Linwood Barclay - Far From True

“A bit chilly tonight,” Duckworth said. “But it’ll be summer soon enough.”

“I don’t mind if it’s cool. Once I start running, I warm up.”

“You do marathons?”

“God, no. I’m just getting back into it. A mile, maybe.” He rolled his head around on his shoulders, stretching his neck muscles. “I’m trying to improve myself.”

“Good for you.”

“People seem to think I need to do that.”

Duckworth let that one go. “I’m still looking into Olivia’s murder,” he told Rooney. “I was talking to her father earlier today.”

“That guy,” Rooney said, blinking slowly.

“Yeah. That guy.”

“Why were you talking to him? You got some news? You and your buddies finally get off your collective asses and arrest someone?”

“No,” Duckworth said. “We haven’t. Mr. Fisher told me that what happened still weighs pretty heavily on you.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “No one has to worry about me.”

“I was wondering if, even after all this time, maybe something new has occurred to you. Something that might help us make an arrest. Someone who might have had a fight with Olivia. Were there any men who were interested in her, maybe an ex-boyfriend who was upset she was going to marry you?”

“No other boyfriend,” he said.

“So she wasn’t involved in any other relationship?”

Victor hesitated, then said, “No.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“... I don’t know. I don’t think it’s anything.”

“That’s often what people say later. They say they didn’t think it was anything. But it turned out to be something.”

“She was kind of — it’s hard to describe — but sort of distant for a while,” he said.

“When was this?”

“Like, a month before it happened? Maybe three weeks. Just... she acted like she had something on her mind. I thought maybe it was the idea of getting engaged to me, but she swore up and down it wasn’t that. She said one time she wondered if she was a good person. Like she’d done something she felt bad about.”

“What did you think it was?”

Victor shrugged. “I thought maybe she’d spent the night with another guy. A one-night-stand thing. I might have pressed harder, but I guess I just didn’t want to know. But what happened to Olivia? In the park? That was some fucking maniac — that’s what that was. So I don’t even know what the point of your questions is. They’ve got nothing to do with what happened to her.”

“You might be right.”

“This, what you’re doing? You just want me to think you’re getting somewhere, but you’re never going to catch the guy. Why don’t you go after the others? The people who did fuck all? The ones who listened while she screamed.”

“It must be hard to get over,” Duckworth said, his eyes scanning the house and the property, the detached garage in the backyard. “How long was it before you started seeing anyone else?”

“Are you for real? You honestly came by to ask me when I started dating again?” Rooney turned away, spit onto the driveway.

The front door of the house opened. It was Mrs. Townsend.

“Oh, Victor?”

He turned around, said, “Yeah?”

“Sorry to interrupt. Before you go on your run, could you get me a garbage bag? I thought I had some in the kitchen, but they’re all gone, but I think there’s a package of them in the garage.”

“Sure,” he said, and the woman withdrew. He looked at Duckworth and said, “I help Mrs. Townsend around the place.”

“She was telling me. You do all the chores.”

“Most of them. Are we done here?”

“I guess,” Duckworth said.

“Okay, well, fine. See ya.” He started walking toward the garage, then stopped when he realized Duckworth hadn’t moved, that he was watching him.

“Is there a problem?”

“No problem,” Duckworth said.

Victor Rooney said, “Screw it. I’ll do my run first.”

He jogged past Duckworth and disappeared up the street.

I had the radio back on and this time I found out more about Mr. Twenty-three. That was the instant nickname the media had given some nut who had killed forest creatures, fired up abandoned amusement park rides, and very likely blown up the drive-in. A reporter had stopped people on the street to get their reaction.

“I’m pretty freaked-out, to tell you the truth.”

“They better get this guy fast before he does something even bigger.”

“I knew it was terrorism. Isn’t that a verse or something in the Koran? Thou must kill everybody?”

I wondered sometimes why I even turned on the radio. I switched it off, choosing instead to occupy myself with my own thoughts.

I couldn’t, in good conscience, drag this case out much longer. Lucy Brighton had hired me for a day’s work, and I was prepared to run out the clock on this, but come tomorrow, we’d have to talk about how much more she wanted to spend. What I’d told her, that whoever took these discs probably wanted to bury them, was what I believed. This might be one of those problems that just went away.

I turned a corner and was about a block away from the Chalmers house when I noticed a car parked at the curb, taillights on, exhaust coming out of the tailpipe. A small black BMW coupe. I drove past slowly, and noticed there was enough light from the dash to make out Felicia Chalmers behind the wheel.

She was alone.

I stopped the car just ahead of her, put the car in reverse, and backed up until I was directly beside her. She glanced over, probably couldn’t make me out at first.

I powered down the passenger window, raised my hand, and did a downward motion with my index finger. She got the idea and did the same.

“Ms. Chalmers,” I said.

“Yes?”

I hit the interior light in my car for three seconds, long enough for her to get a look at me. “Cal Weaver. I came by your place.”

Her mouth made an O. “Right, yes, of course,” she said. And nothing else.

I didn’t take my eyes off her and allowed the silence to go on.

“You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here,” she said.

“Maybe.”

“But then again, I could ask what you’re doing here,” Felicia said. “Looks like you’re going to the house.”

“That’s right,” I said. “I’m still working for Adam Chalmers’s daughter.”

“Of course.”

“Your turn,” I said.

“I’m sorry?” she said. “I can’t hear you that well over the engine.”

“I said, your turn.”

“Oh. I was just... I guess I was sitting here thinking about Adam.”

“Sure,” I said, nodding understandingly.

“It’s still a shock.”

“I can imagine.”

“And... I was sort of driving around the neighborhood, looking at the houses. I’m... I probably shouldn’t tell you this.”

I waited.

“I’ve been talking to a lawyer. He says I might have... that as Adam’s only surviving former spouse, I might have some claim... you know what I’m saying. On the estate. Whatever there is of it.”

“I understand,” I said, tempted to add that everyone handles grief in their own way, but holding my tongue.

“So I was taking another look at the house, considering where it stands in the market. Nothing in this town’s worth as much as it was five or ten years ago.”

“I can imagine,” I said, the car still in drive, my foot on the brake.

“Anyway, nice to see you,” she said, and powered her window back up.

I took my foot off the brake and continued on up the street. In my rearview, I saw Felicia do a three-point turn and take her Beemer around the corner.

I parked out front of the Chalmers house. The light over the front door was on. Probably on a timer. But the rest of the house was dark. If Adam and Miriam had been leaving for a holiday, they might have left some lights to go on and off in the house, but that’s not the sort of thing you bother doing when you’re just going to the movies.