Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

And thought.

What a morning.

Mom just had to send me to Marla’s with chili.

Of course, even if she hadn’t, we’d have all been drawn into Marla’s problems eventually, because we were family. We’d have been concerned; we’d have offered support; we’d have followed developments with interest.

But we wouldn’t be involved. Not like this.

I felt I was involved in this as much as I wanted to be.

I’d promised Marla my support, but not a lot beyond that. I supposed I could start asking around on my own in the hopes of finding something that would hold up her version of events, but just how obliged was I to do that? And there seemed little doubt Agnes would be doing everything she could, starting with the hiring of Natalie Bondurant, to make sure Marla didn’t get charged with Rosemary Gaynor’s murder.

The cab showed up.

I was home ten minutes later. Mom was stretched out on the couch; Dad was in his recliner, not reading, not watching TV, just staring off into space. I felt like I’d wondered into an old-folks’-home lobby.

“Where’s Ethan?” I said.

“I didn’t hear you pull up,” Dad said, his voice low and weary. “Where’s your car?”

“What happened with Ethan?” I asked.

Mom said, “Is Marla okay? Did she give the baby back?”

“Something wrong with the car?” Dad asked.

I had to find a job. I had to move out of here. I raised both hands. “I’ll fill you in, in a minute. Right now, I’m asking about Ethan.”

“He’s up in his room,” Mom said.

“What happened?”

Dad spoke up. “He got into some fight with a kid. Don’t know much more than that, but Ethan says he didn’t start it, and that’s good enough for me. I didn’t get a chance to see the other kid, but I hope Ethan landed a couple of good ones on him. I got his name if you want it, and the father’s. In case you and me want to go over there and have a word with them.”

The hands went up again. “Thanks for that, but let me just talk to Ethan. Okay?”

Mom couldn’t help herself. “What about Marla?”

“In. A. Minute.”

I climbed the stairs, rapped lightly on Ethan’s door, but did not wait for an answer before I opened it.

He was facedown on his bed, on top of the covers, his head buried in his pillow. He rolled onto his side and said, “Where were you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why did Poppa have to get me?”

“Because I was busy. And nice try, trying to make this an interrogation of me from the get-go, but I’m the one who’s got the questions. What happened?”

“Nothing.”

I pulled Ethan’s computer chair over next to the bed and sat down. “That’s not the way this is going to go. Who’d you get into a fight with?”

He mumbled something.

“Speak up.”

“Carl Worthington.”

“He’s in your class?”

Ethan nodded.

“How did the fight start?”

“He’s always picking on me.”

“How’d the fight start?”

“He... he took something from me at recess and I tried to get it back.”

“What’d he take?”

“Just something.”

“I’m not in the mood, Ethan. Spill it.”

“Poppa’s watch. I mean, one of his dad’s watches.”

“What?”

“From that box of old stuff that he has in the basement. My great-grandfather’s things. Like ribbons and medals and old letters and postcards and stuff. There was a watch, but not like a regular watch. It was big and didn’t have a strap?”

“A pocket watch,” I said. “A long time ago, men would keep a watch in the front pocket of their vest. You took that?”

“Sort of.”

“Did you ask your grandfather if you could take it?”

“Not exactly,” Ethan said.

“So the answer is no,” I said.

“I’d just never seen anything like it and I wanted to show it to my friends. Or show it to some kids so they might want to be my friend.”

I felt my heart sinking. I should be angry but it wasn’t in me.

“So you took it to school. Then what happened?”

“There was a bunch of us passing it around to look at it, and Carl said he really liked it and put it in his pocket. When I told him to give it back he wouldn’t.”

“Why didn’t you just tell a teacher he took it from you and make him give it back?”

“I started to get scared, because I might have to tell the teacher how I got it, and then Poppa would find out and I’d be in trouble. So I just grabbed Carl and tried to get it out of his pocket, and he punched me in the head and we fell down together and everyone was watching, and then Mr. Appleton came over.”

“Your teacher?”

Ethan shook his head. “He’s not my teacher. He was just on yard duty. We got sent to the office.” Ethan’s lip began to tremble. “When Poppa came to pick me up I thought somehow he knew.”

“I don’t think he does,” I said.

“But next time he looks in that box and can’t find the watch—”

I gestured for Ethan to sit and put my arms around him as he started to cry. “It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll sort it out. So this kid, he still has the watch?”

I felt him nod into my shoulder.

“And the school doesn’t know anything about it?”

“They don’t know.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I have some money saved up. Maybe we can go to a store where they sell old things and buy another watch just like that.”

I patted his back. “Like I said, we’ll sort it out.”

“Don’t tell him. Don’t tell Poppa. He’ll kick us out before you have a chance to find a job and get us a place to live.”

That cut in more ways than I could count. “He wouldn’t do that,” I said. “He would never do anything like that. I can’t promise you he won’t find out, but I’ll see what I can do. Okay?”

He nodded, broke free and grabbed a tissue from the box on his bedside table, and blew his nose.

“Is this why you’ve been acting sick in the morning?” I asked him.

Ethan didn’t say anything.

“Because you don’t want to go to school and run into this kid?”

“Sort of,” he said quietly. “Maybe. He’s been picking on me ever since I came back here. But he’s not the only one. Some of the other kids are meaner.”

I rested my hand on his shoulder. “Okay. Listen, why don’t you hang out here for a while longer.”

“Am I grounded?”

“No. Just give me fifteen minutes before you come down.”

I knew I was going to have to fill my parents in on what was happening with Marla and the police and the body I’d found. I didn’t want Ethan to hear all of that, although I knew, what with the Internet and everything, he’d probably know the broad strokes before the end of the day.

“Well?” Dad said when I entered the living room.

“Just a fight,” I said. “No big deal. Did you say you had the name of the kid’s father?”

“Sam Worthington,” he said. “Heard the name when I was in the office. Whatcha going to do?”

“Nothing. I just wondered.”

I could tell there was something wrong with Mom, the way she was lying down. “Tell me again what happened to you.”

She told me about tripping on the stairs. She pulled up her pant leg and showed me her injury.

“Jesus, Mom, you should go to the hospital.”

“Nothing’s broken. It’ll be okay. Now tell us what’s going on.”

I did. They let me tell the story pretty much all the way through without interruptions, aside from the occasional “Oh, dear” or “Good heavens” from Mom. Dad’s first question, not surprisingly, was, “When they going to give you back your car?”

“This is so terrible,” Mom said. “What can we do to help, do you think?”