Linwood Barclay: The Twenty-Three

“I bought it. Had to go to a few places before I found it.”

“It makes you throw up,” I said.

“Yeah,” Walden said.

“So why did you want it?”

“In case I ever needed it.”

“You must have used it very recently,” I said. “I mean, it was right there in the trash. So you must have had some in the last day or so.”

“That’s right,” he said hesitantly. “Yesterday morning. When I heard about the water being poisoned.”

His voice lacked conviction. I’d been in this line of work long enough to tell when someone was lying to me.

“At the hospital,” I reminded him, “you said you’d had some coffee? Ran out into the street, throwing up, just as the ambulance was coming by.”

“Is that what I said?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Then maybe I had some of that after I got back home,” he said. “I’m a little cloudy on the details.”

But things were coming into focus for me.

“Walden,” I said, “did you drink this stuff before you ran out into the street?”

“Like I said, so much has happened in the last day or so.”

“Why would you do that?” I asked. “Everyone else was sick from the tainted water, but you were sick from this . Walden, it’s almost like you wanted people to think you were made ill by the poisoned water, when maybe you weren’t.”

Walden moved his jaw around.

“Why would you do that, Walden? Why did you want everyone to think you’d been poisoned?”

That jaw kept moving around.

“Walden?”

“I took too much of it,” he said. “I just wanted to appear sick, like everyone else. But I swallowed so much, I really did a number on myself. Threw up so violently, my heart started palpitating. Actually thought I might die for a while there.”

“Jesus, Walden, why-”

He came at me fast, palms forward. He slammed them into my chest and I went into the wall hard enough to get the wind knocked out of me. I was about to reach for my gun, but instead I raised my hands to defend myself from the fists that were pounding my head.

Walden was in a blind fury, his fists driving into me faster than I could deflect them. I felt a cheekbone collapse; then the vision in my left eye went blurry with blood. We weren’t that different in age, but he was in better shape than I was, by a lot.

I started sliding down the wall. When I was on the way down, a fist went into my gut like a piston.

I was close to passing out.

He let me continue my slide until my butt was on the floor, my legs arranged haphazardly in front of me. Walden crouched down, found my gun, and unholstered it. By the time I was able to focus with my right eye-the flesh around my left was already puffing up and obscuring my view-he was standing over me with my own weapon pointed at my head.

I tasted blood in my mouth. My bottom lip was ballooning.

I said, “Walden.”

“You didn’t have to die,” he said. “You got lucky yesterday. You didn’t drink the water. You didn’t have to be one of them.”

“Jesus, Walden… put the gun down… Let’s talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said.

I mumbled, “If it was you… Victor… you must have set up Victor… How could you set up someone who loved your daughter?”

“Just shut up,” Walden said. “I have to think.”

“The squirrel trap, those mannequins…”

“I moved it all last night,” Walden said. “When he went to do his run.”

“And the boy,” I said. “That Lydecker kid.”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen. I caught him snooping.”

I swallowed, felt blood trickling down my throat. “You did it… for the same reason you had me believe Victor did it. Same motive, different person.”

“We felt the same way,” Walden said. “I just felt it more. This town failed Olivia. It had to be taught a lesson.”

“Twenty-two bystanders, and Victor…”

“I hoped he’d drink the water,” Walden said. “He was late. He was late and Olivia died. I wanted him to die, too. But now they’ll think he did it. At least… at least for a while.”

“What… what do you mean, for a while?”

Walden took several breaths before he spoke. “I thought… I thought I’d feel some satisfaction. That I would feel… vindicated. Something. But I don’t. I don’t think enough have been made to pay. I’m thinking… You know the Promise Falls Autumn Fair?”

Blood obscured my view of Walden. I blinked a few times, and said, “The fair?”

“In October,” he said. “I’m thinking, by then, everyone will feel safe again. They’ll have let their guard down. They’ll all believe it was Victor. Maybe a bomb… at the fair.”

“Walden… listen to me. You can’ t-”

“You know I have to kill you,” he said. “I think you’re a good man, but that doesn’t matter. There was a time, back when I started planning this, when I thought, once I’d made my point, I’d turn myself in. But now I see there’s more to do.”

I gurgled something.

“What?”

“Twenty-three,” I said. “All of that was you.”

“I was sending a message,” he said. “That justice was coming.

I wanted people to be afraid. I was so pleased when I saw you were figuring it out. That’s why I phoned you that time.”

“You’re an engineer,” I said. “You had the smarts for everything. The Ferris wheel, the bus, blowing up the drive-in. But Mason Helt…” For a moment there, things had gone dark. “Helt,” I said.

“He took theater. I approached him, said he was going to be part of a study, something sanctioned by the college. About fear and paranoia. He was skeptical, but a thousand bucks went a long way to convincing him. After, I knew it was a mistake, actually meeting with a third party, bringing someone else into this. I caught a break when he ended up dead. I might have had to kill him myself if that hadn’t happened.”

I mumbled something else.

“What’s that?” Walden said.

“Tate. Tate Whitehead.”

Walden nodded. “I knew there’d only be one person at the water plant, and that it would be him. I couldn’t be interrupted. It took a long time to bring in what I needed.”

“Sodium something.”

“Azide,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s it.”

“It took a long time to acquire what I needed. More than two years. I was stockpiling it, knowing I’d use it someday. I just didn’t know when. I knew I’d never do it while Beth was alive. I couldn’t run the risk of being sent away while she was still with me. But when she passed away, I knew it was time to move forward.”

“Walden… please don’t kill me… Turn yourself in. Your first instinct was the right one. Tell everyone why you did what you did. Make them understand how they failed you, how they failed Olivia.”

He looked at me solemnly. “I’m sorry. But no.”

“Walden, listen to me. You-”

There was the sound of a loud knocking.

Walden’s head whipped around. “Jesus.” Panic washed over his face.

“Walden?” someone shouted. “You home?”

I thought I recognized the voice, even with blood finding its way into my ears. I had a feeling that if I could stand, and look in the mirror, I’d be horrified by what I saw.

“Walden? It’s Don! Don Harwood!”

I was right. I did know the voice. David’s father.

Walden shouted: “Just a second!”

He leaned in close to me, the gun inches from my bloodied nose. “I’m going to talk to him,” he whispered. “If you make one sound, even a peep, I will kill him. I’ll shoot him with your gun. Do you understand me?”

I nodded.

“You have those cuffs,” he said.