The Accident

FORTY-FIVE

Arthur Twain was propped up on the bed in his room at the Just Inn Time, his laptop resting on the tops of his thighs, his cell phone next to him on the bedspread. He had definitely stayed in better places than this, but everything else in town was booked.

He wasn’t making much progress. Belinda Morton didn’t want to talk to him. Darren Slocum didn’t want to talk to him. The only one who’d talked to him at all was Glen Garber. But he had other names, other women who’d attended purse parties Ann Slocum had given. Sally Diehl. Pamela Forster. Laura Cantrell. Susanne Janigan. Betsy Pinder. He’d give Milford another day or two, see if he could talk to some of them, get a better idea how many different places the purses that were being sold out here were coming from.

One thing Twain was certain of: Slocum and his dead wife were like the hub of a wheel out here. They’d brought all sorts of merchandise into this part of Connecticut. Ann sold the purses, they had a couple of people taking pharmaceuticals off their hands and reselling them, and they even dabbled in some home construction supplies, at least the goods that were easy to move, like electrical components. No toxic drywall.

It wasn’t that Twain didn’t care about all that other stuff, but it was the fashion companies that were paying his tab. If following a drug trail led him to the bogus purses, terrific, but otherwise he wasn’t being paid to worry about all those other things. One time, tracking down some fake Fendis, he’d stumbled upon a DVD counterfeiting lab in the basement of a house in Boston. They were stamping out about five thousand copies of movies, some that were still in theaters, every single day. Twain made a call to the authorities who cared about that sort of thing, and the place was raided within the week.

He was composing an email back to the office about how his investigation was unfolding when there was a rapping at the door.

“Second!” he shouted. He set aside the laptop and swung his stocking feet onto the floor. He was over to the door in six steps and peered through the security peephole. There was nothing but black. Twain had never looked through the peephole before. Maybe it was broken, or someone had stuck gum to it on the outside. It was the kind of place where someone might do that, and where the cleaning staff would never notice.

Or maybe someone was holding a finger over it.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Glen Garber.”

“Mr. Garber?”

He hadn’t remembered telling Garber the name of his hotel. He hadn’t even booked in here yet when he went to visit him. He’d given Garber a card, he was sure of that. So why didn’t the man phone him, instead of tracking him down here?

Unless there was something he wanted to tell Twain that he didn’t feel safe discussing over the phone.

If it was Garber.

“Can you stand a bit back from the door?” Twain asked, putting his eye to the peephole again. “I can’t quite see you.”

“Oh, sure,” the man on the other side said. “How’s that?”

The peephole was still black. Which meant it wasn’t working, or the man was still holding his finger over it.

“Can you give me a minute?” Twain asked. “I just got out of the shower.”

“Yeah, no prob,” the voice said.

Twain’s briefcase was on the desk. He opened it, reached into the pouch on the underside of the lid, took out a short-barreled handgun, felt its reassuring heft in his right hand. He looked at his shoes, on the floor next to the bed, and considered slipping them on, but decided not to take the time. He returned to the door, checked the peephole again.

Still black.

He slid back the chain with his left hand, then gently turned the handle.

It all happened in seconds.

The door slammed into him with tremendous force. If all it had done was hit his body, that would have been bad enough. But the bottom of the door mashed the toes of Twain’s shoeless left foot. He screamed in anguish as he went sprawling across the carpet.

A figure came into the room. Low, and fast. Twain had never seen him in person before, but he knew instantly who he was. And he could see that Sommer’s hands were gloved, and that one of them was holding a gun.

Somehow, despite the pain, Twain had managed to hold on to his. His back pressed to the industrial carpet that looked like crushed caterpillars, his legs splayed awkwardly, Twain arced his arm swiftly, desperate to get a bead on Sommer.

Pfft.

Twain felt something hot under his right arm and dropped the gun. He wanted to reach for it, but this new pain, this was something very different than the pain in his foot. It was sapping him, instantly, of all strength.

Sommer moved toward him, stomped a foot on his wrist to make sure he couldn’t get to his weapon. Twain looked up into the barrel of Sommer’s weapon, noticed the silencer attached to the end.

Pfft.

The second shot went directly into Twain’s forehead. A couple of twitches, and then nothing.

Sommer’s cell phone rang. He tucked his gun away and took out the phone.

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?” Darren Slocum asked.

“Taking care of that thing you told me about.”

Slocum hesitated, like he was going to ask, then thought better of it. “You said you were going to Belinda’s to get the money, that Garber said to check with her by the end of the day.”

“Yes. I called her. She said she had the money but there was a problem. Something to do with her husband.”

Sommer looked down and took a step away from the body. The blood was moving, and he didn’t want any to get on his shoes.

“That’d be George. He can be a bit of a tight-ass.”

“It won’t be a problem.”

“I’m coming with you. If she has that money, eight grand of it’s owed to me. I’ve got a funeral to pay for.”