The Twenty-Three

by Linwood Barclay

  I had no reason, at least not yet, to think what was happening now was terrorism. It could be an accident of some kind. A failure to treat the water properly. I remembered a case from years ago, north of the border, where a small town’s water supply was contaminated with E. coli from farm runoff. The people who ran the treatment plant didn’t have a clue what they were doing, and people died. But it was incompetence, not terrorism.

  “You think it’s a terrorist act?” Rhonda asked.

  “I have no idea what it is. I need to talk to whoever’s in charge of the treatment plant. Do you know who that is?”

  “No.”

  “Leave it with me,” I said, and ended the call before she had a chance to hang up on me herself.

  I thumbed through the contacts on my own phone, found the city hall number, and dialed it on the hospital’s phone.

  An almost immediate pickup. “Hello—”

  “This is Detective Duckworth. Put me through—”

  “—you have reached the offices of the town of Promise Falls. We are currently closed. Our hours are—”

  “Fuck.”

  The recorded voice droned on. “—Monday to Friday from nine thirty a.m. to four thirty p.m. If this call is concerning a power outage, please call Promise Falls Electric at—”

  I hung up. I’d been dumb enough to think that in the middle of an emergency like this, someone would be at town hall fielding inquiries, even if the mayor was out of town. I wanted the name of whoever ran the water plant and I wanted it now. I might be able to find it by searching the town’s Web site if any of the computers around here connected to the Internet, and if they didn’t, I’d have to go outside and try to do it on my phone.

  It occurred to me I might have a number on my phone that would put me in touch with someone who’d know off the top of his head.

  I scrolled through recent incoming calls on my cell, found one from a couple of weeks earlier. I was pretty sure I had the right one. I entered the number into the hospital phone.

  He picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Randy?” I said.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Barry Duckworth.”

  “Barry!” he said loudly, almost cheerfully. He knew I hated him, and yet he greeted me like an old friend, the bastard. “What in Sam fuck is going on?”

  “Who runs the water plant?”

  “The what?”

  “I’m wondering if it would be the same person who did the job when you were mayor. Who had it then?”

  “Why don’t you tell me first why you need to know?”

  I could almost picture him smirking on the other end of the line. Randy always had an angle. Sure, I’ll help you, but you help me first.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell him what was going on. The whole world would know what was going on in very short order. I just didn’t want to take the time. But it struck me that it would take less time to fill him in than argue.

  I gave him the broad strokes—that the town’s water might be deadly.

  “Goddamn,” he said. “Makes me glad I use nothing but my own springwater at home. How the hell could something like that happen?”

  “A name, Randy.”

  “Garvey Ottman. At least, he was in charge when I ran the show. I haven’t heard anything to the effect that he isn’t still.”

  “Know where I can reach him?”

  “Tell you what,” Finley said. “I’m already up and out. Heard all those sirens, wanted to find out what was going on. I’ll try to track him down for you, get back to you the moment I find him.”

  “Okay,” I said, willing, right now, to accept his assistance. “I’m heading out there in the meantime.”

  “Glad to help,” Finley said. “I call you at this number?”

  I didn’t think I would be staying here that much longer. “No,” I said. “Call my cell.” I knew he had the number already.

  “I’ll get back to you ASAP.” He ended the call.

  At that moment, I happened to glance at a bulletin board fixed to the wall above where I’d been using the phone.

  There were nurses’ schedules, hospital notices about handwashing, a photo of what looked to be several off-duty nurses grouped together at a bowling alley.

  All smiling happily.

  A promotional calendar from a local flower shop was pinned to the upper right corner, with boxes big enough that social events were scribbled on them. “Book club” and “Marta’s Bday.” For today, someone had scribbled “Bridge.”

  That was when I noticed what today’s date was.

  It was the twenty-third of May.

  SEVEN

  JOYCE Pilgrim had been thinking seriously of quitting her security job at Thackeray College only a couple of weeks ago, and now here she was, running the department.

  Strange, the way things turned out.

  Her number one reason for quitting was her boss: Clive Duncomb.

  Where to begin?

  Even before he’d put her life at risk by using her as bait to catch a campus predator, she couldn’t stand the man. Mr. Macho. Talking about his days with the Boston PD like he was the toughest cop that city had ever seen. Which led Joyce to wonder, If you were such hot shit in Boston, what the hell are you doing running security for a small college in upstate New York? What did you do that you had to get out of Boston and disappear to a place like this?

  Joyce had had her suspicions, many of them focused on Duncomb’s wife, Liz, who, rumor had it, was not exactly from Beacon Hill. More like the Combat Zone. Okay, so maybe it had been a few years since the Combat Zone’s heyday of strip clubs and whorehouses, but just because they’d spruced up the area didn’t mean there was no more prostitution. Liz had found a way—and a stable of women—to meet the demand. The supposedly incorruptible cop had been taken by her charms, and before their misdeeds caught up with them, they’d bailed on their respective lives and built new ones here in Promise Falls.

  But just because people move, it doesn’t make them different people.

