“That’s disrespectful,” Sarita said. “They’re nice old people.”
“I don’t mean anything by it,” he said. “Anyway, I don’t have to go in. So now we can talk about my idea.”
She shook her head. “My only idea is to get as far away from here as fast as I can. Maybe you could drive me to Albany or something? And then I can catch a train.”
“Where are you going to go?”
“New York? I got a cousin there. I just have to find her.”
“Sit down,” he said.
“I don’t—”
“Just sit down and hear me out, okay?”
She dropped onto the end of the bed and looked up at him. “What?”
“There’s stuff this Gaynor guy isn’t going to want to come out, right?”
“Maybe it’s already out there,” she said.
“Yeah, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s not going to come out. Maybe they’ll pin his wife’s murder on someone right away and they won’t find out about the other stuff. You put in a call; you tell him you can keep that from ever happening. For, you know, a price.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Sarita said. “It’s all going to come out.”
“’Cause of what you did,” Marshall said. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I had to do it,” she said.
“But maybe it won’t matter. Maybe it won’t come out.”
“You’re crazy,” she said. “I have to get out of here. You think the police aren’t looking for me? I guarantee it.”
“You won’t be easy to find. How do they trace you? You got no phone, no license, no credit cards. You’ve bailed from your apartment. You’re, like, totally off the grid. It’s like you don’t even exist.” He smiled, tickled the underside of her chin with his index finger. She turned her head away. “Come on; it’s like you’re a spy or something.”
“I am no spy. I feed old people and babies and then clean up their piss and shit. That’s what I do.”
“Okay, okay,” he said. “Listen, you hide out here while I go empty out what I got at the ATM. You take it, get on a train to New York. But you have to promise you’ll get in touch when you get there. I need to know you’re okay. I love you. You know that, right? I love you more than anything in the whole world.”
Sarita was tearing up again. She put her hands over her face.
“I can’t get it out of my mind,” she said.
Marshall hugged her again. “I know, I know.”
“Seeing Ms. Gaynor like that. It was so awful, how she looked.”
“I’m tellin’ ya,” he said. “It’s an opportunity. He’s got money. Fancy house, nice car. Guy like that has to have money. I mean, shit, you worked for them. You ever see financial statements, that kind of thing?”
She brought her hands down, thought a moment. “Sometimes,” she said quietly. “But I never really looked at them. I didn’t bring in the mail or anything. I just helped with the house and the baby. Ms. Gaynor, she was so upset. She thought having a baby would make her happy, but it just made it worse.”
“Yeah, well, raising kids is no joke,” Marshall said. “I think I’d get pretty depressed if I had to look after a baby.”
Sarita shot him a look.
“Unless it was with you,” he said quickly.
“I think her husband knew all along what was going on, but when Ms. Gaynor found out . . .”
“You have to stop thinking about it,” Marshall said. “You just have to move on, you know?”
“It’s my fault,” Sarita said. “If it hadn’t been for me she never would have started putting it together.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean it has anything to do with what happened to her,” Marshall said. “Unless you think it was him. The husband.”
She shook her head. “He loved her. I mean, he was away a lot, and he hardly ever talked to me, but I think he loved her.”
“Yeah, but sometimes, even people who were in love once, they do bad shit to each other. All the more reason to give him a call, tell him what you know. He’ll come across; I guarantee it. You’ll have enough money to get settled in someplace else, and have some left over to send to your folks.”
“No,” she said firmly. “No.”
He put up his hands. “Okay. You say no, then it’s no.”
“All I ever wanted to do,” she whispered, “was the right thing. I’m not a bad person, you know?”
“Of course not.”
“I’ve always tried to be good. But sometimes it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s wrong.”
Marshall gave her a kiss on the forehead. “You wait here while I get you some money. And I’ll pick up something to eat, too. Maybe an Egg McMuffin and some coffee.”
Sarita said nothing as Marshall finished getting dressed. Before he left, he double-checked that the slip of paper where he’d written Bill Gaynor’s phone number was still in his pocket.
THIRTY-FIVE
BARRY Duckworth was up at six.
He hadn’t gotten in until nearly midnight. As he’d pulled into the drive he’d noticed a white van parked at the curb opposite his house, but didn’t give it much thought. He hadn’t noticed the writing on the side.
He struggled up the stairs, stripped down to his boxers, and collapsed into bed next to Maureen. She mumbled, “Hmmm,” and went back to sleep.
He was worried he’d lie awake all night. Haunted by the sight of that student with half his head blown off. Rosemary Gaynor on the autopsy table, the ghoulish smile cut across her abdomen. Those three mannequins on the Ferris wheel.
Even those goddamned squirrels.
But he didn’t dream about any of those things. He went into a six-hour coma. He’d set his mental alarm for six thirty a.m., but his eyes opened at five fifty-nine. He glanced over at the clock, decided it wasn’t worth trying to get back to sleep when he’d be getting up so soon. He swung his thick legs from under the covers, planted his feet on the carpeted bedroom floor.
