I said, “Is there a problem here?”
I was standing just behind and to the side of Sam, my hands positioned unthreateningly behind my back. She turned when she heard my voice, and Ed squinted at me.
“I think there is now,” Ed said. “The lady and I are talkin’, pal. I think it’s time you moved your panties into the dryer.”
I said to Sam, “Is this man bothering you?”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Ed’s leaving.”
“That right, Ed?” I asked.
He looked back at Sam and said, “You fucking this one, too?”
Sam opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“You don’t speak to a lady that way,” I said.
Ed fixed his eyes on me again. “Excuse me?”
“Apologize.”
“Apologize?”
“About a block down, there’s a clinic where you can get your ears tested, if there’s something wrong with your hearing.”
That was when he decided to have a go at me. Started to pull his right arm back, planted his left foot forward. When the punch was just starting to come my way, I brought my hands out from behind my back and tossed the powdered soap I’d been keeping in my right into his face.
“Shit!” he said, stopping the swing halfway, putting both hands to his eyes.
That was when I drove a fist into his considerable gut. It was like punching a massive Pillsbury Doughboy. Or maybe the Michelin Man.
Didn’t really matter.
What mattered was that he dropped to the floor like a sack of cement, gasping for air, still unable to see.
I felt like giving him a good swift kick while he was down there, and might have, but the ding from my cell phone indicated I’d just received a text. I reached into my pocket, glanced at the screen, which read Lucy Brighton.
The message was: Please call. URGENT.
I said to Ed, “Don’t move or I’ll add fabric softener.” He kept wiping his eyes.
I brought up Lucy Brighton’s number from my contacts list, dialed.
“Oh, Cal, thank you,” Lucy said, her voice shaky. “You remember me?”
“Of course,” I said. A recent investigation involving a student and the school board had brought us together. A former teacher and guidance counselor, she now worked as an administrator at the board office. “What’s wrong? Another school thing?”
“No, not this time. It’s . . . more personal.”
“You want to meet?” I asked, watching Ed brush soap powder from his eyes.
She didn’t immediately answer. I had the sense she was trying to hold it together.
“I think something has happened. At my parents’ house. Well, my father and his wife.” She paused, collecting herself. “His third wife, actually. Something’s not right there. At the house. Something might have been taken—I’m not sure. There might have been a break-in. It’s . . . very hard to explain.”
“And you’re taking this on instead of your father, and his wife, why?”
“Because they’re dead,” Lucy Brighton said. “Last night. At the drive-in. My father’s car was crushed.”
NINE
“YOU’RE awfully quiet,” Arlene Harwood remarked.
“It was a late night,” her son, David, said.
They were in the kitchen of his house. David’s nine-year-old son, Ethan, was already off to school, and David’s father, Don, was back at the elder couple’s house, checking in on the rebuilding of the kitchen since the fire. Arlene would probably head over and join him shortly.
“It must have been awful,” she said.
“Which part?”
Of course, he knew the worst part was what had happened to those people in the cars that had been crushed by the toppling screen. But almost as horrible were the antics of his new boss. Finley had no sense of propriety. No idea of what constituted appropriate behavior.
In other words, he had no shame.
At least Finley’d had the good sense to get out of there before Duckworth slapped the cuffs on him. All the people with phones out—for sure someone would have gotten a picture. So the dumbass dodged a bullet there.
David had to talk to him, try to make him understand that his efforts to raise his profile ran the risk of backfiring spectacularly. The problem was, Finley wasn’t very good about accepting advice. The man simply did not listen to anything but the big, stupid voice in his own head. David wondered whether it would be worth talking to his wife, Jane. Finley didn’t talk about her much, and ignored David when he suggested bringing her into the discussion. Maybe Jane Finley could persuade her husband to dial it back a bit. Although, David guessed, she might well have been trying to do that through their entire marriage.
“What do you mean, which part?” Arlene asked.
“Nothing,” David said, sitting at the kitchen table, scanning news stories on the drive-in disaster on his laptop. “It was all bad. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“There’s just been so much sadness,” she said, pouring a coffee for herself.
David knew she was really talking about her sister, Agnes, not what had happened at the drive-in. Agnes wasn’t the first to jump to her death from Promise Falls, and probably wouldn’t be the last, but her suicide had attracted more attention than any other in recent memory. First of all, as the boss of the local hospital, she’d been a prominent member of the community. But when it came out that she’d tricked her own daughter into believing her newborn baby had died, she was labeled a monster.
David believed the judgments being made about his aunt troubled Arlene nearly as much as her sister’s death. Arlene herself had called Agnes a monster shortly before she’d killed herself.
David figured Agnes had known it to be true. Unlike the town’s former mayor, Agnes had had a capacity for shame.
But in the days since Agnes’s death, Arlene had been trying to come to understand her sister, trying to figure out her motivations. “She wasn’t a completely terrible person,” she’d said several times in recent days. Trying to convince herself, as much as others, David suspected.
