Charlie seemed a little fidgety when Neal and his patrol partner knocked on the door—at least Charlie himself remembered seeming a little fidgety—but then again, to other people he often seemed that way. After he’d kicked drugs he’d acquired a caffeine habit; those who would see him at the body shop remembered him leaving every hour, on the hour, to run to the gas station for twenty-four-ounce cups of coffee until he was bouncing off the wall like a cartoon chipmunk. “All that coffee is going to kill him,” his stepdad would remark, and Neal, who knew Charlie’s backstory, once replied, “Yeah.
...more
