Broken Promise: A Thriller

by Linwood Barclay

“SO let me see if I have this right,” Barry Duckworth said, sitting across the desk from Thackeray College security chief Clive Duncomb. “You’ve got a sexual predator wandering the campus, and you’ve decided the Promise Falls police are the last people who need to know about this.”

  “Not at all,” Duncomb said.

  “That’s how it looks to me.”

  “We’re well equipped to deal with all manner of situations,” Duncomb said. “I have a staff of five.”

  “Oh, well,” Duckworth said. “And I suppose you can call on your students to pitch in as needed. Do the chemistry majors do your forensic work? You have an interrogation room somewhere, or do you just use one of the lecture halls? I guess your art students can do the fingerprint work. They’d have plenty of ink on hand.”

  Duncomb said nothing. Instead, he opened the bottom drawer of his desk and brought out a file folder stuffed with about half an inch of paperwork. He opened it and began to read:

  “‘January fourteenth, ten seventeen p.m., vandal throws brick though dining hall window. Call put in to Promise Falls police, told they have no one available, ask Thackeray security to e-mail them a report. February second, twelve-oh-three a.m., inebriated student shouting and taking his shirt off on steps of library. Security puts in call to Promise Falls police, told to send them a copy of the report.’ You want me to go on?”

  “You think a broken window and a drunk kid equate with rape?”

  Duncomb waved a finger at him. “There hasn’t been an actual rape. Which is one of the reasons why we chose not to bother the Promise Falls police.” He smiled. “We know how busy you are.”

  “These things can progress,” Duckworth said.

  “I’m aware of that. I was with the police in Boston before I took this position.”

  Duckworth was about to tell Duncomb that he should know better then, but stopped himself. He knew he was getting off on the wrong foot with this guy, that he might need his cooperation with whatever was going on here, but, boy, he was steamed.

  “On behalf of the Promise Falls police, please accept our heartfelt apologies for our lack of attentiveness in those matters.”

  Duncomb offered up a small hmmph. “Okay.” He cleared his throat. “You have to understand where I’m coming from, what my position here is. I’m getting a lot of heat from those farther up the food chain. The admin, the president’s office.”

  “Go on.”

  “There’s a lot of competition out there when it comes to deciding where to send your kid to school.”

  “Sure,” Duckworth said.

  “And Thackeray had some bad press a few years back—this was before I got here—with the college president and that plagiarism scandal and the shooting. You remember that?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s mostly water under the bridge now. I mean, people remember it, but they’ve moved on. It was nearly a decade ago. If anyone was ever thinking of sending their kid to a college other than Thackeray because of that, it’s likely no longer an issue. But what we don’t need around here is more bad press. News of some pervert preying on young girls is all it might take for Mom and Dad to decide to send little Susie somewhere else to find a future husband.”

  Barry Duckworth did not like this man.

  Duncomb took a breath and continued. “So before we bring in the marines—or the local police—we’re doing everything we can to find this fucker. I’ve got my people patrolling at night, and one of them, a woman—Joyce, who’s in her thirties, and pretty hot—has been acting as a kind of decoy, trying to draw this guy out.”

  Duckworth sat up in his chair. “You can’t be serious.”

  “What? Isn’t that what you’d do?”

  “Has Joyce been trained in proper policing methods? Does she know self-defense? Do you have her in radio contact with other members of your security team at all times? Are they shadowing her?”

  Duncomb had both hands in the air, palms forward. “Whoa. First of all, I’ve been a cop, and I was a damn good one. And I’ve been giving Joyce the benefit of my training and experience. Second, Joyce has taken an accredited security guard course. And all that other stuff you mentioned, I wouldn’t get too hung up about it, because I’m not sending her out there empty-handed.”

  “She’s armed?”

  Duncomb grinned, then made a gun sign with his hand, pulled the trigger. “Oh, yeah. It’s not like I’m telling her to shoot the bastard, but she sure shouldn’t have any trouble persuading him to behave himself.”

  Duckworth was imagining the countless ways this approach could go horribly wrong.

  “How many attacks?” the detective asked.

  “Three,” Duncomb said. “In the last two weeks. All late at night. Girls walking home alone from one part of the campus to another, heading back to the residence. Lot of wooded areas, places where someone can hide. Man jumps out, grabs them from behind, attempts to drag them into the bushes, manages to cop a few good feels.”

  Duckworth wondered whether Duncomb’s decision to leave the Boston force was his own.

  “In each case, the girl’s managed to break free, run away. Nobody’s been hurt.”

  “Not physically,” Duckworth said.

  “That’s what I said,” the college security chief said.

  “Suspect?”

  “Just partial descriptions, although what we have from the three he went after is consistent. Man about six feet tall, slender build.”

  “White? Black?”

  Duncomb shook his head. “Wearing a ski mask. Plus a hoodie. Like a big football one, with a number on it.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Nope. At least, not that any of the girls recalled. But like I said, we’re on this, and those posts with the panic buttons will all be in place by the end of the day, so I got a good feeling we’re not only going to get this shithead, but make the girls around here feel a whole lot safer.”

