Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

“You want a coffee or something?” I asked. “You’re welcome to come in.”

She looked at the house. “You got a nice place. Beats the shithole I’m living in.”

“Your place isn’t a shithole,” I said. “And besides, this is my parents’ house.”

“I thought, when Ethan said the trains were his grandfather’s, that maybe they’d been handed down to him or something.”

“No. My dad built a small layout in the basement for Ethan. At least, he says it was for Ethan.”

“When I looked up an address for Harwood, this was the only one that came up. So, that’s cool that you live with your folks? You and your wife and Ethan?”

“Just Ethan and me.”

“Oh,” she said. “Divorced?”

I shook my head. “My wife passed away a few years ago.”

She nodded quickly. “Oh, sorry, didn’t realize. So, well, whaddaya know. We’re both raising boys on our own.”

Did I want to know why she was a single parent? The short answer was yes, I was curious. But did I think it was a good idea to ask? Maybe not. I was grateful she’d returned the pocket watch, and it was nice of her to apologize for scaring the shit out of me. Once Ethan finished showing Carl the trains, Samantha Worthington and her son could be on their way.

So all I said was “It can be a challenge.”

“No shit,” she said. “Especially when your ex is in jail and his parents think they should have custody.”

Well, there it was. No need to ask. Although I now had even more questions. Before I could choose just one of the many bouncing around in my head, she asked, “So what do you do?”

“The last fifteen years or so I’ve worked for newspapers,” I said. “I’d worked at the Standard , then went to the Boston Globe , then came back here to work for the Standard again, and first day on the job they closed the paper.”

“Oh, man, that sucks,” she said. “I didn’t know they’d shut down the Standard .”

“It’s been quite a few weeks now.”

She shrugged. “I don’t read the papers. Books, mostly. I’ve got enough shit going on in my own life, I don’t need to read about everyone else’s. I like escaping into a good story instead, where everything’s made up. It doesn’t have to be happy. I don’t mind bad things happening to good people, so long as they’re not real. God, I’m blathering. So that’s why you’re living with your parents? You’re out of work?”

“We’re moving out shortly,” I said. “I just got something else.”

Had I already made up my mind about Finley’s offer, or did I reach a decision in that instant to deflect shame?

“Oh, that’s great,” she said. “Congrats.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You?”

“Hmm?”

“What do you do?”

“I work in a Laundromat,” she said. “It’s pretty exciting. Cleaning the washers, emptying out the coin holders, keeping the detergent dispensers full.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“Are you kidding me? Every day I want to kill myself.”

“Sorry. My sarcasm detector is in the shop.”

“Yeah, well, you should get it fixed. Who the hell would want to work in a Laundromat? The only good thing is, I’m on my own; if things are slow I can read. And I can nip out and do things if I have to, like pick up Carl at school.” She rolled her eyes. “And when the school calls in the middle of the day and says he’s being suspended for fighting, I can go and get him.”

Carl seemed too old to be chauffeured to and from school. Samantha must have been reading my thoughts.

“If I don’t watch him, they’ll snatch him.”

“They?”

“Brandon’s — that’s my ex — parents, or maybe even friends of his, or theirs. They’ve got money — his parents, that is — and his friends, like Ed, that asshole, are just dumb enough to think grabbing Carl would be a smart thing to do. My former in-laws always hated me, and hate me even more now that I’ve moved away from Boston to Promise Falls. Once Bran got sentenced for those holdups I was gone.”

“Holdups?”

“Bank robberies, actually,” she said offhandedly. “Armed. He’s not even up for parole for ten years. And they think it’s my fault. Like someone else stuffed all that money in the trunk of his car.”

This woman had problems like the Standard had typos.

“That’s who you thought might have been at the door when I came knocking,” I said.

“Yeah,” Samantha said. “But I wouldn’t have shot ya.”

“Why’s that?”

“You got nice eyes.”

Walden Fisher was driving through downtown Promise Falls shortly after nine, heading home, when he thought he saw Victor Rooney’s aging, rusted van parked at the curb.

Not parked all that well, either. It was a parallel-parking spot that Victor appeared to have gone into nose-first. The van’s back end was jutting out a good three feet into the path of traffic, about half a block past Knight’s, one of Promise Falls’ downtown bars.

Walden was betting that was where he’d find Victor, should he choose to go looking for him. He took his foot off the gas pedal of his Honda Odyssey and held a quick debate in his head about what to do.

He found a vacant spot in the next block, pulled up alongside the car ahead, and backed in, the way it was supposed to be done. Walden got out and walked back almost two blocks to Knight’s and went inside.

It could have been any neighborhood bar in America. Rock music coming out of the speakers, but not loud like a nightclub. Patrons could still carry on a conversation without having to shout at the top of their lungs. Low lighting from Tiffany lamps, a pool table in the back, a few tables packed with guys who’d just finished playing together on some team for some sport in some local community center, a handful of guys on stools watching a baseball game on a flat-screen hanging on the wall above the bar.

At the far end, sitting alone, watching the game without really watching it, was Victor, his right hand wrapped around a bottle of Old Milwaukee. Here was the man who’d almost become Walden’s son-in-law.

Walden hauled himself up onto the stool next to him. “Hey, there, Victor.”

The man looked at Walden, blinked twice, focused. “Jesus, Mr. Fisher, how are you?”

“I’m okay, good. Saw your van out there. Thought I’d pop in and say hello.”

“Funny seeing you,” he said, raising his bottle to him. “Uh, would you like a beer?”

The bartender, a thin, elderly man who looked like a walking twig, had approached. Walden glanced at him and said, “Just a Coke.”

The bartender nodded, retreated.

“You sure you don’t want a beer?” Victor asked. Walden thought Victor sounded as though he’d had a few already, and judging by how he’d parked the van, probably a few before he’d arrived.

“I’m sure,” Walden said. “What are you up to these days?”

Victor shrugged. “A bit of this, a bit of that. Odd jobs. Construction. I’m in kind of a lull at the moment.”

“I heard you and the fire department came to a parting of the ways.”

“Yeah, well, that really wasn’t for me. It’s a pretty macho environment, you know? I gave it a shot, but I never felt comfortable there. Too gung ho for my tastes.”

“Sure.”

“Fuck ’em, I say. I get by. I do.”

“If you ever need anything, you know you can give me a call.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Fisher. It really is. But what I need, I don’t think you or anyone else can provide.”

“What would that be?”

“I need someone who can help me get my act together,” he said, setting the bottle down and miming something with his hands, as though he were assembling something. “You see, my act is in pieces. Isn’t that a funny saying? Get your act together? What’s that supposed to mean? That we’re all actors? That all of this is some performance? What was it Billy Shakespeare said? That all the world’s a stage and men and women merely players. Something like that. I think what we’re in is a tragedy without any kind of ending. What do you think, Mr. Fisher?”