The Twenty-Three

FORTY-TWO

DAVID set out Sunday at daybreak. He could make it to Lake Luzerne in under an hour, he figured. And if Sam and Carl were at Camp Sunrise, that’d be fantastic, because checking all the other campsites could take several hours.

“Where are you off to so early?” his mother asked him when she found him in the kitchen. She and Don were always up before David, so it was a surprise to find him there.

“Just something I have to do,” he said.

“Is it something for Mr. Finley?” she asked.

“No.” That got him thinking that he really needed to get in touch with Randy. The man had, after all, hired him to do a job, and David had not exactly been giving one hundred percent. Despite the contempt David felt for him, he felt some measure of guilt that he wasn’t earning his salary.

He didn’t want to call and wake the man, so he decided to send him a text that Finley could discover whenever he got around to looking at his phone.

Will be away much of today but hope to connect late afternoon. Sorry about this.

David sent the text.

He was about to put his phone away when he saw the telltale dots that told him Finley was writing a reply.

Fine.

That didn’t sound like the Finley David knew. Where was the outrage? The bluster? The guilt-tripping?

Maybe, David thought, he’d been terminated. Maybe Finley’s short response meant he had found someone else to work for him. David wasn’t sure whether to be hurt or relieved. He didn’t like working for the man, but he also needed the job.

David phoned him.

“Am I fired?” David asked when Finley answered.

“I don’t know,” Finley said.

“Look, I know I’ve had some things going on, but I’m hoping to get them all sorted out. I’ve got to take a run up to Lake Luzerne today, but once I’m done up there, I can-”

“Jane’s dead.”

Finley filled him in. A stunned David didn’t know what to say beyond that he was sorry.

“I may pull out,” Finley said. “I’m thinking, the hell with it.”

“Don’t make a decision right away,” David counseled. “Take care… of what you have to take care of. Give it some time. Then decide.”

“You don’t understand,” he said.

“Don’t understand what?”

“She was the reason,” Finley said.

David started to say something else but realized Finley had ended the call.

“What happened?” Arlene asked as Don came into the room.

David shook his head and asked, “Can you look after Ethan today?”

Don asked, “Can we have coffee today or is the water still going to kill us?”

Arlene asked her son, “Do you know? Is the water safe yet?”

“They should have it fixed by now,” Don said. “I don’t know why the hell they can’t have it fixed by now. They should have been able to flush the system. I’ve half a mind to go over to the plant myself and see what the hell they’re doing.”

“Yes,” Arlene said. “I’m sure they’d welcome your input.”

If I don’t have a job, David thought, I’ll be losing this house and moving back in with them.

“Can you look after Ethan?” he asked again.

“Of course,” Arlene said.

David was out the door.

David didn’t have GPS built into his car, or even one of those stick-on mini-nav systems that could be put atop the dashboard. But he had looked up the location for Camp Sunrise on his phone’s map app. He wasn’t expecting it to be difficult to find.

He was there in just over an hour, and along the way he had to think about just what the purpose of this trip was. Was his search for Sam solely motivated by concern for her, or was this more about him?

About half-and-half, he concluded.

He was, without a doubt, worried for her safety. Brandon was looking for her, and he wanted to be sure Sam and her son were safe, that Brandon had not found them. But he also realized Sam was no fool. The fact that she’d gotten herself and Carl out of town so quickly was evidence of that.

But that wasn’t enough for David. He had to know.

And, he admitted to himself, he wanted Sam to know he cared enough to look for her.

When he reached Camp Sunrise, he found a small, tollbooth-like structure between the entrance and exit lanes. It was designed to look like a mini log cabin, with wooden gates in the raised position on both sides. There was no one in the booth, so there was nothing to stop him from driving straight in.

It wasn’t even nine in the morning yet, and the camp was a sleepy place. Few people were out and about, but as he drove the narrow, winding roads that led through the forested grounds, he noticed exceptions. There was a man frying up some bacon on a Coleman stove set up on a picnic table. At another campsite, a woman was running an extension cord from an electrical post to a cappuccino maker resting on the top of a stump.

“Roughing it,” David said under his breath.

David didn’t see any empty campsites. This was a long weekend, and it seemed a safe bet that the place was filled to capacity. There were tents, small trailers, and those hybrid tent-trailer things, with two wheels and a metal chassis, that opened up to sleep four or more people.

Driving slowly through the camp, David did not see Sam or Carl anywhere, and even if they were still sleeping in their tent, he saw no car that looked like hers. He made his way back to where he’d turned in off the main road, and saw that there was now someone in the booth. He pulled up alongside it and powered down the window.

“Help ya?” said a man-no, more like a kid about seventeen-at the window.

“I’m not staying here,” David said. “I’m trying to find somebody.”

“Okay.”

“Samantha Worthington,” he said. “She probably checked in Thursday night. She’s with her son, about nine or ten, and they’d have pitched a tent. They don’t have a trailer or anything like that.” He thought maybe he needed a reason to be looking for them. “There’s kind of a family emergency back home and we’ve been trying to locate them.”

The kid appeared to be consulting a book, or maybe a laptop. David couldn’t see from where he sat.

“I don’t have anything here. No Worthington,” he said. “When did you say they arrived?”

“Thursday, probably.”

“Did they have a reservation?”

David was betting Samantha had not made one. If she’d just found out about Brandon’s escape, there wouldn’t have been time. She’d have thrown everything they needed into the car and just taken off.

“I doubt it,” David said.

“Well, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have been able to get in. All the sites had been booked ahead by Wednesday.”

David felt deflated. He’d played a hunch and it had been wrong. But just because Sam wasn’t here didn’t mean she couldn’t have tried another campsite in the area.

“Thanks,” he said to the kid. He drove out of the park, then pulled over onto the shoulder of the road to consult the Web browser on his phone, thinking he’d get the names and locations of other nearby campsites.

Except he couldn’t get online. He had no bars on his phone. He couldn’t get cell service here.

Maybe that was why Samantha hadn’t taken any of his calls, or tried to get in touch with him. He felt simultaneously discouraged and encouraged. He believed he was on the right track, but was still no closer to finding them.

He got out of the car and walked back to the booth.

“If you’re full up, where might you send someone to try next?”

The kid in the booth didn’t hesitate. “Probably Call of the Loon.”

“What?”

“I know, seriously. A pretty dumb name for a place. Call of the Loon Acres. About five more miles up the road that way. They try to squeeze in extras even when they’re booked solid.”

“Thanks,” David said, and ran back to the car.

FORTY-THREE

Duckworth

WHEN the alarm went off at six, I was dreaming. It was more a nightmare than a dream, but no one ever says they were nightmaring. But that’s a more accurate word for what I was doing when the clock radio started to beep.

I’m in the park by the falls. It’s dusk and I am standing on the sidewalk by the road that runs parallel to the park.

I hear screaming. It seems to be coming from all directions. I turn and look one way, thinking that is where the screams are originating. But I no sooner spin around than the screams seem to be coming from behind me. I keep spinning round and round, and pretty soon it’s as though the screams are coming from everywhere.

I am turning and turning to the point of dizziness. Finally I stop, pretty sure the screams are not all around me, but near the base of the falls. I start walking in that direction; then I feel a tap on my shoulder.

I spin around suddenly and there, directly in front of me, is Olivia Fisher.

She is looking at me quizzically, an almost naive expression on her face. She says, “Didn’t you hear me?”

“I did,” I say. “I just couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from.”

“It was coming from here,” she says, opens her mouth wide, and points into it. But her mouth has opened unnaturally wide, as though her jaw is no longer hinged.

And blood begins to pour from her mouth, like water gushing from an opened fire hydrant. Blood spills over me, and I look down and see that within seconds it is up to my knees.

Even though her mouth is flowing with blood, I can still hear her speaking to me. “Do you know what my favorite number is?”

“No,” I say.

“Twenty-three. Do you know why?”

“Tell me.”

“You already know. You’ve figured it out.”

“No, I haven’t. I’m not sure. I-”

“Oh, dear,” Olivia says. Her mouth is back to normal now, no blood flowing from it. But she has her hands over her stomach, where her entrails are spilling out. She is attempting to stuff them back in.

“How will I explain this to my mother?” she asks.

The alarm wakes me before I can offer her a suggestion.

Maureen sat up in bed as I reached over to kill the alarm. “If that hadn’t gone off, I’d have woken you up,” she said. “You were starting to shout things. You were having a nightmare.”

“Yeah,” I said, throwing back the covers and putting my feet on the floor. I had a headache and my mouth was dry.

“I can make coffee,” Maureen said. “I got bottled water yesterday.”

“You went down to Finley’s circus?”

“I got it at the Stop and Shop.”

I checked my phone, which was recharging on my bedside table. I hadn’t muted it when I’d turned out the light, in case someone tried to reach me in the night. But there was a text message on the screen.

