Far From True

by Linwood Barclay

  “So how many hours was that? Between the time the car disappeared and when they found it on the street?”

  “At least six hours,” Sandra Bottsford said.

  “Whaddya know?” Duckworth said.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to tell you this the first time. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay. Thank you for this. I’ll be following this up.”

  He ended the call, let the phone drop onto the desk.

  Gaynor could have done it.

  He could have stolen a car, driven home, murdered his wife, and returned to Boston.

  It was possible.

  But was it likely?

  Duckworth still liked Duncomb for Olivia Fisher’s murder. Maybe there was something that connected the security chief to Rosemary Gaynor, something he hadn’t yet found, something that would make it possible to consider him a suspect in both murders.

  He’d get back to it tomorrow. Right now, he had absolutely nothing left. He started to get out of his chair when his desk phone rang.

  “God, just let me go home,” he said under his breath, grabbed the receiver, and snapped, “What?”

  “Detective Duckworth? Barry Duckworth?”

  It was a man’s voice, but it was garbled and raspy, as though coming through an old, badly wired speaker.

  In some ways, after only four words, it reminded the detective of Darth Vader.

  “Yeah, this is Duckworth. Who’s this?”

  “I just wanted you to know I’m proud of you.”

  “Proud of me?”

  “I wasn’t sure anyone would put it together. See the links. I was afraid I was making it too hard.”

  “Who is this?” A demand this time, not a request. “Tell me who the hell this is!”

  But there was no one to talk to. The line had gone dead.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  Cal

  I spent a couple of hours thinking. Just thinking. Finally, I phoned Lucy.

  “Did you get Crystal’s lunch to her?” she asked.

  “I did.”

  “No problems with the office?”

  “None.”

  “Thank you for that. I really appreciate it. I was on the phone for ages today with an estate lawyer and the funeral home and it’s just been more than I can take.”

  “I need to see you. Can I come by?”

  “Of course.” She paused. “I can open a bottle of wine.”

  “Maybe just coffee.”

  “Right,” she said. “I’ll do that.”

  • • •

  It wasn’t like the last time when I arrived at her house. This time, instead of inviting me in and offering me a seat in the living room, Lucy slipped her arms around my neck, pulled my body into hers, and kissed me.

  I had some involuntary responses, and I was sure she noticed. Which was why, when I gently pulled her arms from around me, she looked surprised.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, it’s okay,” I said. “It’s just been . . . it’s been quite a morning.”

  “There was something on the news, about shots being fired at a Laundromat. And then I thought about what you said, that all your clothes were damaged in the fire, and there aren’t that many Laundromats in Promise Falls, and—”

  “I was there.”

  “Oh my God.”

  I told her, as briefly as I could, what had happened.

  “You need something stronger than coffee,” she said, leading me into the kitchen.

  “No, coffee is perfect,” I said.

  She had already made a pot, filled two mugs and set them on the kitchen table. We both sat.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she said imploringly. “Sometimes, when you’ve been through something like that, it helps to talk it out. To ease the stress.”

  “That’s not why I’m here,” I said.

  Concern washed over her face. “What is it, Cal?”

  “Tell me about the letter,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, what?” she said.

  “There’s something you’ve been holding back from me from the beginning. About what you thought had been taken from your father’s house.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lucy said slowly.

  “I think the discovery of the room downstairs was a genuine surprise. And I think when you heard someone running from the house, it was the person who’d taken those discs. But I don’t think you’ve ever really been worried about those DVDs. It was something else. A letter.”

  “How do you know this?” she asked.

  “So I’m right.”

  She nodded slowly. “Maybe you are. But it was very personal.”

  “Your father told you that if something were to ever happen to you, that he’d left something for you. Something from his earlier days. Money. That he wanted you to have. For you, and for Crystal.”

  “I don’t understand how you can know this.”

  “Level with me, Lucy. Tell me about the letter, what you’re expecting it to say if and when you find it.”

  Her eyes glistened. She wrapped both hands around her mug, as though using it to stay warm.

  “Dad always said he would look out for me. I mean, he said it all the time, that he’d be there for me, and he’d do just enough so that he wasn’t actually lying. But one day, he said, he’d make everything up to me. He said there was money . . . a lot of money. Several hundred thousand. All cash. It dated back to those days when he was still with the bikers, before he got out. Dad . . . did bad things back then. He ripped off his own people. Left them for dead. The money was . . . well, it was dirty. It wasn’t the kind of thing he could put in the bank, at least not in an account. A safe-deposit box, maybe. He had it tucked away. Didn’t even tell Miriam about it. At least, that was what he’d said. For years, since he’d written those books, he’d lived this aboveboard life. Well, not counting the sex stuff. But I mean, he left that biker life behind. All the time, though, there was that money. And he wanted me to have it.”

  “Go on.”

