He returned it to the closet shelf, then headed back to the kitchen for another beer. Along the way he spotted his father’s watch on the table. He hadn’t noticed the cracked crystal when he’d brought it home from the hospital. He checked it out. An old Timex. No, not old—ancient. The wind-up type. Typical of him: If the old one still works, why get a new one? This Timex had taken a licking but hadn’t kept on ticking. It had stopped at 12:08.

Wait a sec…

Jack pulled the accident report out of his pocket and unfolded it. He’d scanned through Officer Hernandez’s report. He’d mentioned a call coming in to the station at…where was it? Here.

11:49 P.M.

But that would mean the accident had been reported before it happened. No way. His father’s watch must have been set ahead. Some people did that. Or maybe he’d forgotten to wind it.

But not his father. He’d always been a stickler for the correct time, down to the minute. And he’d always wound his watch at breakfast. Jack had seen him do it a million times.

Hernandez was mistaken about the time of the call. Had to be. But for all his brawn the cop had seemed like a pretty tight, spit-shine type. And hadn’t he said that even though it took him twenty minutes to reach the accident, it looked like it had just happened?

Shaking his head, Jack went to the fridge. He decided against another beer. Right now he needed a gimlet.

Wednesday

1

Jack awoke with a buzzing in his ears. At first he thought it was a mosquito, but this was lower pitched. Then he thought it might be gimlet-related, but he’d had only two. Finally he realized it was coming from outside the window. He lifted his head and looked around, momentarily disoriented by the unfamiliar room.

Oh, yeah. He was at Dad’s place. In the front room. Must have fallen asleep on the couch. He’d found Rio Bravo playing on TNT or some such station and had watched it for about the thirtieth time—not for John Wayne or Dean Martin, and certainly not for Ricky Nelson, but for Walter Brennan. Hands down, Stumpy was his best part, best job, ever—except maybe for his Old Man Clanton in My Darling Clementine. Old Walt made the movie for Jack.

But where was that buzzing coming from?

He rolled off the couch, padded to the kitchen, and squinted through the window.

A groundskeeper was running a weed whacker along the edge of the dead grass bordering the foundation plantings. Was that a long-sleeved flannel shirt he was wearing? In this weather? Where Jack came from a long-sleeved shirt in the summer meant one thing: junkie.

But the weed whacker…he blinked and shook his head…it looked like it was coming out of the guy’s right sleeve.