“I never heard this come in,” I said.

“You were out cold,” Maureen said. “When did it show up?”

I looked. The text was from Joyce Pilgrim, and she’d sent it at eleven forty-five p.m. About half an hour after I’d lost consciousness. I told Maureen.

“I hadn’t come to bed yet,” she said, “so I never heard it, either.”

I read the message: Call me when you get this. Might have something.

“Shit,” I said.

Maureen threw back the covers and headed downstairs as I texted back to Joyce: Just got this. If you’re up, phone me.

I took the phone with me into the bathroom, placing it on a shelf just outside the shower. And thought: Is it safe to take a shower?

I’d had one the morning before with no ill effects. Maybe water laced with sodium azide was enough to kill you if you drank it, but its effects were negligible when it washed over your skin. Those granules I’d touched the day before had made my finger itch, but hadn’t burned through my skin or anything.

I made a call to the station to see what the latest updates were. The state health officials believed the contaminated water had moved through the system, but to be on the safe side, they were recommending against drinking anything from the taps for at least another forty-eight hours. Water for nondrinking purposes was believed to be safe. In the case of a shower, they advised, let it run for a good five minutes before stepping in.

Well, that was a relief. The idea of taking a bath with several bottles of Finley Springs water did not appeal to me.

I turned on the water and let it run.

After five minutes, I stripped out of my pajamas and stepped

under the hot spray. I was rinsing shampoo out of my hair while soaping up my ample belly when my cell phone rang.

“Goddamn it.”

I turned off the shower while still soapy, reached out for a towel to get my hands dry enough to pick up the phone without dropping it, then, still in the stall, put the phone to my ear.

“Yeah?”

“It’s Joyce. I got your text.”

“Okay,” I said. “Sorry. I was asleep when you sent yours. Just saw it.”

“I figured.”

“So what have you got?”

“A witness. Maybe. Not a great one, but a witness.”

“Go on,” I said, using my free hand to wipe away some shampoo that was trying to find its way into my eye.

“So I did what you asked. I reviewed the surveillance footage.” She told me about seeing a car park near Lorraine Plummer’s residence around the time of her murder, a man getting out and returning.

“What did he look like?”

“You can’t tell a thing from the video,” she said. “And you can’t get any kind of a good look at the car, either.”

“Well, still, that’s something. Maybe we can get someone to enhance the video, or maybe there are some other cameras along the way to Thackeray we can check. But what’s this about a witness?”

She told me about the appearance of the jogger in the video. How he’d run right past the parked car.

“So last night, I camped out there, thinking maybe this was a regular run this guy takes, and I’d get a chance to ask him whether he noticed that car or not.”

I felt my pulse quicken, which took my mind off the fact that I was freezing as soapy water clung to me. Maureen stepped into the bathroom, looked at me standing naked in the shower with a phone in my hand, gave me an up and down, and left without comment.

“And?” I said.

“He came by. I got out of my car and stopped him and got him to think back to the car and whether he remembered anything.”

“Ok-k-ay.”

“Something wrong?”

“Nothing. Just felt a chill, is all.”

“So I tried to jog his memory, no pun intended, and it kind of came back to him.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. He said the car was a four-door sedan. Hard to tell at night, but dark blue or maybe black. He was a little fuzzy on the make, but he thought North American. Like a Ford.”

“Plate number?” I knew, even as I asked it, that it was a long shot.

“No, he didn’t take any notice of the plate. At least, not the numbers. But he thought maybe it was out of state. He thought it might have been green.”

Green. Vermont plates were green, and Vermont was not very far away.

“Okay,” I said. “So we’ve got a bit to go on with the car.”

“He says he saw the guy,” Joyce Pilgrim said.

I gripped the phone a little tighter. “Tell me.”

“White, about six-three, ball cap-for the Yankees, he thinks-running shoes, dark blue Windbreaker, maybe a hundred and eighty to two hundred pounds.”

“He must have got a long look at him to get that kind of detail.”

“He says he only saw him for a second. And he didn’t see him near the car. Saw him farther away, near the building where Lorraine Plummer was killed. But he was figuring it must have been the guy whose car it was, since there wasn’t anyone else around.”

“This is amazing, Joyce. This is really terrific work.” I took one step out of the shower and reached for a towel. I rubbed it over my soapy hair, tried to blot myself where I could with one available hand. “You got a name for this witness?”

“Yeah, hang on, I wrote it down. Here’s the phone number. It’s-”

“I can’t take it down right now. I can call you back in a couple of minutes. What about the name?” I stepped out of the shower all the way, my feet on the furry white bath mat.

“Rooney,” she said.

“What?”

“Rooney. Victor Rooney.”

The towel slipped out of my hand.

I said nothing. I was trying to grasp the significance. The boyfriend of Olivia Fisher just happened to be running past Lorraine Plummer’s building at the time of her murder.

Maybe his description of the mystery man was so good, right down to the Yankees cap, because he wanted us to have someone else to look for.

Maybe someone he’d never seen at all.

“Thanks, Joyce,” I said. “I’ll be getting back to you.”

Maureen appeared again, looked at me standing there, stark naked, towel around my ankles, phone still to my ear.

“Coffee’s ready,” she said.

FORTY-FOUR

THERE had been a lot of screaming and yelling before things had quieted down the previous evening. Celeste had been yelling at Dwayne to explain how Cal had come to be tied up in the garage. Dwayne was shouting back that he had no idea. Cal had cried “Bullshit!” on that. Then Celeste turned her anger on her brother, shouting that he had very likely broken her husband’s leg when Cal went at him with the two-by-four.

And then Crystal had started screaming hysterically at no one in particular.

At that point, Cal moved to calm her. He tried to bring the girl into his arms, but she was reluctant at first, standing rigidly, arms tight to her body. He knelt down next to her, spoke softly to her, but not before telling Celeste and Dwayne to go into the house.

“Don’t think about hightailing it out of here,” Cal had warned his brother-in-law. “Because I’ll find you, and when I do, I’m gonna be mad.”

Dwayne had said nothing as he retreated from the garage. But as he and his wife headed back toward the house, they could be heard arguing again.

“I’m okay,” Cal had told Crystal. “I really am. I’ve got a bump on the head, but otherwise I’m fine.”

“There wouldn’t be anybody to look after me till my dad gets here,” she said, “if you were dead.”

“I’m not dead.” He’d put his hands on her upper arms, squeezed. “I’m sorry you had to see all that. You’ve been through enough.”

“I heard the phone.”

Cal smiled. “You saved me.”

“Celeste phoned you, but I heard it. Dwayne said he didn’t hear anything, but I was sure. He was lying.”

“Yes, he was lying.”

“Are you going to kill him?”

Cal had shaken his head. “I don’t think so.”

“But you might.”

He was reminded that Crystal was not good at detecting irony or sarcasm. “I will definitely not kill him.”

“Because I’m okay with it if you do.”

“Celeste would be very upset with me.” He’d given her shoulders another squeeze. “You were there for me. I don’t know what might have happened if you hadn’t found me.”

Crystal had moved into his arms, put hers around him. “I love you,” she’d said.

Other than Crystal, no one had had any sleep by the time the sun came up.

Dwayne had finally come clean on what was going on. His friend Harry at the printing operation-a guy he had, years ago, gone to high school with-was part of a gang that was ripping off electronics stores. They’d stolen from parked trucks and broken into several stores over the last eighteen months and had acquired a lot of product.

Harry said they were starting to worry the police might be onto them, and they needed a few places to hide the merchandise. Harry knew that Dwayne wasn’t making much money these days, what with the town canceling many of his paving contracts, so he approached him. “Hide this stuff for us,” he said, “and we’ll give you a thousand bucks.”

Dwayne wrestled with it for a while. He convinced himself he wasn’t really doing anything wrong. He hadn’t stolen the goods. He wasn’t in on any of that. He hadn’t planned it, he hadn’t driven the truck, and he hadn’t broken into any places. All he was doing now was hanging on to some stuff for a friend. He told himself he didn’t really know for sure where it had come from. Harry could have been making up a wild story just to sound more important.

Sure.

So he started hiding stuff for Harry. He’d been doing it for the better part of a month. Celeste wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or relieved. At least she knew now that when her husband was gone at odd hours, he wasn’t having an affair.

Although, if you got caught sleeping with another woman, you weren’t likely to end up in jail.

When Cal guessed correctly that something was going on in the garage, Dwayne panicked. Once he’d knocked him out, he didn’t know what else to do but tie him up and hide him in the garage until he figured out his next step.

He was on the phone with Harry, trying to come up with a plan, when Crystal appeared, determined to find Cal.

“What was Harry’s plan?” Cal asked.

Dwayne was hesitant. “We hadn’t really come up with anything.”

“Was Harry’s plan to kill me?”

