Broken Promise: A Thriller

Forty-four

Trevor Duckworth had rarely driven a van with so few windows. There was the front windshield, of course, and the roll-down ones on the driver and passenger doors. But that was it. The cargo area was totally closed in. There wasn’t even any glass on the two rear floor-to-ceiling doors.

Visibility was a bitch.

A couple of times over the years, he’d found himself behind the wheel of a rental, helping someone move, and he hated having to back the damn thing up. Couldn’t see where you were going. He’d adopted a style of backing up very slowly and hoping that if and when he hit something — or somebody — he’d hear it and stop before he did too much damage.

But after a few days of working for Finley Springs Water, he was getting the hang of it. He could back this sucker up pretty nicely using only the mirrors that were bolted to the two doors. He’d dropped off about a hundred cases of water at several convenience stores around Promise Falls, and had now returned to the plant with an empty truck. He drove up in front of the loading docks, put the column shift into reverse, spun the wheel around, and guided the truck right up to the platform. Stopped an inch short, never touched the bumper.

Hot damn.

He grabbed a clipboard from the other seat that listed the places he’d been and how much had been delivered, and headed to the office with the paperwork.

God, his dad could be such a dick sometimes.

Giving him a hard time about working for Randall Finley. Who cared? A job was a job, and Trevor’d been out of work too long. How long had his parents been at him about getting a weekly paycheck? And then he finally gets one, and his dad’s not happy about it. At least his mother seemed pleased. It was funny about her. She could be such a huge worrier. Like when he was going around Europe with Trish, and was out of touch with his parents for days or weeks at a time. It drove his mother crazy. And yet now that he was back in Promise Falls, she was okay. She was the one he could go to when he had a problem. His dad was another story. Maybe it was the whole thing about being a cop. You got all hard-ass about everything.

And then all this shit about how Finley might have hired him to get some sort of leverage over his father. Sometimes, Trevor thought, his dad believed the whole world revolved around him.

Just as well he lied to him about how he got the job at Finley Springs.

Trevor had said he’d found the job online. That wasn’t exactly the truth. Yes, the water-bottling company had placed ads on the Internet looking for drivers, but Trevor had been offered the job in person. He was at Walgreens, buying half a dozen microwavable frozen dinners, which was about the only thing he ever ate these days at his apartment, when this guy coming down the aisle the other way caught his eye and said, “Hey, aren’t you Barry’s boy?”

“Yeah,” Trevor said.

The man extended a hand. “Randy Finley. I think we may have met a few years ago, when you were just a kid. Your dad and I worked together some when I was mayor. How you doing? Did I hear you were touring around Europe at some point? With the Vandenburgs’ girl? Trisha?”

“Trish,” Trevor said.

They made some small talk. Finley asked after Trevor’s father. Said they didn’t cross paths that much anymore, not since Finley left politics and started up a new business. Had Trevor heard of his water-bottling operation?

Trevor said he had not.

Finley said, “If you know any guys looking for work, point them in my direction. Rest of this town is going to shit, but we’re hiring. Like I say, if you know anyone.”

“What kind of work?” Trevor asked.

“Well, drivers for a start.”

“I’m kind of looking for a job,” Barry Duckworth’s son said.

“Well, shit, you got a driver’s license?” Trevor nodded. “Come on up and see me, then.”

Trevor got the job. If he’d told his father how it had happened, you could just bet he’d have read something sinister into it. Like maybe Finley hadn’t just bumped into him. That he’d somehow arranged it. And Trevor didn’t even give much thought to the fact that Randy knew all about him being in Europe with Trish Vandenburg.

Promise Falls was still a small town in many ways, even if there were more than thirty thousand people living here.

Trish.

He didn’t think about her quite as often. Hell, she crossed his mind only every ten minutes now, instead of every five. How many times had he apologized to her? Said he was sorry? That what he’d done, he really wasn’t like that? He’d just lost his head for a second. She’d actually told him once that she’d forgiven him. But that didn’t mean she was coming back.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Trevor wished he could turn back the clock, start over. You make one stupid mistake, and you never stop paying for it.

He was slipping into the office to drop off the clipboard when he felt a hand slap him atop the shoulder.

“How’s it hanging?” Finley asked.

Trevor Duckworth spun around. “Hey, good, Mr. Finley. Things are good.”

“I told you before, you call me Randy.”

“Randy, yeah. Just did a run, left the truck at the dock so they can load it up again. Think I’m doing a run to Syracuse today.”

“Sounds good, sounds good.” Finley’s smile was wide enough to show off his crooked teeth. “I was gonna get myself some horrible coffee. Want a cup?”

Trevor didn’t, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to say no. Finley went over to the coffee machine sitting on a table in the corner of the room, glanced into two empty mugs to see whether they were relatively clean, and filled them.

“You know, I make this coffee with our own springwater, and it still tastes like shit. What do you take?”

“Some milk, if you’ve got it.”

“That all?”

“Yeah?”

“Because I usually add something a bit stronger.” He went over to his desk, opened a drawer, and took out a bottle of whiskey. He poured a shot into the coffee, held out the bottle to Trevor, and said, “You?”

“No, sir. I mean, no, thanks, Randy. I’m heading back out soon.”

“Of course you are,” he said, and tucked the bottle back into his drawer. He came around the desk and parked his butt on the edge, took a sip. “It does make bad coffee better. There’s not much it doesn’t make better.”

Trevor smiled as he took a sip out of his mug. The boss was right. It was bad.

“You’re working out real good,” Finley said. “I’ve been asking around, and everyone’s happy with you. I mean, you’re new, and you still got time to fuck up, but so far, so good.” Finley laughed.

“I’m glad to have a job,” Trevor said. “I like driving around. It gives you time to think.”

“Sure, it would. You got a lot on your mind?”