  “I want their names,” Duckworth said.

  “Say what?”

  “The three women who were attacked. I want their names and contact information. They need to be interviewed.”

  “I suppose we could do that.”

  “This isn’t a Thackeray College issue,” Duckworth said. “This is a Promise Falls issue. Your attacker may not be a student. He may be someone from town. And vice versa. If it’s a student, or even a member of the faculty—”

  “Oh, Jesus, don’t even go there,” Duncomb said.

  “—or even a member of the faculty, there’s nothing to stop him from heading into town and attacking someone there. You need our resources and expertise. We need to talk to those women.”

  “Fine, fine, I’ll get those to you.” He put his hands flat on the desk. “We done?”

  “No,” Duckworth said. “I came here to ask you about something else.”

  “Okeydoke.”

  “Have you had any acts of animal cruelty on campus?”

  “Animal cruelty?” He shook his head slowly. “I guess they still dissect frogs over in the biology building. Has Kermit filed a complaint?”

  “No poisoned dogs or cats? No cutting the heads off the Canada geese I see wandering around here?”

  Duncomb shook his head one last time. “Nothing like that at all. Why?”

  Duckworth felt a buzzing in his jacket. “Excuse me,” he said. He took out the phone and put it to his ear. “Duckworth.”

  He listened for several seconds, reached into his pocket for a small notebook and a pen. He scribbled down a Breckonwood Drive address, then put the phone away.

  He stood. “Do not send your Joyce out there as a decoy. And I want those names.”

  Duckworth dropped a business card on the man’s desk, and found his way out.

  TEN

  David

  BILL Gaynor had been okay
with my holding the baby while the situation was being defused, but damned if he was going to let me hang on to Matthew now that Breckonwood was swarming with police.

  He did agree to Officer Humboldt’s suggestion, however, that the baby be placed in the arms of a uniformed female officer, who in turn was going to hand him over to the first person who showed up from the Promise Falls Department of Children’s Services.

  Besides, I couldn’t imagine Gaynor wanted to be holding on to a crying child while he attempted to answer questions about what had happened to his wife, Rosemary, back in that kitchen. Especially if that meant going back into that house.

  I couldn’t get the image out of my head. Her lifeless gaze upward. The ripped blouse. The blood.

  So much blood.

  Gaynor wasn’t the only one who had to be persuaded that Matthew needed to be left in someone else’s care, at least for now.

  “They’ll never give him back to me,” Marla said. “Once they take him away they’ll never give him back.”

  We were over by my car, and I had taken my cousin into my arms, held her as she went from one crying jag to another.

  “We’ll just have to wait and see how things go,” I told her, even though I knew we were more likely to be struck by a meteor than to see the Gaynors’ baby handed back to Marla.

  I had few doubts that Matthew belonged to the Gaynors.

  It wasn’t as if it had actually been spelled out for me, but it wasn’t hard to put it all together. Marla had a child in her house that was not hers. She had some crazy story about an “angel” dropping him off like a FedEx parcel. There was the addressed flyer in the stroller. When Bill Gaynor returned home from some business trip, he went into a panic about his missing baby, Matthew.

  And he instantly recognized his son in my car.

  The dots were not that hard to connect.

  So I didn’t think the odds of Marla going home with Matthew were particularly good. But I couldn’t help but wonder what the odds were that Marla had something to do with Rosemary Gaynor’s death. Was it possible, I wondered, as I tried to comfort her, that my cousin was capable of something like that?

  I honestly had no idea.

  The cops had asked us a few preliminary questions, then told us to wait for a detective to arrive. Not long after that, I saw Barry Duckworth show up. I’d gotten to know him a few years ago, not just through my work at the Standard, but through a personal matter. Dressed in an ill-fitting gray suit, he didn’t appear to be winning his perennial battle with his bathroom scale.

  He glanced in my direction on his way into the house, a brief look of puzzlement on his face. At first he might have assumed I was here covering the story, but with the Standard out of business, there had to be some other reason.

  He’d find out soon enough.

  Once inside the house, I saw Duckworth confer with Officer Gilchrist, who had been talking to Gaynor.

  God, what that man had to be going through.

  Duckworth shook Gaynor’s hand, and then the door was closed.

  “What did you see in the house?” Marla asked me. She already knew the big picture. There were enough police here now to figure out that something very bad had happened in there.

  “His wife,” I said. “In the kitchen. She’s been stabbed. She’s dead.”

  “That’s horrible,” Marla said. “Just horrible.” She paused. “You know what I think?”

  “What do you think, Marla?”

  “I’ll bet he did it. That man. Her husband. I’ll bet he killed her.”

  I looked at her. “Why would you say that?”

  “Just a feeling. But I bet he did it. And when they figure out he did it, they won’t let him keep the baby.”

  I could see where this was going.

  “Marla, did you know that woman?”

  “You already asked me that. At my house. I told you. I’ve never heard of her.”