Dwayne, who was sitting across the kitchen table from Cal, holding an ice pack to his thigh, couldn’t look his brother-in-law in the eye. “There was no way I’d let that happen. No way.”

“But Harry put it out there.”

“And I shut it down.”

“Oh my God,” Celeste said, pacing the kitchen floor. “How can this be happening? How is it possible? What the hell were you thinking?”

“I know,” Dwayne said sheepishly. “I fucked up.”

“Fucked up?” Celeste said. “Is that what you’d call this? A fuckup? A fuckup is when you back the truck into the mailbox. This-I don’t even know what to call this-this is a catastrophe. How could you have gotten us into this? This is my brother! You actually discussed with this asshole the idea of killing my brother!”

“I told you, that never would have happened.”

“What if Harry decided if you wouldn’t be part of it? He’d just do it anyway?”

Dwayne looked blankly at his wife.

Cal said, “What if Harry decided you were as much a liability as me?”

That made him blink. “No. I mean, we go back. Harry and me go way back.”

Cal sighed. Celeste was about to light into her husband again, but her brother raised a calming hand. “We’re going to figure this out.”

“Figure it out?” she said. “How? By you laying charges against my husband? Because if I was you, that’s what I’d be thinking of doing. I’d want to send this son of a bitch to jail-that’s what I’d want to do.” But then her face began to crumple. “But tell me you’re not going to do that.”

Cal slowly shook his head. “I’m not going to do that.” He looked at Dwayne. “But that doesn’t mean you still couldn’t end up in prison. You’ve got a garage filled with stolen merchandise. You need to get rid of it.”

“I can’t just do that.”

“Why not?” Celeste asked.

“Are you kidding? Harry and his buddies expect to get it back when they think it’s safe. And there’s the matter of the money. They’ve paid me to do a job.”

“How much?” Celeste asked.

“So far, nineteen hundred.”

“So give it back.”

Dwayne lowered his eyes. “It’s already all gone.”

Cal was very quiet. Thinking.

Celeste said, “What are we going to do, Cal? What the hell are we going to do?”

He said to his brother-in-law, “Call Harry. Set up a meeting. Tell him we want to do a return.”

FORTY-FIVE

SAMANTHA Worthington had taken the call Thursday afternoon while working at the Laundromat. It was someone in the prosecutor’s office in Boston, who’d been involved in the trial against Brandon.

“He’s on the loose,” the woman said. “During a hospital visit to see his mother. He got away. Thought you should know.”

The first thing Sam did, after going into the bathroom to throw up, was call the owner of the Laundromat and tell him she was gone. Right then, right now. She was walking out the door and she didn’t know when she would be back.

Didn’t even lock up. There were three customers in the middle of doing their laundry. Clothes agitating in washers, spinning round in dryers. Sam walked out the back door, got in her car, and headed straight for her son’s school.

Classes would have been over in another ten minutes, but Sam felt there was no time to spare. Her ex-husband had escaped the night before. That gave him plenty of time to get to Promise Falls. Granted, he might have a few challenges in that regard. He’d have to find transportation. He’d have to get out of the Boston area without being seen.

But what if he had someone helping him? Ed Noble was in jail, but maybe another one of Brandon’s idiotic friends had stepped into the breach. Maybe he was in Promise Falls already. Maybe he was waiting for her at her house.

She parked illegally at the school’s main entrance, went to the office, and said she had to pull Carl out now.

The office secretary said, “The bell will be going in just seven minutes, Ms. Worthington, so-”

“Now!”

Carl was dismissed from his class and showed up in the office two minutes later. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Get in the car,” she said.

By the time they were almost home, she’d told him what she knew. They had to get out of town before his father got there.

“How do we even know he’s coming?” Carl asked.

“Are you kidding me?” his mother said. “After all the shit his parents pulled? What do you think he’s going to do? Go to Disneyland?”

But she couldn’t shake the fear that he might already be in the house. Carl had an idea.

“Drop me off a block away,” he said. “I’ll sneak up and peek in the windows and see if he’s there.”

Sam didn’t want to put her son in a risky situation. “Not a chance.”

“I can do it,” he said. “I’ve done it before.”

“What?”

“Like, one time-you won’t get mad, okay?”

Sam, with some reluctance, said, “Okay.”

“I found this dead cat on the road. It had been hit by a car, but it hadn’t been split open or anything, and me and my friends wanted to have a closer look at it, you know? So we put it in a bag, but then no one else wanted to take it home and they wanted me to do it, so I said okay, but I knew you’d freak out if you saw me come into the house with a bag filled with a dead cat, so before I came in, I peeked in the windows and saw you were in the kitchen, which gave me just enough time to get in the front door and up to my room.”

Sam was speechless.

“Anyway, I had it for like a day in my closet and it was starting to smell, so I put it in the garbage.”

Sam was going to ask Carl just when this had happened, then decided it did not matter.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll let you out here. I’m going to sit in the car, right here in this spot. You go find out if he’s in the house.”

Carl bolted from the car and almost instantly disappeared, ducking between houses half a block from their place.

Four minutes went by. Then six. Sam was starting to worry. The kid wasn’t as smart as he thought. Brandon must have been in the house and had spotted him. Grabbed him. Now she had to decide whether to call the police or-

Carl opened the passenger door, jumped in. “All clear,” he said.

Sam gave him his marching orders. Pack a bag, fast. She’d dig out the camping supplies. She’d find that cheap Styrofoam cooler and dump food from the fridge into it. They’d raid the cupboard for other stuff, then throw everything into the car as quickly as possible.

One of the last things she put into the car was the pump-action shotgun.

You just never knew.

She’d wrapped it up in a blanket, placed it on the floor of the backseat, the barrel propped up on the hump. She’d put three shells in the chamber, pulled the fore-end back to cock the hammer and load a shell, moved the slide back forward. All she’d have to do was pull the trigger.

“Do not touch that,” she told Carl.

Just before hitting the road, she went to a bank machine and took out five hundred. Her daily maximum withdrawal, but it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been allowed to take out more. Once she’d made the withdrawal, all that was left was thirty-four bucks.

She headed north to Lake Luzerne. It wouldn’t take long to get to Camp Sunrise. Brandon knew she and Carl still went on camping trips, but she was pretty sure he didn’t know the name of their favorite campsite.

But when she got there, the place was fully booked. The kid in the booth suggested they try Call of the Loon Acres. There might still be some vacant campsites if they moved fast.

They got the second-to-last spot.

She and Carl pitched the tent, brought in their sleeping bags, set up the Coleman stove on their picnic table. If you were going to hide out, you might as well have some fun doing it. This, at least, was a hideout Sam could afford. She had enough cash to stay here for a week or more. They’d live on the food they’d taken from the house, and when that ran out, they’d hit a local grocery store.

No restaurants, no fast-food joints. Too expensive. Sam didn’t know how long they’d have to stay here. She figured the police would be out in force looking for Brandon and would have him back behind bars before too long.

Sam parked her car around the back of the tent. She hadn’t wanted to keep the shotgun in the tent with her. Didn’t want to take that kind of risk with Carl in there. But she had left it on the backseat of the car, the blanket no longer wrapped around it, but covering it loosely. So, if need be, she could run to the car, open the back door, and have that shotgun in hand in seconds.

She felt bad about David.

Carl had asked her, “Are you going to call him?”

She wanted to. But hadn’t she involved him enough in her problems? David had already rescued Carl from Ed. Did she want him having to rescue them from Brandon? Shouldn’t she be able to handle her own shit?

The truth was, David was better off without her. Samantha Worthington, she told herself, was bad news.

About as bad as it got.

By the time they’d set themselves up at Call of the Loon-seriously, how did they come up with that?-it was something of a moot point. There was almost no cell service there. And Sam was starting to think she was safer with the phone turned off completely. She didn’t want anyone triangulating her position. Not that Brandon was likely to have the means to do that, but who knew? Maybe he had a friend somewhere who could do something like that.

Not worth taking the chance.

So now it was Sunday morning. They’d spent three nights sleeping in this tent, and the novelty was wearing off. The first couple of days had been, considering everything, fun. They’d gone on some hikes, seen a deer, if not a loon. The park bordered on the lake, and while it was still too early in the year to swim-the water was freezing-they’d wandered out onto the docks, skipped some stones.

But the night before, as they were bunking down for the night, Carl had said, “Can we go back tomorrow?”

“I don’t know.”

“This has been fun, but I don’t want to do it anymore. I want to go back. I want to see my friends. I want to see Ethan. I want to be in school Tuesday. I don’t know what I missed on Friday. I’m going to have to catch up. If we’re gone for lots of days, I’m going to get way behind and then I won’t get into the next grade.”

“I don’t know if it’s safe to go back. Tell you what. Tomorrow, we’ll take a ride someplace where we get cell reception, and I’ll make a call. See if the police have found your father.”

