Linwood Barclay - No Safe House

I hugged her back.

“Are you going to be able to do this?” she asked.

“I’m gonna give it my best shot.”

“All you have to do is play dumb.”

I almost smiled. “I should be able to do that.”

“It’ll blow over. It will.”

“Tell Vince I’ll try,” I said.

She gave me a pitying smile. “You don’t get it. We’re never going to see him again.”

I watched her get into the pickup, back out of the drive, and head up the street. When she’d turned the corner, I went back into the house, through the hall, and into the kitchen.

I went to the phone, picked up the receiver, and entered Cynthia’s number.

She answered on the first ring.

“Terry?”

“Come home,” I said.

“Well,” Cynthia said. “We’ve kind of got a situation going on here.”

Cynthia put her phone away.

Nathaniel was still insisting that his real name was not Duggan, that he was not a private detective, and that he was not trying to find fingerprints on that blue vase that was sitting on top of his dresser.

“What about the two hundred thousand?” Barney asked. “You got that, too? Did Eli give that to you? The little bastard. I gave him some work fixing up some of my other apartments, took pity on the little shit when I found out he didn’t have a place to stay. But the little bastard was watching me, figured out where I kept my money. Thirty years! Thirty years it took me to save that much.” He gazed longingly at the vase. “But what mattered most was getting back Charlotte. I never should have told Eli about her.”

Grace spoke, in little more than a whisper. “Is that... an urn?”

Barney looked at her, his eyes softening. “It’s Charlotte. We were going to be married. I had an accident, I was laid up a long time, and my best friend — my best friend! — went after her while I was recovering. The fucker. Won her away from me, married her. She was the only one I ever loved.”

“I don’t understand,” Cynthia said. “If she married this other man, how could you have ended up with her ashes?”

“Because I stole them,” he said, and smiled proudly. “When Charlotte passed away two years ago, I went to the service, heard that she’d been cremated. A couple of days later I was driving past the funeral home, saw Quayle coming out the front door, a package in his arms. I knew what it had to be. He got in his car and I followed him. He stopped along the way, went into a bar to deal with his grief.” Barney laughed. “I smashed the window of his car and took Charlotte back. If I couldn’t keep him from having her when she was alive, I could have her as she enjoyed her eternal rest.”

“This is fucked,” Grace said.

Barney walked slowly, almost reverently, into the bedroom and took the vase gently in his hands, cradled it in the crook of his arm as though it were a newborn. He worked the duct tape off the cover, peered briefly inside, appeared pleased by what he saw, and reapplied the tape.

“She hasn’t been disturbed,” he said.

Nathaniel, who’d been in such a rush to get out of there, appeared transfixed by these developments. He stood alongside Cynthia and Grace, watching the man reunite with the remains of the woman he loved.

Barney, clutching the urn, trained his eyes on Braithwaite.

“I want to know how you ended up with this.”

“I’ve got no fucking idea how that got here.”

“I do,” Grace said, and looked at Braithwaite. “And just so you know, I never actually saw you, so you don’t have to worry about trying to kill me or anything, but it really must have been you.”

“Must have been me what ?”

“Who was in the Cummings house. You got the money, and you grabbed that... that thing, too. And killed Stuart.”

“No,” he said.

“And that case you didn’t want me touching — that’s the money, right?”

Barney came out of the bedroom, still watching Nathaniel. “I want my money, too. If you don’t return it, I know someone who’ll find a way to get it out of you.”

With one free hand, he reached into his pocket for his cell. Hit a couple of buttons and put the phone to his ear. “Come on, pick up, pick up,” he said under his breath. Then: “Reggie, I found it. It’s here. In one of my buildings. I don’t know how, but it’s here. I’ve found her. Call me when you get this.”

He put the phone away. “You’d be smarter to deal with me, instead of her.”

“Whoever Reggie is can kiss my ass,” Braithwaite said, picking up his two last bags. “I don’t know what the fuck is playing out here or what it is you think I did, but I’m gone.”

He turned and headed for the hallway.

“You come back here, you bastard!” Barney said, pushing past Cynthia and Grace, hugging the urn to his chest, his arms encircling it.

By the time Barney reached the top of the stairs, Braithwaite was already running out the front door, not bothering to close it. Seconds later, he could be heard getting into his Caddy, turning the ignition.

“Come back here! Come back!” Barney shouted.

He started down the stairs, but he couldn’t race down them the way Nathaniel had. Four steps down, he stumbled. He took one arm from around the urn and reached out instinctively for the handrail, but it was not there. His hand brushed across the bare wall, catching nothing, and he tumbled forward.

Cynthia watched from above as Barney pitched headlong down the stairs, then heard the sound of the urn shattering beneath him as he slid down several steps on his belly.

Seconds after that, weeping.

Cynthia turned around and put her arm around Grace. “I’m going to call your father back, tell him we’re on our way.”

Vince did it quickly.

Went back downstairs. Three people, three shots.

Made them count.

Did them all with the same gun that had been used to shoot Joseph in the garage.

No one left to talk now.

He went back up to the kitchen, looked for where Reggie and Wyatt kept their liquor, and stumbled upon a bottle of Royal Lochnagar scotch.

“That’ll do,” he said to himself.

He didn’t bother looking for a glass. He opened the bottle and drank straight from it.

There were things he could do, he thought, but none particularly appealed to him. That small matter of the missing money from the Cummings house didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

He could go after Bert. Track him down. Vince didn’t figure he’d be that hard to find, but really, did it matter?

And then there was Braithwaite, the goddamn dog walker. He’d given Bert and Gordie the slip, got Gordie killed. Vince figured Braithwaite was on the run now, too. He might be trickier to find. Vince didn’t know his habits, didn’t know who his friends were. But with enough effort, he believed he could hunt Braithwaite down.

But the hell with it. What was the point?

He’d rather drink this scotch.

Finally, there was the matter of Eldon. His body, still up there in his apartment. There was no one left to help Vince deal with that matter. If it was to get done, he’d have to do it himself.

Didn’t have the energy. He could feel the cancer eating away at him these last twenty-four hours.

Too bad about Eldon, and his boy.

“Damn,” Vince said under his breath.

He wondered whether he should do it right here. Put the gun in his mouth, pull the trigger, be done with it.

Jane was free. And she was well-fixed, too. He’d made it clear what he wanted her to do. Get rid of the drugs, guns, anything like that. Stuff that could be traced, identified. Dump it in the Housatonic. But keep the cash. Keep it all. Get yourself a safe-deposit box, in an actual bank.