Read Don't Leave Me for Free Online Page B

was going to go on to school. There was this black Escalade a little ways down from our house, with a guy in it. Sitting there. I looked at him, he looked at me. I drive on. Next thing I know, the guy pulls in front of me and jams on his brakes, and I hit him.”
    “A rear ender?” Mooney asked.
    “A set up,” Chuck said.
    “Why would he set you up?” Mooney said.
    “That’s the thing. No idea. He had an accent, or it sounded like one, and he pulled a knife on me.”
    “Can you describe him?”
    “About my age and height, long brown hair parted in the middle, blue eyes, a little red in them. He had something to drink, I’m pretty sure.”
    Epperson leaned in. “Go on.”
    “I got out to talk to him, and he starts saying I was looking at him on purpose. I was trying to tell him I wasn’t, then he grabs me by the throat.” Chuck demonstrated with his left hand.
    “How’d you get the scar?” Mooney asked.
    “Afghanistan.”
    “Marine?”
    “Navy chaplain.”
    “Chaplain?” Mooney said. “You look like a guy who could fight.”
    “So?” Chuck said.
    “Just an observation. Where were you assigned?”
    “A unit in the Helmand province, right before Operation Khanjar.”
    Epperson said, “How does the Navy get involved with the Marines?”
    “Marines don’t have their own chaplains,” Chuck said.
    “How do Navy chaplains get scars?” Mooney said.
    “I was captured. I was cut. I don’t really see how any of this is relevant.”
    “Just asking,” Mooney said. “Go back to the guy grabbing your throat.”
    “I blasted his head back, like this.” Chuck showed his palms up move.
    “This guy had a knife?”
    “Butterfly knife, you know, with the flip blade?”
    Epperson said, “So this guy followed you and made you hit him, then grabbed you and threatened you with a knife?”
    “That’s right. Then a guy came along and stopped and the Russian put the knife away and drove off. And the guy in the car, he saw the knife, and called in a 911.”
    “Right,” Mooney said.
    “What do you mean right?” Chuck said.
    Mooney said nothing. Epperson shot her partner a quick look.
    “You guys know about this?” Chuck said.
    “We do,” Epperson said.
    “Uh-huh. And you didn’t want to share that little bit of information with me?”
    “We wanted to hear it from you fresh,” said Mooney.
    “Next time, why don’t you just tell me up front what you know,” Chuck said. “Pretend we’re all grown-ups.”
    Mooney started to say something, but Epperson cut in. “I’m sorry, Mr. Samson,” she said. “This is not any reflection on you. It’s how we gather information, that’s all. Routine, as they used to say.”
    Chuck said, “Can we get on with it?”
    “Tell us about your wife,” Epperson said.
    Chuck just looked at her.
    “More background,” Epperson said.
    “You can tell me what this is really about now,” Chuck said. “And I’ll decide if I want to tell you anything else.”
    “That’s fair,” Epperson said. “We know your wife was killed in a hit-and-run in Beaman, up near the Grapevine.”
    “Then you know what I know.”
    “What was she doing in Beaman?”
    “Working on a story. She wrote for a weekly covering Southern Cal.”
    “And Beaman meant what to her?”
    “Why are you asking me all this?”
    “Please, Mr. Samson.”
    “They have that alligator farm up there. She was doing a piece on the history of alligator farms in . . .” Chuck stopped, the words bunching in his throat.
    “I’m sorry,” Epperson said.
    Chuck said nothing.
    “Just a couple more things,” Epperson said, “and we’ll get out of here. At 6:42 a.m., yesterday morning, the 911 call came in from a Mr. Grant Nunn. He reported the incident you’ve described.”
    “Yeah, sure,” Chuck said. “I didn’t know his name, though.”
    “Mr. Nunn was an administrator at DeVry University in Sherman Oaks.”
    “Was?”
    Mooney said, “He never made it to work.”
    Chuck shook his head. He felt