“Would it be so bad?” he’d asked.

“Would what be so bad?”

“If he found us?”

She could hardly believe what he was asking.

“Your father-and I’m sorry to say this-is a convicted criminal, Carl. He robbed a bank. He knocked someone out in the hospital. He’s a bad, bad person.”

Carl had thought about that. “I know.”

“And now he’s an escaped convict. A person like that is pretty desperate. There’s no telling what he might do.”

“But doesn’t Dad love me?” Carl had asked.

Sam had felt the tears welling up in her eyes. “Yes, he loves you. For all his faults, he loves you.”

“He never beat me or anything.”

“I know. He never did that.”

“If he was a really bad man, he’d have beat me. And you. Did he ever beat you?”

Sam hadn’t wanted to get into the times Brandon had scared the hell out of her. Had he ever actually, deliberately hurt her? There was that time he’d knocked the speaker off the shelf and it had landed on her foot, but he couldn’t have known that would happen. But he’d shaken a fist at her more than once. She’d seen him start to take a swing, then stop himself.

She knew he had it in him.

“Go to sleep,” she’d finally said.

They both slept well. Sam looked at her watch, saw that it was nearly nine. Carl was still sleeping soundly. She got dressed, laced up her shoes, then slowly raised the front flap zipper without waking her son. Sam slipped out, stood, did some stretches. Sleeping on the ground was not all it was cracked up to be. The truth was, she wanted to be home as much as Carl did.

She fired up the Coleman, filled a small pot with water from a nearby tap. Some of the other guests had mentioned something about the water in Promise Falls being contaminated. Maybe getting out of town had its benefits.

She put the pot on the stove. She spooned out some instant coffee from a jar of Nescafé into a paper cup. Once the water was boiling, she’d pour it in. It wasn’t exactly Starbucks, but it would have to do.

Sam filled the cup, tossed the rest of the boiling water onto the dirt, turned off the flame on the stove. She blew on the coffee, then took a tentative sip.

“Ahh,” she said.

“You always did like your cup of joe in the morning.”

The voice came from behind her. She whirled around so quickly she dropped the coffee onto the ground.

“Hi,” said Brandon. “It’s great to see you, Sam.”

FORTY-SIX

Duckworth

I finished up in the bathroom, got dressed, and headed downstairs. Maureen, aware that I was in a hurry to get out of the house, had a breakfast ready for me. Coffee made with bottled water, a bowlful of blueberries and strawberries, and some kind of bran-granola mix that looked like something we’d put out in the bird feeder, with a small container of milk alongside.

“Okay, I’ll admit, the berries look delicious,” I said, “but what is this?”

“I promise it won’t kill you.”

“I might want to drink town water after the first mouthful. Did this come out of that bag of stuff you give to the starlings?”

“It’s not bad. Trust me,” Maureen said. “You’ve said you’ve felt better. I’m trying to help.”

I sat down, attacked the berries first. They were sweet enough that they didn’t need any sugar sprinkled on them. But I did it anyway. I poured the milk over the cereal, got some on my spoon, and put it in my mouth.

“Mmm,” I said. I couldn’t think of a discreet way to spit it out. I washed it down with some coffee.

I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Joyce Pilgrim’s call. I’d already been planning to visit Victor Rooney today. I’d wanted to ask him about his feelings of antipathy toward Promise Falls. Someone had it in for the town, and Victor had as good a reason as anyone else I could think of.

The people of Promise Falls had failed Olivia, and by extension, they had failed him.

I’d learned from Olivia’s father that Victor knew his way around machinery. He had the smarts to start up a mothballed Ferris wheel. He could probably figure out how to make up some basic explosives powerful enough to bring down a drive-in movie screen. He had even worked at the water treatment plant one summer in his teens. He could have known Mason Helt-this was something I’d want to check-and persuaded him to scare female Thackeray students in a “23” hoodie.

And it didn’t take a genius to trap twenty-three squirrels and string them up on a fence, or get a bus out of the town compound and set it on fire.

But now that I knew he’d been in the vicinity of Lorraine Plummer’s building at the time of her death, my mind was exploring all kinds of possibilities.

Rooney’d had an alibi for the time of Olivia’s death. But was it conceivable he killed Rosemary Gaynor and Lorraine Plummer in a similar fashion as a way of making Promise Falls pay for its sins?

My mind circled back to the “twenty-three” business. I could imagine Victor wanting to take action against the twenty-two people who did nothing when they heard Olivia’s screams. But would he really include his own inaction, bringing the number of those who’d failed to be responsible citizens up to twenty-three? Did that make any sense? Was I reaching?

I was so busy thinking it through that I got to the bottom of the cereal bowl without realizing what I was eating.

“I’ll have to make you that again,” Maureen said.

I finished off the berries and downed half my coffee. “I’m off.”

I slipped on my sport jacket and was out the door. Just as I was slipping the key into the ignition, a car stopped at the end of the driveway, blocking my path. A Lincoln.

I got out. Finley got out of the Lincoln and met me halfway up the driveway.

“Randy,” I said.

He didn’t look much better to me than he had the day before at his house. “Barry,” he said. “You got a second?”

I wanted to say no, but what came out of my mouth was, “Sure.”

“I did put the squeeze on your son,” he said. “You already know this, but I’m telling you, you got it right. Whatever Trevor told you, it’s true. About his ex-girlfriend, and the thing that happened between them. I used that against him to get him to tell me stuff he heard you talking about. How Finderman didn’t do her job right.”

I didn’t say anything.

“That’s me. That’s how I operate. I did it.” He paused. “I’ve come to apologize.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not going to ask whether you accept it or not. If I was you, I probably wouldn’t. But I’m telling you I’m sorry, just the same.”

“I hear you,” I said.

“That’s not all,” Randy said. “I want to help.”

“You’ve been doing that,” I reminded him. “Yesterday, when you were handing out water.”

“Oh, that,” he said. “That was for publicity. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was happy to help people. But I wanted to stick it to Amanda Croydon, and I did a pretty good job.” He managed a smile for about two seconds. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m going to withdraw. I’m not going to run for mayor.”

The last thing I wanted to do was discourage him from dropping out. I didn’t want him in charge of Promise Falls again. But I wondered if he was packing it in for the right reason.

“Because of Jane?” I asked.

He nodded. “I wanted to prove something to her. I can’t now.”

“I guess you know what the right thing to do is.”

“But like I said, I want to help. I want to help you find out who poisoned this town. I want to help find out who killed all these people.”

Was I being conned? Was this a performance? Was Randy really pulling out, or was this an even more brilliant publicity stunt than handing out the water? I could imagine him going before the cameras to withdraw, to declare that helping the police was more important than his political future.

“If I need your help, I’ll be in touch,” I said. I started to turn to get back into my car, but Randy grabbed my arm.

“Don’t you get it?” he asked. “You think I’m playing you, don’t you? That this is some new stunt I’ve dreamed up. Barry, this son of a bitch, whoever did this, he killed my wife.”

He wouldn’t let go of my arm. “He killed Jane. He killed my Jane.”

Gently, I freed myself from his grasp. “I know.”

“I’ll be looking for you,” he said. “Anytime I see you around town, I’m going to be bugging you, seeing if I can help. I’m going to be a huge pain in the ass.”

It was impossible not to smile. “Randy, you’ve always been that.”

Even he smiled. “You’re a straight shooter, Barry. Always have been. When I said you’d make a good chief, it was for real. You know how they say even a busted clock gives you the right time twice a day? Well, even when you’re a nonstop bullshit artist, occasionally the truth slips out by accident.”

FORTY-SEVEN

DAVID Harwood made a couple of wrong turns, but eventually found his way to Call of the Loon Acres. There was no formal gate similar to the one at the previous campsite, but there was a sign directing guests to a parking lot. It read: ONE VEHICLE PER SIGHT, ALL OTHERS HERE. PLEASE LIMIT YOU’RE DRIVING THREW THE PARK.

He pulled into the graveled lot and parked among a dozen other vehicles. He did not see Sam’s among them, and figured if she was staying here, she was parked by her tent. Once out of the car, he marveled at how quiet it was. The odd chirping of birds, muffled voices of some early risers drifting out from the woods.

The smell of smoke and bacon.

He and Sam had talked about taking their boys, together, on such a trip, and it had sounded like such a good idea. But being here now neither relaxed David nor gave him an appreciation of the great outdoors.

He was wired. He’d had no coffee but felt as though he’d overdosed on caffeine. Aside from those troubles a few years ago involving his late wife, and his recent entanglement in his cousin Marla’s tragedy, David had little experience with dangerous people. Okay, years ago, there was that hired killer, but that hadn’t exactly ended well.

But he’d never come up against an escaped convict before. And he was hoping he wouldn’t now.

