The Accident (44 page)

I sat up in the bed and threw off the covers. “Arthur Twain?”

“That’s right.”

I felt numbed by the news.

“I don’t know how, exactly, Sommer might have done it,” I said, “but given the kind of person he was, it’s possible he killed Sheila. Somehow got her drunk, set her up in that car, knowing someone would run into it sooner or later.”

Wedmore was quiet.

“Detective?”

“I’m here.”

“You don’t buy that?”

“Sommer shot people,” Wedmore said. “That’s what he did with anyone who got in his way. He’d never have gone to the kind of trouble you’re talking about to kill someone.” She paused. “Maybe, Mr. Garber, and I mean no disrespect when I say this to you, you’re going to have to accept that, in your wife’s case, things are exactly as they appear. I know that can’t be easy, but sometimes the truth is a very difficult thing to accept.”

Now it was my turn to be quiet.

I stared out the window, at the large elm tree in our front yard. Only a handful of leaves still clung to it. In another few weeks there’d be snow out there.

“Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you,” Rona Wedmore said, and ended the call.

I sat there on the edge of the bed, my head in my hands. Maybe this was how it ended. People died, and their secrets died with them. I’d get the answers to some of my questions, but not all.

Maybe this was as far as I could go. Maybe it was over.

FIFTY-FIVE

I phoned Kelly.

“I’m going to come get you today.”

“When? When are you coming?”

“This evening. I’ve got a few things to get out of the way first.”

“So it’s all safe to come home?”

I paused. Sommer was dead. Slocum was in the hospital. And I knew who was responsible for the shot window. If there was anyone else out there to be worried about, I couldn’t think who it was.

“Yeah, sweetheart. It’s safe to come home. But there’s something I have to tell you about.”

“What?”

I could hear the worry in her voice. So much had already happened to her, she must have been getting to the point where she was expecting bad things to happen.

“It’s about Emily’s dad. He got hurt.”

“What happened?”

“A very bad man shot him. I think he’s going to be okay, but he’s going to be in the hospital for a while.”

“Did somebody get the bad man who shot him?”

Kelly would probably hear the whole story at some point, if not from me, then someone else. But I didn’t see the need to get into the details now. So I said, “Yes.”

“Did he die?”

“Yes.”

“A lot of people are dying lately,” Kelly said.

“I think things are going to calm down now,” I said.

“I know why Emily’s dad didn’t die.”

That caught me off guard. “Why’s that, sweetheart?”

“Because God wouldn’t let a girl lose her mom
and
her dad. Because then there wouldn’t be anybody to look after her.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“Nothing will happen to you, right? That couldn’t happen, could it?”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” I said. “It can’t, because you’re my number one priority.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

I stumbled around the house for a little while. Made some coffee, poured some cereal into a bowl. Brought in the newspaper that had been on the stoop for hours. There was nothing in it about what had happened last night. It was probably too late to get into a morning newspaper. The story was probably online, but I didn’t have the energy to check it.

I made a couple of calls. One to Ken Wang, to tell him he was still in charge. Another to Sally, but she wasn’t answering her cell or home phone. I left a message. “Sally, we should talk. Please.”

When the phone rang shortly after, I thought it might be her, but it was Wedmore again. “A quick heads-up,” she said. “They’re putting out a detailed press release on what happened. Your name’s in it. You’re a hero.”

“Super,” I said.

“I’m just saying, there’s a good chance the media’s about to descend on you like a plague of locusts. If you’re okay with that, enjoy.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

It made sense to get out of the house as soon as possible. I went upstairs and had a shower. As I was stepping out of the stall, the phone rang. I tiptoed across the tiled floor, careful not to slip with wet feet, and into the bedroom. The ID was blocked. Not a good sign.

“Hello?”

“Is this Glen Garber?” A woman.

“Can I take a message?”

“It’s Cecilia Harmer, at the
Register
. Do you know when he’ll be in, or where I might be able to reach him?”

“He’s not here and I’m afraid I don’t have any way to reach him.”

