“I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore.”
I said I would bag the dog’s body and leave it in the garage out back, but Randy asked me to leave her in the downstairs laundry room for now.
And that was what I did.
I explained that it might be some time before anyone could come and deal with Jane.
“Maybe I’ll go up and sit with her,” he said. I wasn’t sure he appreciated how unpleasant it was in that room. He added, “I could start getting Jane ready. You know, get her cleaned up and all.”
With as many euphemisms as I could muster, I cautioned him against meddling with his wife’s body.
“I understand,” he said, and went back into the house.
I wanted to give the place another walk-through before I left.
Through the kitchen, the basement, out back. As I was getting ready to leave, I could hear a voice on the second floor.
As I ascended the stairs, I could hear Randall Finley talking softly and continuously, not pausing to formulate thoughts. At the top of the stairs I could just see into Jane’s bedroom.
Randy was in a chair by the bed, an open book on his lap, seemingly oblivious to the stench that enveloped him.
He was reading to his wife.
I’d planned to pay a visit to Victor Rooney on my way home. I’d only spoken to him once, several days ago, and I wanted to pick his brain some more about Olivia Fisher, the woman he’d been going to marry.
But there was more to my visit than just that. It was what Walden had said, about how angry Victor was. With himself, and those twenty-two Promise Falls citizens who might have responded to Olivia’s cries, but did nothing.
Those twenty-two, and himself. Twenty-three people who, had they behaved with a greater sense of community, might have made the difference between life and death for Olivia. Maybe none of those twenty-two people could have saved Olivia’s life. By the time she was screaming, she was probably as good as dead.
But if they had acted, if they had done anything when they heard what was happening in the park by the falls, they might have seen her killer. They might have been able to provide a description. They might have seen his car, recalled part, or all, of a license plate.
If they had done any of those things, the police might have caught him.
And Rosemary Gaynor would be alive.
And Lorraine Plummer would be alive.
Just how angry was Victor Rooney about this town’s failure to measure up? Angry enough to get even somehow?
Angry enough to start sending out messages? Like twenty-three dead squirrels strung up on a fence? Three bloody mannequins in car “23” of a decommissioned Ferris wheel? A fiery, out-of-control bus with “23” on the back? And then there was Mason Helt and his hoodie with that same number on it, and what he had supposedly told the women he’d assaulted. That he didn’t mean to harm them, just to put a scare into them. That it was a kind of gig.
And finally, there was today’s date. May 23. A day Promise Falls would never forget. In a year or two or even less, someone would suggest a memorial in the town square with the names of everyone who had died this day.
So, the plan had been to see Victor Rooney.
But by the time I was done at the Finley house, I was exhausted. I was weak, I had a headache, and my feet were killing me. I needed a recharging before I asked anyone else a single question.
I pointed the car home.
There were familiar voices as soon as I stepped into the house. But I already knew Trevor was there by the Finley Springs truck parked in the driveway. I found him and Maureen at the kitchen table.
The smell of something wonderful was in the air. Something from the oven. If I was not mistaken, it was lasagna.
They pushed back their chairs in a chorus of squeaks and came to greet me. Maureen put her arms around me first. “I didn’t know when to expect you,” she said, “but I put something together just in case.”
I held her tightly in my arms. Behind her, Trevor stood, waiting. When Maureen released me, my son gave me a strong hug, several pats on the back.
“Hey, Dad,” he said, and there was this collective feeling that we were all just on the edge of losing it.
I think, at that moment, we were all glad to be alive. We were all okay, and we were together at a time when in so many other houses in Promise Falls, there was only grief and unbearable sorrow.
“I was never able to find Amanda Croydon for you,” Maureen said.
“She turned up,” I said. When I was driving home with the radio tuned to the news, I heard some snippets of a shouting match between her and Randall Finley where he’d been handing out free water.
“I didn’t know you were looking for her,” Trevor said. “I was there, saw her fight with Randy. I was recording it on his phone, but then he got a call from home. His dog died or something.”
I filled them in on how much worse it was than that. Maureen shook her head sadly.
Trevor said, “I wonder if he’ll pack it in. The whole running-for-mayor thing.”
I said it was probably too soon to tell. He reached into the fridge to grab a beer for me, but I waved him off. “Have to go back out.”
“Are you sure?” Maureen said. “You’re not the only cop in town.”
It took all the energy I had to smile. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“You know you haven’t been breathing normally since you walked in here,” she said.
“What?”
“Yeah,” Trevor said. “You keep taking really deep breaths.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”
“You think that’s all it is?” said Maureen, donning mitts and taking the lasagna out of the oven.
“I’m positive,” I said. They weren’t wrong in their observation. I was taking in deep breaths, then letting them out over several seconds.
Exhaustion.
“I just have one more thing I want to do,” I told them. “Then I’ll come home and go into an eight-hour coma.”
Maureen did up three plates. A garden salad on the side. Trevor hoovered his in seconds, and I wasn’t far behind him. But halfway through my serving, I put down my fork.