His only goal at the moment was to find Sam, and be reassured she was okay. He hadn’t thought about what the next step might be.

Would he stay with her, either at the campsite or back in Promise Falls, until Brandon Worthington had been caught and returned to prison? Be her protector? Her bodyguard? And was he kidding himself that he could play that role? Did he think he was Liam Neeson or something?

He would be happy to put her and Carl up at his house, where they might feel less vulnerable. It’d be crowded, what with his parents there, but their own home was supposed to be ready for them to move back into any day now.

He also knew Sam might tell him to mind his own business. He could hear her saying, “I can look after myself, thank you very much.” After all, she’d left without telling him where she was going.

Next to the sign for the parking lot, there was a map of Call of the Loon Acres, which showed a tangle of roads, the location of the bathrooms, the lake, a store where you could buy ice and other provisions.

David started walking.

He trekked up a road that was little more than two ruts with a strip of grass in the center. About every fifty feet on either side, nestled back in between the trees, he saw a tent or a trailer, plus a car.

David didn’t know the shape or color of Sam’s tent, so he was looking for her car.

It turned out he didn’t need to know that either.

He saw Sam. And a man he’d never seen before, but was pretty sure he recognized from the Boston TV news report he’d found online.

He heard voices first, about fifty yards up the road. That was when he stopped.

The man was standing just off the road, about thirty feet from a picnic table where a woman was working at a camp stove. They were having a conversation.

Brandon had found her.

David underwent a brief paralysis, a weakness in the knees. How should he respond? Stride right up? Find the camp office and get someone to call the police? But if he did the latter, and Brandon did something in the meantime-like attacking Sam, or making a grab for Carl-David wouldn’t be there to help.

Shit, shit, shit.

He needed to get closer, hear what was going on without Brandon knowing he was there.

David ducked left, off the road and into the woods. He was three or four campsites away from where Sam had pitched her tent. He tiptoed past someone else’s tent trailer and went into thicker forest, twigs snapping and leaves rustling under his feet. Using the trees as cover, he worked his way as quietly as he could until he was behind Sam’s tent. Parked behind it was her car.

He crouched as he emerged from the woods, blocked by not only the tent but by the car, too. He could see neither Sam nor Brandon, but he could still hear them talking. He wasn’t able to make out anything they were saying.

He poked his head above the sill of the back window of Sam’s car, but all he could see was the tent.

Something in the backseat caught his eye. Something extending out from under a blanket.

Four inches of a shotgun barrel.

The same shotgun Sam had pointed at him the first time he had knocked on her door.

David reached up for the door handle, lifted, and pulled, testing to see whether it was locked. It wasn’t.

Slowly, he opened the door, worried that it would creak or squeak. He needed to get it open only a few inches. He got it as far as he needed to without making any noise. He slid the blanket off the shotgun, took hold of the barrel near the end, and slowly pulled it toward him.

He realized he had the barrel pointing straight at his chest, so he shifted a few inches to the left so that he wouldn’t kill himself if the damn thing went off.

He didn’t even know if it was loaded. But then, maybe it wouldn’t have to be.

Just having it would be enough to defuse the situation, if it came to that.

He got the weapon all the way out, held it in his arms, got a sense of its heft.

David didn’t know a lot about guns. But didn’t you have to-what did they call it-rack it? To put a shell in the chamber, if there were any shells in it to begin with?

But he didn’t see anything to rack. There was something under the barrel that looked like you had to slide it back and forth.

He decided not to touch it. Just waving the gun around would be threatening enough, wouldn’t it?

Sweat was beaded on his forehead, running into his eyes and stinging. His heart was pounding. It was a drum beating in his ears.

Take a breath, take a breath, take a breath.

He could do this. He could save Sam.

All he had to do now was get into a position where he could see what was going on.

FORTY-EIGHT

THE meeting was set up on a lightly traveled road that ran behind the Five Mountains theme park.

Cal had picked the spot because he could see the better part of a mile in each direction. If Harry was followed to the location, they’d know.

He was in the passenger seat of Dwayne’s pickup, Dwayne behind the wheel. His leg was swollen where Cal had hit it, but the bone wasn’t broken and he was able to drive.

“I really appreciate this,” Dwayne said. “Considering.”

Cal’s eyes kept moving from the road ahead to the oversized mirror bolted to the passenger door. He was looking for the rusted blue Aerostar van he’d seen Harry driving the day before.

“Like I was saying,” Dwayne said, “I’m really grateful that-”

“Yeah, I got it,” Cal said. “I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for Celeste.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I don’t think Harry is going to like this.”

Cal, looking in the mirror, said, “This might be him.”

Dwayne glanced in his own mirror. “Yeah, I think-he’s pulling over onto the shoulder.”

“Let’s do this,” Cal said, and opened his door. They were both out of the truck, standing by the back bumper, as Harry’s van rolled up on the gravel. The van stopped five feet behind Dwayne’s truck.

Harry got out, looked at Cal.

“I know you.”

Cal nodded. “Don’t worry about those business cards.”

“Jesus,” he said nervously. “Are you a cop?”

Cal shook his head slowly.

“What’s going on?” Harry asked Dwayne. “Is this the guy? The one snooping around your place?”

Dwayne said, “Yeah. Look, Harry, I’m really sorry, but the thing is, I really can’t be-”

Cal cut in. “He’s not going to hold on to your shit any longer.” He patted the vinyl cover over the pickup bed. “It’s all here. You’re taking it back.”

Harry said, “No fucking way. They might be watching me.” Cal looked up and down the road. “Doesn’t look like it to me. Open up your van. We’ll get this stuff moved over.”

Harry raised his hands. “Whoa, whoa. Hold on.” He pointed at Dwayne. “We had a deal. I paid you for a service.”

Cal reached into his pocket, pulled out an envelope, and slapped it into Harry’s hand. “That should cover everything you paid him, plus some interest.”

Harry peered into the envelope. “I don’t know about this.”

Cal said to Dwayne, “Open the tailgate. The two of you move the stuff. I’ll keep an eye out.”

Harry threw the envelope back at Cal. It bounced off his chest and landed on the gravel. No one moved to pick it up.

“No fucking way,” Harry said.

Cal moved his tongue around inside his mouth, poking out one cheek and then the other. “Can I have a word with you privately, Harry?”

“Huh?”

“Just for a second.”

Without waiting for Harry to decide, Cal stepped forward, put a friendly hand on the man’s shoulder, and led him down the side of the van, out of sight of any passing traffic. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dwayne pick up the envelope. In the distance, beyond a fence, stood a motionless Ferris wheel and roller coaster.

“Him and me had a deal,” Harry said.

“I understand that,” Cal said. “I’m gonna be honest with you. Dwayne there, he’s my brother-in-law.”

“Yeah, he mentioned.”

“He’s married to my sister. I love my sister very much. And while Dwayne is a bit of a dickhead, basically he’s an okay guy, and he’s been pretty good to my sister all these years, so I’d hate to see things go south for them.”

“I’m helping him. I did him a favor.”

“I’m sure you see it that way, and no doubt about it, these have been tough times for him. But he’s going to have to find a way out of his financial problems without you.”

“Look, I don’t give a fuck,” Harry persisted. “And I got people to answer to, you know?”

“You’re going to have to work it out with them.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“What do you know about me, Harry?”

“Huh? I don’t know anything about you.”

“Let me tell you. I used to be a cop.” Harry’s eyes went wide. “Right here in Promise Falls. But I’m not anymore. You know why?” Harry shook his head. “I lost it one day. I smashed the head of a hit-and-run driver into the hood of his car. So they cut me loose. A few years went by, I tried to get my life back on track, but that didn’t go so well. Had a wife and a son, but they’re both gone now.”

“What’s any of that got to do with-”

Cal held up a finger to let him know he wasn’t done.

“I don’t know who you’re working with. You’re not ripping this stuff off on your own. I know that much. You need two, three guys, at least. I don’t know if you’re a bunch of amateurs, or whether you’re actually good at this stuff. I don’t know whether you’re working with bikers or drug dealers or what, but I don’t care. This is what I do know. I know where you live. I know where you work. I know your wife’s name is Francine. That you’ve got two kids. Boy and a girl, both teenagers. And I can find out more if I need to. I’m telling you that you are going to take back this shit Dwayne’s been holding for you, that you’re going to take back the money, that you are never going to talk to Dwayne again, that if you see him on the street, you’re going to cross to the other side, that if anything ever happens to him or my sister, if one of you even mentions him to the cops if you ever get caught, I am going to find you and I am going to put a bullet in your head, because I don’t give a fuck about anything anymore except making sure my sister and her husband are safe.”

Harry blinked.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Harry nodded.

“That’s good. So can you now help Dwayne move that stuff from his truck to yours?”

“I can do that,” he said.

