Chump Change by G. M. Ford Read Free Book Online Page A

“I’m suspended,” he said.
    “You oughta be,” I said quickly. “Because of you, a man’s dead.”
    Right away, I didn’t like the way that sounded. Something a bit too self-righteous to be coming out of my mouth. Nobody with my record had any reason to talk.
    As was my unfortunate habit, I made things worse by shutting the door in his face. When I reached into the closet, intending to shut down the monitor, I expected to see the back of him heading dejectedly back to his car. I could have lived with that . . . easy. But no . . . he hadn’t moved; he was still standing there on the front porch staring at the ancient alder planks. I heaved a sigh and cracked open the door.
    “What is it you want, kid?”
    “I didn’t mean to kill anybody,” he blurted.
    “When it comes to life and death, kid, your intentions don’t matter.”
    “He was a burglar,” the kid began. “He broke into that house.”
    The kid was trying to sell me the same crap he’d unsuccessfully been trying to sell himself, with much the same result. I could tell. I had lots of firsthand experience with the art of self-delusion.
    “He was just a poor, broke-down soul,” I said softly.
    The kid stopped studying his shoes and met my gaze. “He said your name.”
    I hadn’t realized he’d been close enough to hear. Couldn’t see any reason to deny it now, though. “Yeah,” I said. “He did.”
    “How’d he know your name?” the kid wanted to know.
    “It’s a long story.”
    We stood there in silence for what must have been a full minute. Him on one side of the threshold, me on the other. Finally, I pulled the door all the way open.
    “You might as well come in,” I said.
    He followed me into the back of the house. Sat in the kitchen while I finished up the laundry and tried to get a handle on my feelings. I’m usually good at putting things behind me. At moving on and letting the past be the past. Call it what you will, but it’s just the way I am. I get over things. I could spend a lot of time feeling bad about how my old man came by all the dough. But I don’t. That was then; this is now. I was a kid. Whatever the dirty deeds, they had nothing to do with me. I just got lucky, that’s all.
    This thing with Gordo. That was something different. I was having trouble throwing that one out the window. I could feel all the coulda s, the woulda s , and the shoulda s gnawing at my insides. Somebody shoulda told him that maybe he wanted to try something with training wheels before jumping on a full-dress Harley. Maybe that woulda changed everything. Coulda ended up completely different, if I’d only . . . yadda, yadda. Let the flogging begin.
    It was damn near eleven thirty by the time I’d finished telling him the story, over whiskey and bologna sandwiches. I slid the dishes into the sink, where the maids would probably find them before they petrified. I had my back to him when he asked.
    “What do you figure he was doing out there anyway?”
    I wiped my hands with a dish towel and thought it over. My brain kept running the movie of how his back had looked.
    “He rented that house, a while back. I think maybe he was trying to come back to the last place he could remember being happy,” I said.
    The notion proved to be a conversation stopper. For the next couple of minutes, both of us drifted off into our own little worlds.
    “All I ever wanted to be was a cop,” he slurred, finally.
    I’d been so lost in my own thoughts, I hadn’t noticed the kid was sloshed.
    “Maybe you better start making other plans, kid. They’re gonna hang you out to dry on this one, sure as God made little green apples.”
    I probably shouldn’t have said it, but it was true. Either the kid was going to be the scapegoat for Gordy’s death or Lewis County was going to take the rap, and somehow, I just couldn’t see the county fessing up to anything.
    He didn’t want to hear it, of course. He was still young and green enough to think life was