I dried off and put on some fresh clothes. The phone rang again and this time I didn’t even bother. I thought of something I should have told Ken, but didn’t have the energy to talk to him. If I sent him an email, he’d get it right away on his BlackBerry.

I went down to my basement office, checked to see that the piece of paneling hiding my money was still in place. It was. I turned on the computer and, when it was ready to go, opened up my mail program.

There wasn’t all that much there, aside from a few spam messages. One thing caught my eye, however.

It was from Kelly.

I’d forgotten that I’d asked her to email me the video she’d shot from her phone when she was hiding in the closet in the Slocums’ bedroom. I’d never gotten around to taking a closer look at it, and while there didn’t seem to be much point now, I was curious.

After all, it was that sleepover that had kick-started the nightmare of these last few days. Of course, the real nightmare had begun the night Sheila died, but just when I’d hoped we might be able to get our lives back to normal, there’d been that incident with Ann Slocum.

I clicked on the message and opened the video.

I put the cursor over the “play” icon and clicked.

“Hey. Can you talk? Yeah, I’m alone … okay, so I hope your wrists are okay … yeah, wear long sleeves until the marks go away … you were wondering about next time … can do Wednesday, maybe, if that works for you? But I have to tell you, I’ve got to get more for … expenses and—hang on, I’ve got another call, okay, later—Hello?”

I clicked the “stop” icon. I was pretty sure I knew now what this was all about. Ann was talking to George about the handcuffs. I dragged the “play” indicator back to the beginning and started the video again, but this time I let it go past
“Hello?”

Ann Slocum said,
“Why are you calling this … my cell’s off … not a good time … kid’s got someone sleeping … Yeah, he is … but look, you know the arrangement. You pay and … something in return … mark us … down for a new deal if you’ve got something else to offer.”

And then, abruptly, the image blurred and went dark. It was at this point that Kelly evidently had put away her phone.

I went back to the beginning to play it again, thinking,
I should send this on to Detective Wedmore, for what it’s worth
, and that didn’t seem to be much. Maybe, if Kelly had recorded the entire call, where Ann talked about putting a bullet in someone’s brain, it might have provided some useful information.

But I was still intrigued by what little there was, particularly when Ann took the other call. Was this the person who’d asked Ann for a meeting? Was this why she had gone out that night?

I listened.

“Why are you calling this … my cell’s off … not a good time.”

Ann was saying things in the gaps that weren’t audible. I turned up the volume on the computer, then blew up the image full-screen, thinking maybe I could read Ann’s lips.

“Why are you calling this … my cell’s off—”

Stopped, went back. I was pretty sure, in that first gap, Ann said “phone” and another word or two.

Played it again. Listened, watched Ann’s mouth. It was there. “Phone.” And I thought I could make out the other words. She was saying,
“Why are you calling this phone, oh yeah my cell’s off.”

I grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper and wrote down what I believed the conversation to be.

Listening over and over again to small snippets, I started filling in the gaps.

“Why are you calling this phone? Oh yeah, my cell’s off. This is not a good time. My kid’s got someone sleeping …”

I couldn’t get the next word, but assumed it was “over.” Went back, started again.

“Why are you calling this phone? Oh yeah, my cell’s off. This is not a good time. My kid’s got someone sleeping over.”
And then there was a six- or seven-second gap here where Ann said nothing, was listening to her caller. Then,
“Yeah, he is, in the kitchen. No, but look, you know the arrangement. You pay and get something in return.”

It must have taken me the better part of twenty minutes to piece that much together. I continued on.

“… mark us … down for a new deal if you have something else to offer.”

There was something very short in that gap.

I played it again, watched Ann’s mouth. Lips open, then closing. Looked like an “m” sound.

Played it again.

And again.

I was pretty sure I had it. Ann had said,
“I’m.”

Which means she’d said,
“… mark us I’m down for a new deal if you have something else to offer.”

That didn’t make any sense at all. I read it aloud to myself.

“Mark us I’m down for a new deal if you have—”

Holy shit.

Not “mark us.”

