The Twenty-Three 3 (Promise Falls) (24 page)

THIRTY-EIGHT

DAVID
Harwood had felt a little stupid when Cal Weaver had asked him whether he’d spoken to Samantha Worthington’s neighbors about where she and Carl might have gone. David was no licensed private detective, but he had been a reporter, and he’d done some investigative journalism over the years—particularly back before the
Promise Falls
Standard
started slashing staff and could still afford to do that sort of thing—so not to have considered something as basic as asking the folks who lived on either side of Sam if they’d seen her packing up was pretty embarrassing.

David decided to chalk it up to having too much on his mind.

Now he was going to do what he should have done the first time.

He was back at Sam’s place. He’d hoped that maybe when he got here, she’d be back. That he would find her car in the driveway, that she and Carl would be fine.

But the car was still gone when he parked on the street in front of her house.

He rang the bell on the house to the right first. It took a second ring to draw out a woman in her eighties, who, it turned out, lived
alone, and had not seen Sam or Carl, and did not, in fact, even know who lived on either side of her.

Then he tried the house on the left.

It didn’t take long before a woman came to the door, opened it wide, and said to him, “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

“Excuse me?” David said.

“You’re here looking for Samantha and her boy?”

“Uh, yes, I am.”

A man appeared, standing behind the woman. “What’s going on?” he asked.

The woman looked over her shoulder and said, “This is the real one.”

“Oh,” the man said. “You figured he’d get here sooner or later.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” David said.

“I’m Theresa and that’s my husband, Ron,” she said. “Jones.”

“Okay.”

“And you’re David Harwood, right?”

David nodded. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen you dropping by to see Sam and I recognized you. From the TV, and the paper, back when you were having all that trouble with your wife.”

“That was years ago,” David said.

“Well, I remember,” she said.

“What did you mean,” David asked Theresa, “when you said ‘the real one’?”

“You’re not the first one named David Harwood to come to our door today,” she said.

David felt his stomach drop. “Who was here?”

Theresa told him about the man who’d come around earlier in the day looking for Sam and Carl. How he’d identified himself as David.

“That had to be her ex-husband,” David said. “He just got out of jail. I mean, he fled. They didn’t let him out on purpose.”

“Good Lord,” Theresa said. “We had no idea.”

Brandon Worthington probably knew all about him, David thought. His parents would have filled him in. That David had been seeing Sam, that he was the one in the picture having sex with her in her kitchen, that he was the one who’d fucked up Ed’s attempt to grab Carl at the school that day. Sam might have spoken about David, in a favorable light, to her neighbors. Or maybe Sam had told the Joneses that if someone named David came around, it would be safe to tell him where she’d gone.

Except, because Theresa Jones knew Brandon wasn’t who he claimed to be, it didn’t work. And besides, Sam hadn’t told her where she was going, anyway.

But it had looked, Theresa Jones told David now, like they were off on a camping trip.

“Good thing you didn’t tell him that,” David said.

“Well,” Ron Jones said slowly, “that’s where I might have let the cat out of the bag. Just a bit.”

So it was possible Brandon had figured out his ex-wife and son had packed their sleeping bags and planned to live in a tent until his recapture. But even if Brandon had put that much together, he wouldn’t have any idea which campsite they might go to.

But David did.

What was it Sam had said to him? She’d been talking about how, once their relationship had progressed to the point where they didn’t care if the boys knew they were sleeping together (which, let’s face it, they had probably already figured out), it would be fun to take them on a camping trip.

Sam had said that she and Carl had gone camping a couple of times since moving to Promise Falls. It was something she’d done back when she was married to Brandon, and she’d enjoyed it more than he had. Carl loved everything about it. Exploring the woods, cooking over a fire, burning the marshmallows until they were black ash.

“There’s a nice place up around Lake Luzerne,” she’d told him.

David said to Theresa and Ron Jones, “Thanks very much for your help. I appreciate it more than you can know.”

When he got back into his car, he got out his phone and opened a Web browser. He couldn’t remember the name of the campsite Sam had mentioned. But he thought if he could find a list of places in the Lake Luzerne area, he’d recognize it when he saw it.

It didn’t take long.

Camp Sunrise.

He was sure that was the place.

David considered driving up there now. But it would be dark by the time he got to Lake Luzerne, and he didn’t know where, exactly, Camp Sunrise was. Traipsing around the campsite late at night, surprising Sam and Carl in their tent when they were probably worried about Brandon finding them—assuming they were actually at Camp Sunrise—might not end well.

David could very well end up with a shotgun in his face once again. This time, it might go off.

First thing in the morning. That was what he’d do. He’d head up first thing in the morning.

THIRTY-NINE

Duckworth

I
stayed for a while with Randall Finley.