  Clive never passed up an opportunity to tell Joyce how she looked. Was she working out? Was she on a diet? Those pants sure fit nice. He’d tried to get through the door at the same moment she did, the back of a hand inadvertently touching her breast. The other numbnuts she worked with told her not to worry about it, that Clive didn’t mean anything by it—that was just the way he was.

  And then came the guy in the hoodie.

  Attacking women on campus, dragging them into the bushes. None of the female students had been raped or beaten, but that didn’t exactly put anyone at ease. The next attack, they feared, could be worse.

  The assaults would escalate.

  So rather than bring in the local cops, Duncomb decided they’d run a sting operation themselves. He persuaded Joyce to walk late at night along a wooded path, just daring the son of a bitch to show up. He tried to talk her into dressing up like a hooker—boots and fishnets, the whole nine yards—but Joyce pointed out to him that ladies of the evening had not been their guy’s victim of choice.

  Fine, Duncomb said, clearly disappointed. He told her he and the rest of the security team would be watching closely, that she had nothing to worry about, which of course was total bullshit, because the guy did show up, did drag her into the bushes. The funny thing was, once he had her pinned to the ground, he’d told her she had nothing to worry about, that it was all for show, that—

  And then Duncomb had burst through the bushes and put a bullet in the guy’s brain.

  Joyce took a leave.

  She’d pretty much made up her mind not to come back. She’d have a complete nervous breakdown working for that idiot. No way she was ever working for that trigger-happy asshole again.

  And then something crazy happened.

  The asshole died.

  Clive Duncomb was killed. Run down—deliberately, it turned out—by one of the college’s professors. Details were sketchy—the whole thing
was still under investigation by the Promise Falls cops—but Clive, his wife, and this English professor and his wife, who’d been killed when that drive-in came crashing down, were part of some sex club.

  Well, there’s a shocker.

  It would have been more surprising, Joyce thought, if Duncomb hadn’t been mixed up in something like that.

  Anyway, the day after Clive had been killed, a call came from the office of the president of Thackeray College. Would Ms. Pilgrim be available to come in for a private lunch?

  Not really up to it, she’d said.

  The president, she was told, would very much like to speak with her. They would send around a car.

  And so they did. A limo. A driver in a suit and tie. Came around and opened the door for her and everything. The driver pointed out to her that between the seats were bottles of water and a choice of snacks. Peanuts, chocolate bars, mints.

  For a ten-minute ride!

  The president’s private chef prepared lunch in a small, private dining room down the hall from his office. Filet mignon.

  Joyce tried to remember whether she’d ever had filet mignon before.

  He made his pitch. He wanted her to become the new chief of security.

  “Not a chance,” she told him.

  He told her that the college had made a serious error in judgment when it had hired Clive Duncomb. They had not done a thorough enough background check. They had been dazzled by his time on the Boston PD, had assumed a man with that kind of experience would be a perfect candidate.

  “We could not have been more wrong,” the president said.

  Duncomb’s failure to bring the Promise Falls police into the hunt for the campus predator had created massive liability problems for Thackeray. The parents of the boy he’d shot dead, Mason Helt, were launching a multimillion-dollar suit against the school. If the police had been brought in, it was unlikely Duncomb would have been running his own sting operation.

  Joyce did not mention that she herself had been wondering whether to bring a suit against the college for what Duncomb had put her through.

  “You’ve got a clear head,” the president told her. “You’re smart, you’re responsible, and I think it would be sending a strong message that someone like you—”

  “A woman,” Joyce Pilgrim said.

  “That someone like you was taking over.”

  Joyce took a bite of her filet. “How much?”

  Once her salary had been sorted, she agreed to take the job.

  On a Saturday morning, especially the Saturday morning of a long holiday weekend when the college was pretty much deserted until September, save for a few dozen students who were taking some summer courses, one would not have expected the head of security to be in her office.

  But because Joyce was new to the position, she was trying to get herself up to speed. She’d been familiarizing herself with every aspect of the college. Getting to know the staff, at least those who were here. She wanted to completely revamp all the security protocols before students returned in the fall.

  Plus, she was getting caught up on e-mails and phone messages. She’d barely gotten started and already she was feeling behind. She was sitting at her desk, on the computer, when the phone rang.

  “Security,” Joyce said.

  “This is Angela Ferraza, Promise Falls police. Who’s this?”

  “Joyce Pilgrim.”

  “Ms. Pilgrim, there’s reason to believe Promise Falls’ water supply may have been contaminated, constituting an emergency health hazard. You need to get word out to everyone to not drink the water.”

  “What’s happened?” she asked.

  “No time to explain. Check our Web site later for further details. I’ve a million more calls to make.”

  Ferraza hung up.

  Joyce kept the phone to her ear, entered the extension for the college infirmary. She had her doubts anyone would even be there, but someone picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello?” a woman said.

  “It’s Joyce Pilgrim in security. Who’s this?”

  “It’s Mavis. How ya doin’, Joyce?”

  “Hey, Mavis. Didn’t know if I’d find anybody there.”

  “Place is deserted, but as long as there’re kids here somewhere, someone’s gotta be here. I’m getting a lot of reading done.”

