Linwood Barclay: The Twenty-Three

“I didn’t hear you complaining about the taste.”

“That’s not the point,” he said.

Arlene pointed to the coffeemaker. “Well, you’re more than welcome to pour that out and make yourself another pot.”

Don Harwood blinked. “I never make the coffee. You always make the coffee. I always measure it out wrong.”

“Well, today’s a good day to learn.”

They stared at each other for several seconds before Don retrieved the cup and said, “Fine. But I want to go on record that I’m opposed.”

“I’ll send CNN a tweet,” his wife said.

“I swear,” David said.

“You better not,” Arlene said. “What do you have going on today with our God-help-us possible future mayor?”

“Not much,” David said. “Looks like it’s going to be a quiet day.”

His father’s head went up suddenly, like he was a deer listening for an approaching hunter. “Do you hear that? Must be a helluva fire somewhere. Been hearing those sirens all morning.”

Those sirens woke Victor Rooney.

It was a few minutes past eight when he opened his eyes. Looked at the clock radio next to his bed, the half-empty bottle of beer positioned next to it. He’d slept well, considering everything, and didn’t feel all that bad now, even though he hadn’t fallen into bed until almost two in the morning. But once his head hit the pillow, he was out.

He reached out from under the covers to turn on the radio, maybe catch the news. But the Albany station had finished with the eight o’clock newscast and was now on to music. Springsteen. “Streets of Philadelphia.” That seemed kind of appropriate for a Memorial Day Saturday. On a weekend that celebrated the men and women who had died fighting for their country, a song about the city where the Declaration of Independence had been signed.

Fitting.

Victor had always liked Springsteen, but hearing the song saddened him. He and Olivia had talked once about going to one of his concerts.

Olivia had loved music.

She hadn’t been quite as crazy about Bruce as he was, but she did have her favorites, especially those from the sixties and the seventies. Simon and Garfunkel. Creedence Clearwater Revival. The Beatles, it went without saying. One time, she’d started singing “Happy Together” and he’d asked her who the hell’d done that. The Turtles, she’d told him.

“You’re shittin’ me,” he’d said. “There was actually a band called Turtles?”

“ The Turtles,” she’d corrected him. “Like the Beatles. No one says just Beatles . And if you could name a band after what sounded like bugs, why not turtles?”

“So happy together,” he said, pulling her into him as they walked through the grounds of Thackeray College. This was back when she was still a student there.

The better part of a year before it happened.

Three years ago this week.

The sirens wailed.

Victor lay there, very still, listening. One of them sounded like it was coming from the east side of the city, the other from the north. Police cars, or ambulances, most likely. Didn’t sound like fire trucks. They had those deeper, throatier sirens. Lots of bass.

If they were ambulances, they were probably headed to PFG.

Busy morning out there on the streets of Promise Falls.

What, oh, what could be happening?

He wasn’t hungover, which was so often the case. A relatively clear head this morning. He hadn’t been out drinking the night before, but he did feel like rewarding himself with a beer when he got home.

Quietly, he’d opened the fridge and taken out a bottle of Bud. He hadn’t wanted to wake his landlady, Emily Townsend. She’d hung on to this house after her husband’s death, and rented a room upstairs to him. He’d taken the bottle with him, downed half of it going up the stairs. He’d fallen asleep too quickly to finish it off.

And now it would be warm.

Victor reached for it anyway and took a swig, made a face, put the bottle back on the bedside table but too close to the edge. It hit the floor, spilling beer onto Victor’s socks and the throw rug.

“Oh, shit,” he said, grabbing the bottle before it emptied completely.

He swung his feet out from under the covers and, careful not to step in the beer, stood up alongside the bed. He was dressed in a pair of blue boxers. He opened the bedroom door, walked five steps down the hall to the bathroom, which was unoccupied, and grabbed a towel off one of the racks.

Victor Rooney paused at the top of the stairs.

There was the smell of freshly brewed coffee, but the house was unusually quiet. Emily was an early riser, and she put the coffee on first thing. She drank at least twenty cups a day, had a pot going almost all the time.

Victor did not hear her stirring in the kitchen or anywhere else in the house.

“Emily?” he called out.

When no one called back, he returned to his room, dropped the bath towel on the floor where the beer had spilled, and tamped it down with his bare foot. Put all his weight on it at one point. When he’d blotted up all the beer he believed was possible, he took the damp towel and placed it in a hamper at the bottom of the hallway linen closet.

Back in his room, he pulled on his jeans, and found a fresh pair of socks and a T-shirt in his dresser.

He descended the stairs in his sock feet.

Emily Townsend was not in the kitchen.

Victor noticed that there was an inch of coffee in the bottom of the pot, but he decided against coffee today. He went to the refrigerator and pondered whether eight fifteen was too early for a Bud.

Perhaps.

Sirens continued to wail.

He took out a container of Minute Maid orange juice and poured himself a glass. Drank it down in one gulp.

Pondered breakfast.

Most days he had cereal. But if Emily was making bacon and eggs or pancakes or French toast-anything that required more effort-he was always quick to get in on that. But it did not appear that his landlady was going to any extra trouble today.

“Emily?” he called out again.

There was a door off the kitchen that led to the backyard. Two if one counted the screen door. The inner door was ajar, which led Victor to think perhaps Emily had gone outside.

Victor refilled his glass with orange juice, then swung the door farther open, took a look at the small backyard through the glass of the screen door.

Well, there was Emily.

Face-planted on the driveway, about ten feet away from her cute little blue Toyota, car keys in one hand. She’d probably been carrying her purse with the other, but it was at the edge of the drive, where, presumably, she had dropped it. Her wallet and the small case in which she carried her reading glasses had tumbled out.

She was not moving. From where Victor stood, he couldn’t even see her back rising and falling ever so gently, an indication that she might still be alive.

He put his juice glass on the counter and decided maybe it would be a good idea to go outside and take a closer look.

Duckworth

Ihave a routine for getting on the scale in the morning.

First of all, I have to be in the bathroom alone. If Maureen’s in there and sees me step on the scale, she’ll peer around and take a peek, say something like, “How’s it coming?”

Of course, if it were coming along well, I wouldn’t mind her sneaking a look, but the odds are it won’t be going well at all.

Second, I have to be naked. If I have so much as a towel wrapped around me, once I’ve seen the readout on the scale, I’ll tell myself I should allow five pounds for the towel. It is, after all, a thick one.

I can’t have had anything to eat, either. On rare occasions, I’ll have some breakfast before attending to my morning ablutions. Those days, I do not bother to weigh myself.