Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

Marla’s eyes closed briefly. She was drifting off.

Agnes released her daughter and said, “You start getting ready. I’m going to step out into the hall and call Dr. Sturgess to let him know I’m discharging you on my own.”

“Okay.” Marla paused. “I say bad things about you sometimes, Mom. But I love you.”

Agnes forced a smile, stepped out into the hall, walked past the nurses’ station, giving the staff a curt nod, and continued on down the hall until she reached a supply room full of linens.

She stepped in, closed the door, leaned her back up against it to make certain no one would walk in on her, placed her hand over her mouth, and wept.

From Derek’s, I went to the address for Marshall Kemper that I’d gotten from Mrs. Delaney at Davidson House.

It was, as it turned out, around the corner from Samantha Worthington’s place, and was little more than a low white box of a house that had been divided into two. There were two doors fronting the street, pushed to the far ends of the house, and two identical windows set beside them.

Kemper’s apartment was 36A Groveland Street, the other 36B.

I got out of the car, walked up to 36A, and, finding no doorbell, knocked. There was no response, so I knocked again, louder this time.

Still nothing.

I got my face up close to the door and called out, “Mr. Kemper? Are you in? My name’s David Harwood! I need to talk to you!”

Stopped yelling and listened. Not a sound from inside.

I walked over to 36B and knocked. I could hear a TV, so when no one came after the first knock, I decided to try again. A few seconds later, an elderly woman slowly opened the door.

“Yes?” she said.

“Hi,” I said. “I was looking for Marshall Kemper.”

She tilted her head. “That’s the man who lives next door. You got the wrong place.”

“I know that. He’s not home. I wondered whether you’d seen him around.”

“Whatcha want him for?”

“He’s an old friend,” I said. “I was passing by and thought I’d drop in on him. Haven’t seen him in a while.”

The woman shrugged. “I don’t keep track of his comings and goings. But I don’t see his van out there, so I guess he’s not home. I’m missing The Price Is Right .”

“Sure, sorry,” I said. “Thanks for your time.”

She was starting to close the door, then stopped, as if something had occurred to her. “Maybe him and that girl went off on a holiday together or something.”

“Girl?” I said. “You mean Sarita?”

Another shrug. “Maybe. Nice little thing. Always says hi to me. Oh, it’s the showcase. Gotta go.” She started to close the door but I put my hand up to stop it.

“When’s the last time you saw her?” I asked.

“What?”

“When did you last see Sarita?”

Third shrug. “Last night, maybe? I don’t know. I get the days mixed up sometimes.”

This time, when she went to close the door, I didn’t try to stop her.

So Sarita, if it was Sarita, had been here recently. Since Rosemary Gaynor had been murdered. Maybe Kemper had taken her in, was hiding her. Maybe the two of them had taken off together. Which strongly suggested they had something to do with the woman’s murder. The harder it was to find Sarita, the more likely it seemed to me that Marla really hadn’t killed that woman.

Not that I’d found out anything useful so far that might help my cousin. Even Derek wasn’t willing to dismiss outright the idea that she could be a killer. Nothing she did would surprise him, he’d said. Not the sort of thing you wanted to hear someone say on the stand in front of a jury.

I went back to 36A and banged on the door once more.

“Sarita?” I called out. “Sarita Gomez? Are you there? If you are, I really need to talk to you. I’m not the police. I have nothing to do with them. I’m trying to help out a friend. If you’re in there, please open the door and talk to me.”

I waited.

After thirty seconds, I used my hand as a visor and peered through the window. I could make out a bed and a kitchen area, a couple of chairs. But I didn’t see any movement.

“Nuts,” I said under my breath.

As I walked back to my car, my phone rang. I looked at it, saw that it was Finley.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“So how long I gotta wait before you start helping me out?”

“I don’t know. Another day or so, maybe.”

“Because this job isn’t going to sit around forever,” Finley said. “Plenty of others who’d like to take it.”

“Then maybe you should hire one of them,” I said.

“Fuck it, you’re the one I want. Just get done doing whatever the hell it is you’re doing. I’m hearing things through the grapevine, that there’s something weird going on in town. A bunch of dead squirrels — I found those myself — and the Ferris wheel out at Five Mountains starting up on its own with some mannequins in it with some creepy threat written on them, and last night at Thackeray—”

“Save it,” I said. “I haven’t started yet. When I have, you can tell me all about it.”

“This is serious shit, Harwood. If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone was going around trying to rattle the good folks of Promise Falls.”

“What, are you saying these things are connected?”

“Who knows? And even if they aren’t, this is the sort of thing I can use. Telling people they deserve to feel safe in their homes, that—”

“I meant what I said. Save it. Soon as I can devote all my attention to your needs I’ll let you know.”

Finley grunted. The call ended. We all have our ways of saying good-bye.

Getting behind the wheel, I wasn’t sure what to do next.

When in doubt, head home. I figured I could come back here later in the day, see if Kemper or Sarita had turned up.

It wasn’t my subconscious at work that took me past Samantha Worthington’s on my way home. It really was the most direct route. But as I approached her address, I found myself taking my foot off the gas so I could look at her place as I drove by.

It wasn’t as if I’d been thinking of her every single moment since she’d been to the house to return the pocket watch. But she’d been in the back of my mind. Like a head tune that’s been playing for hours without your realizing it, and then suddenly you say, “How the hell did I get the theme from The Rockford Files in there?”

But Samantha’s lurking presence in my thoughts was a bit different from a tune from a seventies TV show.

She’d be at her job now, I figured. Managing the Laundromat. I didn’t know which one, which was probably just as well. If I had, I might have found myself concocting some lame excuse to drop by.

I could just imagine what my mother would say if I headed out the door with a basket of dirty laundry. “What are you thinking?” she’d say. “You are not taking that out to be done! You leave that with me right now!”

Add it to the list of reasons I needed to move out.

What I didn’t expect, as I rolled past Samantha’s place, was that she would walk out the front door.

And look right at me.

Shit.

I had an instant to decide how to handle it. I could speed off, pretend I hadn’t seen her. Except it was pretty clear I had. I could still speed off, but she’d be left with the impression that I was up to something, that I had something to hide, that I was stalking her.

Which I was not.

Okay, maybe driving by here the night before was a little suspect, but this was legit. I was just passing by going from point A to point B.

I could wave and keep on going.