  “He said if anything ever happened to him, to look in his desk. That there was a letter. Taped to the bottom of one of the drawers. That it would tell me how to get the money.”

  “You went to the house, after you learned your father had died in the accident, to get that envelope. You heard someone leaving out the back door, and when you didn’t find the envelope, you thought it was that person who’d taken it.”

  Lucy nodded.

  “I thought my father must have confided in someone else. Told someone about the letter. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just needed to know who’d broken into the house. Once I knew that, I’d approach them on my own. In fact, I did try to reach this Mr. Duncomb you found out about. I called his home last night, and got his wife, and she was very unpleasant. I was going to try again today, but now that you know about it, maybe you could do it for me?” She forced a smile, but it seemed no more genuine than a politician’s handshake.

  “Why didn’t you tell me all this at the outset?”

  “Before I got to know you, for all I knew, you’d want to find the money and keep it for yourself. And then there’s the whole moral issue of where the money came from in the first place. But I don’t care. I’m a single mother. I have a daughter who needs help. I’m going to do what’s right for her and I don’t care about anything else.”

  A tear ran down her cheek.

  “Where do you think the money is?” I asked her.

  She bit her lip. “I don’t know. Like I said, maybe a safe-deposit box somewhere. Or maybe it’s like in that movie The Shawshank Redemption. It’s hidden under a rock in a field someplace. Wherever it is, I want to find it. But I have to get my hands on the letter first.”

  I reac
hed into my pocket for the page that had been photocopied from Crystal’s book.

  Lucy’s entire body went rigid. She sat up straight in her chair. One trembling hand went to her mouth.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “This is the letter,” I told her.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Crystal had it,” I said. “She’s had it for some time. Once, when she was at your father’s house, she went into his desk looking for paper when she’d used up everything in the printer tray. It was one of the pages in her graphic novel.”

  “Crystal?” she said.

  I nodded.

  “So she . . . she could have had it for weeks?”

  I nodded again.

  Lucy pushed back her chair, stood, turned, and took three steps over to the counter, braced herself against it, her back to me.

  “Oh God,” she whispered. “I never . . . I can’t believe . . .”

  “Lucy,” I said.

  “I should have thought . . . it should have occurred to me it could have been her, but . . . I didn’t think my father would let Crystal into his office.”

  “Evidently he did.”

  Still with her back to me. “But he had hidden it. He said he taped it—”

  “Crystal felt the tape on the back of her hand when she reached into the drawer for paper.”

  She turned, her eyes red. “You talked to her.”

  “Yes. When I found it, and read it, I needed to know where she’d gotten it. She remembered, although she claims she never even read the letter. She didn’t care. All she cared about was that I not tear the page out of her book, so what I’m holding here isn’t the original, but a photocopy.”

  Lucy looked at the folded piece of paper in my hand with equal measures of curiosity and fear.

  “Things started to make sense,” I said. “Like when we were looking through your father’s house, and you asked me whether I could get fingerprints off his desk, off the drawers. All along, it was about finding this. For a while, you must have thought it was taken by whoever you heard running out the back door when you came in. But that person was only after the DVDs.”

  Her eyes were locked on the letter.

  “I know,” she said. “That’s why I thought it had to be someone else who’d found it. . . . Someone else.”

  I had an idea who she was talking about.

  “Do you want to see it?” I asked.

  She took a step toward the table and held out her hand. I placed it on her palm.

  It had been folded in thirds. Her fingers shook as she opened it up and began to read.

  I had read it several times. It said this:

  Dear Lucy:

  I guess if you are reading this, then something has happened. I’m gone. You’ve found this in my desk drawer, where I told you it would be. I can only imagine my fate. I’ve always felt that the least likely way I would go is natural causes. I’m not one to grow old and fade away. Was it someone from my past? Someone who’d come to even up the score? A spurned lover? A jealous husband? God knows, maybe Miriam has taken one of the knives from the kitchen and put it into my heart. I’ve been pretty lucky to have lived as long as I have.

  There’s much about my past I’ve never told you. The broad strokes, of course, you know. I ran with bad people. I did bad things. When I broke away, I left with my pockets full, and covered my tracks well. Some of the secrets I left behind are, literally, buried. I think you are better off not knowing more.

  The thing I want you to know is that I have loved you and Crystal with all my heart. I know life for the two of you has not been easy. Crystal, I adore, and I hope one day she finds her way. She is a tremendously gifted child. Often, those with great gifts are tortured for them when they are young. The day will come when her talents will be appreciated. I think she will be a famous artist one day.

  So I very much wanted, once I was gone, to be able to leave the two of you, as they say, well-fixed.

  And I am so sorry to tell you that things have not turned out the way I had planned.

  I could tell when Lucy had reached this point. Her face fell as though it had been dropped out of a plane.

