Read Online Hiding Tom Hawk by Robert Neil Baker - Free Book Online

once, yesterday.”
    “How can I put this? He doesn’t like you much. He referred to you as ‘that thug.’”
    “We have differing views on military service.”
    “Oh. But one of you had a visitor who was overcome by smoke, came to, and took off.”
    Tom lied. Smoothly, he thought. “It had to be his visitor. You should talk to my roommate some more. I came here a week ago from Arizona. I don’t know anyone and hadn’t even moved in.”
    “I didn’t realize all that. We were hoping you might help us to understand why this man was in a corner behind the door, and whether he may have caused the fire.”
    “I can’t help you. It must have been someone the roommate doesn’t want to talk to you about.”
    “I see—his visitor, not yours?”
    “His.” Tom may have stated this too firmly. Did Makinen see how much he was sweating?
    The campus cop studied him for an uncomfortable moment and gave up. “All right, we’ll talk to your roommate again. Someone started that fire. Maybe our visitor will still reappear and explain himself.” He sounded like he didn’t believe his own words, but he nodded to Tom and left.
    The housing clerk returned and looked at him indifferently. Tom requested, “Since I’ve been burned out, I’d like a refund of my housing money. I’ve found a permanent place off-campus.”
    He waited to be grilled on where he would be living, prepared to lie and to either give his old address in Houghton or to make one up. But the clerk only glanced at the ID again and nodded. “I’ve still got your bank cashier’s check here somewhere. I’ll get it for you and void out everything from yesterday.”
    “That’s perfect,” Tom assured him.
    ****
    Getting in and out of the tiny Nash with the screwed-up shoulder and back drove Tom crazy. Plus he had a sensation of being watched as he struggled to exit it at the B&B. Maybe he was right, because Beth was at the door a second or two after he rang the bell.
    “You’re ready to move in?”
    She was being friendly again. He still held hope she wanted his presence for benefits beyond the paltry added revenue. Then he remembered Claire telling him he wasn’t as pretty a boy as he let himself think. Where the hell was Claire, anyway?
    He nodded. “If the offer still stands.”
    “It certainly does. Come look at the room and see if it will do.”
    It was fine. It was like she’d described it: run down, but clean and comfortable looking. It was a corner room with three good-sized windows and was only a touch smaller than Robert’s. “This is great,” he asserted, giving the double bed a test bounce.
    “Good. I’ll keep Robert from following you around making amends. He broke a vase the day he moved in, and it took me three days to get him to stop apologizing about it. I think his mother made him this way. I met her once and she’s quite a piece of work.”
    It was Dani, not Robert, that Tom was worrying about. But he said, “I know he’s not a student and he works delivering pizzas. Is that his whole life?”
    “No. He works for a local guy doing several things.”
    She had answered reluctantly, he thought. “I think he told me he has lived here for a week?”
    “Yeah. It seems longer. Sorry. I shouldn’t talk about my guests that way. Robert is excitable and it’s probably Gary who makes him so jumpy. I’d be a nervous wreck if I had to work for that man.”
    “Gary Grant? Grant’s Grocery?”
    “Uh-huh. Where the geriatric gang gathers and gossips.”
    He wanted to ask her more questions about Grant, but she was already shifting position uncomfortably, and he wasn’t about to do anything that would change her mind about his suitability as a boarder. “Can I get my things from the car and move in now?”
    “Absolutely. I’ll help you.”
    Tom pushed two weeks’ rent on her (part of Robert’s money). Once he felt he’d unpacked sufficiently to establish himself in this new kingdom, he went to find her and let the conversation