Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

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.