First, I went back into the house and took a more formal statement from Lindsay. She related the events of the day a second time, and her story held together. I don’t know why I felt the need to apologize on Randy’s behalf, but I told her he’d been upset, and he understood she had not set out to murder Jane. I suppose I did it for her more than him. Still, Lindsay remained distraught, and I wasn’t convinced she could drive herself home safely. She called her twenty-year-old son, who took a taxi over, then drove his mother back to her place in her car.

I asked Randy, who had dropped himself into a wrought-iron chair outside near the front door, if he wanted me to do anything with Bipsie. He shook his head sorrowfully and asked if I could put her into a garbage bag until he decided what to do with her. He muttered something about burying her in the backyard next to Jane, given how much she loved that dog.

Gently, I told him town bylaws prevented him from burying Jane on the property.

“I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore.”

I said I would bag the dog’s body and leave it in the garage out back, but Randy asked me to leave her in the downstairs laundry room for now.

And that was what I did.

I explained that it might be some time before anyone could come and deal with Jane.

“Maybe I’ll go up and sit with her,” he said. I wasn’t sure he appreciated how unpleasant it was in that room. He added, “I could start getting Jane ready. You know, get her cleaned up and all.”

With as many euphemisms as I could muster, I cautioned him against meddling with his wife’s body.

“I understand,” he said, and went back into the house.

I wanted to give the place another walk-through before I left.

Through the kitchen, the basement, out back. As I was getting ready to leave, I could hear a voice on the second floor.

As I ascended the stairs, I could hear Randall Finley talking softly and continuously, not pausing to formulate thoughts. At the top of the stairs I could just see into Jane’s bedroom.

Randy was in a chair by the bed, an open book on his lap, seemingly oblivious to the stench that enveloped him.

He was reading to his wife.

I’d planned to pay a visit to Victor Rooney on my way home. I’d only spoken to him once, several days ago, and I wanted to pick his brain some more about Olivia Fisher, the woman he’d been going to marry.

But there was more to my visit than just that. It was what Walden had said, about how angry Victor was. With himself, and those twenty-two Promise Falls citizens who might have responded to Olivia’s cries, but did nothing.

Those twenty-two, and himself. Twenty-three people who, had they behaved with a greater sense of community, might have made the difference between life and death for Olivia. Maybe none of those twenty-two people could have saved Olivia’s life. By the time she was screaming, she was probably as good as dead.

But if they had acted, if they had done
anything
when they heard what was happening in the park by the falls, they might have seen her killer. They might have been able to provide a description. They might have seen his car, recalled part, or all, of a license plate.

If they had done any of those things, the police might have caught him.

And Rosemary Gaynor would be alive.

And Lorraine Plummer would be alive.

Just how angry was Victor Rooney about this town’s failure to measure up? Angry enough to get even somehow?

Angry enough to start sending out messages? Like twenty-three dead squirrels strung up on a fence? Three bloody mannequins in car “23” of a decommissioned Ferris wheel? A fiery, out-of-control bus with “23” on the back? And then there was Mason Helt and his hoodie with that same number on it, and what he had supposedly told the women he’d assaulted. That he didn’t mean to harm them, just to put a scare into them. That it was a kind of gig.

And finally, there was today’s date. May 23. A day Promise Falls would never forget. In a year or two or even less, someone would suggest a memorial in the town square with the names of everyone who had died this day.

So, the plan had been to see Victor Rooney.

But by the time I was done at the Finley house, I was exhausted. I was weak, I had a headache, and my feet were killing me. I needed a recharging before I asked anyone else a single question.

I pointed the car home.

There were familiar voices as soon as I stepped into the house. But I already knew Trevor was there by the Finley Springs truck parked in the driveway. I found him and Maureen at the kitchen table.

The smell of something wonderful was in the air. Something from the oven. If I was not mistaken, it was lasagna.

They pushed back their chairs in a chorus of squeaks and came to greet me. Maureen put her arms around me first. “I didn’t know when to expect you,” she said, “but I put something together just in case.”

I held her tightly in my arms. Behind her, Trevor stood, waiting. When Maureen released me, my son gave me a strong hug, several pats on the back.

“Hey, Dad,” he said, and there was this collective feeling that we were all just on the edge of losing it.

I think, at that moment, we were all glad to be alive. We were all okay, and we were together at a time when in so many other houses in Promise Falls, there was only grief and unbearable sorrow.

“I was never able to find Amanda Croydon for you,” Maureen said.

“She turned up,” I said. When I was driving home with the radio tuned to the news, I heard some snippets of a shouting match between her and Randall Finley where he’d been handing out free water.

“I didn’t know you were looking for her,” Trevor said. “I was there, saw her fight with Randy. I was recording it on his phone, but then he got a call from home. His dog died or something.”

I filled them in on how much worse it was than that. Maureen shook her head sadly.

Trevor said, “I wonder if he’ll pack it in. The whole running-for-mayor thing.”

