Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

“Mom!” I shouted. “What about Ethan?”

“They want you to pick him up. They’re sending him home.”

I closed my eyes and exhaled. “I can’t do that right now. I can’t leave the scene.”

“The scene?”

“Let Dad go. He can pick up Ethan, and I’ll sort things out when I get home. Okay?”

“I’ll tell him. What did Marla do, David? Did she really take another baby?”

“Later, Mom.”

I ended the call, put the phone away, and lowered my head until it was touching the top of the wheel.

“Trouble?” Marla asked.

“Seems to be a lot of it going around,” I said. “But it’s okay.”

I looked at the Gaynor house. The front door was being opened from the inside. Detective Duckworth emerged, locked eyes on my car, and headed our way. But before he could reach the car, two other people appeared by Marla’s open window.

Agnes and Natalie Bondurant.

Agnes said, “Everything’s going to be okay, child. Everything is going to be okay.”

Duckworth reached the car and asked Agnes and Natalie to step aside. “Marla Pickens? Would you step out of the car?”

“She has nothing to say,” Agnes said as Marla started to push open the door. Agnes pushed it back.

“Ms. Pickens,” Natalie said, addressing Agnes, “let me take it from here. Hello, Barry.”

“Natalie,” he said.

“I’m representing Marla Pickens. I’m afraid she won’t be taking any questions at this time.”

Duckworth eyed her tiredly. “I’m investigating a murder here, Natalie. I’ve got things to ask.”

“I can appreciate that. But right now my client’s in shock and in no position to handle questions.”

“And just when do you think your client will be taking questions?”

“I’m not able to say at this time.”

“Well, whether she wants to answer questions or not, you’re going to have her at the station in exactly one hour.”

Natalie’s tongue poked the inside of her cheek. “She’s not going to have anything to tell you.”

“Then she can not tell me anything at the station.”

Now Agnes opened the door, took Marla by the arm, and helped her out. With Natalie on one side and Agnes on the other, they escorted her down the street, leaving me alone behind the wheel.

“You got a lawyer, too?” Duckworth asked, looking at me through the open door.

“Not yet,” I said.

He glanced into the back of my car. “Where’d you get that stroller?”

“It belongs to the Gaynors,” I said.

“Christ on a cracker,” Duckworth said. “Open the hatch.”

I got out and did so. I went to reach for the stroller but Duckworth slapped my hand.

“Don’t touch that,” he said. “Have you already touched that?”

“Yes.”

Duckworth sighed. “Let’s you and me have a talk.”

“You sure you don’t mind my tagging along?” Walden Fisher asked Don Harwood.

“Nah, it’s okay. I just got to go to the school and pick up my grandson, bring him home,” Don said, walking down the front steps in the direction of his blue Crown Victoria that he’d had forever. “Hop in.”

The passenger door creaked as Fisher opened it.

“Gotta put some WD-40 on that,” Don said.

“Your grandson sick?”

“No. He got into some kind of scrap with another kid.”

“He okay?”

“Well, they weren’t calling from the hospital, so I guess that’s a good thing,” Don said. “Truth is, the boy could use some toughening up. Getting in the odd fight probably be a good thing for him. I’ll scoop him up, bring him home, and we can go grab a coffee. Just want to check in on Arlene when I get back, though.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She just took a little trip on the stairs, banged up her leg. I want to make sure she’s okay.”

Walden nodded understandingly. Backing out of the driveway, Don glanced over and thought he saw a look of sadness wash over the man’s face. “Arlene was telling me... she saw the notice in the paper about...”

“Beth?” Walden said.

“Right, yeah, Beth. I couldn’t remember her name. Arlene was telling me she passed away recently.”

“Nine weeks,” he said. “The big C.”

“Sorry,” Don said. He didn’t know what else to offer in the way of condolences. He wasn’t good at that sort of thing. “I’m not sure whether I ever met her.”

“Probably at some Christmas party, a million years ago,” Walden said. “A different time.” A pause. “She was never really the same, after.”

“After the diagnosis?”

Walden shook his head. “Well, yeah, that’s true. But what I meant was, after what happened to Olivia.”

There was a topic Don didn’t want to touch with a barge pole. Don might not keep up with the death notices the way Arlene did, but there wasn’t anyone in Promise Falls who didn’t know about Olivia Fisher and what happened to her. Three years ago — Don was thinking it was three years ago this month — the twenty-two-year-old woman was fatally stabbed one night in the downtown park, just steps away from the base of the falls from which the town got its name.

Olivia Fisher was a young, beautiful woman just starting out on life’s journey. She’d recently completed a degree in environmental science at Thackeray, had lined up a job with an oceanic institute in Boston that was dedicated to preserving sea life, and was about to marry a young man from Promise Falls.

The world was waiting for her to make it a better place.

No one had ever been arrested for the crime. The Promise Falls police brought in help from the state, even an FBI profiler, but never made any real headway.

Don felt uncomfortable, not sure what to say. The best he could come up with was, “It must have been devastating for Beth. But... you, too.”

Walden said, “Yeah, but I finally went back to work. Had to. Didn’t have any choice. The grief’s always with you, but sometimes you throw yourself into something; you just go on autopilot. It becomes mechanical, you know?”

“Sure,” Don said, although he wasn’t sure he did know. Certainly not in this context. Maybe his son, David, would. He’d been to hell and back over his late wife, Jan, a few years ago.

“But Beth, she was a stay-at-homer, you know? Took the odd part-time job, and when Olivia was little she did babysitting, ran a day care out of the house. But she gave that up once Olivia was around ten. So every day I went to work, Beth was home alone with nothing but Olivia’s ghost as company. I know there’s probably no way to prove this, but I think that’s why she got sick. She was so depressed, it just poisoned her. You think something like that could happen?”

“I guess,” Don said.

“It was almost as bad for Vick. Maybe worse.”

“Vick?”

“Oh, sorry, I just keep thinking everybody knows all the details. Victor Rooney. The one who nearly became our son-in-law. They were going to get married in three more months. He kind of went off the deep end, too. Started drinking hard. Never finished his degree in chemical engineering, got a job with the fire department. But the drinking got worse. They did their best for him, considering the circumstances and all. Sent him a couple of times to one of those places to dry out, get himself straightened up, but he never did pull it together. I think they finally fired him, or he quit, don’t know which, and if he ever found any other work I don’t know. See him the odd time just driving around town in his van. Too bad. Seemed like a good kid. I met him back when he had a summer job once with the town, working in the water treatment plant.”

“They still got Tate Whitehead working there? See him around town once in a while. He must be due to retire soon.”