Far From True

Forty-eight

It wasn’t as though Barry Duckworth was expecting a plate covered with four scrambled eggs, half a dozen strips of bacon, and a heap of home fries. He rarely got something like that at home. If he wanted a breakfast like that, he hit one of Promise Falls’ greasy, wonderful diners.

But a grapefruit and a slice of toast? Seriously?

“Maureen,” he said, “we need to talk.”

She was drinking her coffee across the table from him, having a quick look at the news on her tablet before heading off to work.

“What’s the problem?” she said. “I cut the grapefruit in half, and even took a knife to the little wedges so you won’t get any grapefruit juice in your eye and blind yourself. Also, I sprinkled some Splenda on it so it’s not so bitter. I couldn’t see sprinkling sugar all over it. That kind of defeats the purpose, don’t you think?”

“What kind of toast is this? It doesn’t look like my regular toast.”

“That’s multigrain,” she said, not moving her eyes from the tablet. “There’s something pretty amazing on here you’re going to want to see.”

“It looks like birdseed stuck to the crust.”

“It’ll make you a better warbler,” Maureen said. She looked at him. “Oh my God, you’re not actually picking those seeds off, are you?”

“I don’t like them.”

“I buttered the bread for you. Not a lot, but that’s actual butter on the bread. I would never expect you to eat dry toast. My God, the way you’re carrying on, you’d think you were being waterboarded.”

“I like my usual toast,” he said.

“I’m sure you do,” Maureen said. “Really, you’re going to want to see this, unless you’ve already heard about it.”

“Heard about what?”

“The bus? That was on fire? It made the Albany station. Someone got video on their phone.”

Duckworth beckoned with his hand. Maureen turned the iPad around on its stand, pushed it his way.

“You just press the little play arrow there,” she said.

“I know how to do it,” he said.

He tapped the screen. Watched the flaming bus roll down the street, crash into some cars, destroy a flower shop.

“Jesus,” he said. “I’ve bought flowers for you there.”

“Not lately,” Maureen said.

“Hang on,” he said. “How do I make it go again?”

“Press the little arrow that’s like a circle that—”

“I got it. Hang on. I want to pause it right... here.”

The image froze. Duckworth had paused the video at the point where the bus had driven past whoever was filming it.

Where you could see the back end of the bus.

With the number 23 three feet high and three feet across.

“Look at that,” he said, turning the tablet around.

“Yeah, I see it.”

“You see the number on the back?”

“I do.” She shook her head. “He’s at it again.”

Duckworth stared at the screen again. “He’s sending a message. I just don’t know what the hell it is.” He shook his head despairingly. “I feel like we’re leading up to something.”

“Like?”

“I don’t know. But—”

His cell phone started to ring.

“Duckworth,” he said.

“Detective, this is Officer Gilchrist.”

Gilchrist. Ted Gilchrist. Duckworth had last seen him at the Gaynor house, trying to sort things out between David Harwood, his cousin Marla Pickens, and Bill Gaynor, shortly after Rosemary Gaynor’s body had been discovered. A good cop, Duckworth thought.

“This about the bus? I just found out about it.”

“No, sir. Something else. Figured I’d call you directly, since it’s probably going to be you who gets the call.”

“Okay.”

“I was just doing a regular patrol, going past a house, noticed the front door was left ajar. Decided I should have a look. Went up to the door, rang the bell, no one came, figured maybe someone hurried off to work and didn’t pull the door shut all the way, but when I had a look inside, I realized it was something else.”

“What?”

“There’s a dead lady on the stairs. Her neck’s busted.”

Duckworth felt like a tire with only a couple of pounds of pressure left in it. There was too much shit going on in this town.

“Address?” he asked Gilchrist.

Barry Duckworth, hovering over the body of Miriam Chalmers, one police-issue bootie on one step, one police-issue bootie on the other, couldn’t help but kick himself mentally.

He should have come out here. He should have come out here last night and interviewed this woman.

At the time, however, it seemed far more urgent to seek out Peter Blackmore, husband of Georgina, the woman who had really died in the Jag with Adam Chalmers. The bad news had to be delivered.

There was bad news for Miriam Chalmers, too, but someone had already told her that her husband was dead, as evidenced by her call to her brother seconds before Duckworth nearly showed him Georgina Blackmore’s body.

So there’d been no pressing need for Duckworth to pay Miriam Chalmers a visit. And besides, he was so goddamned tired all he could think about was going home to bed.

Excuses.

If he’d come by here last night, maybe he could have kept this from happening. Maybe he’d have arrived at just the right time. Or maybe he would have learned something that led him to believe this woman was in danger.

All too late for that now.

“Any sign of forced entry?” Duckworth asked Gilchrist, who was standing at the top of the stairs that led to the basement.

“I’ve been all around the house, checked windows, doors, and I don’t see anything,” he said.

Duckworth studied the angle of the body, trying to determine how she’d landed this way, head at the bottom step, feet five steps above.

“Tripped?” Gilchrist asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “If she tripped going up the stairs, her head would be that way. If she’d tripped going the other way, she’d be facedown. I’d say she was on the way up, and got pushed, or pulled.”

“Yeah,” Gilchrist said. “I see what you mean.”

Standing on the basement floor, Duckworth noticed a room behind him with a light on. It didn’t have a proper doorway, but appeared to be accessed by the bookshelves that had been slid to one side.

Duckworth peered into the room.

“Officer Gilchrist!” he said.

“Yes, Detective?”

“Have you been down here and seen this?”

“Yes, sir, I have.”

“And you hadn’t thought to mention it?”

“I was going to, then thought I’d let you discover it on your own. So it would have the same impact on you as it did on me. And honestly, I didn’t know if there was any way I could really describe it for you. It’s one of those things you just have to see. I’m going to take another look around up here.”

Duckworth took in the framed photos on the wall. The oversized bed, the retro shag carpeting, the satiny bedcover, which had been disturbed. As though someone had wrapped himself — or herself — in it, without getting underneath it.

The room’s theme immediately made the detective wonder whether Miriam Chalmers had been sexually assaulted. He took another look at her, from a good ten feet away. Her clothes appeared undisturbed.

The coroner would tell him more.

Duckworth looked up to the top of the stairs, where Gilchrist had been a moment earlier.

“You called Wanda, right?” he shouted upstairs.

Gilchrist, from somewhere, said, “Yup.” And, “Found something.”

Duckworth didn’t move. He didn’t want to navigate his way around the body again. He waited.

Gilchrist reappeared, holding up something small and white, about the size of a business card.

It was, in fact, a business card.

“This rings a bell,” Gilchrist said. “Didn’t a Cal Weaver used to work for the force?”