“What?” Maureen asked.
“It’s nothing. Just a little light-headed.” I laughed. “I think all the blood’s rushing to my stomach, and that’s a demanding area to service.”
No one laughed with me.
“I’m fine, really.” I wanted to change the subject by saying to Trevor, “I hear you guys handed out thousands of cases of water today.”
“We did.”
“That must have felt good, doing that.”
Trevor shrugged. “Yes and no. I mean, it was good to help people, but some of them were really ugly about it. You kind of wanted every family to get a case, but some people tried to come back and get extra cases, more than their share, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“And the whole thing was the Finley Show anyway.”
“Yeah,” I said again.
“He was just soaking up the attention. I mean, it cost him a fortune in product, but it was the kind of advertising you can’t buy, you know?”
I nodded.
“All day I wondered if he did it.”
Maureen looked stunned. “What are you saying?”
I broke in. “For a while, I entertained the idea, too, that he’d done something to the water so he could come to the rescue. But for God’s sake, all that to be mayor of Promise Falls? And wouldn’t he have made sure his wife didn’t end up becoming one of the casualties?”
“A dead wife just buys him even more sympathy,” Trevor said.
“Oh, that’s awful,” Maureen said. “No one would do that.”
I let dinner settle before I went back out again. We moved into the living room, where I dropped into my favorite chair. Maureen tuned in one of the national newscasts to see what they had on Promise Falls; then Trevor grabbed the remote and channel surfed to s
ee what the other networks had done.
The entire country knew all about Promise Falls.
One of the networks had turned us into a backdrop headline: THE CURSE OF PROMISE FALLS. They’d folded in material on the drive-in collapse, a look back at the Olivia Fisher case.
Sometime later, I felt someone nudging me in the shoulder.
“Barry,” Maureen said. “Barry.”
I had fallen asleep. “Shit,” I said, stirring suddenly. “How long was I out?”
“It’s okay. I didn’t want to bother you. You needed to rest.”
“What time is it?”
“Nearly ten thirty,” Maureen said. “Trevor asked me to say good-bye for him. He was pretty tired, too, and left about half an hour ago.”
“Jesus,” I said, pushing myself out of the chair. “I have to go.” She didn’t argue.
She’d spent enough years with me to know there was no point.
I slipped on my jacket, grabbed my keys, and was out the door. Once I was behind the wheel and had the engine going, I gave myself a minute. Heading out of the house so quickly after waking up hadn’t given me time to gain back my equilibrium. I was woozy.
But I was fine.
I headed for Victor Rooney’s house. Save for one light over the front door, the place was in total darkness when I got there.
I knocked on the door anyway. Hard.
“She died.”
I turned around. A man was standing on the sidewalk, watching me.
“Pardon?” I said.
“The lady that lives there. She was one of the ones what died this morning.”
I didn’t know, but there was no reason to be surprised that Victor Rooney’s landlady—it took me a moment to call up the name: Emily Townsend—would be among the dead.
“The water,” I said, since it was always possible she had died of something else. A heart attack, a fall down the stairs.
“Yep. They found her in the backyard.” He pointed to a house down the street. “Mr. Tarkington didn’t make it, either. His wife’s probably going to live, but their daughter says she could have brain damage.”
“Awful,” I said.
The man pointed to the house north of the one I was standing in front of. “I live next door. Me and the wife heard the warnings before we drank anything. Ms. Townsend wasn’t so lucky. They came for her late this afternoon. She was lying out there for hours.”
I said, “My name’s Duckworth. I’m with the police. I was actually looking for the man she rented to. Victor Rooney.”
“Oh yeah,” the neighbor said. “I’ve seen him around. But I guess he’s not home.”
“I guess not,” I said.
But I tried banging on the door one more time, just in case. There was a part of me that was grateful. Anything I wanted to ask Victor tonight I could just as easily ask him tomorrow morning.
I went home. I had nothing left. I went up to bed and slipped into that coma I’d promised myself.
FORTY
CRYSTAL found Celeste up in the main bedroom where she slept every night with Dwayne, folding clothes on the bed, putting things into drawers.
“Where’s Cal?” she asked, clipboard and paper in her hand as always.
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Celeste said. “I haven’t seen him in a while. He’s probably in the living room watching TV with Dwayne.”
“No, he isn’t.”
“Well, I’m not sure. Look around. I’m sure he’s somewhere.”
Crystal went back downstairs. The television was still on, tuned in to some sports channel that Dwayne had wanted to watch. But Dwayne was not there watching it. She went into the kitchen, then down into the basement. She looked in the furnace room, and a dingy rec room with a Ping-Pong table that had no net, and a small workroom where Dwayne kept his tools and had a workbench.
Crystal went back up two flights and entered the main bedroom again, but Celeste was not there. She found her in the bathroom, putting up fresh towels.
“I still can’t find Cal,” Crystal said.
“Darlin’, it’s been two minutes since we last talked, and I haven’t seen him in that time. Didn’t you look in the living room?”
