Linwood Barclay - Far From True

When I got to the front door, I reached into my pocket for the key Lucy had given me, and found two.

Right. Felicia had given me her old key to the house where she once lived. She said she was pretty sure Adam had changed the locks since their divorce.

Instead of using Lucy’s, I inserted the key I’d taken from Felicia, expecting some resistance. But it slid right in. I turned it, and opened the door. Immediately, the alarm system began to beep, warning me that if I didn’t enter the code in the next few seconds, it would start whooping loud enough to wake the neighborhood and connect to the monitoring service. I entered the four digits Lucy had told me, and the beeping stopped.

Flicked on some lights.

I was betting that if Chalmers never bothered to change the locks, he’d never gotten around to changing that code, either. Which meant Felicia could have gotten into this house anytime she wanted. Or sent someone here on an errand, with that key.

I didn’t think she’d looked very pleased that I’d caught her parked down the street from here.

There’s always a strange feeling, walking into a place where the owners are no longer alive. You half expect one of them to pop out of a closet and ask what the hell you’re doing in their house.

I wandered first through the living room and into the kitchen, noticed that the red light was flashing on the phone that rested on the countertop. A message. There hadn’t been one when I was here before with Lucy. Someone had called who, evidently, did not know the homeowners were no longer available.

It could easily be a nuisance call. It was one of the pleasures, for me, of no longer having a landline that I wasn’t pestered all night by duct cleaners, driveway resealers, window installers, and people wanting me to go on a cruise.

I looked through the recent callers, those that had come in since Lucy and I had been here. There was only one, but it was an unidentified number.

I wanted to hear the message. But a four-digit code had to be entered to retrieve it. Given that most people don’t want to have to remember half a dozen passwords, I figured there was a good chance it was the same code I’d used for the security panel.

I tried it.

“You have one new message,” the voice said. “To hear your message, press one-one.” I did so.

There was a pause, then, “Adam, it’s me.”

A woman. Speaking very softly.

“I tried your cell. Where are you? We... I’ve been thinking... I don’t think I can carry on this way... I just don’t... never mind. I have to go.”

End of message.

I wondered whether it could be Felicia. I just couldn’t tell. I checked the time of the call, saw that it had come in between the time Lucy and I had left the house this morning and my arrival at Felicia’s apartment. I looked at the list of incoming calls, and made note of the number of the caller when that message had been left. I didn’t recognize it.

She’d admitted the two of them kept in touch. I was betting that when they did talk, Adam usually used his cell, as the phone bill had suggested. Even if Miriam knew he kept in touch with his ex, she probably didn’t like it.

Odd, though, that she would leave a message like that one. Felicia would have to know there was a good chance Miriam would end up hearing it.

The same would be true of any other woman calling here for Adam.

Maybe, when you were in the “lifestyle,” you didn’t worry about that sort of thing.

A thought that led me to pay another visit to the downstairs playroom. I could search through Adam’s e-mails later.

Hitting light switches along the way, I descended the stairs to the bookcase. Lucy had slid it shut, concealing the room, before we left the house earlier in the day. No sense leaving it exposed in case someone else decided to break in.

It really was a marvel of engineering. Despite being loaded with books, the shelves practically floated on hidden casters. You had to put your back into it at first, pushing the case to the left, but once it was moving, it moved quite freely. The three-foot-wide doorway was revealed. I reached around inside, found the switch, and exposed the room to the light.

At a glance, nothing appeared to have changed since my first visit, suggesting that whoever had paid a visit here after the death of Adam and Miriam Chalmers hadn’t returned.

It really was some room. Erotic photos on the wall, sex toys in the cabinet, expensive camera equipment under the bed. There were two small tables on either side of the bed, each with a drawer. I found the same thing in each of them. Condoms. A wide assortment. Different textures, different colors, lubricated and nonlubricated.

If there was something to be found here, I wasn’t seeing it.

Then I thought: Bathroom.

Visits to bathrooms followed sex the way heartburn followed pizza. I figured there had to be a downstairs bathroom where folks could clean up, take a shower.

I came out of the playroom, crossed the large rec room area full of games, entered a short hallway leading to a storage room, a furnace room, and a bathroom. Not some rinky-dink basement powder room, either. There was a large marble-tiled shower big enough for two to soap up comfortably. And beyond that, a handsome wood door to a small cedar-lined sauna.

Everything was sparklingly clean and tidy. There was a stack of perfectly folded towels on chrome racks bolted to the wall over the toilet. The contents of the medicine cabinet indicated this was strictly a bathroom for visitors. New toothbrushes still in the packaging. Unopened tubes of toothpaste. Scented soaps wrapped in tissue paper. Mouthwash and small throwaway paper cups.

There was nothing in the garbage can.

Nothing particularly helpful at all in—

“Hello? Adam?”

A woman’s voice coming from upstairs. At the front door. I hadn’t heard anyone knock or ring the bell.

I exited the downstairs bathroom, made my way to the stairs at a steady pace. I could hear footsteps, what sounded like high heels, coming into the house.

“Adam?” she shouted again, sounding uncertain, but also slightly annoyed.

I reached the top of the stairs. I didn’t see the woman, but I did see a leather overnight bag on the floor in the front hall. I was guessing the visitor had gone into the kitchen.

“Ma’am?” I said. “Hello?”

The heels turned, started marching furiously in my direction. When she materialized, she looked at me with a mix of fury and fear.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded. “Is that your car out front?”

She was late twenties, early thirties, and, not to put too fine a point on it, a stunner. Five-six, long brown hair, wearing a knee-length black dress that clung to her like a second skin. She looked familiar. I was pretty sure I’d seen her picture around the house.

I was reaching for my ID. “My name is Cal Weaver. I’m a private investigator and I’m here with the permission of Lucy Brighton, who’s the daughter of Adam Chalmers, and—”

“I know who the hell my stepdaughter is,” the woman said.

I said, “Excuse me?”

“I said I know who my stepdaughter is.”

I said, “Miriam Chalmers?”

“Who the hell else would I be? This is my house. And you better get the fuck out of it, but not before you tell me where my husband is.”

After interviewing Victor Rooney, Detective Duckworth picked up three coffees at the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through on the way to the Promise Falls courthouse. He parked around back. The courts were not in session this time of night, but the wing where the jail cells were located was a 24-7 operation. Duckworth had called ahead to let them know he wanted to talk to Bill Gaynor, and that his lawyer, Clark Andover, would be in attendance.