Read Online The Buck Stops Here by Mindy Starns Clark - Free Book Online Page A

a photograph of Bryan, with the caption: “Sparks Held for Manslaughter; Architect’s Life Cut Short in Hit-and-Run.”
    Bryan’s photo was a professional head shot that had been taken for a company brochure the year before. In the picture he looked studious and handsome, brown hair cut short, his wire-rimmed glasses adding just the right intellectual touch. The article had apparently been written with information supplied by one of Bryan’s brothers, who was quoted as saying, “Bryan was a very special guy. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him.”
    That was the last article that earned the front page. There were other mentions inside later issues of the paper, but the whole thing eventually became less about the specific incident and more about the perils of drinking and boat driving. When it had degenerated into mere statistics, I concluded my search. As neither the killer nor the victim were locals, there didn’t seem to be any further follow-up articles.
    At least I had some names. I returned the tapes, signed out at the reference desk, and wandered from the library, my notebook and pen in hand, pausing at a pay phone near the front door to look in the local phone book. I found a phone number for a man named Harrison Stickles on Oakmont Road and copied it down. I also noted the address of the police station.
    By the time I got back into the car, I realized I was starving. I found a small restaurant up the street and went inside, ordering tea, vegetable soup, and a grilled cheese sandwich, all comfort foods. As I waited, I scribbled thoughts in my notebook, scary thoughts that made me vaguely nauseous.
    Tom feels guilty about Bryan’s death, I wrote. Culpable. Why? Did he drive the boat? Supply the boat? Supply the alcohol? I was reaching, I knew, but there had to be some reason why Tom blamed himself.
    If Tom knew James Sparks, there were many ways he might have somehow been involved in Bryan’s death. I just needed to learn where the gaps were—what Sparks had been doing in the area, who he was with, if it was his boat. I knew that cigarette boats cost a fortune, and that frightened me. Certainly, Tom had a fortune to spend on a big fancy boat if he wanted to.
    By the time the food was put in front of me, my appetite had waned a bit. Still, I sipped at the tea and picked at the sandwich. I needed to keep going, and I wouldn’t last long without eating.
    Once I finished and paid the bill, I called Harrison Stickles from the car, feeling a rush of relief when he confirmed that, yes, he was the same Harry Stickles who had helped out with that hit-and-run boating accident a few years back.
    “Who wants to know?” he drawled. “You a reporter or something?”
    He sounded eager, as though he missed the attention the whole incident had brought him. I said that no, I was the widow of the man who had been killed that day.
    “Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize. What can I do for you?”
    “To be honest,” I replied, not being honest at all, “I was passing through the area and I realized I never really thanked you for your help that day. I just wanted to give you a call and let you know how much I appreciated your efforts.”
    He sounded touched, like a sweet old guy who would have done his civic duty either way, but it was nice to be acknowledged.
    “I did what any good citizen would do,” he told me. “When I saw that boat plow into that guy—uh, I’m sorry, into your husband—I didn’t even think. I just took off behind him.”
    “You followed him all the way to the Docksider Grill?”
    “It weren’t too far. Maybe a mile at the most.”
    “So he was never out of your sight the whole time?”
    This was the question I didn’t want to ask, terrified that perhaps Sparks hadn’t been the one at the wheel that day at all but had somehow made a quick switch with Tom.
    “Never out of my sight,” Harry said. “He wasn’t getting away from me no way, no how.”
    “And there