Maureen rolled over. “That was late last night.”
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his eyes, then reaching for his phone to see whether he had any messages. There was nothing that needed his immediate attention.
“I tried to wait up for you,” she said.
“Why?”
“To celebrate.”
“Huh?”
“Twenty years. On the job. I didn’t forget.”
Now, with light coming through the window, he saw two tall fluted glasses on the dresser. An ice bucket, a bottle of champagne. By now, the bucket would be full of water.
“I didn’t see that when I came in,” he said.
“My detective,” Maureen said. “Nothing gets past you.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Shh,” she said. “I should have said something. But we can have a little celebration now.”
She reached down under the covers, found him.
• • •
When they were finished, he said, “I have to get moving.”
Maureen threw back the rumpled sheets. “Go. I’ll put on the coffee.”
He padded down the hallway to the bathroom, reached into the shower and turned on the water, stuck in his hand to test whether the hot water had traveled two floors up from the old heater yet. He caught a brief glimpse of himself in the mirror before stepping in.
It always depressed Duckworth to see himself naked. What the hell happened? How could Maureen enjoy making love with someone who looked the way he did? He hadn’t been this heavy when he was in college, and he was certainly in better shape when he joined the Promise Falls police. He blamed, in part, all those hours he sat in a cruiser as a uniformed officer. He hated that the cliché, at least where he was concerned, was true: Barry Duckworth liked to stop at doughnut shop
s. It wasn’t just that he liked doughnuts, which he did, very much. It was a way of breaking the boredom. You went in, you had a coffee, you ate a doughnut, you talked to the people behind the counter, took a seat and shot the breeze with a few of the customers.
He liked to think of it at the time as public relations.
And when he made detective, well, it wasn’t like the movies, where you were running down alleys and jumping over fences. You spent your time talking to witnesses and making notes and sitting at a desk and writing reports and phoning people.
Every year, he got just a little bit heavier.
And now, he figured, he was at least eighty pounds over what he should be. All these thoughts ran through his head in the seconds before he stepped under the hot water. That, and one other thing.
The number 23.
Three times in one day that number had reared its head. Twenty-three dead squirrels. The number on the Ferris wheel carriage holding the three painted mannequins. That student’s hoodie.
Maybe it was nothing, he thought, as he soaped his considerable belly. There were numbers surrounding us all the time. There were probably numerical coincidences everywhere if you knew where to look. License plates, dates of birth, home addresses, Social Security numbers.
And yet . . .
He’d keep his eyes open. Have that number in the back of his mind as he continued with his investigation. Make that investigations.
Now that Angus Carlson was going to be assisting, Duckworth hoped he could hand off some of his workload. Assuming Carlson would be starting in the detective division today, Duckworth was going to give him a list of things to look into. Those strung-up squirrels for starters. See if he thought they were so funny then. And Duckworth still wanted the other Thackeray College students, the three who’d been attacked before last night, interviewed. Maybe Joyce wasn’t the only one who’d heard some very strange comments from Mason Helt. Finally, he wanted Carlson to go back out to Five Mountains and find out who fired up the Ferris wheel.
Duckworth could concentrate his efforts on the Rosemary Gaynor investigation, and finding the missing nanny, Sarita Gomez. The old guy who lived next door said she worked shifts at a nursing home, but didn’t know which one. There were several in the Promise Falls area, so it might be better to go to the station and work the phones than drive from facility to facility.
He cranked the taps shut, reached for the towel, stepped out onto the mat. He was holding the towel around his waist—there wasn’t quite enough material to allow him to tuck it into place—and glanced out the bathroom window, which looked out onto the street.
That white van from the night before was still there. Even though the sun wasn’t quite up yet, Barry could make out the words written on the side.
Finley Springs Water.
He blinked a couple of times to be sure he was reading that correctly. What the hell was Randall Finley’s van doing parked out front of his house? Was that actually the same van that had been there the night before?
Had Randy been waiting to talk to him last night and returned this morning?
He skipped shaving. Duckworth ran his fingers through his hair, dressed hurriedly, not bothering with a tie, which he could do after breakfast, and followed the smell of brewing coffee to the kitchen below.
“It’s ready,” Maureen said when he came into the room.
“What’s Randall Finley doing here?”
“What?” she said.
“Finley, you know—first-class asshole, former mayor? That Finley?”
“I know who you mean. He’s here?”
“His van’s parked across the street. I think it’s been there all night. Was he hiding under our bed?”
“You got me. We’ve been having an affair for the last six months.”
Duckworth stared at her and waited.
Maureen smiled, let out a short laugh. “That’s not Finley’s van. I mean, yes, it belongs to his company, but Trevor’s got it.”
“Why would our son have Finley’s van?”
“I’m sure it’s not the only van Finley owns,” Maureen said. “The man probably has a small fleet of them. You could hardly run a bottled-water company with just one van.”