When it was done, and Dwayne and Cal were driving back to the house, Dwayne said, “I’ll find a way to pay you back the money.”

“Shut up, Dwayne,” Cal said.

FORTY-NINE

Duckworth

VICTOR Rooney was sitting on the front step, shirtless and barefoot but wearing a pair of jeans, when I pulled up in front of the house. I parked at the curb, got out.

“Mr. Rooney,” I said.

He was eating a piece of buttered toast, and made no attempt to get up.

“Yeah,” he said.

“How are you today?”

“Oh, I’m just peachy,” he said. “Got the whole house to myself as it turns out.”

“I heard. Your landlady, Ms. Townsend, was one of the casualties.”

He took a bite of toast. “Found her yesterday morning in the backyard. Dead as a doornail.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That must have been quite a shock.”

Victor nodded. “Not the sort of thing you see every day.”

“You didn’t see her getting sick?”

“I’d slept in. By the time I came downstairs, she was already toast.” He glanced at what was in his hand. “Maybe that’s not the best choice of words.”

“So she’d had water from the tap, but not you.”

His head went from side to side. “Yeah, I mean, no. I mean, she’d had coffee, and I hadn’t had anything. I mean, other than some juice from the fridge. But it was okay.”

“Lucky,” I said.

“I guess. Mr. Fisher was lucky, too. I mean, he got pretty sick, but at least he didn’t die.”

“Yeah,” I said. “There might be long-term effects. They don’t know yet.”

“Huh,” he said. “So, Walden, he might end up brain-damaged or something.”

“Let’s hope not.”

“I don’t know exactly what happens now,” he said, glancing back at the house. “I mean, she owned the place, but who gets it now? She’s probably got next of kin or whatever you call it, but that’s not my responsibility, is it?”

I shrugged. It wasn’t, technically. “You might want to look through her address book, something like that. If she had out-of-town family, they may hear about what happened here and make inquiries. That’ll get the ball rolling. Failing that, the police will get to it eventually. They’re a little backed up right now.”

He nodded, took another bite of toast.

“I think I might just move, anyway,” he said. “I think I’m done here.”

“Why’s that?”

He looked at me as though I was slow-witted, and there were times when I thought I was. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“I can understand why you might want to put this town behind you,” I said, “but I’d have thought you’d have done it three years ago.”

“Sometimes it takes a while to get your act together.” He finished the toast, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, balled it up, and tossed it onto the porch. He leaned back, arms outstretched, palms on the porch boards. “You just come by to shoot the shit?”

“I heard from Joyce Pilgrim,” I said.

His face screwed up. “Who?”

“The security chief at Thackeray.”

“Oh yeah, sure.” He nodded. “I talked to her last night. Why’d she call you?”

“Why?” I’d have thought it was obvious.

“Yeah. I mean, what’s the big deal if some guy parked illegally or something?”

“So she didn’t say why she was asking.”

He shook his head.

“Can you tell me again what you told her? About the car and the man you saw?”

He repeated what Joyce had said to me on the phone. The man he’d seen was white, over six feet tall, maybe two hundred pounds, tops. He was wearing a Yankees baseball cap, a dark blue jacket or Windbreaker, and running shoes.

“Was the car parked under a streetlight?”

“I don’t think so.”

“And the car itself?”

“I think it might have been a Taurus. An older one, with the big bulbous fenders.”

“Color?”

He shrugged. “Black, blue? Don’t know.”

“Ms. Pilgrim said you thought the plate was green.”

“I’m not as sure about that, but maybe,” he said. “That’d make it Vermont, right?”

“Could,” I said.

“Why the big deal about this?”

I pressed on. “You have pretty good observational skills.”

“I don’t know. I guess.”

“I mean, late at night, that car not being under a streetlight, and you managed to get a pretty good look at that guy, right down to the ball cap.”

“You make it sound like a bad thing.”

“Not at all. What you saw could be really helpful.”

“Helpful for what?”

The murder of Lorraine Plummer had probably made the news, but it had been overshadowed by the deaths from poisoned water. It was possible Victor didn’t know about her death. Or was pretending to be uninformed.

“Around the time you were jogging through the campus grounds,” I said evenly, “a young woman was murdered. A summer student.”

I watched his reaction closely.

“Jesus,” he said. “That woman-Pilgrim?-she never said anything about that. So then, this guy she was asking about, he could have been the guy who killed her?”

I waited a second. “Possibly.”

“Wow. I didn’t know that. Wish I’d taken an even closer look.” “Don’t feel bad about that. You saw and remembered more than most people would. Quite a bit more.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed. “There it is again.”

“What?”

“That sounds more like an accusation than praise. I’m trying to help out and you’re making me feel like I did something wrong.”

“Sorry if that’s how I came across,” I said. “Do you jog around there every night?”

“I kind of went back to running just recently, in the last week or so. I thought it’d be a way to get myself back together.”

“You mean back in shape?”

“Partly, but mentally, too, you know.”

“I guess,” I said. “I’m not much of a health nut.”

“No kidding,” he said.

“So tell me about the mentally part.”

“I’ve kind of-I don’t know-let myself go. Been hitting the drinking too hard. Haven’t been able to find a job. It’s taken me a long time to get over things.”

“Olivia.”

“Yeah. But you can only go on like that so long. You have to move on, you know?”

“And taking up running was part of that?”

“Yeah. I thought, if I felt better physically, maybe I’d start feeling better mentally.”

“How’s it going?”

He grinned. “It may be too early to tell.”

“Part of that plan includes moving away?”

“Maybe.”

“And maybe this is just when the town needs you,” I said. “After what happened yesterday.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Maybe the town had it coming,” I said.

Victor Rooney studied me. “Say again?”

“I said maybe the town had it coming. For how it failed Olivia.”

“I’m not following.”

“Have you ever felt that way? That those twenty-two people who heard Olivia’s screams and did nothing, that they were representative of the entire town? That they were a kind of a cross section? That if they’d do nothing, nobody here would?”

“Twenty-two?” he asked. “Was that how many people it was?”

“I think you already know that. Don’t you think sometimes there’re actually twenty-three people to blame?”

He stood. “I got stuff to do.”

“Don’t you blame yourself, too? For not meeting Olivia when you were supposed to?”

Victor stepped up onto the porch, grabbed a T-shirt that had been tossed onto a wicker chair. He slipped it on, and as his head popped out the top, he said, “I don’t know where you’re going with this.”

“If you blame yourself and the whole town, you didn’t end up paying quite as high a price for your failure as more than a hundred others did.”

There was a pair of low-rise sneakers under the chair. He slipped his feet into them, not bothering to do the laces.

“You know any place in this town where I can get an actual cup of coffee?” he asked. “If I have to, I’ll drive to fucking Albany.”

“Why do you think someone would do it?” I asked. “Why would someone poison the water?”

“Who says someone even did it?” Victor said. “Maybe there was some kind of contamination. Sewage, nuclear waste. Something like that.”

“You know a little bit about it, don’t you?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“You worked there one summer. At the water treatment plant.” “That was a long time ago. Just for a couple of months.”

“Long enough to know how the place runs, though.”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“What’d you take in school, Victor? Engineering? Chemistry?

Wasn’t that it? That’s pretty helpful stuff to know. You’d have thought you could find a job with that kind of background. But you ended up at the fire department for a while, right?”

“I didn’t get my degree,” he said.

“But even so, you’d have learned a few things. Like, how to start up a Ferris wheel, say. Get a bus from the town compound going.”

“Bus?” he said. “You talking about that bus that was on fire?”

I kept on. “Or how to acquire sodium azide. A pretty large quantity.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” He dug into his pocket for some keys. “I’m going out.”

He came down the steps and started walking toward the garage. I followed.

“If we review more security footage from Thackeray,” I said, “will we find you running through the campus other nights, or just that one?”

“Leave me alone.”

“Because if it was just the once, that’s quite a coincidence. That you’d happen to be running there the night that girl got killed.”

“You already know I was there at least twice. That woman found me there last night. I went through there a lot. Christ, is there anything you don’t think I’ve done? You think I’ve got something to do with the poisoned water, and that bus, and now you think I killed that girl?”

In my mind, jigsaw puzzle pieces floated about. Victor Rooney jogging around Thackeray at the time of Lorraine Plummer’s death. Lorraine Plummer, one of the women assaulted by a man wearing a hoodie with “23” on it. Mason Helt, wearing said hoodie, killed while attacking Joyce Pilgrim.

Connections. Degrees of separation.

But all I really knew was that Helt had attacked Pilgrim. I didn’t know, for certain, that he’d attacked the others. Was it possible he’d had a partner? Rooney’s admission that Thackeray was part of his jogging route had me wondering.

I didn’t know that Rooney was linked to the man Clive Duncomb had fatally shot, but it didn’t stop me from asking, “How did you know Mason Helt?”

If the question in any way unnerved him, he hid it well.

