Far From True

by Linwood Barclay

  It hadn’t been like that at all.

  They hadn’t really judged. His dad just made it clear that he had to step up to the plate, do the right thing, accept his responsibility, fill in whichever cliché you want here. The really weird thing was, Derek having a kid seemed to be bringing Jim and Ellen, who had split up a few years ago, back together.

  They were grandparents. And they appeared to want to enjoy the experience together.

  They’d met a few times for dinner. They’d gone to the Pickens house twice to see the baby. They’d bought stuff. Diapers, clothes, board books.

  Jim had asked his son if he wanted to come back to work with him this summer at the landscaping business.

  Derek said yes.

  So he felt pretty good this morning. The events of two nights ago at the drive-in were still fresh in his memory, but he wasn’t going to let that drag him down too much. He jumped into the shower, got dressed, and was out front of his place by seven. He didn’t have a car, but Gill Pickens, Marla’s dad, had offered to come over and pick him up.

  Gill was there.

  They didn’t have much to say to each other. Derek figured that whenever he looked at him, he was probably thinking, You’re the dickwad who knocked up my little girl. Then again, you couldn’t blame the guy for being quiet. His wife had just died, and he had a whole lot on his plate right now.

  Marla was at the door, holding Matthew in her arms, when they pulled into the driveway.

  “You’re just in time,” Marla said. “He’s really hungry.”

  Derek followed Marla and his son into the kitchen. “You hold on to him while I get his breakfast ready.”

  “You sure?” he said.

  She handed Matthew over to him. Derek took him under the arms, settled him up against his chest, put his right hand on the child’s back.

  “I can feel his heart beating.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s a good thing,” Marla said.

  Matthew made soft gurgling noises. Derek said, “He looks bigger than he did two weeks ago.”

  “He’s growing—that’s for sure. You guys look good together.”

  A cell phone started to ring.

  “Who’s that?” Marla asked.

  Derek could feel the buzzing on his upper thigh. “It’s me,” he said. “I don’t know who’d be calling me this early. Can you take him?”

  He handed Matthew off to Marla, then took the phone from the pocket of his jeans. He saw the name on the screen and said, “What?”

  “Who is it?”

  “Lydecker,” Derek said. “As in George Lydecker.” The phone continued to ring in his hand. “Except it’s his home phone, not his cell. He never uses his home phone.”

  “Who’s George Lydecker?”

  “He’s this idiot. The other night, before the screen came down? He was shooting at stop signs and stuff.” The phone kept ringing. Derek sighed, accepted the call. “Hello?”

  It wasn’t George on the other end. It was a woman, and she was speaking loud enough that Marla could hear every word.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Derek?” the woman asked. “Derek Cutter?”

  “Yup.”

  “It’s Hillary Lydecker. George’s mother. Is George with you?”

  “What? No.” Why the hell would George be with him this early in the morning? Wait, maybe that wasn’t so implausible. George had been known to drink too much and pass out at a friend’s place, then head home the next morning.

  “I’ve been calling everyone he knows. I found your number on his cell phone bill. I think I’ve called just about everyone!” The woman sounded frantic. “You sure he’s not with you?”

  “I’d kinda know. I haven’t seen him since night before last.”

  “We’re all set to go. We were supposed to leave for the airport a couple of hours ago. We thought maybe he was out partying or something and maybe he passed out and didn’t wake up in time to get home for the taxi. We’ve missed our flight. We’re going to have to rebook everything.”

  “When did you last see him?” Derek asked.

  “Last night, we had an early dinner. Then he said he was going out, and I said to him, ‘Be back early, because we’re flying out in the morning.’ All of us, we’re going to Vancouver to see my husband’s family, and we told George the taxi is coming really early, at five, and he promised he’d be home in good time, but I’ve tried his cell and I can’t get him and—”

  “I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Derek said. “You know what George is like. I’m sure he’s okay. It’s probably like you say. He went to a party and had a bit too much and fell asleep on somebody’s couch. Too bad about your flight, though. That’s really a drag.”

  Hillary Lydecker said, “I just hope he hasn’t done something really stupid.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  IT wasn’t as though Barry Duckworth was expecting a plate covered with four scrambled eggs, half a dozen strips of bacon, and a heap of home fries. He rarely got something like that at home. If he wanted a breakfast like that, he hit one of Promise Falls’ greasy, wonderful diners.

  But a grapefruit and a slice of toast? Seriously?

  “Maureen,” he said, “we need to talk.”

  She was drinking her coffee across the table from him, having a quick look at the news on her tablet before heading off to work.

  “What’s the problem?” she said. “I cut the grapefruit in half, and even took a knife to the little wedges so you won’t get any grapefruit juice in your eye and blind yourself. Also, I sprinkled some Splenda on it so it’s not so bitter. I couldn’t see sprinkling sugar all over it. That kind of defeats the purpose, don’t you think?”

  “What kind of toast is this? It doesn’t look like my regular toast.”

