Read Online A Stranger Lies There by Stephen Santogrossi - Free Book Online Page A

Deirdre and certainly not the victim, whom I didn’t even know.
    The bulb was still flickering over my head. I reached up and gently twisted it, felt one of the contacts engage in the socket. The fixture lit up brightly, no longer blinking.
    Deirdre was right. The boy was dead. I wouldn’t indulge my tendencies toward guilt or self-pity any longer. I was out of it.
    My head clear for the first time since yesterday morning, I walked over to the bench where I’d left several of the smaller pieces for a French provincial dresser I was building. The design had come from an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while.
    In prison, an old trustee named Walter had befriended me. Over the course of a few years, he taught me everything he knew about woodworking, his trade before being convicted of murder. He’d killed his granddaughter’s preschool teacher, who’d been caught by a custodian molesting her after hours. Filled with rage, Walt took matters into his own hands, then turned himself in. They gave him ten years, a long time for a man his age. Federal time because the molester was a teacher for the Head Start government program. But Walt was treated like royalty in prison after word spread that he’d gotten rid of a child molester. Many privileges were his for the asking: cigarettes, snacks, a TV in his cell. Another perk was the job of running the prison woodshop, where he built and repaired tables and chairs from the mess hall and library, and furniture from the administrators’ offices, among other things. With over thirty years in woodworking, he had a lot of knowledge and expertise to impart. Just watching the touch he had in his strong, nimble, well-worn hands gave me a great respect for the craft. It seemed ironic, though, that a prison term could have provided me with such a fulfilling and gratifying trade, one that also paid so well.
    After moving out here, I’d built a steady business slowly, one customer at a time. Most of my tools came from garage sales and business liquidations. I rented a space at Village Fest, the weekly craft fair and farmer’s market held in downtown Palm Springs. There, I sold the furniture I built and refurbished, and developed a discriminating clientele who appreciated the craftsmanship of my work. The piece I was working on now was for a customer in Las Palmas, the wealthy, old money section of Palm Springs.
    The bottom rails for the dresser were the first things I looked at. They’d been kerfed, soaked in water, then bent by using clamps tightened on the wood until the proper curve was attained. By now, they were sufficiently dry, so I removed the clamps and inspected the rails. They perfectly matched the contours of the cabriole legs sitting next to them.
    I brought the legs to another bench, where I’d left the molded drawer fronts I recently assembled and shaped. Those needed some light sanding to smooth out the seams, but I decided to finish off the legs I’d just put down instead. I found the headset radio and turned on KCLB-FM. John O started a set about drug abuse with a Guns N’ Roses song called “The Garden.” I wondered if Deirdre was listening inside.
    I began the final shaping of one of the dresser legs by tightening a vise around the lag screw bored into it. Picked up a wood rasp to round the foot, turned up the music a little and set to work. I’d just gotten into a rhythm of short, even strokes in time with the music when I thought of something that had been bothering me since yesterday, niggling at the back of my brain.
    I put the file down and removed my headphones, not bothering to switch the radio off. I went into the house. Deirdre was in the bedroom with the TV on and no sound, and I got no response from her when I turned it off. She was asleep on top of the covers, the house still warm at this hour. I watched her for a moment. Her breathing was deep and peaceful. A faint smile on her face. What was she