Far From True

Fifty-six

David Harwood was bordering on being proud of himself.

There were two TV news trucks out of Albany, each with its own camera operator and an on-air talking head, and reporters from the Times Union newspaper and WGY, the news-talk station. The vehicles were lined up along the street next to Promise Falls Park, the cascading water making the perfect backdrop for the news conference.

Okay, so maybe CNN wasn’t here. Matt Lauer hadn’t made the trek up from Rockefeller Center to do a live feed back to New York. But this wasn’t bad, David felt. He’d made some hurried calls to people he knew at the two TV stations, the newspaper, and WGY. He’d called some other news outlets, too, and they’d passed. But this wasn’t bad. Getting two TV stations here was definitely a plus.

David was chatting with the assembled press, telling them that the onetime mayor on the comeback trail had a couple of announcements to make. One, that he’d be running once again for mayor of Promise Falls, and two... well, they’d have to wait for that one. But they’d be glad they showed up.

“Mr. Finley will be here shortly,” David said, then excused himself to run over to see Finley, who was hunkered down behind the wheel of his car. David got in on the passenger side.

“We’re good to go,” he said.

“That’s all you could get here?” Finley asked.

“Are you kidding? This is better than I could have hoped for. Especially on such short notice. It’s only been a few hours since you decided this had to be done today.”

“Did you call Anderson Cooper?”

“Seriously?”

“I’m a good human interest story, David,” Finley said. “Everyone loves a comeback story.”

“If you were Richard Nixon coming back from the grave, that might get Anderson Cooper here,” David told him. “But you’re not. This is a good crowd. Not one but two Albany TV stations. I didn’t think that would happen. This is good, Randy. Trust me.”

“I guess,” he said.

“But there’s something I want to tell you. Before you go out there, I want to make something clear between us.”

“What?”

“Don’t ever pull that kind of shit you tried with me yesterday.”

Finley’s face was a mask of innocence. “What are you talking about?”

“Talking about my wife, about how much my son knows about her. Hinting that maybe you could be the one to fill him in.”

“I was just making conversation.”

“I told him last night. In fact, there wasn’t that much to tell. He’d already found out everything about her online. There aren’t any secrets anymore. So I’m telling you, don’t think you can hold that over me. You won’t ever blackmail me into working for you. You get that?”

Finley nodded slowly. “I believe I do. But, David, you’ve totally misjudged me here. I—”

“Save it for them.” David tipped his head in the direction of the gathered media. “We gonna do this thing?”

“We are,” Finley said, and pulled on the door handle.

They walked over together, David letting Finley lead the way. Finley smiled as he approached the small press pack, and at that moment David realized the huge mistake he had made.

The former mayor was going before the cameras alone.

Where were the supporters? Where were members of Randall Finley’s immediate and extended family? Where were the regular, everyday Promise Falls folk who wanted to see their town on the rebound? Why hadn’t David rounded up some people who’d lost their jobs because of the Five Mountains closing? How hard would it have been to find a few former coworkers who’d lost their jobs when the Standard went under?

Shit shit shit.

No, but wait. There was still time for all that. This was not Finley’s first and last news conference. There’d be plenty more. And the point of bringing out the media today was Finley’s bombshell. No sense confusing the message.

Whatever, exactly, that message was.

David hadn’t been able to get specifics out of Finley. He’d wanted to write his remarks for him, but Finley said he was going to do it off the cuff. He didn’t need a prepared speech. He didn’t need notes. A real politician, he told David, talks from his heart, not from a fucking teleprompter.

David knew that approach was risky, but decided to be optimistic. Maybe this would go just fine.

“Thank you all for coming,” Finley said, positioning himself so the falls were behind him, but not so close that they would drown out what he had to say. “Everybody ready to go?”

The two men carrying video cameras moved in closer. The guys from the Times Union and the radio station were holding out microphones.

“You people know me,” he began. “I’m Randall Finley, and today I’d like to talk to you from the heart about something that means the world to me. This town — the town of Promise Falls — and its people.”

Should have brought a crowd, David thought. I’m an amateur at this.

“Look at what’s happened in this town since I was mayor. An amusement park that was supposed to bring us jobs has packed up. The corporation behind a private-enterprise prison that was going to set up here changed its mind. Businesses small and large have left. The town is cutting back on basic maintenance and infrastructure upgrades.”

Finley paused for dramatic effect. “If only our problems were just economic, maybe we could find a way out. But the problems here go much deeper, my friends. This is a town that’s living in fear. This is a town where people are afraid to leave their doors unlocked even when they’re home, in the middle of the day. There is, and I think some of you may snicker when I say this, but there’s an evil in this town. Something’s very wrong.

“Just the other week, I witnessed a ritualistic slaughter of animals. Threatening messages were scrawled onto mannequins on the Five Mountains Ferris wheel. Last night, a bus in flames barreled down one of this town’s main streets. And clearly worst of all, a madman bombed the drive-in screen outside town, killing four people. That was an act of terrorism that shocked not only this town but the entire country. And now we know that those incidents are all strangely linked. The police admitted as much yesterday, but do they have anyone in custody? Do they even have any leads? If they do, they’re sure not telling us. They’d rather keep us in a permanent state of unease.”

David heard a car pulling up at the curb. He craned his neck around, saw someone watching from behind the wheel. It was that detective. Barry Duckworth.

“Unbelievable,” Finley continued. “How could these kinds of things happen here? What happened at the Constellation, that has every indication of being a terrorist act. And what’s being done? Someone blows up a drive-in theater today, and gets away with it, what will they do tomorrow? I repeat, what will they do tomorrow?”

Duckworth had gotten out of his car and was slowly walking across the park, listening.

