The Twenty-Three 3 (Promise Falls)

by Linwood Barclay

  “You heading away early for the long weekend?” Theresa asked, just being neighborly.

  Sam, hair hanging over her eyes, the base of her neck glistening with sweat, forced the case into the open trunk and glanced over. “What?”

  “I said, you going away for the weekend?”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah. We’re off for a while.”

  At which point Carl came out with a sleeping bag under one arm, a pillow under the other.

  “Where you going?” she asked.

  “Oh, we’ll see where the road takes us,” Sam said, heading back into the house for another load.

  But as was often the case, it was Carl who was a little freer with information. While he was dumping an overstuffed backpack into the car, and his mother was still in the house, he said to Theresa, “We haven’t gone camping in years, but Mom says we can do that till things die down.”

  “Die down?” Theresa said.

  Carl might have said more, but Sam was coming back out of the house with bags of groceries. It looked like she’d emptied out a cupboard. “Go get the cooler,” she told her son.

  “Did you put some Coke in it?” he asked.

  “A couple. But I don’t want you drinking soda nonstop.”

  Carl ran into the house and emerged seconds later with a cheap white Styrofoam cooler with a blue lid. He got it into the backseat. Sam locked up the house, the two of them got into the car, and they were gone.

  Just like that.

  So Theresa was not shocked when someone showed up at the door Saturday morning wondering where the neighbors had gone. Word was just starting to get around about the poisoned water, but luckily for Ron and Theresa, they’d slept in—ever since Ron had retired from teaching high school in Albany, and Theresa had finally decided to stop working in the accounting department at General Electric, they were no longer waking up every day at six, or earlier—and had tuned the radio to the local news before heading downstairs to put on the coffee.

  When the chimes rang, she went to the front door, since Ron was out back doing battle with the dandelions.

  “Hi. Sorry to bother you,” said the man on their front step. “I’m looking for the folks from next door. Samantha and Carl?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Theresa. “Who are you?”

  The man smiled apologetically, as though he should have introduced himself to begin with. “My name’s Harwood. David Harwood? I knocked on their door just now, and was by earlier, and they don’t seem to be around.”

  “They must have gone away for the weekend,” she said.

  “Yeah,” the man said, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. “I really need to get in touch with them. Sam is—well, Sam and I have been seeing each other, and I’m worried that I haven’t heard from her, that she isn’t answering her cell phone.”

  Theresa heard a noise at the back of the house. Ron coming in. “Where are you?” he called out.

  “Front door!” she said. When Ron showed up, a jar of weed spray in his hand, she said, “This man’s name is David Harwood. He was looking for Sam and Carl next door.”

  “Hi there,” Ron said.

  “Hi. I was worried, you know, because of the water scare, that maybe they were sick, but I looked in the windows, and it looks like no one’s home. And the car’s gone, anyway.”

  “Yeah,” Ron said. “I saw them packing up a couple of nights ago.”

  “Did Sam say where they were going?”

  Ron shook his head. “I didn’t talk to them.”

  “I did,” Theresa said. “Just for a second. All Sam said was they were going away. Just as well, considering what the town is going through today. Maybe she knows someone who has a cottage. That’d be the place to be this weekend.”

  “Isn’t that the truth? Well, I thank you for your trouble.”

  “It’s more likely they went to a camp—”

  Theresa cut her husband off, saying, “You want to leave a card or something in case she comes back? Someplace she can get in touch with you?”

  “No, that’s fine,” he said. “You have a good day, now.”

  Theresa closed the door, then leaned up against it with her back and placed the tips of her fingers on her chest, just below her neck. She took several deep breaths.

  “Are you okay?” her husband asked.

  “Why did you have to say that?”

  “Say what?”

  “What you were starting to say. That they might have gone to a campground.”

  “Isn’t that what you figured? They were putting sleeping bags and a tent into the car. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess they were going camping.”

  “He might have heard you. I think he did.”

  “So what?” Ron asked.

  “So he might start checking campgrounds, that’s what.”

  “So what if he does? He said they’ve been seeing each other, him and Sam.”

  “Yeah.” Theresa nodded. “Sam has been seeing someone named David Harwood. I’ve seen him drop by the last week or so.”

  “Okay. And?”

  “And that wasn’t him.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  ONCE the coroner showed up—a woman named Wanda Therrieult—Joyce Pilgrim returned to her office.

  That detective wanted her to review video from the college’s security cameras for the hours before and after the time when he believed Lorraine Plummer had been killed. One of the rooms in the small collection of offices that made up the security division was devoted to tech matters, including several computer monitors linked into the cameras posted around the campus.

  It had been Joyce’s plan to head straight in there, but she felt there was something more pressing she had to deal with first.

  She had to call Lorraine Plummer’s parents, Lester and Alma. It was their call, after all, that had prompted her to go looking for the student in the first place. They were probably still by the phone, waiting to hear back.

  But wait. Was it her responsibility? Should she be the one to give them the horrible news? Or was that up to the police? If this was a murder—which it clearly was—wasn’t it more appropriate for the cops to break the news? Shouldn’t it be Duckworth’s job?