  “So you haven’t had any sick kids wandering in this morning?”

  “Nope. Why?”

  “We got word there’s something wrong with the municipal water system. Some kids might show up sick.”

  “Doubt that’ll happen anyway,” Mavis said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “The college isn’t on the town’s water system. Town’s got its own reservoir, has for years. Same source of water that feeds Thackeray Pond.”

  “Just the same, in case—what do they call it, the aquifer?—in case it’s something that could get into both water supplies, be aware, okay?”

  “Got it.”

  “I’m sending out a mass e-mail and text, putting it up on the Web.” The college had the e-mail addresses and phone numbers for all its staff and students and could send out messages to everyone in an instant.

  She gave herself a mental kick for not knowing the college didn’t rely on the town for water. What did she think was going on, exactly, in the pumping station at the north end of the campus?

  Duh.

  When Joyce got off the phone with Mavis, she sent out the mass e-mail, but not before phoning her husband, Ted, at home and telling him not to drink what came out of the tap. They had a house out in the country, and their water came from a private well. But what if the source for that well was the same as the one for the town?

  Better safe than sorry.

  The light on her phone had been flashing the whole time she’d been sitting here, and she figured now was a good time to get caught up on a few things.

  The first two calls were job applications. Joyce made a note of their names and numbers. Clive’s death, and her promotion, had left a vacancy in the ranks, and she wanted to start interviewing the following week. She might have more than one spot to fill, given that some of the existing staff made Inspector Clouseau look like Sherlock Holmes.

  The third, which had come in the night before, shortly after ten, went like this:

  “Oh, hello. My name is Lester Plummer, in Cleveland. Our daughter, Lorraine, is attending Thackeray and has opted to stay to take a couple of summer courses, and . . .”

  His voice faltered. He cleared his throat and continued. “Lorraine is taking two courses, and staying in residence, and the thing is . . . I’d like you to call me the moment you receive this. Please.” He provided a number and hung up.

  Lorraine Plummer. Joyce recognized the name immediately. She was one of the three students who’d been attacked by Mason Helt. Joyce had spoken to her after the incident, before Clive had come up with his plan to catch the guy. While the young woman was shaken up by the incident, it hadn’t traumatized her to the point that she wanted to go home.

  Maybe that had changed.

  Joyce entered the student’s name into the computer. She was, as her father had said, still at school. She’d kept her room in Albany House, one of several residential buildings scattered across the campus and, like all the others, close to empty. Joyce was betting Lorraine didn’t have to worry about late-night parties keeping her up, or having to wait to use any of the shared showering facilities.

  Maybe the fallout from being attacked was only hitting Lorraine now. Maybe living in a nearly deserted dorm was freaking her out. Maybe her parents were calling to see if she could be moved. Or maybe they were looking to sue the college, and this was an exploratory call to pry incriminating details from Joyce.

  She wondered whether the Plummer family was looking to blame her for things that were clearly, to her mind, her dead predecessor’s fault.

  Only one way to find out.

  Joyce returned the call. Someone picked up on the first rin
g.

  “Hello?” A woman.

  “It’s Joyce Pilgrim, Thackeray College security. A Lester Plummer left a message last night?”

  “My husband. Lester! It’s the college!” A few seconds later, Joyce could detect an extension being picked up.

  “I’m on,” he said. “Who’m I talking to?”

  Joyce told him. “What can I help you with?”

  “We haven’t heard from Lorraine,” the man said. “She—”

  His wife cut in. “This is Alma. I’m Lorraine’s mother. We usually talk to her once a week or so. We called her Thursday night and didn’t get her, and left a message on her cell, but she didn’t call us back yesterday so—”

  The husband: “It’s not like her not to call. But we thought, maybe she just didn’t get around to it, or maybe—”

  Maybe there was a boyfriend, Joyce thought.

  “But we tried again last night,” Alma said, “and we still couldn’t get her, and there are hardly any of her friends around to get to check in on her and—”

  “Why don’t I pop by and tell her you’re worried about her?” Joyce offered.

  “No!” the mother said. “I mean, yes, check in on her, but don’t tell her we asked you to.”

  “She’d be so embarrassed,” Lester Plummer said.

  “But could you call us back after you see her? Would you be able to do that?”

  “Of course,” Joyce said. “I’ll be in touch.”

  She hung up and decided she might as well stroll over to Albany House now. As she came out of the admin building, she could hear sirens off in the distance, somewhere downtown.

  It was a funny thing about Thackeray. It butted right up against Promise Falls, but was its own community. A small town of its own, with its own president and governing body, its own set of rules and bylaws.

  Even its own water supply, as it turned out. Which, today, from what Joyce had gathered during her short chat with Angela Ferraza, was a good thing.

  She didn’t bother taking a car to get to Albany House. It was only a five-minute walk. She entered the residence, headed for the stairs. Joyce was still thinking the reason Lorraine’s family might not have heard from her was a boyfriend. When they said students went off to university for an education, well, that was definitely understating it. This was the time most young people lived on their own for the first time, when they didn’t have their parents snooping on them.