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ROY MASON LIVED A BLOCK west of Riverfront Park in San Marco. His house was a long, sprawling ranch with off-white stucco siding and a Spanish style roof. He didn’t have a perfect view of the St. Johns, but as I drove down his driveway I could see water through the trees.
I parked Alex’s Jeep behind the middle door of a three-car garage. The first door—the one on the left—was wide open. Inside was an antique pickup truck painted mint green. The tailgate said CHEVROLET in white lettering.
I stood just outside the garage. I looked past the truck and saw the open hood. I didn’t see Roy. “Hello? Anybody here?”
Roy poked his head out from under the hood. “Yes? Can I help you?” He walked toward me as he pulled a rag from his pocket and wiped his hands. He raised his chin, his lower jaw protruding as he narrowed his eyes and looked down at me over his nose. “You’re Henry Walsh, is that right?”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Even though age appeared to be catching up to Roy, with his cropped white hair and receding hairline, he was still built like a lumberjack. He had big shoulders and big hands and a square jaw with white stubble on his face. “Now, I try not to get involved in my boy’s business but I understand you took a crack at him?” He folded over the red rag and stuffed it in his back pocket. “Broke his nose. Did you know that?”
I took a step back from the garage. “I was defending myself. He came after me in the parking lot and—”
“The way he tells it, he was just doing the right thing and bringing you the keys you’d left on the bar. Said you sucker punched him.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Uh, that’s not at all what happened.”
Roy kept his stare on me for a moment, then glanced back into the garage. “Like I said, I don’t get involved in my boy’s business unless I have to. I’m sure the time’ll come, you two can hash it out.” He ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip and stepped past me, shot a stream of brown spit into the flower bed along the driveway.
“Roy, I’m sure you know why I’m here?”
He looked off into his yard, took a moment before he answered. “If it’s got to do with John’s death, then I’ve said all I’m going to say. Sheriff’s Office concluded their investigation. And as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing else to it.”
Roy took a step into the garage with a slight limp as he walked back to the front end of his truck. He grabbed a wrench and stuck his head under the hood.
I walked toward him and stopped just past the driver’s side door. “What year is it?”
Roy kept his head down over the engine. “The truck? She’s a nineteen-forty-seven Chev-ro-let. Feels like I’d been working on her for half my life. Was my old man’s, but he let it rot out in a field ‘till he passed away at ninety-four. Finally got my hands on it. Had a Studebaker out there, too. Straight outta the Indiana factory where he was from. But my wife at the time—we lived in a smaller house than this one—said either I get rid of one of ‘em or she was going to leave.” He lifted his eyes from the engine and looked up at me. “Wife’s been gone for fifteen years.” He scratched the top of his head. “Never did get around to fixin’ up the Studebaker.”
Roy turned from the truck, put the wrench down in a toolbox behind him on a workbench. He grabbed the screwdrivers he had laid out on a red rag on the fender, rolled them up in the rag and put them in the same toolbox. He let the hood down, being careful, until it clicked.
He excused himself past me and stepped inside the driver’s side door with one foot still on the ground outside the car. He turned his ear toward the steering wheel as if listening for something, then turned the key and turned over the engine.
At first it didn’t want to start. It clucked like a dying chicken. Then it roared and Roy smiled as it settled down into a purr. He pulled his left foot into the car and closed the door. With his elbow hanging out the open window he backed the truck out of the garage.
I stepped outside and stood in the driveway watching him.
With the truck still running, Roy opened the door and stepped out onto the driveway. He walked back into the garage toward the workbench.
I followed behind him. With his back to me he closed the top on the toolbox, hung a pair of pliers up on the pegboard in front of him.
“Roy,” I said. “I know you’re—”
He put up his hand. “Give me a minute, will you? Can’t leave a mess like this laying around.”
I looked around the garage. In the area behind the other two garage doors were two other cars. Newer models. One was a black Mercedes and the other—on the far end of the garage—was a Range Rover.
Roy wiped his hands with the red rag from his back pocket and folded it over into a neat square and left it on the workbench. He turned to face me and leaned back with his arms folded at his chest. “You were saying?”
“I know you and John were good friends...”
“We were like brothers.”
I gave him a slight nod. “What do you know about his stepson? You must know him pretty well?”
“Nate?” He nodded. “Haven’t seen him in oh, I don’t know...at least a couple of years. Hope he’s more of a man than he was when I last saw him...”
I wasn’t sure what he meant but I didn’t think there was any significance. “Nate came looking for me, because he’d heard I was working for Angela.”
Roy scratched the top of his head. “Just so you and me are on the same page, I want to make sure you understand where I’m coming from with regard to this so-called investigation.”
“I do. I understand. But I also want to make sure you understand I have a job to do, and I intend to see it through to the end. Even if I determine John’s death was indeed an accident, then I’ve done my job. But I won’t allow someone to get in my way just because he doesn't believe in what I’m doing.”
Roy squinted his eyes. “But don’t you have an obligation to your client to let her know the chances are real good there’s nothing there? That all you’re doing is wasting time...and someone’s hard-earned money?”
“I don’t believe that to be the case.”
Roy shook his head. “It was a tragic accident. There ain’t nothing more to it.” He walked past me and I followed him out to the driveway. He reached into the truck and turned off the engine, pulled out the keys and stuck them in his pocket.
“I gotta be honest with you, Roy. I’ve already got a list of suspects. And, in fact, the way your son acted has me kind of scratching my head. I can’t help but wonder what he has to hide.”
Roy stuck out his chest like a rooster in heat. “I’ll tell you right now, my boy values those closest to him...and those who’re close to me. Can you blame him for being suspicious when a stranger comes by his bar, asks questions about a man my boy’s known most of his life?”
I let out a slight laugh, shaking my head. “Sounds to me you’re admitting there was more to my run-in with your son than just a sucker punch?”
Roy stood still for a moment, then turned and headed toward the stairs leading to his front door. He stopped and turned back to me. “You want to snoop around my house? My businesses? My kid’s business? Well, I’ll promise you something. The Mason’s aren’t going to just sit there and let you do whatever you’d like. You keep doing what you’re doing and I suggest you make sure you prepare yourself for whatever may come your way.”
I crossed my arms at my chest. “Jesus, Roy. Are you threatening me?”
Roy walked up the stairs, stopped at his front door and pulled it open. He turned before he went inside. “Just letting you know where I stand.”