“Yes. And I looked in the furnace room and the workroom and the kitchen and the other bathrooms and a room with a lot of tools in it and I didn’t find him anywhere.”
“Did you ask Dwayne?”
“I didn’t see Dwayne,” Crystal said.
“How could you go in every room of the house and not see Dwayne?”
Crystal said, “I don’t know.”
“Maybe they’re both outside.”
“It’s dark now.”
“Well, if it’s dark, just turn on the outside lights. They’re right by the door. I just want to finish a couple of things up here and if you haven’t found Cal by then, I’ll help you.”
Crystal turned around and left without saying anything.
She went to the front door, looked outside, where Cal’s car was still parked at the curb. She turned on the light, took one step out onto the porch, and looked around.
No Cal. No Dwayne.
She walked through the house to the back door and turned on that light, too. She saw Dwayne, standing by his pickup truck, talking on his cell phone, but there was no sign of Cal.
Crystal went outside, headed directly to Dwayne, and even though he was in the middle of a conversation with someone, she asked, “Where’s Cal?”
He raised an index finger toward her and turned away ninety degrees. Crystal changed position so that she was in front of him again and asked, “Where’s Cal?”
Dwayne looked angrily at her and said, “I’m on the phone.”
“Where’s Cal?” she asked.
“Are you deaf? I am on the phone.”
“Where’s Cal?” Crystal asked.
“Do you see him? I don’t see him. Go look in the house.”
He turned his back to her and continued his phone conversation, speaking in low tones.
Crystal raised her voice. “I looked all over the house! He’s not there.”
Dwayne spun around. “Goddamn it, I’m trying to do some business here. Maybe he went for a drive.”
“His car is here.”
“Maybe he went for a walk.”
“Where would he walk to?”
“How the hell should I know? Around the block maybe.”
“Why would he walk around the block? He didn’t even finish his pizza. He didn’t finish his beer, either.”
“Go ask Celeste,” Dwayne said. He walked toward the middle of the yard, waving his free arm behind him, as though trying to ward off a swarm of mosquitoes.
Crystal followed and pulled at his shirtsleeve. “I asked Celeste. She told me to ask you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m telling you to go ask her again because I don’t know.”
Crystal stood there a moment, as though pondering whether this was a sound strategy. Then she started heading for the back door.
“No, wait. Hang on,” Dwayne said. “Hang on, kid.”
“My name is Crystal.”
“Yeah, okay, Crystal. Just hang on.”
Dwayne spoke into the phone. “I’ll call you back in a couple of minutes. It’s the kid.” He shoved the phone down into the front pocket of his jeans, let out an enormous sigh, and said to Crystal, “Okay, fine, you have my undivided attention.”
“I just want to find him.”
“Sure, of course, yeah. Okay, well, let’s have a look at the street. Maybe he’s out there having a smoke.”
“I don’t think he smokes.”
“Well, if he quit, having to look after you might have driven him to take it up again.”
“Why?” Crystal asked.
“Huh?”
“Why would looking after me make someone smoke?”
“It was just a joke.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Never mind. Come on.” He led her away from the garage, toward the
street. “He had a pretty stressful day, you know? He might have come out here just to have a few minutes to himself.”
“But he likes me,” Crystal said. “Why would he come out here to be by himself?”
“What makes you think he likes you?”
“He’s nice to me.”
Dwayne nodded. “I guess.”
“He’s nicer than you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dwayne asked. “Who brought home pizza and wings tonight? Huh? Who was that?”
“That was you.”
“You don’t think that was pretty nice of me? I was thinking about you when I got that mess of food.”
That gave Crystal pause. “Oh.”
They’d reached the street and were standing next to Cal’s Honda. “You’re right—his car’s here, so he can’t have gone far,” Dwayne said.
Without warning, Crystal shouted at the top of her lungs, “Cal!”
“Jesus,” Dwayne said, making a show of putting his fingers to his ears. “You nearly busted my eardrum when—”
“Cal!”
“Dial it down, kid.”
“Cal!”
She’d started off down the sidewalk. Dwayne ran to catch up to her, grabbed her by the shoulder. “You can’t be screaming like that.”
“I want him to hear me.”
“You don’t even know where he is. You can’t go around the neighborhood screaming for someone like they’re a lost dog.”
“Why?”
“You’re not normal—you know that?”
She looked up at him with wide eyes. “That’s what everyone says.”
“Okay, look, why don’t you go back in the house and I’ll look around for him? When I’ve found him, I’ll let you know.”
“If we both look, we’ll find him twice as fast,” she said.
“Not necessarily. If we—”
“Cal!”
Dwayne glanced around the street nervously, as though expecting people to start coming to their doors.
And someone did.
Celeste.
“What’s going on?” she said, coming down the porch steps and across the yard.
“Nothing,” Dwayne said. “We’re just talking.”
“No, we’re not,” Crystal said. “We’re trying to find Cal.”
Celeste put her fists on her hips. “You still haven’t found him?”