  She knew what she was doing. She was looking for a way out. Joyce didn’t want to make the call. She wanted a legitimate excuse not to have to pick up that phone.

  Should she call Duckworth and ask if he’d done it? Had he even taken down contact information for the Plummers? She didn’t think he had. The man was probably going out of his mind. How many Promise Falls families were getting bad news today?

  Joyce knew this was something she had to do herself.

  She picked up the landline, entered the number for the Plummers. The phone did not complete the first ring.

  “Yes?” It was the mother, Alma.

  “Ms. Plummer?”

  “That’s right. Lester, get on the extension!”

  A click, then, “Hello?”

  “You’re both there?” Joyce said.

  “Yes,” said Lester.

  “Has anyone been in touch with you?” she asked.

  “No,” said Lester. “You mean about the water? We’ve been watching the news. About the poisoned water. When did that happen? Has that been going on all week? Is Lorraine sick?”

  “Is she in the hospital?” Alma asked.

  “Dear God, did she drink the water?” Lester Plummer asked.

  “No,” said Joyce. “She didn’t drink the water. The college is on a separate water supply from the town, so we weren’t affected here.”

  She could hear both parents sigh in relief.

  “I’m sorry,” Joyce Pilgrim said, “but the news is still bad.”

  When she got off the phone, she did not immediately go into the tech room. Instead, she sat stone-still in her desk chair and felt herself start to shake. She gripped the arms of the chair.

  I will not lose it.

  She took several deep breaths, fought back tears. She’d mana
ged to hold it together through the rest of that phone call. If she could listen to two people be overcome with grief and not start crying herself, she could do anything.

  Right?

  She thought about calling her husband. She wanted to hear Ted’s voice. But she was sure the moment he came on the line, she’d go to pieces.

  She would talk to him later.

  Joyce hoped the next time she talked with Duckworth, he wouldn’t ask whether she’d quizzed Lorraine Plummer’s parents about whether their daughter had ever mentioned a married man.

  She couldn’t do it. The people were too distraught. She’d broken the news to them. Duckworth could ask them his questions.

  Joyce seated herself at the desk in the tech room, moved the mouse around, entered in the time period. She wanted to see footage from 11:20 p.m. through to 1:20 a.m. Duckworth had said he believed Lorraine had been killed about twenty minutes past midnight.

  Cameras were posted on the road near the library and the athletic center. There were other cameras, too, although none close to the dormitory where Lorraine lived. But anyone driving onto the Thackeray grounds, headed for that building, would have had to pass either the library or the athletic center.

  She brought up the video that had been taken from the athletic-center camera first. Set it up to begin at 11:20 p.m.

  There wasn’t a whole lot to look at. With so few students in attendance, there were no cars, and very few people walking about. At 11:45 a young man and woman, holding hands, walked across the screen.

  At 11:51, a jogger. White male, late teens or twenties, pair of shorts, white T-shirt. Wires coming down from his ears. On-screen for maybe seven seconds. She made a note of his appearance, scribbled onto a pad: “runner 11:51.”

  At 12:02 a.m., he reappeared, going the other way. Joyce made another note.

  She was able to fast-forward through the stretches where there was no activity. And there was nothing after that jogger’s return trip on the athletic-center camera. At one point, she thought she saw something, rewound, started the video again at regular speed.

  Something moving along the side of the road, up close to a building. Very low to the ground. Was it a person? Someone crawling? Was it someone who had been injured, or someone sneaking around?

  She rewound, watched it again. It wasn’t one moving object, but three, or possibly four.

  Raccoons.

  Joyce laughed. Her first laugh in some time.

  Time to turn her attention to the other camera, the one mounted near the library. One corner of the library building was in the upper-right quadrant of the screen. A road bisected the screen horizontally. The upper left was wooded area, and below the street, sidewalk. The camera itself was mounted atop a student residence—not Lorraine’ s—across from the library. The building where Lorraine lived was offscreen, to the right, maybe a hundred yards away.

  The library was closed, of course, that late at night, and only about a fifth of the usual lights were on. Most of the road illumination came from streetlamps.

  Joyce started at 11:20 p.m., and again fast-forwarded until something caught her eye.

  A car entered the screen quickly from the left, stopped dead center. Joyce noted the time: 11:41 p.m. The driver’s door opened—the interior dome light flashed on—and a man jumped out carrying something square, and white.

  A pizza box. It was a pizza delivery guy.

  He ran toward the bottom of the screen, disappeared. Was he headed for the residence just out of view? Or could he have, once off closed-circuit, cut right and gone to Lorraine’s building?

  Had she ordered a pizza? Duckworth had looked at her phone. If he’d seen a pizza delivery call, wouldn’t he have been all over that? But then again, she could have ordered it online, using her laptop. Or maybe she—

  Hang on. The pizza guy was back, already. Only three minutes had passed. It was 11:44. He got behind the wheel, did a U-turn in the street, and tore off in the direction he’d come from.

  Still, Joyce made a note.

  11:45: nothing.

  11:49: nothing.

  11:55: nothing.

  12:01: noth—Hello. What’s this?