“But this evil that has infected our town didn’t just happen in the last couple of weeks. It has been festering for three years. For three years at least. It began right here, right where we’re standing.” Another pause. Duckworth had taken a position behind the cameras, arms folded, watching.

“This is the spot where a young woman named Olivia Fisher was brutally murdered. You all remember that night, I know you do. It was a monstrous crime, and three years have gone by without an arrest.

“Perhaps you think that case has been closed. Maybe you’re thinking about that recent case, the murder of Rosemary Gaynor. The police would have you believe her doctor killed her to cover up an illegal adoption. But what the police haven’t told you is how astonishingly similar the murders of Rosemary Gaynor and Olivia Fisher were, and how unlikely it is the doctor could have committed both. Which means there’s a killer out there. A sick, sadistic killer waiting to strike again. And he may very well be the same person who’s embarked on a campaign of terror against this town. Mr. Twenty-three, they’re calling him.”

Duckworth unfolded his arms.

“But it gets worse,” Finley said, his voice rising. “The Promise Falls police were slow in recognizing the connection between these two crimes. They lost valuable time putting the pieces together. And the blame for that can be laid right at the door of the chief of police.”

Duckworth spotted David, closed in on him, grabbed his arm, and said, “What the hell is going on here?”

“He’s running for mayor,” he whispered.

“What’s this bullshit about Olivia Fisher and Rosemary Gaynor? Where’s he getting this?”

David pulled his arm away. “He’s got his sources.”

Finley continued. “That’s right. I’m talking about Rhonda Finderman. Who was the primary investigator on the Olivia Fisher case. But she’s so wrapped up with bureaucratic nonsense, caught up with the perks and power of her position, that she took her eye off the ball. She didn’t know that the Gaynor case was a carbon copy of the Fisher murder, and who knows how much that put back the investigation?”

Duckworth grabbed for David again. “He can’t say this.”

David shrugged. “It’s already out there now.”

“Has he asked the chief about this before blabbing it in front of the cameras?”

David shook his head. “I’m guessing she’ll be hearing about it, though.”

“And where’s our current mayor, Amanda Croydon, through all this?” Finley was saying. “Where’s the oversight? Does anyone know what’s going on? Does our current mayor have even the slightest notion? I’d like to think maybe she’s not paying attention to how the police department is being run because she’s so busy bringing new jobs to Promise Falls.” He grinned. “If only.”

Finley waited a beat, took a breath.

“That’s why I’m coming back. That’s why, today, I am declaring that I am a candidate for mayor of Promise Falls. I want to run this town again and return it to its former glory. I want to save Promise Falls.”

He paused again, as though expecting applause, perhaps forgetting that members of the media did not typically clap their hands for politicians.

He offered up an awkward grin and said, “I’m guessing there must be a few questions.”

A woman from one of the TV stations asked, “How do you come back from what happened when you were mayor?”

“I’m here today to answer questions about the current state of Promise Falls and why I want to be its mayor again,” Finley said. “Voters won’t find anyone more qualified. I know this town from top to bottom. I know every inch of its infrastructure. I know Promise Falls like the back of my hand.” He held up his right palm, actually studied the back of his hand.

No no no, David thought.

Finley continued. “I’d be happy to take a question along those lines.”

The woman pressed on. “When you were mayor before, during your campaign for a higher office, you admitted having sex with an underage prostitute. A young girl. Do you really expect voters to go for someone with that kind of character? Do you think the citizens of Promise Falls have forgotten about that?”

“I thought she was older,” Finley blurted.

David briefly put a hand over his eyes.

“Would that have made it okay?” asked the Times Union reporter.

“Look,” said Finley, “nobody cares about that anymore. That’s water under the bridge. It was years ago. What people are concerned about are the issues, not some minor indiscretions I may or may not have made in the past.”

“Do you know what happened to that girl?” the same TV reporter asked.

“I always said I hoped she got the support she needed to turn her life around.”

“She died,” the woman said. “Didn’t you know that? That she had died?”

Finley’s face was starting to flush. “I believe I did hear that, but it was totally unrelated to—”

“But it wasn’t. She died from a life of living on the street. She—”

“The question you need to be asking,” Finley said, “is how the chief of police could let something like this fall between the cracks. The connection between two grisly murders. And why nothing’s being done about a possible serial killer in this town. And what connection may exist between those events and the other things that have been happening here.”

“Were there other underage prostitutes?” asked the reporter from the radio station.

Drops of sweat were sprouting up on Finley’s forehead.

“This is turning into the Hindenburg,” David Harwood said to himself, but Duckworth heard it.

“Oh, the humanity,” Detective Duckworth said.

“You don’t see it as exploitative, to hold your announcement here where Olivia Fisher was murdered?” the Times Union reporter said.

“That’s the whole point!” Finley said. “Don’t you get it? How fucking stupid are you people?”

“Jesus,” David said.

“I don’t think even he could help you now,” Duckworth said.

“I think that’s all for today,” Finley said. “My campaign manager, Mr. Harwood, is available for any further questions.”

He broke through the small gathering and started heading for his car, but the reporters were moving with him.

“How old did you think she was?” someone shouted.

“What does your wife think about you running again?” asked another.

“For fuck’s sake!” Finley said, moving forward, head down. “It’s all ancient history!”

David was in pursuit, as was Duckworth, who managed to come up alongside the former mayor and say, “Where’d you get that, you son of a bitch?”

Finley glanced at him and, in the midst of the disaster his announcement had turned into, managed a smile.

“Best to your boy,” he said, reaching his car. He hit the unlock button on his remote and scrambled into the front seat, locking the doors immediately.

David banged on the passenger window. “Hey!” he shouted. “Let me in!”

But Finley threw the car into drive and took off down the street, leaving the reporters, and David, standing there.

Duckworth needed a few seconds to catch his breath, then asked David, “How’s the new gig working out?”