Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

“I need an address for Tate Whitehead,” I said.

“Sure, I got that in the office here,” Ottman said. “But the thing is, his Pinto’s still out there in the lot.”

I turned on my heels and headed back outside to check the rusting, yellow heap I’d noticed earlier. I hadn’t taken a close look at the car and I wondered whether Tate might be inside, maybe sleeping one off.

I made a visor out of my hand to peer through the side glass. The interior matched the exterior. Not in color, but the upholstery had as many holes as the fenders, springs and stuffing visible. I saw something else I didn’t like the look of.

I tried the driver’s door and was not surprised to find it unlocked. It creaked painfully on its hinges as I swung it wide. On the floor in front of the passenger seat were several empty beer bottles.

Ottman was approaching with a slip of paper. “Here’s Tate’s address and phone number.”

I took the paper from him and pointed down into the footwell. “That’s the kind of guy you had looking after the safety of every man, woman, and child in this town.”

“Jesus,” he said. “I didn’t know, really.”

“You never walked by his car? You never noticed this? You never noticed alcohol on his breath?”

“It’s just, I mean, the thing is, Tate’s hours and mine, they never really overlap. He comes in after I go home, and he leaves in the morning before I get here.”

“When’s the last time you even saw him?”

Before Ottman could answer, Finley, surveying the mess in the car, made a disapproving clucking noise with his tongue.

“This is very bad, Garv. Very bad.” A shake of the head. “Things weren’t like this when I was running this town.”

Here we go, I thought.

“And where the hell is Amanda?” Finley asked. “This town is rudderless.”

“This all works really well for you, doesn’t it?” I asked him. “Just the kind of catastrophe you’ve been waiting for.”

“My God, Barry, how could you?” he said. “I know you don’t think much of me, but I had no idea you thought that little.”

“Maybe you’ve got enough campaign material now that you don’t need to keep leaning on my son.”

“Barry, now, come on-”

“And I’m guessing profits are about to go way up. Am I right? Getting Trevor and everyone else in on their day off? Ramping up production? What’s the price on a case of bottled water about to go up to?”

Garvey Ottman, his eyes moving back and forth between us, must have wondered what the hell was going on.

Randy’s face almost looked like it was going to crumple. I was shocked to think I might have wounded him. He’d always seemed to me to be immune to offense.

“You have no idea,” he said, his voice free of rancor. “Yes, I’m increasing production. Like never before. And within the next few hours, we’ll be handing out those cases of water to the folks of Promise Falls, absolutely free. You know something, Barry? I feel sorry for you. To be that cynical. To assume your fellow man has no goodness in him whatsoever.”

I didn’t know what to say, but I knew what I was thinking. I’d misjudged his actions, but I was less sure that I had misjudged his motives. Handing out free water in the middle of this disaster was likely to score him points with potential voters, so long as he didn’t blow his own horn too hard.

That would be the challenge for Randall Finley.

“Well, there’s a first,” Randy said. “Detective Barry Duckworth without a comeback.”

He turned to Garvey. “Give our friend here as much help as you can, and if you find Tate, or if there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.”

Then, back to me. “If you want to find Tate Whitehead, I’d start there.” He pointed into the wooded area that separated the plant from the highway. “Probably propped up against a tree blitzed out of his mind.”

He gave us both a nod, got back in his Lincoln, and drove out of the lot.

Garvey looked at me, then tilted his head in the direction of the trees. “That’s actually a pretty good idea,” he said.

We made our way into the woods.

CALknew something was up as he was driving into Promise Falls.

He saw two ambulances, each coming from a different part of the town, heading in the direction of the hospital. Driving down one street, he saw uniformed police officers running from house to house, banging on doors.

Two blocks from Lucy Brighton’s house, he eased off the accelerator when he saw a red Promise Falls Fire Department pumper working its way down the street, lights flashing. But the truck wasn’t racing to a scene. Cal thought he heard something being broadcast, so he powered down the window, pulled over to the curb, and listened as the truck rolled past.

“Do not drink the tap water!” blared from a speaker mounted behind the front grille. The firefighter behind the wheel had a mike in his hand.

“This is an emergency! Do not drink water from the tap!”

Cal turned on the car radio, tuned it in to the Albany news station.

“-reports coming in of hundreds of people becoming ill in Promise Falls this morning. The town has issued an emergency statement urging citizens not to drink town water. Information is sketchy at this time, but people are already reporting on social media that-and we have to point out that this information has not been confirmed by us-that there have been multiple fatalities. If you live in or near Promise Falls, you are being warned not to drink the water, although there has been no statement so far regarding what kind of possible contamination there may be. We’re going to be staying with this story all morning and will be updating with any details the moment we have them.”

Cal got out his phone and called his sister, Celeste. The phone had barely finished one ring when he heard, “Cal?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You know about the water?”

“Yeah.”

“You and Dwayne okay?”

“We’re okay. We haven’t had any to drink yet. Dwayne heard about it from a neighbor. What about you?”

“I have to go,” Cal said. “I’ll check in with you later.”

When he arrived at the Brighton house, eleven-year-old Crystal was sitting on the front step, dressed in pink pajamas. She had a clipboard with some paper on it resting on top of her knees, a pencil in one hand. She was busily drawing when Cal pulled into the driveway, and the sound of his car prompted her to raise her head. But she didn’t get up.

Cal walked briskly to the front door and said, “Crystal, what’s happening?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Has the ambulance been here?”

“No. I kept calling, like you said, but it didn’t come.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“She’s in the bathroom.”

“Upstairs?” he asked.

The girl nodded, returned to working on her drawing. Cal glanced down, saw that she was drawing what looked like thunderclouds.

He walked into the house, called out, “Lucy?” He went up the stairs, two at a time, to the second floor, past the guest bedroom, where he and Lucy had spent the night together so recently, and stopped at the bathroom door.

It was closed. He wondered if Lucy had done that for privacy, or if Crystal had, because she didn’t want to have to see what had happened in there. He turned the knob, eased the door open.

Lucy Brighton was seated, more or less, on the floor, dressed in pajamas and a housecoat, her arms hanging limp at her sides, palms turned up, hands resting on the tile floor, her head lolled over onto her right shoulder. Her back was leaned up against the tub, her legs splayed open toward the toilet.

The room was high with the smell of vomit and other bodily fluids.