Halloweenland Read Free Page B

don’t!”
    Janet stopped and turned around. Her face was flushed with anger. “Why the hell not! You were raped, and now you’re pregnant! And I want to watch that son of a bitch Ganley swing by his balls in jail!”

C HAPTER E IGHT
     
    Bud Ganley stretched out and crossed his long legs and wanted more than anything to put his boots up on the desk. But he instinctively knew that wouldn’t be a good idea. He had the feeling Grant would kick them off, and there were a half dozen other cops of various ranks in the room who would like to take a poke at him. He’d already gotten rid of his tobacco chaw at Grant’s insistence, and knew from the murderous look on the detective’s face that if he gave the old man reason enough to pound him, Grant just might do it. And every other cop in the place would surely look the other way.
    “Smells like paint in here,” Ganley said, stretching his arms over his head and yawning.
    “You know something?” Grant asked, tapping his pencil on the desk and staring at Ganley.
    “No,” Ganley said, looking at the ceiling.
    “Well, I’ll tell you anyway. The older I get, the more tired I get of guys like you. I’ve known you since you were, what, seventeen? And you’re still the same punk at thirty-four.”
    Ganley smiled, showing white teeth through his thick handlebar moustache. “Thirty-five next week, Detective. You gonna throw me a party?”
    Ganley looked down from the ceiling. For a moment their eyes locked, and Ganley’s smile went away.
    Man, this guy has weird eyes
, Ganley thought.
The rest of him is a complete wreck, but those eyes have seen way too much.
    For a brief moment, a pang of something almost like pity went through the young man. Then that, too, went away.
    Ganley grinned. “Can we get to it, please? I’ve gotta be back at work.”
    “As long as it takes, Bud,” Grant said, lost in his notebook now.
    Suddenly Ganley sat up straight and put his hands on the desk. “Look,” he said, trying to make his voice sound reasonable, “you know I didn’t lay a hand on Marianne—”
    “I’m not sure of that, Bud.”
    The way Grant’s voice sounded sent a chill through Ganley. “You’re not gonna try to tell me that DNA test—”
    Grant was regarding him with a level stare now, then gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
    “That’s
impossible
! I didn’t do anything to her! I swear I didn’t! Petee swore up and down I was with him the whole time! The nurses at the hospital—”
    “You had time after you left the hospital,” Grant said evenly. “And you certainly had motive.”
    Ganley exploded, standing up. His face grew red. “That was fifteen years ago! And those charges were dropped!”
    Grant tapped his pencil against his head. “Not in here they weren’t. You tried to rape Marianne when she was in high school.”
    “I was in love with her! And I got drunk and a little bitout of hand!” Ganley abruptly sat down and put his head in his hands. “Oh, man . . .”
    Grant waited patiently. Ganley looked at the floor for a few breaths, then looked up at the detective. “Look,” he said earnestly, “straight talk, okay?”
    “Fine with me.”
    “What I did back then . . .” He took a deep breath. “What I did back then was way wrong. I even knew it at the time. I guess they call it date rape now. Or at least attempted date rape. But I was nuts about her, absolutely out of my head. And I knew we were going to break up, and my head was just full of snakes and I was drunk—”
    “No excuse. Not now, not back then.”
    Ganley took another deep breath. “Okay, you’re right. And thank God I didn’t really do it.”
    “But you would have, if Jack Carlin hadn’t knocked you on your ass.”
    Ganley nodded. “Yeah.”
    “I always found it puzzling how you and Jack became such good friends, especially after he and Marianne hooked up after that night.”
    “It just happened, man! Jack’s a great guy—
was
a great guy . . .” He put his head in