Linwood Barclay - No Time For Goodbye

“Would you like some coffee?” Cynthia asked as Denton Abagnall came into our house.

“Oh, I’d like that,” he said. “I’d like that very much.”

He got settled on the couch and Cynthia brought out coffee and cups and sugar and cream on a tray, as well as some chocolate chip cookies, and then she poured coffee into three cups and held the plate of cookies for Abagnall and he took one, and inside our heads both Cynthia and I were screaming: For God’s sake, tell us what you know-we can’t stand it another minute ! Cynthia glanced down at the tray and said to me, “I only got two spoons, Terry. Could you grab another one?”

I went back into the kitchen, opened the cutlery drawer for a spoon, and something caught my eye down in that space between the edge of the Rubbermaid cutlery holder and the wall of the drawer, where all sorts of odds and ends collect, from pencils and pens to those little plastic clips from the ends of bread bags.

A key.

I dug it out. It was the spare house key that normally hung on the hook.

I went back into the living room with the spoon, and sat down as Abagnall got out his notebook. He opened it up, leafed through a few pages, said, “Let me just see what I’ve got here.”

Cynthia and I smiled patiently.

“Okay, here we are,” he said. He looked at Cynthia. “Mrs. Archer, what can you tell me about Vince Fleming?”

“Vince Fleming?”

“That’s right. He was the boy you were with that night. You and he, you were parked in a car-” He stopped himself. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking at Cynthia and then at me and then back at Cynthia again. “Are you comfortable with me talking about this in front of your husband?”

“It’s fine,” she said.

“You were parked in his car, out at the mall, I believe. That was where your father found you and brought you home.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve had a chance to go over the police files on this case, and the producer at that TV show, she showed me a tape of the program-I’m sorry, I never saw it when it originally ran, I don’t much care for crime shows-but most of the information they got was from the police. And this Vince Fleming fellow, he has a bit of a checkered history, if you get my drift.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t really keep in touch with him after that night,” Cynthia said.

“He’s been in and out of trouble with the law his whole life,” Abagnall said. “And his father was no different. Anthony Fleming, he ran a rather significant criminal organization back around that time.”

“Like the Mafia?” I said.

“Not quite that extensive. But he had his hand in a significant portion of the illegal drug market between New Haven and Bridgeport. Prostitution, truck hijackings, that kind of thing.”

“My God,” Cynthia said. “I had no idea. I mean, I knew Vince was a bit of a bad boy, but I had no idea what his father was involved in. Is his father still alive?”

“No. He was shot in 1992. Some aspiring hoodlums killed him in a deal that went very badly wrong.”

Cynthia was shaking her head, unable to believe it all. “Did the police catch them?”

“Didn’t have to,” Abagnall said. “Anthony Fleming’s people took care of them. Massacred a houseful of them-those who were responsible, and a few who were not but happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time-in retaliation. They figure Vince Fleming was in charge of that operation, but he was never convicted, never even charged.”

Abagnall reached for another cookie. “I really shouldn’t,” he said. “I know my wife will be making me something nice for dinner.”

I spoke up. “But what does all this have to do with Cynthia, and her family?”

“Nothing, exactly,” the detective said. “But I’m learning about the kind of person Vince turned out to be, and I’m wondering about the kind of person he might have been, that night when your wife’s family disappeared.”

“You think he had something to do with it,” Cynthia said.

“I simply don’t know. But he would have had reason to be angry. Your father had dragged you away from a date with him. That must have been humiliating, not just for you, but for him as well. And if he did have anything to do with your parents’ disappearance, and that of your brother, if he…” His voice softened. “If he murdered them, then he had a father with the means, and the experience, to help him cover his tracks.”

“But surely the police must have looked into this at the time,” I said. “You can’t be the first person this has occurred to.”

“You’re right. The police looked into it. But they never came up with anything concrete. There were only some suspicions. And Vince and his family were each other’s alibis. He said he went home after Clayton Bigge took his daughter home.”

“It would explain one thing,” Cynthia said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Abagnall was smiling. He must have known what Cynthia was going to say, which was, “It would explain why I’m alive.”

Abagnall nodded.

“Because he liked me.”

“But your brother,” I said. “He had nothing against your brother.” I turned to Abagnall. “How do you explain that?”

“Todd may simply have been a witness. Someone who was there, who had to be eliminated.”

We were all quiet for a moment. Then Cynthia said, “He had a knife.”

“Who?” Abagnall asked. “Vince?”

“In the car that night. He was showing it off to me. It was a-what do you call it-one of those knives that springs open.”

“A switchblade,” Abagnall said.

“That’s it,” Cynthia said. “I remember…I can remember holding it…” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes were starting to roll up under her eyelids. “I feel faint.”

I quickly slipped my arm around her. “What can I get you?”

“I just, I just need to go…freshen up…for a minute,” she said, attempting to stand. I waited a moment to see that she was steady on her feet, then watched worriedly as she made her way up the stairs.

Abagnall was watching, too, and when he heard the bathroom door close, he leaned closer to me and said quietly, “What do you make of that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think she’s exhausted.”

Abagnall nodded, didn’t speak for a moment. Then, “This Vince Fleming, his father made a very good living from his illegal activities. If he felt some sense of responsibility for what his son did, it would have been financially possible for him to leave sums of cash for your wife’s aunt to assist her in sending her niece to school.”

“You saw the letter,” I said. “Tess showed it to you.”

“Yes. She gave it to me, in fact, in addition to the envelopes. I take it you still haven’t told your wife about that.”

“Not yet. I think Tess is ready to, though. Cynthia’s decision to hire you, I think Tess sees that as a sign that she’s ready to know everything.”

Abagnall nodded thoughtfully. “It’s best to get everything out into the open now, since we’re trying to get some answers.”

“We’re planning to see Tess tomorrow night. Actually, it might be worth seeing her tonight.” I was, to be honest, thinking about Abagnall’s daily rate.

“That’s a good-” Inside his jacket, Abagnall’s phone rang. “A dinner report, no doubt,” he said, taking out the phone. But he looked puzzled when he saw the number, tossed the phone back into his jacket, and said, “They can leave a message.”

Cynthia was making her way back down the stairs.

“Mrs. Archer, are you feeling all right?” Abagnall asked. She nodded and sat back down. He cleared his throat. “Are you sure? Because I’d like to bring up another matter.”