Marcus
.

Ann had said,
“Marcus, I’m down for a new deal if you have something else to offer.”

I had to get Kelly.

FIFTY-SIX

“Are you sure you’re okay if I go out?” Fiona asked her granddaughter. She’d been sitting on the couch in front of the coffee table, doing her best to comfort the child, sipping some white wine.

“Yup,” Kelly said.

“Because I know you’ve had some very upsetting news. That’s a terrible thing about Emily’s father.”

“I’m okay.”

“It’s just that we’re really low on everything, and since your father says he’s not coming to get you until this evening, we need something for dinner because we are absolutely not ordering in pizza or anything like that.”

Then, with something of a flourish, she set her wineglass on the table and got up.

“We’ll have a great time,” Marcus said, and rubbed his hand on top of the girl’s head. “Won’t we, sweetheart?”

Kelly glanced up at him and smiled. “Sure. What do you want to do?”

“We could watch a movie or something,” he said.

“I don’t really feel like a movie.”

“I’m sure you two will think of something,” Fiona said.

“Why don’t we go for a walk?” Marcus said.

“I guess,” Kelly said without enthusiasm.

Fiona grabbed her purse and dug out her car keys. “I shouldn’t be too long,” she said. “An hour or so.”

“Sure,” Marcus said.

The moment she was out the door, Kelly noticed Fiona had forgotten her cell phone. It was sitting on the table in the hall, hooked up to the charger.

“Don’t worry about it,” Marcus said. “She’s not going to be gone that long.” He invited Kelly to come sit with him on the back deck. It looked out on the well-manicured backyard, and beyond that, Long Island Sound.

“So, going home today,” he said.

“I guess,” Kelly said, sitting on one of the wicker chairs and swinging her legs back and forth.

“I think this is the first time just the two of us have had a chance to talk since you got here.”

“I guess.”

“Your grandmother told me the news. Sounds like things have settled down at home. Everything your father was worried about is taken care of. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

Kelly nodded. She wished her father could pick her up right now. She’d rather have dinner with her dad. Being with Grandma and Marcus once in a while was okay, but living with them was pretty boring. Fiona was always reading books or fancy magazines about homes where famous people lived, and Marcus watched television. That would have been okay if he watched anything interesting, but he always had it on the news. Kelly knew for sure she wouldn’t want to live and go to school here and be away from her dad all week. Grandma and Marcus were, well, they were
old
. Her dad was old, too, but not this old. Fiona would do things with her some of the time, but then she’d tell her to go find something to do, something
quiet
. And she really hated the way Marcus smiled all the time. It was one of those old people smiles where they really don’t mean it.

Kind of like the way he was smiling now.

“This has been a crazy time for you,” Marcus said. “Starting with that sleepover at your friend’s house.”

“Yeah,” Kelly said.

“Fiona—Grandma—when she was asking you all those questions about what happened, when you were hiding in the mother’s closet, I could tell that made you pretty uncomfortable.”

Kelly nodded. “It did kinda.”

“Of course it would.”

“I really wasn’t supposed to talk about it. I mean, Emily’s mom said that, and Dad didn’t want me talking about it, either. Especially to Emily’s dad, who was all upset about it and wanted to know what I’d heard.”

“But you didn’t tell him,” Marcus said.

Kelly shook her head side to side.

“But now, the bad guy’s dead,” Marcus said. “I guess none of it matters anymore. It’s one of those things you can put behind you.”

“Maybe now,” Kelly said, “I can erase the video from my phone.”

Marcus blinked. “Video? What video is that, Kelly?”

“The one I took when I was hiding in the closet.”

Marcus coughed. “You took a video when you were hiding in the closet? Of Ann Slocum? When she was talking on the phone?”

Kelly nodded. Marcus’s smile struck her as particularly forced right now.

“Do you have your phone on you?” he asked. When Kelly nodded, he said, “Show it to me.”

Kelly reached into her front pocket for it, tapped a couple of buttons, and then went over and sat next to Marcus so she could hold it as he looked on.