“Not really.”

“When I was your age, what I had on my mind most was pussy.” He laughed. “Not that anything has really changed. But I am, for the purposes of the official record, a happily married man.”

“Yeah, well, you know.”

“And I don’t mean to brag, but I got my fair share of it,” he said. Patting his belly, he said, “Hard to believe, but at one time I cut a slightly more dashing figure. These days, looking down, I can’t even find my cock. Even when it’s standing at attention.” Another grin. “But as long as someone can find it, then all’s right with the world.”

“Sure,” Trevor said.

Finley pointed a friendly finger toward him. “But I’ll tell you this. I may come across sometimes as a bit of a pig, but—”

“Not at all.”

“But I always treat women with respect. When men get together, sure, we may say the odd comment a woman might interpret as disrespectful, but we don’t mean it that way, do we?”

“No,” Trevor said.

“But when we’re with them, we treat them right. That’s what I do. I admit, there was an incident a few years ago you may have heard about. I accidentally hurt a young woman—”

“I remember something about that,” Trevor said. “Wasn’t she fifteen?” He hadn’t meant anything by it, then realized he might be coming off as judgmental. So he quickly added, “But I could be wrong about that.”

“No, no, you’re right. My weaknesses have been well documented. I did end up striking this woman, but it was a reflexive action caused by some carelessness on her part during a moment of intimacy.”

Trevor looked at him, not comprehending.

Finley said, “She bit my dick.” When Trevor had nothing to say, the former mayor continued. “So I can understand when even a well-intentioned man such as yourself can have a moment when he makes an error in judgment.”

Trevor felt his insides weaken.

“You probably don’t know this, but the Vandenburgs have been friends of mine going way back. Did you know that?”

Trevor shook his head.

“I’ve known Patricia — Trish — since she was a little girl. An adorable child, and a lovely young woman. It was a shame, what happened between you two.”

Trevor Duckworth said, “I... I don’t see... I should go.”

“No, you stay right here. In fact, why don’t you close the door. Yeah, that’s good. It’s better to be able to talk in private.” He took another sip of his spiked coffee. “I believe, every once in a while, people deserve a break. The benefit of the doubt. I’m betting you never, ever meant to hurt that girl.”

“It was...”

“An accident? Well, I’m not sure you’d call it that. It’s not like you ran into the back of her with a shopping cart at the grocery store, is it?”

Trevor’s face flushed. “I never... I mean, I told her I was sorry.”

“Have you considered how lucky you were?” Finley asked. “That she didn’t have you charged? Because I can tell you, she did think about it.” He paused. “I guess you didn’t know that hiring you was the second favor I had done for you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Trish is kind of like a niece to me. I’m her unofficial uncle.”

“You talked to Trish?”

“I told you, we lived next door to the Vandenburgs for years. When you punched her in the face—”

“I didn’t punch her; I—”

“When you punched her in the face, she came to me. She was afraid to go to Duffy and Mildred — you know, her parents — for fear Duffy would grab a gun and blow your fucking head off. She said to me, ‘No man will ever hit me twice.’ Trish is a strong woman. She was done with you at that moment, and there was never a snowball’s chance in hell she’d ever go back with you. Her question was whether to file a complaint.”

Trevor tried to find his voice. “It was all so stupid. It was a dumb argument; that’s all it was. I wanted to go back to Germany, maybe find a job there, and she said it was time to settle down here and do something with our lives, you know? And she started attacking me, criticizing me, saying I couldn’t figure out what to do with my life, and she was waving her hands at me, and I thought she was actually going to swat me or something, and I came at her backhanded, but I ended up hitting her in the side of the head. It was a fucking accident. I swear to God.”

“Trish told me she stayed in her apartment for three days till the bruising went down,” Finley said.

Trevor could think of nothing to say to that.

“So, she asked me what I thought she should do. I told her she was fully within her rights to charge you. That you had assaulted her. I even offered to go to the Promise Falls police with her. They got a woman chief now, as you’d well know, and I can’t imagine she’d have liked the sounds of what you did. But I also spelled out for her the pitfalls. That, first of all, your father is a detective with the force, and there would be a lot of attention surrounding the case because of that. Her parents would learn details about her life she might rather they not know. There was no telling what might come out about her own background. Not that there was anything that salacious, but in a trial, the most innocent things can be made to sound sordid. No one knows better than me about that.”

He patted the tops of his thighs and pushed himself off the desk. “So there you have it.”

“Why’d you hire me?” Trevor asked.

“Why?” Finley’s face was a mask of innocence. “Because you’re a decent young man in need of employment. And you’re doing a very good job. What other possible motive could I have?”

“What about my dad?”

“What about him?”

“He said... he said you might have hired me to get at him somehow.”

Finley shook his head. “Nothing could be farther from the truth. I don’t have it in for your father. He’s a good man. Quite the contrary. I don’t want to get at him, as you say. In fact, just yesterday I offered to help him. You see, I’m going to be running for mayor again, and I think your dad would make a good chief. All I might ever want from him is to keep his ears open. About things in the department. Issues I might want to address in my campaign.”

“What did he say?”

Finley smiled. “Not a lot. But maybe one day you’ll want to tell your father about our little chat here today, and maybe he’d be more inclined to be in my corner. What do you think? Or failing that, I’m guessing that when you go home for Sunday dinner, you hear things. About your dad’s work. Stuff that maybe isn’t part of the public discussion. If you’re ever interested in sharing anything like that, I can tell you right now, I would be an attentive listener.”

Trevor Duckworth swallowed hard. His mouth was dry. He needed a drink, but the last thing he wanted was a mouthful of Finley Springs Water.

“I think,” he said, “I’d better do my run to Syracuse.”

“Good lad,” Finley said. “I like your work ethic.”