Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

Duncomb shook his head one last time. “Nothing like that at all. Why?”

Duckworth felt a buzzing in his jacket. “Excuse me,” he said. He took out the phone and put it to his ear. “Duckworth.”

He listened for several seconds, reached into his pocket for a small notebook and a pen. He scribbled down a Breckonwood Drive address, then put the phone away.

He stood. “Do not send your Joyce out there as a decoy. And I want those names.”

Duckworth dropped a business card on the man’s desk, and found his way out.

Bill Gaynor had been okay with my holding the baby while the situation was being defused, but damned if he was going to let me hang on to Matthew now that Breckonwood was swarming with police.

He did agree to Officer Humboldt’s suggestion, however, that the baby be placed in the arms of a uniformed female officer, who in turn was going to hand him over to the first person who showed up from the Promise Falls Department of Children’s Services.

Besides, I couldn’t imagine Gaynor wanted to be holding on to a crying child while he attempted to answer questions about what had happened to his wife, Rosemary, back in that kitchen. Especially if that meant going back into that house.

I couldn’t get the image out of my head. Her lifeless gaze upward. The ripped blouse. The blood.

So much blood.

Gaynor wasn’t the only one who had to be persuaded that Matthew needed to be left in someone else’s care, at least for now.

“They’ll never give him back to me,” Marla said. “Once they take him away they’ll never give him back.”

We were over by my car, and I had taken my cousin into my arms, held her as she went from one crying jag to another.

“We’ll just have to wait and see how things go,” I told her, even though I knew we were more likely to be struck by a meteor than to see the Gaynors’ baby handed back to Marla.

I had few doubts that Matthew belonged to the Gaynors.

It wasn’t as if it had actually been spelled out for me, but it wasn’t hard to put it all together. Marla had a child in her house that was not hers. She had some crazy story about an “angel” dropping him off like a FedEx parcel. There was the addressed flyer in the stroller. When Bill Gaynor returned home from some business trip, he went into a panic about his missing baby, Matthew.

And he instantly recognized his son in my car.

The dots were not that hard to connect.

So I didn’t think the odds of Marla going home with Matthew were particularly good. But I couldn’t help but wonder what the odds were that Marla had something to do with Rosemary Gaynor’s death. Was it possible, I wondered, as I tried to comfort her, that my cousin was capable of something like that?

I honestly had no idea.

The cops had asked us a few preliminary questions, then told us to wait for a detective to arrive. Not long after that, I saw Barry Duckworth show up. I’d gotten to know him a few years ago, not just through my work at the Standard , but through a personal matter. Dressed in an ill-fitting gray suit, he didn’t appear to be winning his perennial battle with his bathroom scale.

He glanced in my direction on his way into the house, a brief look of puzzlement on his face. At first he might have assumed I was here covering the story, but with the Standard out of business, there had to be some other reason.

He’d find out soon enough.

Once inside the house, I saw Duckworth confer with Officer Gilchrist, who had been talking to Gaynor.

God, what that man had to be going through.

Duckworth shook Gaynor’s hand, and then the door was closed.

“What did you see in the house?” Marla asked me. She already knew the big picture. There were enough police here now to figure out that something very bad had happened in there.

“His wife,” I said. “In the kitchen. She’s been stabbed. She’s dead.”

“That’s horrible,” Marla said. “Just horrible.” She paused. “You know what I think?”

“What do you think, Marla?”

“I’ll bet he did it. That man. Her husband. I’ll bet he killed her.”

I looked at her. “Why would you say that?”

“Just a feeling. But I bet he did it. And when they figure out he did it, they won’t let him keep the baby.”

I could see where this was going.

“Marla, did you know that woman?”

“You already asked me that. At my house. I told you. I’ve never heard of her.”

“Could you have met her, but not known that was her name?” It wasn’t like I had a picture of the woman I could show Marla, so the question was kind of pointless. And even if I’d had a picture, it wouldn’t have done much good. So Marla’s answer was not surprising.

“I don’t think so. I don’t go out all that much.”

“Have you ever been here?” I asked. “To this house?”

Marla raised her head and studied the house for a moment. “I don’t think so. But it’s a very nice house. I’d like to have a house like this. It’s so big, and my house is so small. I’d love to go inside and look around.”

“Not now, you wouldn’t,” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” she said.

“So you’re telling me you didn’t come to this house, yesterday or maybe the day before, for Matthew? You didn’t find him here?”

“I already told you how he came to me,” she said tiredly. “Don’t you believe my story?”

“Sure,” I said. “Of course I do.”

“It doesn’t sound like it.”

I happened to glance down the street, which had been taped off in both directions. A woman lifted up the police tape, ducked under, and strode purposefully toward us. When an officer attempted to stop her she brushed him aside.

“It’s your mom,” I said to Marla, and I felt her stiffen in my arms.

“I don’t want to talk to her,” she said. “She’ll just be mad.”

“She can help you,” I said. “She knows people. Good lawyers, for one.”

Marla looked at me with sad wonder. “Why would I need a lawyer? Am I in some kind of trouble?”

“Marla!” Agnes said. “Marla!”

Marla pulled away from me and turned to face my approaching aunt. Agnes took her into her arms, gave her a three-second hug, barely giving her daughter enough time to respond in kind. Then Agnes looked at me sharply and said, “What’s going on here?”

Marla said, “It’s all... it’s kind of hard to explain, Mom, but—”

“That’s why I’m asking your cousin,” Agnes said, her eyes still fixed on me.

My mouth was dry. I licked my lips and said, “I dropped in on Marla. She was looking after a baby. An address on a piece of mail tucked into the stroller led me here. The husband had been away on business, showed up at the same time; we went in, found his wife.” I paused. “She’s dead.”

Agnes’s face fell.

“And there’s something about a nanny they had. Mr. Gaynor, he was asking about someone named Sarita. I got the idea he was expecting she’d be at the house, but she wasn’t.”

“Good God,” Agnes said. “Who are these people? Who’s the woman, the one who was killed?”

“Rosemary Gaynor,” I said.

Agnes abruptly turned away from me, looked at the house, as if by staring at it hard enough she could make it provide some answers. I was given a view of her back for a good ten seconds before she engaged me again.

“The baby?”

“It’s being looked after by the police or the child welfare people, at least for now. Mr. Gaynor’s being interviewed by the cops.”

“His name is Matthew,” Marla said, moving closer to us so she could be part of the conversation.

Agnes was ready now to question her instead of me. “What were you thinking? How did this happen? How did you end up with that baby? Did you learn nothing after what you did at my hospital? Nothing at all?”