But while Agnes was very much on Arlene’s mind, she wasn’t occupying David’s thoughts. He was thinking about last night’s disaster, his job, and one other matter.
Sam Worthington.
He’d been reaching out to her, trying to explain he hadn’t done anything—at least not intentionally—to betray her. Someone had evidently taken pictures through her kitchen window of the two of them having sex, and now the pics were being used as evidence that she was somehow an unfit mother.
He felt sick about it.
He’d tried calling her several times, left messages. He’d considered knocking on her door, but the first time he’d tried, before he’d ever actually met her, he’d found himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun. The last time Sam spoke to him, she’d promised him the next time he showed up, she’d pull the trigger.
He’d been considering dropping by her place of work. Sam wouldn’t shoot him in the middle of the Laundromat, would she?
David wasn’t sure he was cut out for this much drama. He’d had more than enough of it with his now late wife, Jan. The whole episode with Marla and her baby had left him shaken. And working with Finley was no bucket of joy, either. His reporting days hadn’t prepared him for this kind of unrelenting stress. He’d never been a war correspondent. He hadn’t been Woodward or Bernstein. He’d always been a small-town reporter.
“I don’t know if I’m up to all this,” he said.
“What’s that?” his mother asked.
“Nothing.”
“Have you talked to your father lately?” Arlene asked.
“Of course. I talk to him every day. We all live together, Mom.”
He was sorry as soon as he said it.
“Don’t you
worry. We’ll be gone soon,” she said. “Another few weeks and we’ll be out of your hair. Your father says they’re coming along really well with the work. They’re ahead of schedule.” A pause. “Lucky for you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. And yes, I talk to Dad. Why?”
“I don’t mean the simple day-to-day stuff. I mean really talked to him.”
“Yeah, I have. Back when I was debating whether to accept the job with Finley, Dad and I had a heart-to-heart. He was the one who said I should take it.”
“So now you blame your father that you’re having to deal with that man?”
“I didn’t say that,” David said. “It was my decision. I needed a job. Why are you worried about Dad? What’s going on?”
“He just has a lot on his mind. You should talk to him sometime about it.”
“Is he okay? Is this about his heart?”
Arlene shook her head. “His heart’s fine.” She waved a hand at him. “Forget I even brought this up.”
He was about to pursue this further when his cell phone, resting facedown on the table next to the laptop, vibrated. He turned it over, looked at the screen.
“Shit,” he said.
There was a time when his mother might have reprimanded him for that, but not today.
“Him?” she asked.
David nodded. He picked up the phone and put it to his ear.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Genius!” Randall Finley said. “Sheer genius!”
“I’m sorry, Randy. What are you talking about?”
“Your idea about setting up a fund! To help the drive-in disaster victims! They ate that right up. I was on the fucking Today show. Some of the Albany media are already running with it.” He laughed. “Bringing you on wasn’t such a bad idea after all.”
“Randy, I—”
“I was just kidding about that. Hiring you, that’s one of the smartest moves I’ve made lately. You got good instincts.”
“I’ll make sure the account’s up and running first thing,” David said. “I already talked to the bank, let them know we’d be doing this.”
“Good, good. What you need to do now is—maybe some big company wants to cough up a few thousand or something. We need to get a picture of them giving me the check. Why don’t you start calling around? You know what? Call Gloria Fenwick. She’s wrapping up Five Mountains. Ask her if her bosses would like to make a generous contribution so we’d have something to remember them by other than abandoning our community.”
I hate myself, David thought.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
“We’ll touch base a little later. But I’m going to be unavailable at lunch.”
David didn’t know about any lunch meeting the would-be mayor had. He was supposed to keep him up-to-date on any changes in the schedule. “What’s going on?”
“I’m meeting with Francis. Frank.”
“Frank who?”
“Frank Mancini.”
David put the index finger of his free hand on the laptop track pad. He scrolled back up a story he’d been reading, looking for something he’d just come across.
He found this:
The drive-in property had recently been sold to Mancini Homes, presumably for a housing development, although that could not be confirmed. The company has not returned calls, or answered e-mails, regarding its plans.
“You there?” Finley asked.
“This is the Mancini Homes guy? A developer?”
“That’s right.”
“The one who’s bought the drive-in land.”
“Yeah,” said Finley, a hint of caution in his voice.
“If you’re meeting with him to discuss the accident, I should be there. I need to know what your strategy is here, Randy. How are you planning to spin this?”
“This has nothing to do with what happened, David,” Finley said.
“If it’s got nothing to do with it, why are you in a rush to set up a meeting with this guy?”
“I’m not in a rush,” Finley said. “This meeting was set up a long time ago.”
