Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

He stayed off the Mass Pike and the New York Thruway. So it took a lot longer to get to Promise Falls than he’d hoped. He was worried Samantha would hear that he was out before he got there.

Which was exactly how it had turned out.

But now he had an idea where she might have gone. A camping trip made sense. Once she’d learned he’d escaped custody, she’d have been looking for a place to go. But a hotel-even a motel-was going to be a strain on Samantha’s budget, especially when she didn’t know how long she was going to have to stay there. She didn’t exactly get paid a hundred grand a year to look after a Laundromat. But finding a space to put up a tent in a nearby campground wouldn’t cost her all that much.

And Brandon was pretty sure she still had the tent. One time, about a year back, when Carl’s mother had allowed him to visit his father in prison, the boy had mentioned how much fun he and his mother had had on a recent camping trip.

So there you go.

All Brandon had to do now was a bit of research. See how many campgrounds there were within a short drive of Promise Falls. Odds were Sam had checked in at one of them, although there was the distinct possibility she wouldn’t have done so under her real name.

He decided to check around the Lake Luzerne area first. It wasn’t that far a drive, and there were a bunch of campgrounds up that way. Those places were usually gated, so he wouldn’t be able to just drive in without registering. But he figured if he parked down the road, he’d be able to walk in. If anyone stopped him, he’d say he was already a guest, heading back to his campsite.

It worked like a charm at the first place, which was called Sleepy Pines. He strolled the entire campground, but never spotted the blue-and-yellow tent he and Sam and Carl had shared many nights years ago.

So he scratched Sleepy Pines off the list.

No luck at Canoe Park, either. But there were still plenty of places to go. Like Camp Sunrise, and Call of the Loon Acres.

All he wanted to do now was find Sam. Find her and Carl.

Have a little word with them.

A nice chat.

Duckworth

Iwas on my way to Victor Rooney’s place when Wanda Therrieult phoned.

“You saw what I saw,” she said.

“You tell me what you saw.”

“Well, I have to do a full autopsy, but I’d say this Thackeray student, this Lorraine Plummer, is the latest.”

“After Olivia Fisher and Rosemary Gaynor,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“That was my thinking, too,” I said. “When will you get to the autopsy?”

“The body’s being taken to the morgue now, but honestly, Barry, I don’t know when I’ll get to her. All those other bodies, we may think we know what happened to them, that they were poisoned by the water, but I have to do the due diligence. Every one of them has to be autopsied.”

“You’re getting out-of-town help,” I said.

“Sure, but you’re going to have to wait. And if I don’t lie down soon, in a proper bed, I’m going to collapse wherever I’m standing.”

I knew how she was feeling. I’d been running on empty for several hours now. I wanted to go home, have something to eat-even a salad-then crawl into bed with Maureen and sleep till Christmas. Maybe, after I’d had a chance to talk to Rooney, I could do that. Even just a few hours of sleep would do me. I could be back at this by six in the morning, if not earlier.

“I hear ya, Wanda,” I said.

“Barry,” she said, “you know me.”

“I do.”

“I’m a woman of science. I believe in science. My life is all about science. It’s about facts and evidence and data. You know what I mean?”

“Yup.”

“There’s nothing mystical about it. But these last few days, I can’t help but wonder, are we being punished for something? Did we do something bad, and God’s taking it out on us?”

“Maybe not God,” I said. “But I get what you’re saying.”

“I’ll talk to you later,” she said.

I dropped the phone onto the seat next to me, and it hadn’t been out of my hand for ten seconds before it rang again. I glanced at the screen, saw the name Finley come up.

“Fuck off,” I said out loud.

It rang ten times before he gave up. But a few seconds later, it started ringing again.

Finley.

Was he going to keep doing this until I answered? I reached for the phone and put it to my ear.

“What is it, Randy?” I said.

His voice was more subdued than I expected it to be. Shaky, too. “Barry, can you come by my house?”

“What’s this about?”

“I think… I think there’s been a murder.”

“What? Randy, what’s going on? Who’s been murdered?”

“Jane,” he said. “Jane’s dead.”

“Randy, what happened to her?”

“She’s dead. Lindsay killed her.”

“Lindsay?”

“She works for us. Looks after Jane, takes care of the house. She did it. She killed Jane. She killed our dog, too. Bipsie. Bipsie’s dead. Lindsay killed both of them. I need you to come over. Barry, would you come over? Please, come over. She’s still here. Lindsay’s here. I told her she couldn’t go home yet.”

“I’m on my way,” I said.

Finley was waiting for me out front. He walked up to my car, spoke to me through the open window before I even had my seat belt off.

“I want her charged,” he said. “You need to charge her with murder.”

“Okay, Randy,” I said, getting out. “Let me get up to speed.”

“I was handing out water. Lindsay called me to say that Bipsie was sick. She’d been drinking out of the toilet.”

“Okay,” I said.

“That’s the same water that comes out of the tap,” he pointed out to me.

“I know.”

“So the dog started throwing up and died. And she called to tell me. And I said, ‘How could you let the dog drink out of the toilet when the water’s poisoned?’ and she says, ‘What are you talking about?’ Can you believe that? She didn’t know? How could she not know?”

“Tell me about Jane,” I said as we walked to the house.

“Lindsay poisoned her,” Finley said. He was moving slowly, as though he were pulling a concrete block with each leg.

“How did she do that?”

“Lemonade. She gave her lemonade. There’re a hundred bottles of fresh springwater in the fridge, plus a watercooler. But that stupid bitch thought it was too much trouble to crack open a few bottles. I’ve told her a hundred times, use the bottled stuff for everything. Drinking, cooking. But she made the lemonade-”

“You talking about the frozen stuff? You add four cans of water?”

“That’s right. I always told her, use the bottles. Because my water is better . Even before what happened today, my water is cleaner and better. But she thought it was easier to make it with water from the tap.”

“She didn’t know,” I said.

“That doesn’t matter,” Finley said. “It was murder.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s in the kitchen, crying her eyes out,” Finley said.

“I meant Jane.”

“Oh.” He swallowed hard. “She’s upstairs, in her room. Since she got sick-not today, but in the last year-I’ve been sleeping in the guest room so I wouldn’t disturb her with my snoring and turning over and all.”

“Sure,” I said. We were at the front door. “Why don’t you wait out here?”

“If Lindsay tries to leave, I’ll stop her.”

“Okay.”

I went into the house. The stairs to the second floor were right there in the foyer, but I went into the kitchen first. Just as Finley had said, Lindsay was sitting, and crying, at the kitchen table, a box of tissues in front of her, a mound of used tissues surrounding it. She looked at me when I came in, her eyes bloodshot.