Murder Takes a Break by Bill Crider

about Henry J. being on my tail.
    There were a number of ways of handling things.   I could have pulled over to the side of the road to see if the Cadillac would continue on its merry way.   If it did, I might get a look at the driver, though I could tell even from a distance that the windows were tinted darker than legally allowable, just like the windows on Big Al's car.
    Or I could have tired some movie stunt, like somehow letting the Cadillac catch up with me and then forcing it off the road by running into its side and running up a big bill at some body shop.  
    I didn't think my insurance would cover any stunt like that, however, even if I survived it, so I decided to see if I could lose whoever it was.   After all, I knew where I was going, and he didn't.  
    At least I thought he didn't.   I wouldn't have put it past Big Al to have put a tap on my phone or to have stationed Henry J. near my house with some kind of sophisticated listening device that would pick up every word I spoke.
    We'd see.   When I got to Houston, I'd put the moves on him.   I was fairly sure I could shake him, and if he turned up later on, then I'd know he had inside information.
    If he didn't turn up, Big Al would probably do something terrible to him.
    Which was just fine with me.

16
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    I t was even easier than I thought it would be.   I got onto Loop 610, drove around it until I came to Highway 288.   From 288 I took the exit for the Medical Center, with its maze of hospitals and parking lots.   I didn't spend much time in that area, but I figured that Henry J. didn't, either.   It was just a matter of getting a little lead on him and hiding the truck from sight.
    When I took the exit, the Cadillac tried to make up some of the distance between us, but it was already too late.   I made a few zigs and a few zags and even got lost myself.   I went into and out of a couple of parking lots and finally pulled into a spot between two custom vans that towered over my little truck like a couple of semis.
    I sat there for ten minutes, listening to the radio recycling the same old oldies and wishing I'd brought the O'Hara book with me to read.   There was no sign of the Cadillac in that time, so I pulled back out onto the street and headed toward West University, better known as West U, a community not far from the Rice campus, where all the streets were named for famous literary figures.   If you've ever yearned for a classy address on a street named for Shakespeare or one of the Romantic poets, then West U is the place for you.
    As it happened the Peavys lived on Coleridge, whose name always reminded me of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," portions of which for some reason I'd never tried to figure out had been stuck in my memory ever since my eighth grade English class with a teacher named Mrs. Morgan.   As far as I could tell, the verses had never served a useful purpose in my life.   After all, what possible good was it that I remembered the two lines that said, "Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs upon the slimy sea"?   I was sure Mrs. Morgan would have been proud of me for recalling it, though.
    The Peavy house was white and two stories tall.   There was a large boat covered with canvas and parked in front of a black BMW in the driveway.   The Christmas decorations were limited to a tasteful handmade wreath on the front door, where I was met by all the Peavys, who seemed quite happy to see me.   Obviously they hadn't been talking to the Mullens within the last hour or so.
    Chad's parents were dressed casually but expensively, all natural fabrics, of course, whereas Chad was wearing a pair of old jeans and a flannel shirt that might have come from Wal-Mart.   He was big, bigger than I was, and a lot wider through the shoulders.   Shaking hands with him was like shaking a hand carved from a block of wood.
    "I hope you'll be able to talk some sense into Chad," Mr. Peavy