  “Could you have met her, but not known that was her name?” It wasn’t like I had a picture of the woman I could show Marla, so the question was kind of pointless. And even if I’d had a picture, it wouldn’t have done much good. So Marla’s answer was not surprising.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t go out all that much.”

  “Have you ever been here?” I asked. “To this house?”

  Marla raised her head and studied the house for a moment. “I don’t think so. But it’s a very nice house. I’d like to have a house like this. It’s so big, and my house is so small. I’d love to go inside and look around.”

  “Not now, you wouldn’t,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said.

  “So you’re telling me you didn’t come to this house, yesterday or maybe the day before, for Matthew? You didn’t find him here?”

  “I already told you how he came to me,” she said tiredly. “Don’t you believe my story?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Of course I do.”

  “It doesn’t sound like it.”

  I happened to glance down the street, which had been taped off in both directions. A woman lifted up the police tape, ducked under, and strode purposefully toward us. When an officer attempted to stop her she brushed him aside.

  “It’s your mom,” I said to Marla, and I felt her stiffen in my arms.

  “I don’t want to talk to her,” she said. “She’ll just be mad.”

  “She can help you,” I said. “She knows people. Good lawyers, for one.”

  Marla looked at me with sad wonder. “Why would I need a lawyer? Am I in some kind of trouble?”

  “Marla!” Agnes said. “Marla!”

  Marla pulled away from me and turned to face my approaching aunt. Agnes took her into her arms, gave her a three-second hug, barely giving her daughter enough time to respond in kind. Then Agnes looked at me sharply and said, “What’s going on here?”

  Marla said, “It’s all . . . it’s kind of hard to explain, Mom, but—”

  “That’s why I’m asking your cousin,” Agnes said, her eyes still fixed on me.

  My mouth was dry. I licked my lips and said, “I dropped in on Marla. She was looking after a baby. An address on a piece of mail tucked into the stroller led me here. The husband had been away on business, showed up at the same time; we went in, found his wife.” I paused. “She’s dead.”

  Agnes’s face fell.

  “And there’s something about a nanny they had. Mr. Gaynor, he was asking about someone named Sarita. I got the idea he was expecting she’d be at the house, but she wasn’t.”

  “Good God,” Agnes said. “Who are these people? Who’s the woman, the one who was killed?”

  “Rosemary Gaynor,” I said.

  Agnes abruptly turned away from me, looked at the house, as if by staring at it hard enough she could make it provide some answers. I was given a view of her back for a good ten seconds before she engaged me again.

  “The baby?”

  “It’s being looked after by the police or the child welfare people, at least for now. Mr. Gaynor’s being interviewed by the cops.”

  “His name is Matthew,” Marla said, moving closer to us so she could be part of the conversation.

  Agnes was ready now to question her instead of me. “What were you thinking? How did this happen? How did you end up with that baby? Did you learn nothing after what you did at my hospital? Nothing at all?”

  “I—”

  “I simply can’t believe it. What on earth possessed you? What did you do? Did you grab him at the mall? Had she taken the baby out for a stroll?” She put a hand to her own mouth. “Tell me you didn’t snatch him here, at their house. Tell me you had nothing to do with this.”

  Marla’s eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t do anything wrong. He was given to me. Someone came to my door and asked me to look after him.”

  “W
ho?” Agnes snapped. “The mother? This Gaynor woman?”

  “I don’t know who she was. She never said.”

  “Honestly, Marla, no one in the world is going to believe a story like that.” More to herself than to us, she said, “We’re going to have to come up with something better than that.”

  Agnes gave me a look of exasperation. “Have the police talked to her?”

  “Briefly,” I said. “They’re trying to sort out the scene, I think, and told us not to leave. There’s a detective here already, and probably a forensics unit, too.”

  “She doesn’t say a word, not to anyone,” Agnes said. “Not one word.” She raised a finger to her daughter’s face. “You hear that? You don’t say one thing to the police. If they so much as ask you your birthday, you tell them to talk to your lawyer.”

  Agnes rooted through her purse, brought out a phone. She went through her contacts, found a number, and tapped it with her thumb. “Yes, this is Agnes Pickens. Put me through to Natalie. I don’t care if she’s with a client; put her on the phone right this second.”

  Natalie Bondurant was my guess. One of Promise Falls’ sharpest legal minds. She’d helped me in the past.

  “Natalie? Agnes Pickens here. Whatever you’re doing, drop it. I have a situation. No, not with the hospital. I’ll explain when you get here.” She told Natalie where she could find her and ended the call before she could get an argument.

  Agnes said to me, “That goes for you, too.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Not a word to the police. You have nothing to say.”

  The first thing that popped into my head was a childish, You’re not the boss of me. But what I said was “I’ll decide what I tell the police, Agnes.”

  She didn’t like that. “David,” she said, in a whisper so Marla could not hear, “can’t you see what’s happened here?”

  “I don’t think we know that yet.”

  “We know enough to know Marla needs to be protected. Whatever she’s done, it’s not her fault. She’s got problems; she’s not responsible for her actions. We all have to look out for her.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “She hasn’t been right for a long time, but losing the baby, it did something to her, to her mind.”