Far From True

Thirty-eight

Miriam Chalmers looked at me fiercely and said, “I’m calling the police.” She was reaching into her purse, presumably, for a cell phone.

“Okay,” I said evenly.

I was happy for her to call the Promise Falls cops, or Lucy Brighton. Then I could be spared the task of giving her the news about her husband.

Assuming, of course, that the police had that right. Lucy had identified his body, after all. I realized now everyone had just assumed the body next to him had been his wife’s.

It was possible, I supposed, that Miriam already knew her husband was dead, that coming into the house and shouting his name was an act. But it didn’t strike me that way. If she really did not know about what had happened at the drive-in, I had to marvel at the fact that Adam Chalmers had found two women — Miriam and Felicia — with an apparent disinterest in current events. In Felicia’s defense, I’d found her much earlier in the day. But it was well into the evening now, nearly twenty-four hours since the drive-in bombing.

My lack of concern about Miriam calling the police seemed to have lessened the urgency on her part to do it. She still had the phone in her hand, poised to make the call, but she had stopped.

“Is Adam here?” she asked.

“No.”

“Where is he? I called here earlier today and left a message, and he hasn’t answered his cell.”

The voice mail I’d heard. It had been from her. “I don’t think I can carry on this way.” I was betting that number I’d made note of was her cell.

“You should talk to the police,” I said. “Make the call. But not 911. Call one of their nonemergency lines. Or better yet, I could drive you down to the station.”

She let the phone fall into her bag, then dropped the purse onto the nearest chair. She reached a tentative hand out to the wall. “What’s happened?” she asked. “Who did you say you are?”

“Cal Weaver.” I took out one of my business cards and handed it to her. She barely glanced at it before dropping it onto the chair. “When did you go away?”

“What?”

I nodded in the direction of the overnight bag on the floor. “Have you been out of town?”

“Two days,” Miriam said.

“Where?”

“Lenox.” A small town, just into Massachusetts, where they held the annual Tanglewood music festival. “There’s an inn there I go to when I need some time.”

“Time for what?”

“I don’t know who you are, or why you’re here, but I’m not answering another question until you tell me where Adam is. Is he okay? Has he had a heart attack?”

You did what you had to do.

“Have a seat,” I told her.

“No.”

“Please. Let’s go into the kitchen.”

She knew it was going to be bad. I could see it in her face. I pulled out a chair at the table for her, sat down close to her on the corner. My eyes were glancing around, wondering where the alcohol was kept.

“There was an accident last night,” I said. “At the Constellation Drive-in. You know it?”

Miriam nodded.

“The screen toppled. It looks like it was a bomb. The screen fell on some cars, crushed them, including a Jag registered to your husband. He was in the car. The police got in touch with Lucy, told him that her father was dead.”

“No,” she whispered. “There must be a mistake. Why wasn’t I called? Why’s no one been in touch with me?”

“That might be because everyone thought you had died with your husband.”

She let that sink in for a moment.

“There was someone else in the car,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “Of course. Who goes to the drive-in alone?” She fixed her eyes on me. “Who was it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone knows at this point. I don’t know if anyone realizes the mistake that’s been made. Because you’ve been out of town, because you haven’t been here.”

“All Lucy had to do was look in the garage and see my car wasn’t here and... the stupid twat. Where is Adam? Where is he... where are they keeping him?”

“You should talk to Lucy. Or the coroner’s office. He may have been moved to a funeral home. Paisley and Wraith, for example. They’re the biggest in town.”

Miriam sniffed.

“There are probably people you should call,” I said. “Your brother, for one. Lucy was in touch with him. I think he’s coming here, with the intention of identifying your remains.”

“Good God.”

“Why were you in Lenox?” I asked.

“I needed some time to think. Adam and I have been... having a rough patch. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. Even if someone had tried to reach me, I had my phone off most of the time. I didn’t watch the news, didn’t know anything about any of this. Today, I was ready to talk, but I couldn’t get hold of him.”

“You left a message. That you didn’t think you could keep on going this way.”

The tears were coming now. She tried to wipe them away from her cheeks with her fingers. “Purse,” she whispered.

I retrieved it from the front hall, set it on the table, and sat back down. She reached in for some tissue, dabbed her eyes, then went back in and brought out a pack of Winstons and a lighter. She got a cigarette between her fingers, but her hand was shaking too much to light it. I gently took the lighter from her, held it to the end of the cigarette.

She pulled hard on it, held the smoke in her lungs, let it come out her nostrils.

“I think I know who it was,” she said quietly.

“In the car? The woman?”

Miriam’s head went up and down a quarter inch. “Felicia.” Maybe thinking I was going to ask, she added, “His slut of an ex-wife. They kept in touch.”

“No,” I said. “I saw her this morning.”

Miriam’s damp eyes darted about, as though the answer were hidden here in the kitchen. “Then Georgina.”

“Georgina?”

“Blackmore. Georgina Blackmore. Her husband’s a professor at Thackeray. English something or other.”

Another connection between her husband and the college. First Clive Duncomb, now a Professor Blackmore.

“That little bitch,” she said.

“Is the professor a friend of the head of security out there?” I asked. “Clive Duncomb.”

Her eyes flashed for a second, then appraised me in a way they hadn’t up until now.

“Why would you ask about him?”

“You and your husband have entertained him and his wife, here, for dinner. You’re friends.”

Miriam Chalmers eyed me with the same level of suspicion she’d displayed when first finding me in the house.

“Why, exactly, are you here, in my house? You’re not with the police.”

“No, I’m not. I’m private.”

“You’re here at Lucy’s direction?”

“Someone was in the house,” I said, nodding. “Since news broke of the disaster, and it became known your husband was among the victims, someone got in. To get something.” I paused. “From the room downstairs.”

It was as though she’d been Tasered.

“What?”

She pushed back her chair so quickly ashes fell from the end of the Winston and landed on her dress. She got up, taking the cigarette from her mouth and clutching it in her fingers, and headed straight for the stairs.

I followed.

She’d only descended three steps when she caught sight of the bookcase out of its usual position, the secret room exposed.

“Oh my God,” she said. “No, no, no.”

She entered the room, saw the scattered DVD cases on the floor.

“This isn’t happening,” she said.

Miriam spun around, pointed at me. “Where are they? What did you do with those? What is it you want? Is it money? Is that what you want?”

“I don’t have them. But I’m guessing you might know who would.”

Miriam was trying to take it all in.

“Get out,” she said. “Get the fuck out of my house and tell Lucy I can solve my own goddamn problems.”