“Who?” Rooney said.

“Mason Helt. A Thackeray student.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name.”

He turned the handle on the double-wide garage door and swung it upward. Inside was an old, rusted van that had been squeezed in between shelves and assorted piles of junk.

He unlocked the van door, got in, slammed it as I stood there by the back bumper, off to the side. As he turned the ignition, black exhaust belched from the tailpipe. I took a step back, waved the fumes away from my face.

The van backed up until it was fully on the driveway, at which point Victor got out, left the driver’s door open and the engine running, and walked back to draw the garage door back down.

But before he did, something on one of the shelves caught my eye.

“Hang on,” I said, raising a hand.

“What?”

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing.

The garage was cluttered, so it was possible Victor’s puzzlement was genuine.

Already my mind was wondering about the legality of a search. This was not Victor Rooney’s garage. It belonged to his landlady, who was deceased. But would a court see the garage, where Victor had parked his van, as his property?

It would be better if I had his permission.

“Do you mind if I go in here?” I asked.

“I guess not,” he said cautiously.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

I wished I had a witness, but there you go.

“What is it?” he asked.

I led him over to a set of metal shelves that were littered with paint cans, winter car brushes, garden supplies, coiled hoses, even a box filled with old long-playing records. The back wall of the garage was a mess of stacked wood scraps. Partial sheets of plywood, posts, some scraps of Styrofoam board used for insulation. But right now, I was focused on the shelves.

One shelf in particular.

“What’s that?” I said.

It looked like a wire cage, dimensions similar to those of a loaf of bread. About a foot long, five inches tall and wide. At one end there was a funneled opening. It would be easy enough to stick your hand in-if it was small enough-but when you pulled it out, you’d get caught on the pointed wire ends of the funnel.

I was pretty sure I knew what it was. I wondered whether Victor knew. And if he did know, whether he’d admit it.

He shook his head. “Emily kept a lot of shit out here.”

“So you don’t know what that is?”

Victor shrugged.

“Beats me.”

I said, “I think it’s a trap.”

“A trap?”

I nodded. “For squirrels.”

“No shit.”

And then something else caught my eye. Something poking out from behind one of the scrap plywood sheets leaning up against the back wall.

FIFTY

“JESUS, Brandon, what the hell are you doing here?” Samantha asked when she turned around and saw her ex-husband.

He smiled. “I bet you thought I couldn’t find you.”

Sam said, “Are you out of your mind? Breaking out of jail?”

Brandon shook his head. “I didn’t break out. I was on a trip to see my mother in the-”

“I know,” she said. “Same difference.”

“She had a heart attack,” he said. “She’s in intensive care.”

“Shit, I never sent a card.”

Brandon sighed, took a step toward her.

“Don’t come near me,” she said. “Stay right there. If you get any closer, I’ll start screaming. I swear to God.”

He raised his hands defensively and took a step back. “Okay, okay. Don’t have a hissy.”

“A hissy? Really? After what your parents did? And your dumbass friend Ed?” She had reached for the empty pot that was sitting on the Coleman. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it would have to do. The one she really wanted was in the car, behind the tent.

What a smart idea that turned out to be.

“Do you have any idea the shit they pulled?” she asked him, her voice starting to rise.

Brandon glanced left and right. “You’re going to wake up all the other campers.”

“You think I care?”

“Look,” he said, “I know what they did. I heard all about it. The police came to interview me, in jail. They wanted to know what I’d had to do with it.”

Sam cocked her head to one side, waiting for an answer.

“Nothing,” he told her. “I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I had no idea what was going on.”

“Bullshit.”

He nodded understandingly. “I don’t blame you for saying that.”

The tent flap opened. Carl stuck his head out, saw his mother first, and said, “I thought I heard-”

His eyes landed on his father and he said, “Dad!”

“You stay in there!” Sam said to her son.

“I just wanted to see-”

“Hey, sport,” Brandon said, not moving. “How’s it going?”

“Okay,” Carl said warily. “You’re supposed to be in jail.”

Brandon grinned. “Yeah, I know. I’m sort of playing hooky.”

That made Carl laugh. But the laughter was cut short when his mother said, “I told you to get in there and you pull that zipper down.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, drawing his head back in like a frightened turtle.

“Wait,” Brandon said. “There’s something I want to say, and I want Carl to hear it, too.”

All that was sticking out beyond the edge of the tent now was Carl’s nose, but his face remained visible.

“He can hear anything you have to stay with the tent zipped up,” Sam said.

Brandon looked at his ex-wife imploringly. “Please. Five minutes. It’s all I ask.”

Sam was weighing the request. Her eyes moved between Brandon and Carl. She was afraid for herself, and afraid for him, but Carl did not show any signs of fear. He looked like he wanted to hear what his father had to say.

“Five minutes,” Sam said.

Brandon nodded slowly, took a breath, as though getting ready to make a speech. “So, you need to know why I came here, why I tracked you down. I didn’t know I was going to get a chance like this. That kinda just happened. When they let me out to visit my mom-”

“I hope she dies,” Sam said.

Brandon wasn’t flustered. “I get that. Anyway, when they let me visit her in the hospital, I had a chance to get away, and I took it. Because I wanted to see you, and Carl. To talk to you. I mean, I figured any letters I wrote, you’d just throw them out. Anything I wanted to tell you, you’d never know. I figured it would be better if I could talk to you face-to-face.”

“You nearly killed that guy in the hospital.”

“No, I didn’t. I just choked him enough to make him pass out, is all. He’s fine.”

“Four minutes,” Sam said.

“So, once I slipped away, and, well, you know, stole a car, I started heading this way. Because I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

The word hung there for a few seconds.

“Sorry,” Sam repeated.

He nodded. “That sounds kinda short of the mark, I know. I don’t quite know what else to say. My mom, I know she’s crazy. She’s a nasty, vindictive… well, she’s a piece of work, no doubt about it. That’s what she is. And she’s mean enough and scary enough that she makes others go along with what she says. It’s not that big a surprise that she got Ed to do what she wanted. He’s just dumb. He was my friend, I admit it, but he hasn’t got the smarts of a beanbag. What’s scary is that she gets my dad to go along with so much of her crazy shit.”

He looked down, scraped his foot across the dirt. Carl’s entire head was out of the tent now.

“They told me all the stuff they did. Trying to grab Carl at school, then Ed coming to where you work and, well-”

“Trying to kill me,” Sam said.

“Yeah, that. I didn’t know, and if I did, I’d have done everything I could to stop it. And even if you believe me, even if you accept what I’m telling you, I’ll understand if you don’t forgive me. Not asking for anything like that. Fact is, if you’d never gotten mixed up with me, you’d never have gotten mixed up with my fucked-up family and friends. I’m the cause of all your troubles, when you get right down to it.”

He looked at his son.

“I’ve been just about the worst father in the world for you, for all the same reasons.” He chuckled weakly. “You didn’t pick so good when it came to dads.”

“You can’t really pick your dad,” Carl said.

“He’s trying to be funny,” his mother said.

“Oh,” Carl said. “I get it.”

“I’ve done a lot of thinking while I’ve been in jail,” Brandon said. “Sorting out the mistakes I made while I was still outside. How I expected everything to come to me without working hard for it. I get that now. When I get out-’cause, let’s face it, I’ll be going back in, and for probably a lot longer-I hope I’m gonna be a different kind of man. Someone who takes responsibility for things. Who doesn’t blame others.”

“One minute,” Sam said, folding her arms across her chest.

“Okeydoke,” Brandon said. “I’m going to leave now. I’m going to find the office and have them call the cops and I’ll sit and wait for them to come. I’ll never bother either of you again. If you ever want to get in touch”-and here he looked straight at Carl-”I’ll be most grateful to hear from you. I would like that a lot, to be honest. If you ever want me in your life, I’ll be there, but you gotta be the one that takes the first step. I’m not gonna push it.”

Brandon took a long breath.

“I’m sorry. I truly am. I did what I set out to do. Now I can go back to Boston.” He grinned. “I’m sure there’re plenty of cops happy to give me a lift.”

He bowed his head, turned, and started to walk away.

“Wait!” Carl shouted, and Brandon spun around.

Carl shot out of the tent, arms outstretched. His intention was clear. He wanted to give his father a hug good-bye. But in his rush to come out, his foot caught on a stretch of upturned canvas that ran across the bottom of the open tent flap.

He went flying. His arms went out to break his fall. He hit the ground hard and yelped in pain.

Brandon, instinctively, suddenly charged toward his son.

Sam, still standing there, wielding the pot by its handle, also started running toward Carl.

David brought the shotgun up to his shoulder and aimed.

FIFTY-ONE

“YOU didn’t sleep at all, did you?” Gale asked her husband in the morning.

Angus Carlson was sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

“No,” he said.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said. “They’re going to decide you did the right thing.”

