
    â€œI’m just saying that I hope you’d tell me if you were angry at me, Kent.”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œOr disappointed.”
    â€œI don’t get it. Is everything okay with you and Kate?”
    â€œWhy? Did she say something to you?”
    â€œThis is a very odd conversation, Todd. I have to wonder if you’ve been drinking.”
    So this was Loomis now: sowing panic among the elderly. The beers had been a mistake—the last two, anyway. “I’m sorry. Work’s been tough. They’re downsizing our group. I’ve lost a lot of buddies.” He was thinking about Kent, alone in his ranch house, tying bass lures, making cups of Maxwell House. It was some ginned-up notion he had about loneliness, being left behind. He heard Kent release a half sob into the phone, then realized it was