  “That’s multigrain,” she said, not moving her eyes from the tablet. “There’s something pretty amazing on here you’re going to want to see.”

  “It looks like birdseed stuck to the crust.”

  “It’ll make you a better warbler,” Maureen said. She looked at him. “Oh my God, you’re not actually picking those seeds off, are you?”

  “I don’t like them.”

  “I buttered the bread for you. Not a lot, but that’s actual butter on the bread. I would never expect you to eat dry toast. My God, the way you’re carrying on, you’d think you were being waterboarded.”

  “I like my usual toast,” he said.

  “I’m sure you do,” Maureen said. “Really, you’re going to want to see this, unless you’ve already heard about it.”

  “Heard about what?”

  “The bus? That was on fire? It made the Albany station. Someone got video on their phone.”

  Duckworth beckoned with his hand. Maureen turned the iPad around on its stand, pushed it his way.

  “You just press the little play arrow there,” she said.

  “I know how to do it,” he said.

  He tapped the screen. Watched the flaming bus roll down the street, crash into some cars, destroy a flower shop.

  “Jesus,” he said. “I’ve bought flowers for you there.”

  “Not lately,” Maureen said.

  “Hang on,” he said. “How do I make it go again?”

  “Press the little arrow that’s like a circle that—”

  “I got it. Hang on. I want to pause it right . . . here.”

  The image froze. Duckworth had paused the video at the point where the bus had driven past whoever was filming it.

  Where you could see the back end of the bus.

  With the number 23 three feet high and three feet across.

  “Look at that,” he said, turning the tablet around.

  “Yeah, I see it.”

  “You see the number on the back?”

  “I do.” She shook her head. “He�
��s at it again.”

  Duckworth stared at the screen again. “He’s sending a message. I just don’t know what the hell it is.” He shook his head despairingly. “I feel like we’re leading up to something.”

  “Like?”

  “I don’t know. But—”

  His cell phone started to ring.

  “Duckworth,” he said.

  “Detective, this is Officer Gilchrist.”

  Gilchrist. Ted Gilchrist. Duckworth had last seen him at the Gaynor house, trying to sort things out between David Harwood, his cousin Marla Pickens, and Bill Gaynor, shortly after Rosemary Gaynor’s body had been discovered. A good cop, Duckworth thought.

  “This about the bus? I just found out about it.”

  “No, sir. Something else. Figured I’d call you directly, since it’s probably going to be you who gets the call.”

  “Okay.”

  “I was just doing a regular patrol, going past a house, noticed the front door was left ajar. Decided I should have a look. Went up to the door, rang the bell, no one came, figured maybe someone hurried off to work and didn’t pull the door shut all the way, but when I had a look inside, I realized it was something else.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a dead lady on the stairs. Her neck’s busted.”

  Duckworth felt like a tire with only a couple of pounds of pressure left in it. There was too much shit going on in this town.

  “Address?” he asked Gilchrist.

  • • •

  Barry Duckworth, hovering over the body of Miriam Chalmers, one police-issue bootie on one step, one police-issue bootie on the other, couldn’t help but kick himself mentally.

  He should have come out here. He should have come out here last night and interviewed this woman.

  At the time, however, it seemed far more urgent to seek out Peter Blackmore, husband of Georgina, the woman who had really died in the Jag with Adam Chalmers. The bad news had to be delivered.

  There was bad news for Miriam Chalmers, too, but someone had already told her that her husband was dead, as evidenced by her call to her brother seconds before Duckworth nearly showed him Georgina Blackmore’s body.

  So there’d been no pressing need for Duckworth to pay Miriam Chalmers a visit. And besides, he was so goddamned tired all he could think about was going home to bed.

  Excuses.

  If he’d come by here last night, maybe he could have kept this from happening. Maybe he’d have arrived at just the right time. Or maybe he would have learned something that led him to believe this woman was in danger.

  All too late for that now.

  “Any sign of forced entry?” Duckworth asked Gilchrist, who was standing at the top of the stairs that led to the basement.

  “I’ve been all around the house, checked windows, doors, and I don’t see anything,” he said.

  Duckworth studied the angle of the body, trying to determine how she’d landed this way, head at the bottom step, feet five steps above.

  “Tripped?” Gilchrist asked.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “If she tripped going up the stairs, her head would be that way. If she’d tripped going the other way, she’d be facedown. I’d say she was on the way up, and got pushed, or pulled.”

  “Yeah,” Gilchrist said. “I see what you mean.”

  Standing on the basement floor, Duckworth noticed a room behind him with a light on. It didn’t have a proper doorway, but appeared to be accessed by the bookshelves that had been slid to one side.

  Duckworth peered into the room.

  “Officer Gilchrist!” he said.

  “Yes, Detective?”

  “Have you been down here and seen this?”

  “Yes, sir, I have.”

  “And you hadn’t thought to mention it?”

  “I was going to, then thought I’d let you discover it on your own. So it would have the same impact on you as it did on me. And honestly, I didn’t know if there was any way I could really describe it for you. It’s one of those things you just have to see. I’m going to take another look around up here.”