I said it was probably too soon to tell. He reached into the fridge to grab a beer for me, but I waved him off. “Have to go back out.”

“Are you sure?” Maureen said. “You’re not the only cop in town.”

It took all the energy I had to smile. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“You know you haven’t been breathing normally since you walked in here,” she said.

“What?”

“Yeah,” Trevor said. “You keep taking really deep breaths.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“You think that’s all it is?” said Maureen, donning mitts and taking the lasagna out of the oven.

“I’m positive,” I said. They weren’t wrong in their observation. I was taking in deep breaths, then letting them out over several seconds.

Exhaustion.

“I just have one more thing I want to do,” I told them. “Then I’ll come home and go into an eight-hour coma.”

Maureen did up three plates. A garden salad on the side. Trevor hoovered his in seconds, and I wasn’t far behind him. But halfway through my serving, I put down my fork.

“What?” Maureen asked.

“It’s nothing. Just a little light-headed.” I laughed. “I think all the blood’s rushing to my stomach, and that’s a demanding area to service.”

No one laughed with me.

“I’m fine, really.” I wanted to change the subject by saying to Trevor, “I hear you guys handed out thousands of cases of water today.”

“We did.”

“That must have felt good, doing that.”

Trevor shrugged. “Yes and no. I mean, it was good to help people, but some of them were really ugly about it. You kind of wanted every family to get a case, but some people tried to come back and get extra cases, more than their share, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“And the whole thing was the Finley Show anyway.”

“Yeah,” I said again.

“He was just soaking up the attention. I mean, it cost him a fortune in product, but it was the kind of advertising you can’t buy, you know?”

I nodded.

“All day I wondered if he did it.”

Maureen looked stunned. “What are you saying?”

I broke in. “For a while, I entertained the idea, too, that he’d done something to the water so he could come to the rescue. But for God’s sake, all that to be mayor of Promise Falls? And wouldn’t he have made sure his wife didn’t end up becoming one of the casualties?”

“A dead wife just buys him even more sympathy,” Trevor said.

“Oh, that’s awful,” Maureen said. “No one would do that.”

I let dinner settle before I went back out again. We moved into the living room, where I dropped into my favorite chair. Maureen tuned in one of the national newscasts to see what they had on Promise Falls; then Trevor grabbed the remote and channel surfed to see what the other networks had done.

The entire country knew all about Promise Falls.

One of the networks had turned us into a backdrop headline:
THE CURSE OF PROMISE FALLS
. They’d folded in material on the drive-in collapse, a look back at the Olivia Fisher case.

Sometime later, I felt someone nudging me in the shoulder.

“Barry,” Maureen said. “Barry.”

I had fallen asleep. “Shit,” I said, stirring suddenly. “How long was I out?”

“It’s okay. I didn’t want to bother you. You needed to rest.”

“What time is it?”

“Nearly ten thirty,” Maureen said. “Trevor asked me to say good-bye for him. He was pretty tired, too, and left about half an hour ago.”

“Jesus,” I said, pushing myself out of the chair. “I have to go.” She didn’t argue.

She’d spent enough years with me to know there was no point.

I slipped on my jacket, grabbed my keys, and was out the door. Once I was behind the wheel and had the engine going, I gave myself a minute. Heading out of the house so quickly after waking up hadn’t given me time to gain back my equilibrium. I was woozy.

But I was fine.

I headed for Victor Rooney’s house. Save for one light over the front door, the place was in total darkness when I got there.

I knocked on the door anyway. Hard.

“She died.”

I turned around. A man was standing on the sidewalk, watching me.

“Pardon?” I said.

“The lady that lives there. She was one of the ones what died this morning.”

I didn’t know, but there was no reason to be surprised that Victor Rooney’s landlady—it took me a moment to call up the name: Emily Townsend—would be among the dead.

“The water,” I said, since it was always possible she had died of something else. A heart attack, a fall down the stairs.

“Yep. They found her in the backyard.” He pointed to a house down the street. “Mr. Tarkington didn’t make it, either. His wife’s probably going to live, but their daughter says she could have brain damage.”

“Awful,” I said.

The man pointed to the house north of the one I was standing in front of. “I live next door. Me and the wife heard the warnings before we drank anything. Ms. Townsend wasn’t so lucky. They came for her late this afternoon. She was lying out there for hours.”

I said, “My name’s Duckworth. I’m with the police. I was actually looking for the man she rented to. Victor Rooney.”

“Oh yeah,” the neighbor said. “I’ve seen him around. But I guess he’s not home.”

“I guess not,” I said.

But I tried banging on the door one more time, just in case. There was a part of me that was grateful. Anything I wanted to ask Victor tonight I could just as easily ask him tomorrow morning.

I went home. I had nothing left. I went up to bed and slipped into that coma I’d promised myself.