Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

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Everything has been leading to this.
It's the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, May 23rd, and the small town of Promise Falls, New York, has found itself in the midst of a full-blown catastrophe. Hundreds of people are going to the hospital with similar flu-like symptoms – and dozens have died. Investigators quickly zero in on the water supply. But the question for many, including private investigator Cal Weaver, remains: Who would benefit from a mass poisoning of this town?
Meanwhile, Detective Barry Duckworth is faced with another problem. A college student has been murdered, and he's seen the killer's handiwork before – in the unsolved homicides of two other women in town. Suddenly, all the strange things that have happened in the last month start to add up. Bloody mannequins found in car "23" of an abandoned Ferris wheel, a fiery, out-of-control bus with "23" on the back, that same number on the hoodie of a man accused of assault. The motive for harming the people of Promise Falls points to the number 23 – and working out why will bring Duckworth closer to death than he's ever been before.

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Until two nights ago. Thursday night.

That was when they saw Samantha Worthington running in and out with three suitcases, jamming them into her car. Carl was lugging a heavy bag made of canvas that looked to Theresa like a rolled-up tent.

Ron Jones, watching some of this from the upstairs bedroom window, was pretty sure he saw a shotgun among the items Sam slipped into the car. She had tried to disguise it by rolling it up in a blanket, but he saw the tip of what looked like a barrel poking out the end.

“I’m going to just step outside and see what’s going on,” Theresa said.

She acted as though she’d forgotten something in the glove compartment of her old Chevy Astro van. She had the passenger door open, was rooting around in the folder that held her ownership and insurance, when Sam came by with another suitcase.

“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

ONCEthe 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.

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