More Twisted

asked.
    “He’s my late brother’s son,” Bill said.
    “He really is your nephew?”
    “Much as I hate to say it, yeah.”
    The sheriff put the gun away. “That Sloan, the manwho called the tow truck from here—he had this idea that maybe Greg was that escapee. We thought he’d held you hostage.”
    “What escapee?”
    “A killer from that prison west of here. A psychopath. He escaped a couple of hours ago.”
    “No!” Agnes said breathlessly. “We didn’t have the news on tonight.”
    The sheriff told them what Sloan had mentioned about how odd Greg had behaved—and how the Willises clearly didn’t want him there, were even afraid of him.
    Agnes nodded. “See, we . . .”
    Her voice faded and she glanced at her husband, who said, “It’s okay, honey, you can tell him.”
    “When Bill lost his job last year, we didn’t know what we were going to do. We only had a little savings and my job at the library, well, that wasn’t bringing in much money. So we had to borrow some. The bank wouldn’t even talk to us so we called Greg.”
    Clearly ashamed, Bill shook his head. “He’s the richest one in the family.”
    “Him?” Sheriff Mills asked.
    Agnes said, “Yep. He’s a plumber . . . no, sorry, a ‘plumbing contractor.’ Makes money hand over fist. Has eight trucks. He inherited the business when Bill’s brother died.”
    Her husband: “Well, he made me a loan. Insisted on a second mortgage on the house, of course. And plenty of interest too. More’n the banks woulda charged. Was real obnoxious about it, since we never really had him and his dad over when he was growing up—my brother and medidn’t get along too good. But he wrote us a check and nobody else would. I thought I’d have another job by now but nothing came up. And unemployment ran out. When I couldn’t make the payments to him I stopped returning his phone calls. I was so embarrassed. He finally drove over here tonight and stopped by unannounced. He gave us hell. Threatening to foreclose, drive us out in the street.”
    “That’s when Mr. Sloan showed up. We were hoping he’d stay. It was a nightmare sitting here listening to him go on and on.”
    “Sloan said he was scarred. Like knife wounds.”
    “Accidents on the job, I guess,” Bill said.
    “What’d he mean about a woman who died a few years ago?”
    Nodding, Bill said, “He wouldn’t tell us exactly what he meant.” He looked at Agnes. “I’d guess that must’ve been his girlfriend. She died in a car wreck and Greg sort of inherited her son for a few months. It was a mess—Greg’s not the best father, as you can imagine. Finally, her sister took the boy.”
    The sheriff remembered something else that Sloan had said. “He said he heard something in the other room. It seemed suspicious to him.”
    Agnes blushed fiercely. “That was Sandy.”
    “Your daughter?”
    A nod. The woman couldn’t continue. Bill said, “She came home with her boyfriend. They went into her room so she could change out of her uniform before they went out. The next thing you know—well, you can figure it out . . . . I told her to respect us. I told her not to be with him when we were home. She doesn’t care.”
    So it was all a misunderstanding, Sheriff Mills reflected.
    Bill laughed faintly. “And you thought Greg was the killer? That’s wild.”
    “Wasn’t that far-fetched,” the sheriff said. “Think about it. The guy escaped at five tonight. That’d be just enough time to steal a car and get to your place from Durrant in early evening.”
    “Guess that’s right,” Bill said.
    The sheriff returned to the door and started to open it.
    Bill said, “Wait a minute, Hal. You said Durrant?”
    “Right. That’s where the prison is that guy escaped from.”
    Bill looked at Agnes. “Didn’t that fellow Sloan say he’d just come here from Durrant?”
    “Yeah, he did. I’m sure.”
    “Really?” the sheriff asked. He returned to the Willises. Then asked, “What else did you know about him?”
    “Nothing much really. Just that he said he sold computers.”
    “Computers?” The sheriff frowned. “Around here?”
    “That’s what he said.”
    This was odd; Hatfield was hardly a high-tech area of the state. The closest retail computer store was fifteen miles south of here. “Anything else?”
    “He was pretty evasive, now that I think about it. Didn’t say much of anything. Except he did say his parents were dead.”
    “And he didn’t seem very