Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

Finley sighed. “David, I gotta say, you need to get your head in the game.”

“Excuse me?”

“This town is in the midst of the biggest crisis it’s ever seen, and you’ve got your shorts in a knot because some woman doesn’t want to see you anymore?”

“That’s not what it’s about. It’s more serious than that.”

“Is it more serious than people dropping dead all over town?”

“I can’t talk about this, Randy.”

“You’re not going make employee of the month this way,” Finley said. His tone darkened. “Let me ask you something.”

“What?”

“Have you been talking to Duckworth today?”

“Duckworth? Why would you ask that?”

“That’s an easy yes-or-no question.”

“Okay, yeah, I was talking to him. I thought he might be able to help me with my situation.”

“Your Sam situation,” Randy said.

“That’s right.”

“Is that all you talked about?” When David didn’t answer immediately, Finley pressed on. “Was it?”

“I don’t remember. Mostly we talked about Sam.”

“Did my name come up?”

“I think it might have. I called him when he was at the water plant. He said he was going to arrest you or something, for getting in the way.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Tell him about what?”

“About me.”

“Randy, I have to go. I didn’t say anything to him about-”

“Did you say something about how I’d increased production at the plant?”

Another pause. “I think, just kind of in passing,” David confessed.

“Goddamn it, so it was you. What the fuck were you thinking, saying something like that?”

“When Duckworth said you were being arrested, I thought it had to do with the water.”

“That I’d somehow poisoned it?”

“I never said that. I never said I thought you’d poisoned the water. He was the one who said you’d been arrested. And then it kind of came together for me, at the time, that if you had done it, it made sense that you’d upped production.”

“And that would make sense why?”

“Because then you could be the big hero, coming to the town’s rescue with fresh, clean water.”

“Is that what you think?” Finley asked.

“No,” David said. “I don’t… I don’t think that.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Fuck!” Finley said. “Maybe we should put that on a campaign button. ‘I’m voting Finley because I’m pretty sure he’s not a mass murderer.’”

“I’d go with a T-shirt,” David said. “That’d never fit on a button.”

“You think it’s funny.”

“I don’t think any of this is funny. Look, I’ve already told you what I think of you. You’re a pompous gasbag, but do I think you’d kill hundreds of people just to look good? No. The bar’s not set that high with you, Randy, but I think you’re above that. If I’ve offended you, fire me. Or I can quit. I’ve offered before, and I can offer again.”

Now it was Finley’s turn to go quiet. Finally, he said, “I don’t want you to quit. Thing is, as little respect as you have for me, I don’t know that I could find anyone with more.” A long sigh. “I’m not a bad guy, David. I swear.”

David’s tone turned more conciliatory. “There’re still weeks to go before the election. I’ll have time to do what you need me to do. But you decided to run just when a lot of shit’s been going on in my life. That stuff with my cousin Marla, and then-”

“Yeah, yeah, fine, I don’t need a recap. Do what you have to do and then check in.”

Finley took the phone from his ear and tucked it away as Promise Falls Park came into view. The convoy of Finley Springs trucks was there, but he wasn’t going to be able to get a parking spot near them.

It was like Times Square at rush hour. Word had spread.

Cars jammed the road bordering the park. People were stopping in the middle of the street, running over to the trucks for free flats of water, then scurrying back to their cars with them.

“Son of a bitch,” Finley said to himself, followed by, “Cheap bastards.”

There was a Promise Falls police car off to the side of the road, lights flashing, a female uniformed officer trying to direct traffic. Letting people grab their water, then making a hole for them to drive away.

Finley pulled his Lincoln half up onto the sidewalk, got out, and started walking toward all the commotion. Was that a TV crew? With a CBS logo on the side of the camera resting on one man’s shoulder?

Maybe it didn’t matter that David couldn’t make it. There was a fucking national network here.

“Hello, hello, hello!” Finley said, reaching the first truck. Trevor Duckworth was handing out cases of water from the back of it as quickly as he could. “Let me help you out there!” the former mayor said, nudging Trevor out of the way, grabbing a case, and handing it to a young, unshaven man standing there with a girl of about six.

“Here you go, sir!” Finley said, then looked down at the girl and patted her head. “This your daughter?”

“Yup. Say hi, Martina,” the man said.

“Hi,” said Martina, extending a hand. Finley grinned and shook it.

“That’s the man who owns the water company,” the girl’s father said.

“Thank you,” the girl said. “All the regular water is poisoned.”

“I know!” Finley said. “Awful thing, just awful. Let’s hope they get it back to normal real quick.”

“Thank you for all you’re doing,” the man said, holding the water with two outstretched arms.

“No problem,” Finley said. “How about you, ma’am? Can I help you?”

Trevor leapt into the back of the truck and shoved cases toward the door so his boss could grab one after another. A few people took shots with their phones. The CBS crew had figured out what was happening, and was shooting footage.

Finley offered everyone a smile, but not too big a smile. This was, after all, a solemn occasion.

People had died.

The CBS crew had grabbed a few shots but now was moving farther up the line of trucks. Finley got his phone out and said to Trevor, “David’s a bit held up, so I need you to take some video.” He handed the phone over to him. “You know how to use this?”

“Yeah,” Trevor said.

“Just saw your dad up at the water plant.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Heck of a guy,” Finley said. “Doin’ a bang-up job. He’s gonna get to the bottom of what’s happened. You can take that to the bank.”

Trevor held the phone up in front of him, Finley filling up the screen. “Rolling,” he said.

Finley continued to sling cases into the arms of Promise Falls residents. He wasn’t registering faces. He figured he could go for a few minutes until he started to feel it in his back.

A plump woman with short hair, dressed in jeans and a dark blue athletic shirt that read “Thackeray,” had come to the front of the line. “Here ya go,” Finley said, but the woman didn’t have her arms out to receive the flat of water bottles, and Finley had to hang on to it.

The woman said, “You opportunistic bastard.”

Finley’s eyes met the woman’s. His face broke into a grin and he said, “Why, Amanda Croydon. I thought you must be dead.”

The mayor of Promise Falls rested her hands on her hips and said, “I’d gone to Buffalo for the weekend to see my sister. When I heard this morning, I drove straight back.”

“Well,” Finley said, handing the water to the next person in line, “while you were cruising along the New York Thruway, I was rolling up my sleeves.”

“What the hell is all this?”

Finley glanced Trevor’s way, wanting to be sure this was all being recorded.