Broken Promise: A Thriller

by Linwood Barclay

  “Hey.”

  “I’ll drive you home,” Walden said. “You can come back for your van tomorrow.”

  “What if I don’t remember where it is?”

  “I’ll remember.”

  “I guess.”

  “And then I think we need to talk,” Walden said. “About getting your life back on track.”

  “I’m going to leave this town,” Victor said. “I’m going to get the hell out of here.”

  “When? Do you have something lined up? A job?”

  “I just want out. Everywhere I look, I’m reminded of Olivia.”

  “How soon are you leaving?” Walden asked, unable to hide the concern in his voice.

  “Not sure. Still got a few things to do here; then I’m gone. End of the month, I’d say.”

  “Hang in, at least till then,” Walden said. “Maybe something will still work out for you here. I could ask around.”

  Victor smiled. “Don’t waste your time on me.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  BARRY Duckworth had learned less from his search of Sarita Gomez’s room than he’d hoped.

  The detective already knew the Gaynors’ nanny had no phone of her own. But she didn’t have a computer, either. At least not one that she’d left behind in the apartment. So there were no e-mails to check, no bookmarked Facebook page. No electric bill. No monthly Visa statement. No invoice from a visit to the dentist. Nor were there any personal letters, or even an address book. Sarita either packed up everything in a hurry, or she led a very simple, off-the-grid kind of existence. No digital trail here.

  No bloodstained uniform, either.

  Duckworth had asked the nanny’s landlord, she of the amazing banana bread, whether she might have any pictures of Sarita. “On your phone, anything like that?”

  No such luck. Duckworth didn’t even know what this woman he was searching for looked like.

  He was driving back to the station when he realized there was something big he had allowed to slip through the cracks.

  The Thackeray College predator.

  The Gaynor murder had so completely taken over his day that he’d neglected to do anything following his chat with the college’s head of security. Clive Duncomb. “Asshole,” Duckworth said to himself behind the wheel of his unmarked car. Duckworth had left his business card with Duncomb and told him to e-mail him the names of the three women who’d been attacked. They needed to be interviewed by the Promise Falls police. But the day had gone by and no names, no e-mail at all from Duncomb. Duckworth could just guess what the ex–Boston cop thought of the local police. That they were a bunch of know-nothing rubes.

  “Asshole,” he said again.

  Duckworth called the station and asked to be put through to Chief Rhonda Finderman.

  “Hey,” Finderman said, answering right away. “I was just about to check in with you.”

  Finderman wanted to know what progress was being made in the Gaynor case, and apologized for not knowing much about it. “I’m on this national association of police chiefs that meets all the time, the mayor’s committee on attracting jobs, plus this task force with the state police about coordinating data. I’m up to my ass in administrative shit. So, Rosemary Gaynor. Someone killed her and kidnapped her baby?”

  Quickly Duckworth brought her up-to-date. Then he told her about how Clive Duncomb, Thackeray’s head of security, didn’t think he needed to bother letting the Promise Falls police know they might be dealing with a possible rapist on campus.

  “That horse’s ass,” Finderman said. “I’ve had the pleasure. We had lunch one time; he said he really liked my hair. Take a guess how that went over.”

  “You know anything about him? Beyond his being a horse’s ass, I mean?”

  Rhonda Finderman paused. “What I hear is he worked vice in Boston. And that he left. And brought along his new wife, who may have been someone he met in the course of his duties, if you get my drift.”

  “The thing is, I’ve got my hands full, but we need someone out there, taking statements from the students who’ve been attacked, that whole drill. We need to find this guy before he ups his game.”

  “I’m down two detectives,” she said. “I’m going to have to move someone up, temporarily at least.”

  “Okay.”

  “You know Officer Carlson? Angus Carlson?”

  Duckworth paused. “I do.”

  “Try not to gush.”

  “It’s your call, Chief.”

  “We were all young once, Barry. You telling me you weren’t a know-it-all when you started?”

  “No comment.”

  She laughed. “He’s not that bad. He presents this front of being a wiseass, but I think there’s more to him than that. We got him about four years ago, from Ohio.”

  “It’s your call.”

  “I’ll have him call you; you can bring him up to speed.”

  “Fine.” There was still something else on Duckworth’s mind. “One other thing. I ran into Randy this morning.”

  “Finley?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jesus, him and Duncomb in one day. It’s like an asshole convention.”

  “He called me directly after finding all these squirrels someone had strung up on a fence near the college. He said he’s running for mayor again, and he was looking for me to be a department snitch, maybe give him something to run on. I’m probably not the only one he’s asking.”

  “He’s looking for something on me?”

  “He’s looking for anything he can get on anybody. I think you’d be near the top of the list. So would Amanda Croydon.”

  “The mayor’s squeaky-clean,” the chief said.

  “Finley could find a way to make that negative.”

  “He’s a weaselly son of a bitch,” the chief said. There was a long pause.

