for seven year’.”
“I know, Lucille. I’m writing a story about someone else for Snapdragon Magazine, and your brother’s name came up, so I need some background on him. And you can call me Aaron.”
I got up and started to pace, which is a habit I have whenever the call I’m on is not routine, or I have to be on my best behavior. Like when my mother calls.
“I don’t know what I can tell ya, Aaron. My brother was a bad guy who killed some women and paid the price for it.” Lucille was nothing if not to the point.
“Well, tell me. Did he ever mention a man by the name of Louis Gibson?”
“No. He did know a Marvin Gibson, I think. Worked in the Mobil station on Route. . .”
“I don’t think that was him, Lucille. Did Branford ever go to Washington, D.C.? Ever give any money to political causes, get involved in groups against abortion, anything like that?” Okay, so I was grasping at straws. I was hanging by a hair, literally.
“No, sir. I don’t think Branford even noticed there was politics. Only time he ever joined anything was when he joined the gun club, and I think that was just to meet girls.” I did my very best not to speculate on the kind of girls one meets at the gun club, and pressed on.
“How did Branford make a living after the oil rig shut down?” I asked. “That must have been tough.”
Lucille took a long pause, which I initially thought was reflection. After repeated playings of the tape, I finally discerned a long pull on a bottle of some beverage. From the burp that followed, I’d guess beer.
“Well, it was rough,” she agreed. “He never really held a steady job after that. Just bummed around, picked up money doing odd construction work, but there wasn’t much of that, either. He actually sold his blood a couple of times for medical research at a lab near here. Then, he just took to driving around, and as it turned out, to shooting people.”
“Can you imagine why DNA evidence would surface that suggests your brother was in a Washington, D.C. apartment a little over a month ago?”
This time, the pause was out of sheer confusion. “Did I hear you right? There’s DNA of Branford in Washington last month?”
“I can’t be sure, but that is the indication.” I was still pacing, and I’m willing to bet Lucille was on her feet, too.
“I can’t tell you, Aaron,” she said. “I saw the man fry more than seven years ago, with my own eyes. If he was in Washington last month, it’s only because he rose from the dead, and I don’t think that’s all that likely.”
“No, ma’am,” I said.
Chapter
Sixteen
Branford Purell’s perplexing insistence on staying dead was not improving my day in any way, shape, or form. Luckily, Preston Burke was doing his very best to cheer me up, and had finished his task by 11:30. I stood back on the sidewalk in front of my house to admire his hardwork.
“You do nice work, Pres,” I said. “If it was painted, I’d never know there’d been any damage.”
“I could paint it, Aaron,” he countered. “Another two hundred, and I’ll scrape and paint the whole thing.”
I weighed the two hundred bucks against the mental image of me on a ladder in front of my house on the weekend as the weather turned colder, scraping the thin wood between window panes. It wasn’t even close.
“Go for it, Preston,” I said. He happily went off to Haberman’s Hardware for some sandpaper and paint.
The only thing to do now was have lunch. I was still trying desperately to lose that last nagging twenty pounds, so I went to Hallie’s Coffee House for a grilled chicken salad, which I brought home in the environmentally disastrous Styrofoam package that all New Jersey diners consider de rigeur.
You may have noticed that nowhere in that paragraph did I mention going out to investigate the stink bomb incidents. You are a remarkably astute reader.
The fact was, I couldn’t bring myself to de facto accuse little kids without a shred of evidence to back up my claims. I needed something, anything to hang a theory on, and I had absolutely nothing.
So I pondered, which is what I’m best at before two in the afternoon. I read Fax McCloskey’s latest missive, detailing with exhaustive thoroughness the Washington, D.C. Police Department’s examination of FBI files that had virtually nothing to do with Legs Gibson’s