Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

“Asshole,” he said again.

Duckworth called the station and asked to be put through to Chief Rhonda Finderman.

“Hey,” Finderman said, answering right away. “I was just about to check in with you.”

Finderman wanted to know what progress was being made in the Gaynor case, and apologized for not knowing much about it. “I’m on this national association of police chiefs that meets all the time, the mayor’s committee on attracting jobs, plus this task force with the state police about coordinating data. I’m up to my ass in administrative shit. So, Rosemary Gaynor. Someone killed her and kidnapped her baby?”

Quickly Duckworth brought her up-to-date. Then he told her about how Clive Duncomb, Thackeray’s head of security, didn’t think he needed to bother letting the Promise Falls police know they might be dealing with a possible rapist on campus.

“That horse’s ass,” Finderman said. “I’ve had the pleasure. We had lunch one time; he said he really liked my hair. Take a guess how that went over.”

“You know anything about him? Beyond his being a horse’s ass, I mean?”

Rhonda Finderman paused. “What I hear is he worked vice in Boston. And that he left. And brought along his new wife, who may have been someone he met in the course of his duties, if you get my drift.”

“The thing is, I’ve got my hands full, but we need someone out there, taking statements from the students who’ve been attacked, that whole drill. We need to find this guy before he ups his game.”

“I’m down two detectives,” she said. “I’m going to have to move someone up, temporarily at least.”

“Okay.”

“You know Officer Carlson? Angus Carlson?”

Duckworth paused. “I do.”

“Try not to gush.”

“It’s your call, Chief.”

“We were all young once, Barry. You telling me you weren’t a know-it-all when you started?”

“No comment.”

She laughed. “He’s not that bad. He presents this front of being a wiseass, but I think there’s more to him than that. We got him about four years ago, from Ohio.”

“It’s your call.”

“I’ll have him call you; you can bring him up to speed.”

“Fine.” There was still something else on Duckworth’s mind. “One other thing. I ran into Randy this morning.”

“Finley?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus, him and Duncomb in one day. It’s like an asshole convention.”

“He called me directly after finding all these squirrels someone had strung up on a fence near the college. He said he’s running for mayor again, and he was looking for me to be a department snitch, maybe give him something to run on. I’m probably not the only one he’s asking.”

“He’s looking for something on me?”

“He’s looking for anything he can get on anybody. I think you’d be near the top of the list. So would Amanda Croydon.”

“The mayor’s squeaky-clean,” the chief said.

“Finley could find a way to make that negative.”

“He’s a weaselly son of a bitch,” the chief said. There was a long pause.

“You there?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Rhonda said. “I’m just thinking about how he might go after me.” Another pause. “I think I run a clean department. Maybe he’ll go after something I did before this job.”

She’d come up through the ranks, becoming chief nearly three years ago after several years working as a detective, often alongside Duckworth.

“You did good work,” he said. “I wouldn’t want it getting back to you that an approach like that had been made, and that I hadn’t told you.”

“Appreciate it, Barry.”

Three seconds after he’d ended the call, another one came in.

“Duckworth.”

“Hey, it’s Wanda.” Wanda Therrieult. The medical examiner who would have conducted the autopsy on Rosemary Gaynor.

“Yeah, hey,” Duckworth said.

“Where are you?” He told her. “Swing by.”

He said he could be there in five minutes.

It was a cold, sterile room, but that was the way it was supposed to be.

The body was laid out on an aluminum table, draped in a light green sheet that matched the walls. Bright fluorescent lights shone down from the ceiling.

Wanda Therrieult, fiftyish, short, and round, was sitting at a desk in the corner of the room, tapping away at a keyboard and drinking from a Big Hug Mug when Duckworth entered the room.

“You want a coffee or anything?” she asked when she saw him, taking off a pair of reading glasses. “I got one of these single-cup things where you can pick what flavor you want.”

She got up and showed him the machine, and a rack filled with various kinds of coffee that came in tiny containers the size of restaurant creamers.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, examining the labels. “What the hell is Volluto? Or Arpeggio? What’s that supposed to be? What do you have that’s closest to what I get at Dunkin’?”

“You’re hopeless,” she said. “I’ll just pick you one.”

She chose a capsule, put it into the machine, set a mug in place, and hit a button. “Now it’ll work its magic.”

“You should think about getting a doughnut machine, too. Why hasn’t Williams-Sonoma come up with one of those? A gadget you put on your countertop where you touch a button and out pops a fresh chocolate glazed.”

Wanda studied him. “I was about to say that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, but then thought, I would buy one of those.”

“It’s twenty years today,” he said.

“What’s twenty years?”

“I’ve been with the department two whole decades as of today.”

“Get out.”

“Would I lie?”

“So, what, you joined when you were ten?”

“I’m a trained investigator, Wanda. I can tell when someone is bullshitting me.”

She smiled. “Congrats. Was there a thing? A little ceremony?”

He shook his head. “No. You’re the only one I’ve told. I didn’t even mention it to Maureen. It’s no big deal.”

“You’re one of the good ones, Barry.” The machine beeped. She handed him his coffee, raised her own, and they clinked mugs. “To twenty years of catching bad guys.”

“To catching bad guys.”

“And you’ve got a pretty bad one out there now,” she said, tipping her head in the direction of the body.

“Show me.”

Wanda set her mug down, went over to the examining table, and pulled back the sheet, but only as far as the top of the dead woman’s breasts.

“I wanted to show you something first,” she said, pointing to Rosemary Gaynor’s neck. “You see these impressions here? This bruising?”

Duckworth took a close look. “Thumbprint there, on this side of the neck, and four fingers over on this side. He grabbed her around the throat.”

“With his left hand,” she said. “If she had been grabbed by the front, the thumbprint would be a little more to the front of her neck, not so far down the side.”

“So he throttled her from behind. You suggesting he’s left-handed?”

“Just the opposite.”

Wanda pulled the sheet back further, exposing the woman to her knees. The body had been washed clean of blood, making the gash across her abdomen graphically clear. It ran roughly from hip bone to hip bone, dipping slightly en route.

“Our boy put the knife in and basically sliced his way across, going from her left to right side. The cut runs at a fairly consistent depth all the way, about three inches. Now, you’d figure, if someone was being attacked that way, they’d try to pull back, or fall, something, but that’s not the case here.” She turned and faced him and held out her arms, as though inviting him to dance. “May I?”

She came around behind him. “This won’t be quite right because you’re taller than I am, and I figure the killer was a good four or five inches taller than the victim in this case, but this will give you the right idea.”