  “You there?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Rhonda said. “I’m just thinking about how he might go after me.” Another pause. “I think I run a clean department. Maybe he’ll go after something I did before this job.”

  She’d come up through the ranks, becoming chief nearly three years ago after several years working as a detective, often alongside Duckworth.

  “You did good work,” he said. “I wouldn’t want it getting back to you that an approach like that had been made, and that I hadn’t told you.”

  “Appreciate it, Barry.”

  Three seconds after he’d ended the call, another one came in.

  “Duckworth.”

  “Hey, it’s Wanda.” Wanda Therrieult. The medical examiner who would have conducted the autopsy on Rosemary Gaynor.

  “Yeah, hey,” Duckworth said.

  “Where are you?” He told her. “Swing by.”

  He said he could be there in five minutes.

  • • •

  It was a cold, sterile room, but that was the way it was supposed to be.

  The body was laid out on an aluminum table, draped in a light green sheet that matched the walls. Bright fluorescent lights shone down from the ceiling.

  Wanda Therrieult, fiftyish, short, and round, was sitting at a desk in the corner of the room, tapping away at a keyboard and drinking from a Big Hug Mug when Duckworth entered the room.

  “You want a coffee or anything?” she asked when she saw him, taking off a pair of reading glasses. “I got one of these single-cup things where you can pick what flavor you want.”

  She got up and showed him the machine, and a rack filled with various kinds of coffee that came in tiny containers the size of restaurant creamers.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, examining the labels. “What the hell is Volluto? Or Arpeggio? What’s that supposed to be? What do you have that’s closest to what I get at Dunkin’?”

  “You’re hopeless,” she said. “I’ll just pick
you one.”

  She chose a capsule, put it into the machine, set a mug in place, and hit a button. “Now it’ll work its magic.”

  “You should think about getting a doughnut machine, too. Why hasn’t Williams-Sonoma come up with one of those? A gadget you put on your countertop where you touch a button and out pops a fresh chocolate glazed.”

  Wanda studied him. “I was about to say that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, but then thought, I would buy one of those.”

  “It’s twenty years today,” he said.

  “What’s twenty years?”

  “I’ve been with the department two whole decades as of today.”

  “Get out.”

  “Would I lie?”

  “So, what, you joined when you were ten?”

  “I’m a trained investigator, Wanda. I can tell when someone is bullshitting me.”

  She smiled. “Congrats. Was there a thing? A little ceremony?”

  He shook his head. “No. You’re the only one I’ve told. I didn’t even mention it to Maureen. It’s no big deal.”

  “You’re one of the good ones, Barry.” The machine beeped. She handed him his coffee, raised her own, and they clinked mugs. “To twenty years of catching bad guys.”

  “To catching bad guys.”

  “And you’ve got a pretty bad one out there now,” she said, tipping her head in the direction of the body.

  “Show me.”

  Wanda set her mug down, went over to the examining table, and pulled back the sheet, but only as far as the top of the dead woman’s breasts.

  “I wanted to show you something first,” she said, pointing to Rosemary Gaynor’s neck. “You see these impressions here? This bruising?”

  Duckworth took a close look. “Thumbprint there, on this side of the neck, and four fingers over on this side. He grabbed her around the throat.”

  “With his left hand,” she said. “If she had been grabbed by the front, the thumbprint would be a little more to the front of her neck, not so far down the side.”

  “So he throttled her from behind. You suggesting he’s left-handed?”

  “Just the opposite.”

  Wanda pulled the sheet back further, exposing the woman to her knees. The body had been washed clean of blood, making the gash across her abdomen graphically clear. It ran roughly from hip bone to hip bone, dipping slightly en route.

  “Our boy put the knife in and basically sliced his way across, going from her left to right side. The cut runs at a fairly consistent depth all the way, about three inches. Now, you’d figure, if someone was being attacked that way, they’d try to pull back, or fall, something, but that’s not the case here.” She turned and faced him and held out her arms, as though inviting him to dance. “May I?”

  She came around behind him. “This won’t be quite right because you’re taller than I am, and I figure the killer was a good four or five inches taller than the victim in this case, but this will give you the right idea.”

  Wanda pressed herself up against his backside, then, with her left hand, reached over his left shoulder and grabbed his neck, pressing her thumb onto the left side, her fingers digging into the right.

  “Once he was holding her tight up against himself,” she said, “he reached around like this. . . .”

  And she brought her right arm around his right side, reaching as far as she could, and made the motion of driving a knife into the left side of his abdomen, then moved her arm across to his right.

  “The knife was in, and while he held her firmly, he just sawed right across.”

  “Got it,” he said.

  “I’m gonna let you go now before I lose control,” Wanda said flatly. She went around the examination table, across from Duckworth.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  “Yeah. This guy’s a nasty piece of work.”

  Duckworth couldn’t take his eyes off the wound. “You know what it looks like?” he said.

