Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

“If he found us?”

She could hardly believe what he was asking.

“Your father-and I’m sorry to say this-is a convicted criminal, Carl. He robbed a bank. He knocked someone out in the hospital. He’s a bad, bad person.”

Carl had thought about that. “I know.”

“And now he’s an escaped convict. A person like that is pretty desperate. There’s no telling what he might do.”

“But doesn’t Dad love me?” Carl had asked.

Sam had felt the tears welling up in her eyes. “Yes, he loves you. For all his faults, he loves you.”

“He never beat me or anything.”

“I know. He never did that.”

“If he was a really bad man, he’d have beat me. And you. Did he ever beat you?”

Sam hadn’t wanted to get into the times Brandon had scared the hell out of her. Had he ever actually, deliberately hurt her? There was that time he’d knocked the speaker off the shelf and it had landed on her foot, but he couldn’t have known that would happen. But he’d shaken a fist at her more than once. She’d seen him start to take a swing, then stop himself.

She knew he had it in him.

“Go to sleep,” she’d finally said.

They both slept well. Sam looked at her watch, saw that it was nearly nine. Carl was still sleeping soundly. She got dressed, laced up her shoes, then slowly raised the front flap zipper without waking her son. Sam slipped out, stood, did some stretches. Sleeping on the ground was not all it was cracked up to be. The truth was, she wanted to be home as much as Carl did.

She fired up the Coleman, filled a small pot with water from a nearby tap. Some of the other guests had mentioned something about the water in Promise Falls being contaminated. Maybe getting out of town had its benefits.

She put the pot on the stove. She spooned out some instant coffee from a jar of Nescafé into a paper cup. Once the water was boiling, she’d pour it in. It wasn’t exactly Starbucks, but it would have to do.

Sam filled the cup, tossed the rest of the boiling water onto the dirt, turned off the flame on the stove. She blew on the coffee, then took a tentative sip.

“Ahh,” she said.

“You always did like your cup of joe in the morning.”

The voice came from behind her. She whirled around so quickly she dropped the coffee onto the ground.

“Hi,” said Brandon. “It’s great to see you, Sam.”

Duckworth

Ifinished up in the bathroom, got dressed, and headed downstairs. Maureen, aware that I was in a hurry to get out of the house, had a breakfast ready for me. Coffee made with bottled water, a bowlful of blueberries and strawberries, and some kind of bran-granola mix that looked like something we’d put out in the bird feeder, with a small container of milk alongside.

“Okay, I’ll admit, the berries look delicious,” I said, “but what is this?”

“I promise it won’t kill you.”

“I might want to drink town water after the first mouthful. Did this come out of that bag of stuff you give to the starlings?”

“It’s not bad. Trust me,” Maureen said. “You’ve said you’ve felt better. I’m trying to help.”

I sat down, attacked the berries first. They were sweet enough that they didn’t need any sugar sprinkled on them. But I did it anyway. I poured the milk over the cereal, got some on my spoon, and put it in my mouth.

“Mmm,” I said. I couldn’t think of a discreet way to spit it out. I washed it down with some coffee.

I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Joyce Pilgrim’s call. I’d already been planning to visit Victor Rooney today. I’d wanted to ask him about his feelings of antipathy toward Promise Falls. Someone had it in for the town, and Victor had as good a reason as anyone else I could think of.

The people of Promise Falls had failed Olivia, and by extension, they had failed him.

I’d learned from Olivia’s father that Victor knew his way around machinery. He had the smarts to start up a mothballed Ferris wheel. He could probably figure out how to make up some basic explosives powerful enough to bring down a drive-in movie screen. He had even worked at the water treatment plant one summer in his teens. He could have known Mason Helt-this was something I’d want to check-and persuaded him to scare female Thackeray students in a “23” hoodie.

And it didn’t take a genius to trap twenty-three squirrels and string them up on a fence, or get a bus out of the town compound and set it on fire.

But now that I knew he’d been in the vicinity of Lorraine Plummer’s building at the time of her death, my mind was exploring all kinds of possibilities.

Rooney’d had an alibi for the time of Olivia’s death. But was it conceivable he killed Rosemary Gaynor and Lorraine Plummer in a similar fashion as a way of making Promise Falls pay for its sins?

My mind circled back to the “twenty-three” business. I could imagine Victor wanting to take action against the twenty-two people who did nothing when they heard Olivia’s screams. But would he really include his own inaction, bringing the number of those who’d failed to be responsible citizens up to twenty-three? Did that make any sense? Was I reaching?

I was so busy thinking it through that I got to the bottom of the cereal bowl without realizing what I was eating.

“I’ll have to make you that again,” Maureen said.

I finished off the berries and downed half my coffee. “I’m off.”

I slipped on my sport jacket and was out the door. Just as I was slipping the key into the ignition, a car stopped at the end of the driveway, blocking my path. A Lincoln.

I got out. Finley got out of the Lincoln and met me halfway up the driveway.

“Randy,” I said.

He didn’t look much better to me than he had the day before at his house. “Barry,” he said. “You got a second?”

I wanted to say no, but what came out of my mouth was, “Sure.”

“I did put the squeeze on your son,” he said. “You already know this, but I’m telling you, you got it right. Whatever Trevor told you, it’s true. About his ex-girlfriend, and the thing that happened between them. I used that against him to get him to tell me stuff he heard you talking about. How Finderman didn’t do her job right.”

I didn’t say anything.

“That’s me. That’s how I operate. I did it.” He paused. “I’ve come to apologize.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not going to ask whether you accept it or not. If I was you, I probably wouldn’t. But I’m telling you I’m sorry, just the same.”

“I hear you,” I said.

“That’s not all,” Randy said. “I want to help.”

“You’ve been doing that,” I reminded him. “Yesterday, when you were handing out water.”

“Oh, that,” he said. “That was for publicity. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was happy to help people. But I wanted to stick it to Amanda Croydon, and I did a pretty good job.” He managed a smile for about two seconds. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m going to withdraw. I’m not going to run for mayor.”

The last thing I wanted to do was discourage him from dropping out. I didn’t want him in charge of Promise Falls again. But I wondered if he was packing it in for the right reason.

“Because of Jane?” I asked.

He nodded. “I wanted to prove something to her. I can’t now.”

“I guess you know what the right thing to do is.”

“But like I said, I want to help. I want to help you find out who poisoned this town. I want to help find out who killed all these people.”

Was I being conned? Was this a performance? Was Randy really pulling out, or was this an even more brilliant publicity stunt than handing out the water? I could imagine him going before the cameras to withdraw, to declare that helping the police was more important than his political future.