“Wait. What?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Finley said. “It’s got nothing to do with you. Like I said, we’ll touch base this afternoon. And, David, again, thanks for the idea. Top-shelf, that one. You’re gonna make me the poster boy for humanitarianism.” The man laughed. “One day, they’ll erect a statue in my honor that the pigeons can shit all over.”
Before David could ask him another question, Finley had hung up.
TEN
“SO how’ve you been, Vick?”
Victor Rooney struggled to sit up straight in the chair. He was tired, and a little hungover, but when he’d gotten up this morning, he’d done his best to make himself look presentable for a job interview, although he wasn’t entirely sure that the man behind the desk, the man he hoped might hire him, was aware this was a job interview. So far as he knew, Victor had dropped by to say hello.
“Pretty decent, Stan,” Victor said. “Not bad, all things considered.”
Stan Mulgrew owned Mulgrew & Son Fittings, even though he was the son. His father, Edmund, had died the year before, and now Stan was running the business, which made industrial fittings. Stan didn’t want to change the name to just “Mulgrew Fittings.” Didn’t sound as personal. So he left the “& Son” even though he had three daughters, none of whom showed the slightest interest in pursuing a career in the manufacture of quality brass fittings.
“Haven’t seen you in a while,” said Stan. “Not since high school?”
“I don’t think so,” Victor said. “You’re looking good.”
“Yeah,” said Stan. “Thanks.”
What else could he say? If he’d returned the compliment, Victor wouldn’t have believed it. He knew he didn’t look all that great. He’d lost enough weight that his clothes were starting to hang off him, there were dark circles under his eyes, and he’d missed a couple of spots when he’d shaved this morning.
“I just wanted to say,” Stan said hesitantly, “that even though it’s been—I don’t know—a few years . . .”
“Three,” Victor said.
“Three, yeah, wow, I thought it was actually longer. But anyway, I’m awful sorry about Olivia. You guys were going to get married, right?”
Victor shook his head. “That’s right.”
Stan grimaced. “Hell of a thing. They still haven’t caught the sick fuck who did it, have they?”
“No,” Victor said.
“And, Jesus, this thing that happened last night at the Constellation? That’s totally unfuckingbelievable. They’re saying it was a bomb. Can you believe that? I hear it was the demolition people who were going to bring the screen down next week, that they totally screwed things up.”
Victor studied the pens and stapler sitting on top of Stan’s desk. “That sounds like what probably happened. Pretty awful thing.”
“Part of me—this is crazy, I know—but part of me kind of wishes I’d been there. Just to see the screen come down. Must have been wild.”
“Maybe you’ll get lucky when something else bad happens,” Victor said.
“What?”
“I’m saying, maybe someday you’ll be around when something else terrible goes down. So you can say you were there. I read somewhere that there are people who say they were in New York on 9/11 but weren’t anywhere near it. Because they think it makes them seem more important or something.”
“Is that what you think I’m saying?” Stan asked.
“Shit, no. It was just a thought that popped into my head.” Victor grinned. “That happens to me a lot. Some random idea just hits me.”
“Well, believe me, I’m not praying for more tragedies or anything. But anyway, what’s up? To what do I owe the h
onor?”
Victor Rooney shrugged. “I was thinking, we hadn’t seen each other in a long while, and I was on the high school Facebook page, the one for people who’ve graduated and like to keep in touch, and I saw your picture, and wondered what you’re up to, and thought I’d drop by.”
“Nice,” Stan said, nodding slowly. “You know, nice.”
“And I had something I wanted to give to you.” Victor reached into his jacket and pulled out an unsealed envelope. He took out an unevenly folded sheet of paper and handed it across the desk.
“What’s this?”
“That’s my résumé,” Victor said.
“Oh,” Stan said, setting the paper on his desk, taking note of a grease stain that had turned the paper translucent. “We’re not hiring right now, Victor.”
“Yeah, but I wanted to drop that off anyway. In case. You look on there, you’ll see I have experience. I know all sorts of mechanical-type things. I know how to run machines. I know electrical work. Something doesn’t work, I can get it going. And anything I’d need to know here at your place, I’m a fast learner. I can put just about anything together. I didn’t actually get my engineering degree—I kind of dropped out after Olivia passed away—but I learned a lot. I’m thinking of going back, finishing it.”
Stan glanced at the page for a full three seconds. “You worked one summer at the water plant, and I see here you were with the Promise Falls Fire Department.” He took a closer look, frowned. “But not for long.”
“But while I was there, I did good work. You know, reasonable.”
“Why’d you leave? A job with the Promise Falls Fire Department, that’s like a job for life.”
“I was . . . having some problems at the time.”
Stan studied him. “What kind of problems, Vick?”
“You know, I guess I was still dealing with Olivia.”
Stan nodded sympathetically. “Sure, of course.”
“So, I went through a period . . . when I didn’t quite have it all together. So I had to leave. Go for, you know, treatment. Kind of put the pieces back together.”