Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

“Yeah. Look, Agnes—”

“Where are you? Where the hell are you?”

I couldn’t even remember where I was. I was numb. I glanced at the house, read the number to her.

“A street, David? That would be enormously helpful.”

I had to think a moment. “Breckonwood. You know where that is?”

“Yes,” Agnes snapped. “What are you doing there?”

“Just come,” I said.

“Your mother said you had some wild idea that you might call the police. Whatever’s happened, you are not to call the police.”

“Aunt Agnes, we’re way past that now.”

“So let me see if I have this right,” Barry Duckworth said, sitting across the desk from Thackeray College security chief Clive Duncomb. “You’ve got a sexual predator wandering the campus, and you’ve decided the Promise Falls police are the last people who need to know about this.”

“Not at all,” Duncomb said.

“That’s how it looks to me.”

“We’re well equipped to deal with all manner of situations,” Duncomb said. “I have a staff of five.”

“Oh, well,” Duckworth said. “And I suppose you can call on your students to pitch in as needed. Do the chemistry majors do your forensic work? You have an interrogation room somewhere, or do you just use one of the lecture halls? I guess your art students can do the fingerprint work. They’d have plenty of ink on hand.”

Duncomb said nothing. Instead, he opened the bottom drawer of his desk and brought out a file folder stuffed with about half an inch of paperwork. He opened it and began to read:

“‘January fourteenth, ten seventeen p.m., vandal throws brick though dining hall window. Call put in to Promise Falls police, told they have no one available, ask Thackeray security to e-mail them a report. February second, twelve-oh-three a.m., inebriated student shouting and taking his shirt off on steps of library. Security puts in call to Promise Falls police, told to send them a copy of the report.’ You want me to go on?”

“You think a broken window and a drunk kid equate with rape?”

Duncomb waved a finger at him. “There hasn’t been an actual rape. Which is one of the reasons why we chose not to bother the Promise Falls police.” He smiled. “We know how busy you are.”

“These things can progress,” Duckworth said.

“I’m aware of that. I was with the police in Boston before I took this position.”

Duckworth was about to tell Duncomb that he should know better then, but stopped himself. He knew he was getting off on the wrong foot with this guy, that he might need his cooperation with whatever was going on here, but, boy, he was steamed.

“On behalf of the Promise Falls police, please accept our heartfelt apologies for our lack of attentiveness in those matters.”

Duncomb offered up a small hmmph . “Okay.” He cleared his throat. “You have to understand where I’m coming from, what my position here is. I’m getting a lot of heat from those farther up the food chain. The admin, the president’s office.”

“Go on.”

“There’s a lot of competition out there when it comes to deciding where to send your kid to school.”

“Sure,” Duckworth said.

“And Thackeray had some bad press a few years back — this was before I got here — with the college president and that plagiarism scandal and the shooting. You remember that?”

“Yes.”

“That’s mostly water under the bridge now. I mean, people remember it, but they’ve moved on. It was nearly a decade ago. If anyone was ever thinking of sending their kid to a college other than Thackeray because of that, it’s likely no longer an issue. But what we don’t need around here is more bad press. News of some pervert preying on young girls is all it might take for Mom and Dad to decide to send little Susie somewhere else to find a future husband.”

Barry Duckworth did not like this man.

Duncomb took a breath and continued. “So before we bring in the marines — or the local police — we’re doing everything we can to find this fucker. I’ve got my people patrolling at night, and one of them, a woman — Joyce, who’s in her thirties, and pretty hot — has been acting as a kind of decoy, trying to draw this guy out.”

Duckworth sat up in his chair. “You can’t be serious.”

“What? Isn’t that what you’d do?”

“Has Joyce been trained in proper policing methods? Does she know self-defense? Do you have her in radio contact with other members of your security team at all times? Are they shadowing her?”

Duncomb had both hands in the air, palms forward. “Whoa. First of all, I’ve been a cop, and I was a damn good one. And I’ve been giving Joyce the benefit of my training and experience. Second, Joyce has taken an accredited security guard course. And all that other stuff you mentioned, I wouldn’t get too hung up about it, because I’m not sending her out there empty-handed.”

“She’s armed?”

Duncomb grinned, then made a gun sign with his hand, pulled the trigger. “Oh, yeah. It’s not like I’m telling her to shoot the bastard, but she sure shouldn’t have any trouble persuading him to behave himself.”

Duckworth was imagining the countless ways this approach could go horribly wrong.

“How many attacks?” the detective asked.

“Three,” Duncomb said. “In the last two weeks. All late at night. Girls walking home alone from one part of the campus to another, heading back to the residence. Lot of wooded areas, places where someone can hide. Man jumps out, grabs them from behind, attempts to drag them into the bushes, manages to cop a few good feels.”

Duckworth wondered whether Duncomb’s decision to leave the Boston force was his own.

“In each case, the girl’s managed to break free, run away. Nobody’s been hurt.”

“Not physically,” Duckworth said.

“That’s what I said,” the college security chief said.

“Suspect?”

“Just partial descriptions, although what we have from the three he went after is consistent. Man about six feet tall, slender build.”

“White? Black?”

Duncomb shook his head. “Wearing a ski mask. Plus a hoodie. Like a big football one, with a number on it.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Nope. At least, not that any of the girls recalled. But like I said, we’re on this, and those posts with the panic buttons will all be in place by the end of the day, so I got a good feeling we’re not only going to get this shithead, but make the girls around here feel a whole lot safer.”

“I want their names,” Duckworth said.

“Say what?”

“The three women who were attacked. I want their names and contact information. They need to be interviewed.”

“I suppose we could do that.”

“This isn’t a Thackeray College issue,” Duckworth said. “This is a Promise Falls issue. Your attacker may not be a student. He may be someone from town. And vice versa. If it’s a student, or even a member of the faculty—”

“Oh, Jesus, don’t even go there,” Duncomb said.

“—or even a member of the faculty, there’s nothing to stop him from heading into town and attacking someone there. You need our resources and expertise. We need to talk to those women.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll get those to you.” He put his hands flat on the desk. “We done?”

“No,” Duckworth said. “I came here to ask you about something else.”

“Okeydoke.”

“Have you had any acts of animal cruelty on campus?”

“Animal cruelty?” He shook his head slowly. “I guess they still dissect frogs over in the biology building. Has Kermit filed a complaint?”

“No poisoned dogs or cats? No cutting the heads off the Canada geese I see wandering around here?”