Page 42 of An Evil Heart
The shirt he’s wearing looks as if someone tried to tear it from his body. Several buttons have popped off at the waist, revealing a belly covered with a sprinkling of dark hair. There’s dribble of blood beneath his left nostril. An abrasion the size of a marble next to his eyebrow.
“Don’t lie to me,” I say.
“We weren’t fighting.”
“I saw you, Wayne. When I pulled up.”
He tosses me a sheepish look. “Look, we had a few beers. A few laughs. We started talking MMA, you know, mixed martial arts, cage fighting, and one thing led to another.”
I laugh. “Do you seriously expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth.” Looking uncomfortable, he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “The tequila didn’t help, I guess.”
Aware that the other men are craning their necks in an effort to eavesdrop, I motion Graber to my Explorer. “Let’s go,” I tell him. “Put your hands against the fender.”
“You’re not going to arrest me, are you?”
“I haven’t decided.”
Throwing up his hands, Graber slogs over to the Explorer. “This is a bunch of crap.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more.”
I follow him to the Explorer. In the back of my mind, I wonder if the fight is about the truck. If it’s about Emily Byler or related in any way to the murder of Aden Karn.
We reach the Explorer. “Put your hands against the fender,” I repeat. “Spread your feet.”
Sighing, he obeys. “I don’t have anything on me.”
“We’ll see.” I don’t expect to find any weapons; I don’t expect anyproblems from him at all. But I go through the motions, mainly to let him know the police showing up isn’t some joke to be laughed at.
“You can turn around,” I tell him.
Turning to me, he leans against the fender, and folds his arms in front of him, petulant.
“You know I could haul both of you to jail right now.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Frowning, he looks down at the ground and shakes his head. “I don’t know what else to say, Chief Burkholder. We didn’t do anything wrong and we sure don’t want any trouble.”
“Two days ago, you and Vernon Fisher were archenemies and arguing over a truck. Now you’re drinking buddies? Wrestling partners?”
“Look, he’s a jerk. We had a legitimate disagreement… I mean, before—” He cuts off the sentence without finishing. “After what happened to Aden… I just didn’t want to deal with it so I gave him his damn money back.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah.”
I wait for him to elaborate. When he doesn’t, I ask, “If you made things right, why were you fighting?”
“Just because we worked out a problem doesn’t mean we like each other.”
It’s a plausible story. I have no way of knowing if he’s telling the truth or lying through his teeth or if reality falls somewhere in between. But I’ve been around long enough to know I’m not getting the whole story.
“Does any of this have to do with Aden Karn?” I ask.
“This isn’t about Aden.”
“What about Emily Byler?” I say, fishing.