  A vehicle nosed into the screen from the left. Literally, nosed. A bumper and about six inches of hood. The vehicle nudged its way into the scene, and stopped.

  There wasn’t enough vehicle showing to tell whether it was a car, an SUV, or maybe a pickup truck. The only thing it definitely did not look like was a van, where you would expect to see the hood sloping vertically up into a windshield.

  Joyce hit pause, stared at the screen, brought her nose up to it, trying to tell what kind of car or truck it might be. But the image was grainy, the lighting inadequate.

  She hit play, allowed the video to continue.

  The headlights went out. For a few seconds, there was nothing. Then, a flash of light from the left. Two seconds maybe. On, and off.

  The dome light, she thought. Someone getting out of the car, then closing the door.

  And then, a person.

  He—Joyce was guessing it was a he—came around the front of the vehicle quickly, mounted the curb, kept walking in that direction and out of the frame.

  Gone.

  Joyce paused the video, rewound, then went through the next fifteen seconds in slo-mo. Headlights off. Flash of light. Man coming around front of car.

  Pause.

  What could she actually tell about him? He was little more than a blurry, dark figure. No hat, but she couldn’t see his face well enough to know whether he was white, black, or brown. Anywhere from five-six to six feet, she guessed, which was not terribly helpful. That accounted for most men on the planet.

  Pants, jacket. In other words, not naked.

  “Shit,” Joyce said to no one in particular.

  He was there, and then he was gone. A few seconds later, it was 12:02 a.m.

  Joyce made more notes, then let the video continue. She resisted the urge to fast-forward. Her eyes stayed locked on the vehicle as the minutes ticked by.

  At 12:07, a jogger.

  Joyce was pretty sure it was the same jogger she’d seen from the other camera. He came in from the right side of the screen, ran to the left, and then he was gone. Instead of running on the sidewalk, he had chosen to run down the middle of the street.

  She rewound, took a closer look at him. Same shorts, it looked like. And again, what looked like two strands of spaghetti running down from his ears.

  Same jogger.

  He’d run right past the parked vehicle. Within a few feet of it.

  Joyce let the surveillance video play on.

  It got to be 12:20 a.m., which was around the time Duckworth believed Lorraine Plummer had been killed.

  Then it was 12:21.

  12:22.

  Joyce sat, eyes riveted.

  He came out of nowhere at 12:34 a.m.

  Coming from below the screen, running around the front of the car.

  Two seconds of light as he opened the door, got behind the wheel, and closed the door.

  Headlights on.

  Drive forward, Joyce thought. Drive forward and let me get a better look at your ride.

  The vehicle backed out of the frame.

  “Fuck!” Joyce said, and banged a fist on the table hard enough to shake the monitor.

  She kept the video rolling until 1:20, but there was nothing else to see.

  Joyce leaned back in the computer chair, laced her fingers together at the back of her head, and again shouted, “Fuck!”

  She’d really wanted to see what that son of a bitch was driving. But then she realized that even if she couldn’t see it, someone else had.

  I have to find that jogger.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Duckworth

  I’D been through the Olivia Fisher file several times in the last couple of weeks. I knew the basic facts, which were these: She was a beautiful young woman, twenty-four years old, black hair to her shoulders, round, bright eyes. Fiv
e-five, 132 pounds. She’d been born right here, at Promise Falls General Hospital, and done all her schooling in the town. She had never lived away from home, although that might very well have changed.

  Olivia was engaged to Victor Rooney, also twenty-four at the time, another Promise Falls born-and-raised kid, who had gone to Thackeray for two years before dropping out. School wasn’t his thing. But he had, in the months prior to Olivia’s death, gotten a job with the town fire department. He had, over the years, held other odd jobs. Some of those had also been with the town, in other capacities.

  One, I now remembered from a conversation I’d had not long ago with Olivia’s father, Walden, had been a summer position at the water treatment plant.

  They were to be married in three months, at the end of August 2012. The hall had been booked, the invitations mailed. Olivia had just completed an environmental science degree at Thackeray, and was in line for a job at an oceanic institute in Boston. She was going to accept it, even though it would mean living away from Promise Falls, and her family, for the first time in her life. Victor was said to be sorry about leaving Promise Falls, but had planned to apply for a firefighting job anywhere in the Boston area.

  None of that happened.

  On Friday, May 25, at nine twenty p.m., Olivia Fisher was in Promise Falls Park, not far from the foot of the waterfall, waiting to meet her fiancé. He’d worked an afternoon shift with the fire department and was planning to grab a couple of drinks with his buddies after, at Knight’s. He planned to leave there at nine and walk over to the park—it was only a few blocks from the bar, and he knew he probably wouldn’t be in any shape to drive—but he lost track of time.

  Had he left when he’d planned to, it was possible Olivia would not have been grabbed from behind. It was possible a knife would not have penetrated the left side of her abdomen. It was possible that knife would not then have sliced across Olivia to roughly the same position on the other side of her torso.

  With that distinctive, signature cut. Curving down slightly in the middle, a crude smile.

  The attack most likely took little more than a few seconds. But in that time, Olivia Fisher managed to scream. From all accounts, at least twice.