  Wanda nodded. “Yeah.”

  “A smile. It looks like a smile.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  David

  ETHAN had already returned the watch to his grandfather, even before he and Carl had disappeared into the basement to see the trains. Once Samantha Worthington and her son had left, I went back into the house and found Dad in the kitchen holding the item that had once belonged to his own father.

  He looked at me and said, “I’m confused. Was that woman Sam?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Best-looking Sam I ever saw.”

  I went up to my room, closed the door, and took out my cell phone. I called up Randall Finley’s number in my list of “recents,” and dialed.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  “Good to hear,” Finley said.

  “But I can’t get to it just yet. I’ve got a family matter to deal with.”

  “Well, deal with it as fast as you can,” Finley said. “We got lots to do.”

  “And there’s something I want to make clear.”

  “Go right ahead, David.”

  “I won’t do dirty. I won’t do underhanded. I see you pulling stunts like you got in trouble for seven years ago, I’m out. That clear?”

  “Crystal,” Randall Finley said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “I’ll be in touch tomorrow,” I said, and ended the call.

  Now it was time to go to the hospital.

  • • •

  Mom and Dad made noises about coming with me, but I suggested it would be better if I went on my own to talk to Marla.

  I found her on the third floor of Promise Falls General. I checked in at the nurses’ station to confirm which room she was in.

  “Who are you?” a nurse asked, almost accusingly.

  “I’m her cousin,” I said. “I’m Agnes Pickens’s nephew.”

  “Oh,” she said, her tone changing instantly. Being a relative of the hospital administrator had bought me some instant respectability. “Ms. Pickens and her husband were just here. I think they’ve gone to the cafeteria for coffee. If you’d like to wait—”

  “No, that’s okay, I can head straight down. It’s three-oh-nine, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  I gave her a friendly wave as I continued on down the hallway. I entered Marla’s room—a private one, no surprise there—tentatively, in case she might be sleeping. I peered around the corner, and there she was, eyes shut, wrist bandaged, the bed propped up at a forty-five-degree angle.

  I bumped a chair, which set off the smallest squeak, but it was enough to make Marla open her eyes. She looked at me blankly for a second, so I said, “Hi, it’s David,” remembering her problem with faces, even those you’d figure she would know best.

  “Hey,” she said groggily.

  I came up alongside the bed and took hold of her hand, the one not connected to the bandaged wrist.

  “I heard,” I said.

  “I guess I kind of lost it for a second,” she said, glancing at the bandages. “Mom wants them to keep me overnight.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m worried they’re going to move me to the psych ward. I do not need to go to the psych ward.”

  “Well, what you did, it’s got everyone worried.”

  “I’m fine. Really.” She looked at me. “The policeman was very mean to me.”

  “What policeman?”

  “The one asking all the questions. Duck something.”

  “Duckworth.”

  “He made a big deal out of what I do. Like just because I make up reviews I’d lie about what’s going on with that woman who died.”

  “He has to ask tough questions,” I said. “It’s his job.”

  “Mom says she’s going to try and get him fired.”


  “I’m sure she’d like to,” I said, giving her hand a little squeeze. “My mom gave me a little history lesson today.”

  “About what?”

  “About when I hit my head on the raft. How if it hadn’t been for you, I’d have been a goner.”

  The corners of her mouth went up a fraction of an inch. “No problem.”

  “I want to help, Marla. You’re in a jam. The baby thing, your having Matthew—”

  “I told you, someone came to the door and—”

  “I know. What I was going to say was, Matthew being with you, it doesn’t look good in connection with what happened to Mrs. Gaynor. You get that, right?”

  She nodded.

  “So I’m going to start asking around. Find out how Matthew could have ended up with you. Find your angel.”

  She smiled. “You believe me.”

  What I had come to believe was that Marla believed it. “Yes,” I said. “I want you to answer a few questions so I can get started. You up to that?”

  A weary nod.

  “I know your face blindness makes it hard to describe people, but the woman who came to the door with Matthew, is there anything you can tell me about her? Hair color?”

  “Uh, black?” she said, as if she was asking me.

  “I wasn’t there,” I said. “But you think it was black?”

  She nodded. Rosemary Gaynor had black hair, but if it had been her at the door it would have meant she’d handed off her own baby to Marla. That didn’t make a lot of sense.

  And plenty of women had black hair.

  “I know the smaller details are tough, but how about skin color? Black, white?”

  “Kind of . . . in between.”

  “Okay. Anything else? Eye color?”

  She shook her head.

  “Moles or scars, anything like that?”

  Another shake.

  “How about her voice? What did she say to you and what was her voice like?”

  “It was pretty. She said, ‘I want you to look after this little man. His name is Matthew. I know you’ll do a good job.’ That was about all. Her voice was kind of singsong? You know what I mean?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “And she left me the stroller. She said she was sorry she didn’t have anything else for me. And then she was gone.”