Linwood Barclay - No Time For Goodbye

“Because of the will,” Clayton said. “I’m leaving everything to Cynthia. It’s the only way I know to make up for what I did. It doesn’t, I know, it doesn’t make up for anything, but what else can I do?”

“But what does that have to do with them being alive?” I asked, but I was already starting to figure it out. The pieces were starting, ever so gradually, to fall into place.

“If she’s dead, if Cynthia’s dead, if your daughter’s dead, then the money can’t go to them. It’ll revert back to Enid, she’ll be the surviving spouse, the only logical heir,” he whispered. “There’s no way Enid’ll let Cynthia inherit. She’ll kill both of them to make sure she gets the money.”

“But that’s crazy,” I said. “A murder-a double murder-that’d draw so much attention, police would reopen the case, they’d start looking into what happened twenty-five years ago, it could end up blowing up in Enid’s face, and then-”

I stopped myself.

A murder would attract attention. No doubt about it.

But a suicide. There wouldn’t be much attention paid to something like that. Especially not when the woman committing suicide had been under so much strain in recent weeks. A woman who had called the police to investigate the appearance of a strange hat in her house. It didn’t get much more bizarre than that. A woman who had called the police because she’d received a note telling her where she could find the bodies of her missing mother and brother. A note that had been composed on a typewriter in her own home.

A woman like that who killed herself, well, it wasn’t hard to figure out what that was about. It was about guilt. Guilt she must have lived with for a very long time. After all, how else did one explain her being able to direct police to that car in the quarry if she hadn’t known, all these years, that it was there? What possible motive would anyone else have for sending along a note like that?

A woman this overwhelmed with guilt, would it be any surprise if she took her daughter’s life along with her own?

Could that be what was in the works?

“What?” Clayton asked me. “What are you thinking?”

What if Jeremy had come to Milford to watch us? What if he’d been spying on us for weeks, following Grace to school? Watching us at the mall? From the street out front of our house? Getting into our home one day when we were careless, then leaving with the spare house key so he could get in whenever he wanted. And on one of those trips-I recalled my discovery during Abagnall’s final visit to our house-tossing the key back into the cutlery drawer so we’d think we’d just misplaced it. Leaving that hat. Learning our e-mail address. Writing a note on my typewriter, leading Cynthia to the bodies of her mother and brother…

All these things could have been accomplished before we had the locks changed, the new deadbolts installed.

I gave my head a slight shake. I felt I was getting ahead of myself. It all seemed so incredible, so diabolical.

Had Jeremy been setting the stage? And was he now returning to Youngstown to pick up his mother, so that he could take her back to Milford to watch the final act?

“I need you to tell me everything,” I whispered to Clayton. “Everything that happened that night.”

“It was never supposed to happen like this…” he said, more to himself than me. “I couldn’t go see her. I promised not to, to protect her… Even after I died, when Enid found out she was getting nothing…there was a sealed envelope, only to be opened after I was dead and buried… It explained everything. They’d arrest Enid, Cynthia would be safe…”

“Clayton, I think they’re in danger now. Your daughter, and your granddaughter. You need to help me while you still can.”

He studied my face. “You seem like a nice man. I’m glad she found someone like you.”

“You need to tell me what happened.”

He took a deep breath, as though steeling himself for a coming task. “I can see her now,” he said. “Staying away won’t protect her now.” He swallowed. “Take me to her. Take me to my daughter. Let me say goodbye to her. Take me to her, and I’ll tell you everything. It’s time.”

“I can’t take you out of here,” I said. “You’re all hooked up here. If I take you out of here, you’ll die.”

“I’m going to die anyway,” Clayton said. “My clothes, they’re in the closet over there. Get them.”

I started for the closet, then stopped. “Even if I wanted to, they’re not going to let you leave the hospital.”

Clayton waved me over closer to him, reached out and grabbed my arm, his grip firm and resolute. “She’s a monster,” he said. “There’s nothing she won’t do to get what she wants. For years, I’ve lived in fear of her, did what she wanted, scared to death of what she might do next. But what do I have to fear anymore? What can she do to me? I’ve so little time left, maybe, with what I have, I can save my Cynthia, and Grace. There are no limits to what Enid might do.”

“She won’t be doing anything now,” I said. “Not with Vince watching her.”

Clayton squinted at me. “Did you go to the house? Knock on the door?”

I nodded.

“And she answered it?”

I nodded again.

“Did she seem afraid?”

I shrugged. “Not particularly.”

“Two big men, coming to her door, and she’s not afraid. Didn’t that seem odd?”

Another shrug. “Maybe. I suppose.”

Clayton said, “You didn’t look under the blanket, did you?”

I got out my cell again, called Vince’s. “Come on,” I said, feeling awash in anxiety. I couldn’t raise Cynthia, and now I was panicking that something had happened to a guy who only yesterday I would have viewed as a common thug.

“Is he there?” Clayton said, moving his legs over to the edge of the bed.

“No,” I said. After six rings, it went to voicemail. I didn’t bother to leave a message. “I need to get back over there.”

“Give me a minute,” he said, inching his butt closer to the edge.

I went over to the closet, found a pair of pants, a shirt, and a light jacket. “You need help?” I asked, laying the clothes out on the bed next to him.

“I’m okay,” he said. He seemed a bit winded, caught his breath, and said, “Did you see some socks and underwear in there?”

I took another look in the closet, found nothing, then checked the bottom cabinet of the bedside table. “In here,” I said, taking out the clothes and handing them over.

He was ready to stand up next to the bed, but if he was going to leave the room, he was going to have to disengage himself from the IV. He picked away at the tape, pulled the tube from his arm.

“You sure about this?” I said.

He nodded, gave me a weak smile. “If there’s a chance to see Cynthia, I’ll find the strength.”

“What’s going on in here?”

We both turned our heads to the door. A nurse was standing there, a slender black woman, mid-forties, a look of wonderment on her face.

“Mr. Sloan, what on earth do you think you’re doing?”

He had just dropped his pajama bottoms and was standing before her, bareass naked. His legs were white and spindly, his genitals shrunken away to almost nothing.

“Getting dressed,” he said. “What’s it look like?”

“Who are you?” she asked, turning on me.

“His son-in-law,” I said.

“I’ve never seen you here before,” she said. “Don’t you know that visiting hours are long over?”

“I just got into town,” I said. “I needed to see my father-in-law right away.”

“You’re going to have to leave right now,” she told me. “And you get back into bed, Mr. Sloan.” She was at the foot of the bed now, saw the disconnected IV. “For heaven’s sake,” she said. “What have you done?”