“That’s not the question,” Duckworth said, growing more impatient with each passing second. “Why is our son driving that man’s truck?” He paused. “And why is it here?”
“Trevor paid me a little surprise visit last night,” Maureen said. “I mean, he was coming to visit both of us, but you ended up working late. He’s upstairs, asleep, although he’ll probably be down any minute. He has to be at work at seven thirty.”
“Our son is working for Finley?”
Maureen nodded enthusiastically. “I know! Isn’t it wonderful? He’s been going through such a bad patch. The breakup with Trish, trying to find work. Now he’s got this job and I think it’s doing wonders for him. I could see a real change in him. It’s taken him forever to move past losing that girl, and add to that being out of work, and—”
“He can’t work for that man,” Duckworth said, taking a seat at the kitchen table.
“Now you’re talking like a crazy person,” his wife said, filling a cup with coffee and putting it in front of him. “Our son gets a job and you want him to quit?”
“What’s he doing for him?” he asked.
Maureen put a fist on her hip. “You’re the detective. There’s a truck on the street, filled with cases of bottled water. Trevor has the key, which allows him to take this truck anywhere he pleases. I’ll wait while you put it together.”
There was noise on the floor above them. Trevor’s old bedroom, where he hadn’t lived for a couple of years. He was getting up.
“He was sorry to have missed you last night,” she said.
“I’ll just bet he was.”
“But at least you get a chance to see him this morning.” When Duckworth said nothing, she continued. “Don’t you be negative about this. Don’t go bursting his bubble.”
“I’m not going to be negative. I just want to know how he ended up working for that asshole.”
“That’s the spirit,” she said.
“He should go back to school, learn a trade. Not drive a truck around for some blowhard.”
Trevor showed up a minute later, his hair suggestive of some sort of electrocution. He had on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. He gave his mother a kiss. “Thought I’d grab some breakfast before I get dressed,” he said to her. He looked at his father and smiled as he ran his fingers through his hair.
“What’s going on with you and Finley?” Duckworth asked.
“Good morning to you, too, Dad,” he said.
“When’d you start working for him?”
“A week ago,” he said.
“How’d that come about?”
“I saw an ad online. He was looking for drivers; I applied; I got it. Is that a problem?”
“Your father and I are delighted,” Maureen said. “Is it part-time, full-time?”
“Full-time,” Trevor said. “It’s not a ton of money, but it’s better than what I was making before, which was a big fat zilch.”
“Does he know who you are?” his father asked.
“Uh, well, I filled out the application form with my name on it, so I would say that yes, he knows who I am.”
“That’s not what I mean. Does he know you’re my son?”
“Our son,” Maureen said. “I don’t remember you making him alone.”
“Shit, I don’t know, probably,” Trevor said. “I mean, he probably told me at some point to say hello. So, hello.”
Duckworth shook his head.
“I don’t need this,” Trevor said. “I’ll get something on the way.”
“Trev,” his mother said, but he didn’t stop. Maureen looked at her husband and sai
d, “You can be a real horse’s ass at times. It’s not always about you.”
She set a bowl in front of him. He looked down at it.
“What is this?” he asked.
“That,” she said, “is fruit.”
• • •
When Barry heard the front door open and close, and looked out the window and saw Trevor Duckworth heading for the Finley Springs truck, he chased after him. Trevor was about to close the door when Duckworth, winded, caught up.
“Hey,” he said.
“What?” Trevor said.
“Just give me a second.” He took four deep breaths, then said, “I’m sorry.”
“Sure, whatever.”
“Listen to me. I’m glad you’ve got a job. It’s great. We’re glad to see you get something.”
Trevor, perched on the edge of the driver’s seat, said, “But?”
Duckworth couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, there’s always a but. Look, I’m not going to tell you to quit this job.”
“Like I’d have to if you did.”
“Yeah, I get that. You’re a grown man. You don’t have to do what your parents tell you. All I want to say is, watch your step around Finley.”
“It’s just a job, Dad. I’m delivering water.”
“Sure, that’s the job. But a guy like Finley . . . he always has an agenda. I had a run-in with him yesterday. He wanted something from me I wasn’t prepared to give.”
“What?” Trevor asked.
“An advantage. He wanted to use me to further his ambitions. Wanted me to snitch on others in the department. And I can’t help but wonder if he’d find an angle using you.”
“I just drive, Dad.”
“Okay. I’ve got one last thing I’ll say, and then I’ll shut up about it. Don’t ever compromise yourself with him. Keep your nose clean and don’t make mistakes. Because if he’s got something on you, I promise you, sooner or later, that son of a bitch will use it.”
Trevor’s eyelid fluttered.
“What?” Duckworth asked.
“Nothing,” Trevor said. “I hear ya. I gotta go or I’m going to be late.”
Duckworth stepped back, allowing Trevor to close the door. He started up the van, turned it around in their driveway, and took off up the street.
Broken Promise: A Thriller Page 22
