Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

Back in the kitchen, he could hear the phone start to ring.

“You retired?”

“No, I got nearly five more years to go. But I’ve built up so much overtime, I’m taking a day here and there. Taking the better part of this month off. I get you at a bad time? You knew I was coming, right?”

The phone rang a second time.

“Of course, yeah. What’s on your mind?”

“I wanted to pick your brain some. It’ll take five years, but all the town’s planning and engineering is going to computer. Most of the infrastructure was built before computers, so it’s all on paper. Blueprints, schematics, everything. Details of every water main, bridge support, sewer grate are on huge sheets rolled up with rubber bands, and God knows where they’ve all gone to. If you can believe it, some guys retired and took their work home with them when they did.”

“I never did that,” Don said.

“Not saying you did,” Walden said. “But I’ve been getting together with some of the older guys, no offense intended, to see if they know where some of that stuff ended up. Once we find it, we can get it all transferred onto computer.”

“Thought you said you were taking some time off.”

Walden shrugged. “When I’m actually in the office, I don’t have time to do what I’m doing now.”

Don let out a breath he’d been holding. “Like I said, I never took anything home, but I might be able to fill in some of the gaps if there’s stuff you don’t know. I worked on the water tower, for one thing.” It was why he wanted to have a model of it on the model railroad.

The phone started to ring a third time, then stopped abruptly.

Don said, “Listen, let me grab my jacket and we’ll go over to Kelly’s. I could go for a BLT, maybe a piece of pie.”

Don left Walden standing on the front step, but before going to the hall closet for his coat, he returned to the kitchen. He was worried Arlene probably got up to answer the phone, and that was exactly what she had done.

The ice pack was on the floor. Arlene was leaned up against the counter, one foot off the floor, receiver in hand.

She looked at Don and said, “I thought it would be David calling with news about Marla. But it’s the school, and it’s David they’re looking for. They had a cell number for him but it was his Boston number, and he changed his phone since then and must not have told them and why wouldn’t he think to do that?”

“What is it?” Don asked.

“Ethan. Something’s happened with Ethan.”

Barry Duckworth steered Bill Gaynor into the dining room, making sure the connecting door to the kitchen was closed. He pulled out two chairs that were tucked under the dining room table and turned them to face each other.

“Mr. Gaynor, have a seat.”

“Tell me again, where’s Matthew?”

“Matthew is fine; don’t worry. Please sit.”

Gaynor settled into a chair, and when Duckworth sat, their knees were a foot apart.

“They won’t give him back to that crazy woman,” Gaynor said.

“Don’t worry about that. Do you know that woman, Mr. Gaynor?”

“No, I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

“I’m told her name is Marla Pickens. Mean anything to you?”

The man shook his head tiredly. “No.”

Duckworth noticed a photo on the serving table against the wall. He pointed to it. “That’s you and your wife?”

Gaynor looked older than the man in the picture. “That was taken when we were married.”

Duckworth took a longer look at the picture. Rosemary Gaynor’s straight black hair hung to her shoulders. She’d still been wearing it in the same style. Her eyes were dark brown, her skin pale, no rouge or lipstick to give herself some color.

Gaynor asked, “What’s going to happen to my Rosemary?”

“I’m sorry?”

“My wife.” He tipped his head in the direction of the door to the kitchen. “What’s going to happen with her? What are they going to do with her?”

“She’ll be taken to the forensic examiner’s office,” Duckworth said. “An autopsy has to be conducted. Once that’s done, she can be released to you so that you can make arrangements.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why does there have to be an autopsy? For Christ’s sake, all you have to do is look at her to know...” He put his face into his hands and cried. “Hasn’t she been through enough?”

“I know,” Duckworth said gently. “But an examination of your wife may yield a lot of helpful information that will help us find out who did this. Unless you already have some idea.”

Without looking up, he shook his head. “No, I have no idea. Everyone loved Rose. This is the work of some crazy person. That woman. She’s crazy. She had Matthew, for God’s sake.” He raised his head, looked at Duckworth with red eyes. “It had to be her. She kidnapped Matthew and when Rose tried to stop her, she... she did that.”

Duckworth nodded. “That’s something we’re going to be looking into, Mr. Gaynor. But right now, I need to get a sense of when things happened.”

A timeline, the detective was thinking. He needed to get a timeline. “When did you last speak with your wife? When you left for work this morning?”

“No, it was yesterday.”

“Sunday?”

“That’s right. I’ve been out of town. On business.”

“Where were you?”

“I was in Boston. Since Thursday.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I... I was at a meeting at our head office. I’m in insurance. Neponset Insurance. I spend a lot of time there. Sometimes Rose comes — would come with me. Before we had Matthew. If I was going to be there for a while.”

“Where did you stay?” Duckworth asked, scribbling in his notebook.

“The Marriott Long Wharf. That’s where they always put me up. Why does this matter?”

“I need to get a full picture, Mr. Gaynor.” Duckworth was thinking that before he walked out of this house, he’d have someone onto the Marriott and Neponset Insurance to check Gaynor’s story. Even though there was nothing so far to suggest Gaynor had murdered his wife, spouses were always high on the suspect list. Boston was only a couple of hours away by car, if you really pushed it. The man could have left Boston yesterday afternoon, returned home, killed Rosemary Gaynor, then hightailed it back to the city, pretending to have been there the whole time.

It seemed unlikely to Duckworth, but if he didn’t check it out, it would always remain a possibility.

He asked, “When did you leave Promise Falls for Boston?”

“Like I said, Thursday. Very early, so I could be there by ten. We finished up this series of meetings last night, but I was too tired to drive home then, so I decided to get up early this morning. I was calling Rose all the way home. The house phone, her cell. She wasn’t answering.”

“But you talked to her yesterday. On Sunday.”

The man nodded. “Around two? There was a lunch. We had a keynote speaker, a funny motivational talk. When that was over, I had a few minutes before the next session I had to attend, so I called Rose on my cell.”

“And you reached her.”

He nodded.

“What did you talk about?”

“Nothing, really. I told her I missed her. I asked how Matthew was. I told her I’d probably drive home in the morning, but if I decided to come back that night I’d call and let her know.”

“So you didn’t call her again?”

“Not till I was on my way this morning.” He bit his lip. “I should have come home last night. Why the hell didn’t I just come back then? I could have been here, could have stopped this from happening.”

“We’ll know more as the investigation proceeds, Mr. Gaynor, but it appears this attack happened yesterday afternoon. Coming home last night... it’s unlikely it would have made any difference.”