Linwood Barclay - Far From True

He offered a hand, which she took. “Carlson,” he said, taking a seat across from her. “Pretty empty in here today.”

“Most everyone’s gone, but they’re still keeping the cafeteria open with a skeleton staff,” she said. “Thank God, or I’d starve to death.”

“So you’re hanging in for the summer?”

She shrugged, made a face. “Yeah. I’m trying to fast-track my degree. Don’t want to be here for four solid years. Want to get on with my life, do something, you know? Try to get started on a career before having kids and stuff.”

“You have a boyfriend?”

She blushed. “No. I just think way ahead.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“So, you have questions? About the guy who grabbed me?”

He nodded. “I’m sure you’ve had to go over all this before, but it would help us if you could do it again.”

“But they got the guy, right? I mean, isn’t it over?”

“What we’re wondering is what Mason Helt — and we’ve no reason to think it wasn’t Helt who attacked you — might have said.”

“Okay, well, I was walking by the pond. You know, Thackeray Pond?”

“Yeah.” It was a small body of water at the college. Most pictures of Thackeray featured the pond with the stately buildings in the background reflected within in it. Students hung out by it, strolled and jogged around it.

“It’s real pretty there, although I’m totally freaked about even putting my toe into it. Some kid here put a baby alligator in there as a joke. I mean, it might be dead, but you never know. So I was walking around it at about ten. At night. No one else was out, which was kind of dumb of me — I realize that now. When I got close to some trees, all of a sudden this guy runs out and grabs me. I’m not very heavy, you know, and he puts his arms around me and lifts me right off my feet and takes me into the bushes. And I’m totally scared and ready to scream, and he puts his hand over my mouth and puts me down on the ground, and then he’s all, hey, don’t worry, it’s okay.”

“What’d he say, exactly?”

She paused, took a sip of her coffee. “I was kind of scared, you know? So it’s hard to remember exactly. But it was like, ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to do anything to you. But tell them what happened. Tell them to be afraid.’ Yeah, like that.”

“‘Tell them to be afraid’?”

Lorraine nodded.

“Tell who to be afraid?”

“Well, he didn’t exactly say. I guess he meant, tell everyone?”

“There were two other students,” Carlson said. “Erin Stotter and Denise Lambton.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know them, but not really well. But they told me he said kind of the same thing to them, too. But you probably know all of this, right? Mr. Duncomb — he’s the head campus-cop guy — would have told you right after it happened?”

Carlson knew, from what Duckworth had passed along, that all this information had come late to the Promise Falls police.

“What makes you think he would have done that?” he asked.

“Well, I told him I was going to call the police myself, but he said that wouldn’t be necessary, that he’d be calling them. And that he’d be passing along my statement, and if you needed more from me, you’d interview me.”

Carlson smiled. “He did, did he?”

Lorraine nodded.

“I figured he’d do it. Because I sort of already know him, and figured he’d be straight with me.”

“How do you know the security chief?”

“He knows this writer guy. And he invited me out to his place once so I could meet him.” Her face flushed again.

“A writer?” Carlson asked.

“I made a total fool of myself. Had too much to drink and kind of passed out, and felt — I don’t know — kind of weird the next day.” She hesitated a moment, then said, “But they were all real nice about it.”

“But you’re saying he said he’d fill in the local police on what happened?”

Her head went up and down.

As he walked out of the dining hall, Carlson put in a call to Duckworth’s cell. “I just talked to the Plummer woman.”

“Okay.”

“She wanted to go to the police right after she was assaulted, and Duncomb said he’d do it on her behalf.”

“Which he never did.”

“Yeah. Thought you’d want to know.”

Silence. Then, “I’ll be having a word with him about that.”

“I’m going to pay him a visit.”

“No,” Duckworth said. “Leave that for me. In fact, Rhonda may want to have a word with him.” Rhonda Finderman, the Promise Falls police chief.

“I’m here now,” Angus Carlson said.

“No, wait—”

But it was too late. Carlson had ended the call.

“I’m looking for Duncomb,” Carlson told the young man guarding the desk outside the offices of campus security.

“He’s in a meeting right now. But if you’d like to have a seat, I can—”

Carlson headed for the closed door that bore Clive Duncomb’s name and position. He turned the handle and entered.

Duncomb was behind his desk, talking to a man seated across from him. He looked up and said, “Excuse me.”

“Angus Carlson,” he said. “Promise Falls police.” He flashed his credentials.

“That’s pretty,” Duncomb said. “But I’m talking to somebody right now.”

“It’s important.”

Duncomb sighed and said to the man, who Carlson guessed was in his forties, 140 pounds tops, unkempt hair hanging over his collar, tweed jacket that was worn at the cuffs. The guy had everything needed to peg him short of a name tag that said “Professor.”

“Sorry, Peter,” Duncomb said to the man. “Why don’t you wait outside while I deal with this?”

The man named Peter turned in his chair to look at Carlson and said, “You’re with the police?”

“That’s right.”

Peter glanced nervously back at Duncomb and said, “Clive, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to—”

Duncomb shook his head abruptly. “Peter, I’m sure it’s nothing. We’ll talk shortly. I’ve no doubt everything will be fine.”

“And the other matter—”

Duncomb gave the man a sharp look. “I told you, that’s in hand. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Hesitantly, Peter got to his feet and squeezed past Carlson on his way out of the office. Carlson took the man’s seat, which was still warm.

“Where’s Detective Duckworth today?” Duncomb asked. “Out having a doughnut?”

“Who was that?” Carlson asked, tipping his head in the direction of the man who’d departed.

“One of the professors.”

“Why did he want to talk to me?”

“He didn’t want to talk to you. He doesn’t want to talk to you. It’s nothing. A personal matter. What do you want?”

Carlson settled into the chair, opened up his notebook. “I’ve just been talking to Lorraine Plummer.”

“Lorraine Plummer, Lorraine Plummer...” His eyes rolled up toward the ceiling.

“One of the three women who was attacked here at Thackeray.”

Duncomb grinned. “I know. Erin Stotter, Denise Lambton, and, last but not least, Lorraine Plummer. The three students Mason Helt went after before I took care of the problem.”

“By shooting him in the head.”

Duncomb’s shoulders rose, fell. A shrug. “Which, it would seem, has failed to ruffle any feathers, given that I haven’t been charged with anything. It was a righteous shoot. I saved one of my people. Joyce Pilgrim. Helt would have killed her if I hadn’t shown up.”

“That’s not my understanding.”

“Not your understanding? What is your understanding?”

“That he’d told her he wasn’t going to hurt her.”

Duncomb nodded in mock agreement. “Yes, that’s always a good strategy when you’re dealing with someone who’s just dragged you into the bushes to rip your pants off. To believe him when he says he means you no harm.”