  There was a time when I thought I would be able to leave you a great deal. But my financial needs in recent years have exceeded my expectations. My books did not bring in the kinds of advances I had hoped for. I began many projects that I did not finish. Ultimately, I believe I had nothing left to say. So my legitimate income stream came to an end. But I still had to support myself, and Miriam had come to deserve a certain lifestyle. I did not want to disappoint her.

  It became necessary to return to the well—the well being a safe-deposit box in a bank in Albany—more often than I had anticipated.

  I wish there were something left to give you.

  I know I should have discussed this with you in person, but there never seemed to be a right time. But maybe what has transpired, in the end, is a good thing. We must all assume responsibility for our own lives. We can’t be waiting around for that proverbial ship to come in. Perhaps this new reality will force you to reassess your priorities. There are bumps in the road of life. Good God, did I actually write that? Is it any wonder that I am no longer published?

  I know it’s not much, but I have, in my will, stipulated that you receive my Jaguar. It’s a rare set of wheels, and you should be able to get some decent money for it.

  All my love, Your father

  I watched as she read it to the end, then allowed the page to slip through her fingers and flutter to the floor.

  “The bastard,” she whispered. “The miserable, self-consumed, lying son of a bitch. He told me . . . He promised me . . .”

  “Adam Chalmers looked after himself first,” I said. “Everyone else came second.”

  “But how could he . . . it would be enough, doing this to me. But to Crystal? To his granddaughter?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “How could he do this to me? How?”

  I shook my head slowly.

  Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling. She tented her hands over her mouth. “Oh no, no, no, this is not happening.”

  I had another question.

  “Where did you go last night, Lucy?”

  “What?”

  “Before I came over, and spent the night. After you’d put Lucy to bed. You went out.”

  “No,” she said quietly. “No, I didn’t. How do you know . . . why do you think . . . ?”

  “Crystal heard you leave. She watched you drive away, waited for you to come back.”

  “No, that’s not possible.”

  “You weren’t wearing the same clothes when I came over last night.”

  “I . . . I wanted to look nice for you.”

  I said nothing.

  “Oh, God, oh no, oh no . . . what have I done?”

  I said, “What have you done, Lucy?”

  “I thought it must have been her. . . .”

  “Miriam. You thought Miriam must have found the letter. That’s what you’re saying.”

  She nodded without looking at me, as though my voice were disembodied, coming to her through a speaker.

  “If Miriam had found the letter, she’d be able to get her hands on the money that was to be left to you,” I said. “That’s why you went to see her, when you found out she was actually alive.”

  Now she turned her head to look at me. “She said she didn’t have it, that she didn’t know what I was talking about. . . . I didn’t believe her.”

  I watched as the realization took hold.

  “Miriam was telling the truth,” Lucy said. “She didn’t know anything about it. Because Crystal had it.”

  “What happened when you got there?” I asked. “Did Miriam attack you? Is that what happened? Was it self-defense?”

>   “I . . . she fell . . . running up the stairs. I just wanted to talk to her. . . . I grabbed her arm, and . . . she went backwards. Oh my God, it was an accident. . . . I never went over there to . . . I just wanted to get the letter from her.”

  “She never had it,” I said.

  Now she looked at me. “Do they know? The police, do they know?”

  I stood up. “I don’t know. It’s early yet in the investigation.”

  “I . . . I was going to call an ambulance, but I could tell . . . she wasn’t breathing. When she fell . . . there was this horrible, horrible noise.” Lucy reached up and touched her own neck. “It made a noise. I . . . I decided there was no point in calling. I got out of there. It was dark. I’m pretty sure no one saw me arrive or leave. . . . I’d parked up next to the house, where you can’t really see from the street. . . . I didn’t have any blood on my clothes, but I thought . . . maybe there was something of her . . . something on me. . . . I showered. I got cleaned up. I put my clothes in the wash.”

  She looked at me pleadingly. “I think I’m okay. I mean, even if they find my fingerprints in the house, that means nothing, right? I was there often. You can tell them I was with you. You’re a witness. You were with me all night. You can back me up on that. Cal, please?”

  I hadn’t said anything.

  “I can’t . . . I can’t go to jail. I have Crystal. I can’t go. Her father . . . he’s not up to it. I don’t want him to raise her. It has to be me. She could end up in a foster home or someplace like that. That can’t happen. They can’t take a mother away from her child. It would be inhumane.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Do you think I’m okay?” she asked. “You know all about these things. You used to be with the police. Do you think I’m in the clear? If no one saw me? If there’s no blood?”

  “I have no idea what the police have,” I told her, moving around the table, standing within two feet of her. “But I think there’s something you’ve overlooked.”

  Lucy studied me, not understanding.

  “What?” she asked. “Was there a camera? My father didn’t have surveillance cameras.”

  “No,” I said gently. “That’s not what I mean.”