Linwood Barclay - A Tap on the Window

Sanders lifted his head. “The Rodomskis’ kid is dead.”

Annette’s eyes widened. “What?”

“She was murdered.” He pointed a feeble finger at me. “You tell her.”

“Hanna Rodomski,” I said.

“I know who she is,” she said, aghast. “I know her parents. My God, this is terrible. They must be devastated.”

I imagined they were, but I hadn’t seen them since discovering their daughter’s body. I felt a pang of guilt, as though I should be at the Rodomskis’ house and not here, but I believed every minute counted now where finding Claire was concerned.

“Does Claire know?” Annette asked. “Bert, does she know what’s happened to Hanna?”

Sanders looked at me. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible, the way kids are all connected these days. Do regular people know yet? Has it been on the news?”

“I don’t think so. But it’s only a matter of time. Like you say, if Claire has access on her phone or if she’s near a computer, this kind of thing will spread like wildfire on social media before it hits the news.” I hesitated. “She should hear it from you.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right,” Sanders said, and turned to look at the phone on the bedside table.

Pick up the goddamn phone and call her , I thought. But it looked like he was heading in that direction.

“She probably has her cell phone turned off,” he said.

“Why would that be?” I asked.

“They can track you, right? If your cell phone is on.”

“What are you talking about, Bert?” Annette asked. “Who’d be tracking — oh God, you’re not serious. You really think he’d do that?”

“Who?” I asked. “Who’d do what?”

Annette gave me a critical look. “Your brother-in-law, that’s who.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, do you have any idea how much trouble I had to go to, to sneak in here tonight?” she asked. “Had to park a block over that way.” She pointed toward the back of the house. “Had to sneak between houses, acting like Catwoman. Could have used some night-vision goggles. Ripped my nylons on some prickly bushes. It’s not like Bert can go anywhere to meet me. They’re watching him all the time, his comings and goings. But I can sneak in through the back way and no one spots me.”

“You’re worried the chief is going to find out you two are having an affair?”

“It’s not that,” Sanders said, his hand resting on the receiver. “Perry’s trying to put the fear of God into me.”

“Bert, yes, Perry’s being a total asshole,” Annette said, “but why would he be tracking your daughter’s whereabouts? I mean, she’s on a school trip to New York. Why would he care about that? And if she doesn’t have her cell on, then get in touch with the teacher or call the hotel where she’s—”

“That’s not where she is,” Sanders said. “She’s not on a school trip to New York. That’s just what I told you.”

Annette Ravelson blinked. I could see she was hurt. Always disappointing when the man you’re cheating on your husband with isn’t honest with you.

“Don’t be upset,” he said to her. “You know I’m living in a fishbowl these days. Everything’s on a need-to-know basis.”

Exasperation overwhelmed him as he said to me, “You heard what my neighbor said. You never know when there’s gonna be a cop car watching this house. It’s all part of Perry’s intimidation campaign to get me to shut up, to let this whole thing about how he runs his department just go. He’s watching me, and he’s got his jackbooted thugs watching me, and up until a couple of days ago, Claire, too. If Perry can walk all over the constitutional rights of everyone else who dares venture inside the town limits, why not the mayor’s? Why not my daughter’s?”

“Claire was feeling the heat?” I asked.

“How could she not?” Sanders said. “She said she couldn’t stand it, the cops watching me like that. She was sick of getting caught up in my battle with them, and who the hell could blame her? She wouldn’t go into specifics, but one night outside Patchett’s a cop stopped her, and another time, more recently, same officer, I think, took her purse from her, supposedly to search for drugs, which there were absolutely none of, and we had to go down to the station to pick it up the next day. Can you blame her for wanting to get the hell out of this town? She figured out a way to do it without the cops knowing where she went.”

“You knew she was doing this thing with Hanna.”

“I didn’t know exactly what she was doing, but she told me she had something all worked out.”

“She must have told you where she was going.”

Sanders’ hung his head in a gesture of admission. “To Toronto. To stay with her mother, my ex-wife. Caroline. Caroline Karnofsky now.”

“Caroline picked her up?”

Another nod. “Claire set it all up with her mother. Claire said if there were any problems, she or her mother would call. I didn’t hear anything, so everything must have gone off just fine.”

I pointed to the phone and mimed a dialing motion with my fingers. “You need to let her know.”

Sanders moved to pick up the receiver, then hesitated.

“This line,” he said. “It might not be safe.”

“Seriously?” I said. “You think the chief has your line tapped?”

“It’s crossed my mind. Sometimes I think I hear clicks. You know what they say. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean—”

I waved my hand. “I know. But, Jesus, he wouldn’t...” But I knew that over the years Perry had done surveillance work. And he’d have people in his department who’d know how to do that sort of thing.

“If you really believe that,” I said, “for all we know, the whole house is bugged. Someone could be listening to what we’re saying right now.”

Annette’s look of horror was immediate. “What? You mean someone could have heard what — someone could have been listening to us in this room, like, just a little while ago?”

She was no doubt replaying in her head the things she’d said in the throes of passion. Sanders appeared to be doing the same.

“If someone recorded that...” She didn’t bother to finish. I could imagine what she was thinking. If someone had all this on tape — okay, more likely a digital recording — and played it for her husband, well, that couldn’t be good.

“I don’t suppose you’d want Kent hearing that,” I said.

Annette didn’t like it when I said her husband’s name. “Don’t even joke about such a thing,” she said.

I had bigger things to worry about than Annette Ravelson’s infidelities becoming public. I entered the bathroom and called out, “Annette, come get your clothes.”

She came in, scooped everything out of the tub, and grabbed her purse, too. “I’ll go get dressed in Claire’s room.”

I pulled the curtain back across the tub, then turned the cold tap on full blast. I yanked the knob that turned the shower on. Streams of water hit the plastic curtain, creating a low-level background noise like rain on a tin roof. I waved Sanders to come in, and handed him my cell phone.

“If your phone, or this place, is bugged, this should keep anyone from hearing.”

Sanders entered a number into my cell and put it to his ear.

“It’s ringing,” he said. Then, “Caroline, it’s me... I know, I know this isn’t my number. I’m using someone else’s phone.”

I leaned in, my head nearly touching Sanders’, so I could hear both sides of the conversation.

“Is everything okay?” Caroline asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I just—”

“Where are you? What’s that noise? Are you standing in the rain?”