Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

“Just my leg. Below my knee. Damn it. Go turn off the stove!”

Don edged around her and entered the kitchen. Smoke was billowing up from a frying pan. There were half a dozen breakfast sausages burning to a crisp. Don grabbed the handle, slid the pan over to another burner, then opened a lower cupboard door to look for the biggest lid he could find. He grabbed one and slammed it on top of the pan, smothering the smoke and the flame that was just beginning to erupt.

He could feel his heart pounding, stood leaning against the counter to catch his breath. He hadn’t run up a flight of stairs in a long time, certainly not since his cardiac incident.

He heard some shuffling, looked to see Arlene framed in the doorway to the basement. She’d managed to climb the rest of the stairs, but there was blood on her beige slacks, below her right knee.

“Oh, honey, you’ve really hurt yourself,” he said.

“I’m okay, I’m okay. I was cooking up some sausages so I could slice them and put them in toast for our lunch. I can’t believe I did that.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll make us something else. Some soup. I’ll open a can of soup.”

Arlene limped over to the kitchen table, dropped herself into a chair. “Look what I’ve done to these pants. I just bought these. I don’t know if I can get that out. They’ll never be the same.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Don said. “Let me have a look.”

He pushed himself away from the counter and went carefully down to one knee, rolled up the pant leg to just over Arlene’s knee, and examined the wound. “Those things always hurt like hell, right on the bone there. You’ve scraped the skin, and it’s gonna swell up good. Does it feel like it’s broken?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Stay here.” With effort, he stood, using the table for leverage, feeling his bones creak as he did so, and rummaged around in the drawer where they kept a first-aid kit. He cleaned the wound, put a bandage on it, then got a pliable ice pack from the freezer.

“Hold this on it,” Don said. “Here, let’s prop your leg up on another chair. Then the pack won’t slide off.”

He rolled her pant leg back down so the ice pack wouldn’t be right on her skin, then set it into position.

“Damn, that’s cold,” she said.

“Yeah, well, you’ll get used to it. Gotta leave it on there for a bit.”

Arlene reached out and touched his arm. “I’m losing my marbles.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m forgetting things,” she said. “More and more.”

“We all do,” he said. “I forget stuff all the time. Remember the other night I was trying to remember the name of that actor, the one from that movie?”

“Which movie?”

“You know, the one where they were fighting that thing, and that actress was in it? The one you like? You know.”

She smiled sadly. “You are as bad as me.”

“I’m just saying, we’re forgetting things that aren’t that important, like movie stars’ names, but we still remember the stuff that matters.”

“Remembering I have something on the stove matters,” she said. “I can’t find my keys half the time; the other day I thought I’d lost my Visa card and I found it in the drawer. Why would I put my Visa card in a drawer and not in my wallet?”

Don pulled up a third chair so that he could set himself down right next to her. He put an arm around her shoulder. “You’re fine. We get older; we forget things. But you’re fine. Don’t worry about the sausages. If you’re okay walking, we’ll go out for lunch today.”

“You can’t,” Arlene said suddenly.

“And why not?”

“Because you’re meeting Walden. I shouldn’t even have been making the sausages. You’re not going to be here at lunch.”

“What? What are you talking about? Walden Fisher?”

“Do you know any other Waldens?”

“He’s coming over to see me?”

“At eleven. I think he said coffee, not lunch, but when you go out at eleven, there’s a good chance it’ll turn into lunch.”

“This is all news to me,” Don said, an edge in his voice.

“Oh, no,” Arlene said. “I don’t believe it.”

“What?’

“He called here yesterday. I’m pretty sure it was yesterday. He said he was going to drop by. Didn’t I tell you? Are you sure I didn’t tell you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I wrote it down. I’m sure I wrote it down. Look on the calendar.”

By the phone was a promotional calendar from a local florist that came in the mail every December. They kept a record of their appointments — mostly medical these days — in the tiny squares.

“Here it is,” he said. “‘Walden, eleven.’”

“I knew I wrote it down. I was sure I told you.” The ice pack slid off her leg and hit the floor. “Oh, Christ almighty.”

Don bent over, carefully retrieved it, and put it back on his wife’s leg. “Feeling any better?”

“What hurts most is my pride.”

“Why the hell does Walden want to see me? I haven’t talked to him in years.”

Arlene shook her head. “Well, he’s going to be here in a few minutes. You get ready. I’m fine, really.”

“Did he say what it was about?”

“For heaven’s sake, Don, a man can’t get together for coffee? He’s a friend of yours.”

“That’s kind of debatable,” Don said.

Walden Fisher, a good fifteen years younger than Don, was still employed by Promise Falls. Before Don retired from his position as a building inspector, he and Walden occasionally crossed paths, even though Walden worked in the town’s engineering department as a draftsman. It was there, however, where Don had gotten his start when he went to work for the town back in the sixties.

Don had worked with Walden’s father — long since passed away — and when Walden graduated college with an engineering degree, Don put in a good word for him with personnel. Walden’s dad had figured a recommendation would be better coming from someone who was not a relative. Walden always credited Don with getting him into a decent job with decent benefits, where the risk of getting laid off was minimal.

“It wouldn’t kill you to have a social life,” Arlene said.

“I suppose,” Don said. “But I haven’t talked to him since I retired.”

“You heard, I guess,” Arlene said.

“About his daughter?” he snapped, almost defensively. “Of course. Who the hell hasn’t heard about that? It was only three years ago. Who could forget that?”

“You don’t have to bite my head off. And I’m not talking about her. Walden’s wife. She passed away a couple of months back.”

“How do you know that?” Don asked, his voice softening.

“I read the paper. Or I did, when there still was one. It was in the death notices.”

“Oh,” Don said. “Didn’t know.”

“Maybe he’s just looking to get out there, get out of the house, now that his wife is gone.”

“You know what happened to her?” Don asked.

“Cancer, I think,” she said. “Go on, he’s likely to be here any—”

The doorbell rang.

Don was frozen. He didn’t want to leave Arlene. “It’s okay,” she said. He told her one more time to keep the ice on her leg, and left the kitchen.

He swung open the front door, and there was Walden Fisher. Looking older and grayer than the last time he’d seen him, that was for sure, although there was less hair to turn gray than there used to be. A bit more padding around the middle, but he wasn’t a heavy man. Had to be about fifty-five now, Don figured.

“I’ll be damned,” Don said. “Look who it is.”

Walden smiled awkwardly. “Hello, there, Don. Long time.”