  Duckworth took in the framed photos on the wall. The oversized bed, the retro shag carpeting, the satiny bedcover, which had been disturbed. As though someone had wrapped himself—or herself—in it, without getting underneath it.

  The room’s theme immediately made the detective wonder whether Miriam Chalmers had been sexually assaulted. He took another look at her, from a good ten feet away. Her clothes appeared undisturbed.

  The coroner would tell him more.

  Duckworth looked up to the top of the stairs, where Gilchrist had been a moment earlier.

  “You called Wanda, right?” he shouted upstairs.

  Gilchrist, from somewhere, said, “Yup.” And, “Found something.”

  Duckworth didn’t move. He didn’t want to navigate his way around the body again. He waited.

  Gilchrist reappeared, holding up something small and white, about the size of a business card.

  It was, in fact, a business card.

  “This rings a bell,” Gilchrist said. “Didn’t a Cal Weaver used to work for the force?”

  FORTY-NINE

  Cal

  WHEN Crystal Brighton, still in her pajamas, came into the kitchen, I glanced in her mother’s direction. I was sitting at the table, having a cup of coffee, and suddenly realized how this had to look. A strange man—well, not totally strange, given that Crystal and I had already met—here for breakfast?

  But Crystal didn’t look at me, her mother, or anything else but the clipboard she held in her left hand. She had a pencil in her right and was doodling even as she walked.

  Crystal nudged a chair out and took a seat.

  Lucy said, “Crystal, you remember Mr. Weaver.”

  She looked up from her drawing for half a second, took me in, and went back to her work as her mother set a glass of orange juice in front of her. “Yes,” she said.

  “There was a fire last night where he lives and the fire department wouldn’t let him stay the night, so I offered to let him stay in the guest room.”

  That caught her interest. She looked at me. “How big a fire?”

  “My apartment wasn’t destroyed,” I said, “but the smoke smell is everywhere.”

  “Was anybody killed?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Lucy came around to Crystal’s side of the table and put a bowl of Cheerios in front of her.

  “What are you drawing on?” she asked.

  “Paper,” Crystal said.

  Lucy took the clipboard from her, removed the top sheet, flipped it over, and winced. “For God’s sake, Crystal, it’s the electric bill.”

  “Only on one side,” she said. “The other side is blank.”

  “How many times have I—” Lucy cut herself off. Maybe she didn’t want to tear a strip off her daughter in front of me. “Please don’t do that.”

  Crystal turned to look at me and said, “Did the graphic novel I gave you get burned up in the fire?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s okay. It’s still in the car.”

  “Did you read it?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “But I’m going to. When I do, I’ll let you know what I think.”

  She turned her attention to her cereal, shoved a spoonful into her mouth and chewed.

  “Better get a move on,” her mother said. “You slept in.”

  “I woke up in the night,” she said, “and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

  “Well, that’s too bad.”

  I felt it was time to go. I took one last gulp of coffee and stood. “I should be on my way. Going to see just how bad the damage is. Thanks for everything. Nice to see you, Crystal.”

  “Don’t go just yet,” Lucy said. “Let me get C
rystal off to school.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised she wanted to talk to me privately, given that we had slept together only a few hours earlier. I was wondering whether that had been such a good idea. I liked Lucy. I liked her a lot, in fact. The time she had spent in the guest room with me, while tentative at first, had turned passionate, even aggressive, quickly. Lucy had assumed a leadership role I was more than happy to concede to her. I wondered whether, after all she had endured in the last couple of days, she needed to feel she had control over at least this part of her life.

  “Sure,” I said, nodding my understanding. “I can hang in for a few minutes.”

  But I hadn’t been making an excuse when I’d said I had to go back and check my apartment. Odds were I’d have to find another place to live, if not permanently, at least for a few weeks. If the building was deemed unsafe, I’d need permission just to get my stuff out of there.

  What little of it there was.

  I thought of Celeste and Dwayne. No way was I bunking in with them while I apartment-hunted. I’d find a motel outside Promise Falls. And I certainly wasn’t moving in with Lucy. I was open to the idea of seeing more of her, but it was a little early to start sharing quarters. And it wasn’t fair to Crystal, having some man she didn’t really know living under the same roof with her.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” her mother said. “You’ll be late.”

  Crystal shoved one last spoonful of Cheerios into her mouth, then ran back upstairs, clipboard in hand.

  “I like her,” I said.

  Lucy gave me a dubious smile, as though she didn’t know whether to believe me. She followed Crystal up to the second floor. I could hear muted conversation—mostly from Lucy’s side—about the brushing of teeth, the collecting of homework, the remembering of lunch. That, I guessed, was the brown bag on the kitchen counter. Several minutes later, Crystal returned, snatched the bag off the counter, pivoted, and ran for the front door.

  “Read my thing,” she said as she passed me.

  “You bet,” I said as Lucy returned to the kitchen.

  At the door, we heard Crystal say, “My shoelace is undone!”