“Probably,” he said, getting up and walking naked into the bathroom. “But it could still go all to shit. A cop does a righteous shoot-then they turn the facts all around later.”

“We should do something today,” she said, propping herself up in bed, rearranging the pillow at her back. “Something fun. We should just get in the car and get out of this town. Try to forget everything that’s happened.”

She could hear a familiar trickle. Once she had heard the flush, she continued. “I know it’s hard to do, but we need to try to put all these things out of our heads, even if it’s just for a few hours.”

“I don’t know,” he said from the other room.

“Why don’t we… I’ve got it. Why don’t we drive to Montreal? It’s not that far. I could throw some things into a bag, have us ready to go in an hour. We could be there by the afternoon. I could find us a hotel online. I’m already off today and tomorrow, and I could call in sick Tuesday and Wednesday, or maybe they’ll just give me the time off anyway. What do you say?”

Nothing from Angus.

“Or do you have to be available?” she asked. “Like, even if you’re on leave, do you have to go in and answer questions about what happened? Haven’t they kind of got enough to deal with right now? In fact, I can’t believe they’re making you take a leave of absence when there’s so much going on.”

She could hear the sound of teeth being brushed.

“Are you listening to anything I’m saying?” Gale asked. Angus Carlson reappeared. He walked naked across the room, opened a dresser drawer, grabbed a pair of boxers, and stepped into them.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Angus said.

“About going to Montreal?”

“No. What you said last night.”

She looked blank. “Which thing? What?”

“About when you went to the bookstore,” Angus said. “To Naman’s.”

“Yes?”

“The book about poison that you saw there.”

Gale threw back the covers, crawled forward, and perched herself on the bed in a kneeling position. She was excited. “Yes? You think it means something?”

He was buttoning up a shirt. “I don’t know if it does or not. But I’m not sure it’s the kind of thing that can be ignored. I mean, it might really be nothing. But if it turns out Naman did have something to do with all this, we’ll be kicking ourselves later if we didn’t bother to check it out.”

“Oh my God, you really think he could be behind it?”

Angus pulled on a pair of jeans. “There’re all kinds of these things happening. These lone-wolf, rogue terrorists who get inspired by jihadists overseas. They’re not linked to any actual terror group. They’re acting totally on their own. He could be one of those.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, close to his wife. “What if this Naman guy blew up the drive-in? Maybe that was just a warm-up for what happened yesterday.”

“That’s terrifying,” Gale said, “that there could be someone like that, just living among us. It could be someone you know, someone you live right next door to, and it turns out they’re some kind of monster.”

“I know,” Angus said. “That’s what always happens, when they finally arrest some killer or terrorist. Turns out, he was a member of the chamber of commerce or he was a Scout leader or he played on the local hockey team. These kind of people, Gale, are like you say. They’re among us.”

“So what are you going to do? About Naman? Are you going to tell Detective Duckworth what I saw?”

Angus thought about that. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know how it would look.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, I get put on leave, and then call in with a tip. Like I’m trying to impress them, wheedle my way back in. I’m not going to do that.”

“But if Naman actually had something to do with this-”

“I’ll do it myself,” Angus said.

“Go on,” Gale said slowly.

“I’ll go over there and talk to him. Not as a cop, but just someone dropping by, seeing how he’s managing after the place got firebombed.”

“Can you do that?” she asked.

“Why not?”

“And then,” Gale said, “if you do find something, if you really do believe he might have had something to do with it, then you’ll go to Duckworth?”

“Exactly,” he said.

Gale threw her arms around him. “I’m so proud of you.”

“It’s no big deal,” Angus said.

“No, it is, it really is. I love it when I see you excited about something like this. Because sometimes…”

“Sometimes what?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“No, sometimes what?”

“All I was going to say is that sometimes, you know, you get in this very dark place. And I get that. We all have moments when we get down. But I worry about you when you’re like that, when you start obsessing-”

“Obsessing?”

“That was the wrong word.”

“No, no, it’s the right word. I know that’s how I can be when it comes to my mom.”

“I really see you moving forward,” Gale said. “Like, right now, you’re in a different place altogether.”

“I am,” he said.

Angus leaned in close to his wife, kissed her lips. She slipped her arms around his neck and pulled him into her. They tumbled over onto the bed.

“I love you,” she said.

“I have to go,” Angus said. “I have to do this thing.” He untangled himself from her. “But later, when I get back home, we’ll talk about Montreal.”

“Really?”

“Sure. You’re right. We need to get away. I’m starting to wonder why anyone lives here at all.”

FIFTY-TWO

Duckworth

“WHAT’S this?” I asked Victor Rooney, pointing to the back wall of the garage.

“What?” he said, the engine still running and the door to his van still open. He was standing with me, just inside the garage, where we had been looking at the squirrel traps on the shelves that lined one wall.

I was pointing to something wrapped in dark plastic sheeting sticking out from behind a sheet of plywood that was leaned up against the wall. There was about two feet of it showing, whatever it was, and it was shaped roughly like a rolled carpet. But at the end there was something sticking up.

Like feet, I thought.

I became very aware of the gun at my side, that at any moment I might be reaching for it.

“I don’t know what that is,” Victor said. “She kept all kinds of stuff out here.”

“You want to move that piece of plywood for me?” I asked. “I want to get a better look at it.”

I’d have attempted to move it myself, but I wanted my hands free.

“Why should I do that?” he asked.

“I just thought you’d want to help.”

“I’ve got things to do,” he said. “You should get out of the garage. I want to close the door.”

“You asked me in, remember?” I said. “Just give me another second. Do you mind?” I pointed to the plywood.

Hesitantly, he walked over to the sheet, put a hand on each side, and lifted it out of the way.

That rolled carpet was about six feet long. But it got broader in the middle, and there was something round at one end.

What we had here was a mummy.

“Jesus,” Victor said. “That looks like a person.”

Indeed it did. But who? Who was missing? My mind raced back through the last few days.

A kid. Not a kid, really. A young man. George something. George Lydecker. Angus Carlson had been working on it. A recent grad from Thackeray. Could that be who was wrapped up tight here?

I turned and faced Victor, felt my heart starting to pick up speed. “Mr. Rooney, I need you to lie flat on the floor with your arms behind your back.”

“What?”

“Flat on the floor, hands behind your back. I’m placing you under arrest.”

“I don’t have anything to do with this,” he protested. “This isn’t even my garage. I just park my van here. This is total bullshit.”

“Mr. Rooney-”

He pointed to the object wrapped in plastic. “Is that a fucking dead guy? Because if it is, I’m as surprised to see it as you are. I don’t ever remember seeing anything like that before. Or any of that other shit.”

He nodded toward the squirrel traps. I glanced back for half a second, and spotted something I had not seen when I’d looked that way earlier.

A hand.

Turned sideways, palm out, it was poking out from behind some paint cans.

“Don’t move,” I said to Rooney, and shifted toward the shelves. As I got closer, the hand looked shinier and less lifelike.

It was from a mannequin.

I’d just won the lotto.

I looked back at Rooney. There was panic in his eyes. I’d reached into my pocket for a plastic cuff, just like the one I had used to secure Randall Finley to the door at the water treatment plant.

“This is the last time I’m going to ask nicely,” I said. “On the floor, hands behind your back.”

He bolted.

He went straight for the van. With the door open and the engine running, it wasn’t going to take him long to get away.

I brought out my gun.

“Freeze!” I said, arms outstretched, both hands on the weapon. Victor had very little interest in doing what I asked.

I wasn’t going to shoot him. My life was not in jeopardy, and I had a lot of questions for him. I did not want him dead. So as Victor got behind the wheel and threw the van into reverse, I aimed for the tires.

That’s the sort of thing they do all the time in the movies, but a tire doesn’t present as a large target, especially when you’re not standing beside the vehicle. Which was why I didn’t hit the front right tire until my third shot, by which time Rooney was halfway down the driveway. The van lurched to one side, but Rooney wasn’t slowing down as the wheel rim dug into asphalt. He was going so quickly in reverse the transmission was whining in protest.

I aimed for the other front tire as he reached the sidewalk. Took out a headlight.

I started running.

Once Rooney hit the street and cranked the wheel, the side of the van would present itself to me. I’d have a brief opportunity to take out another tire. With two out, he wouldn’t get far. I’d be on the phone in thirty seconds and police all over town would be looking for him.

As it turned out, he didn’t get much past the end of the driveway.

The moment the van emerged onto the street, there was a tremendous, teeth-rattling crash.

A fire truck broadsided Rooney’s van.

It couldn’t have been answering an urgent call, because there’d been no sound of sirens. But the Promise Falls Fire Department was still making regular rounds of the city, looking for people in trouble, still reminding them it was not yet safe to drink the water.

The truck-it was a pumper, not a ladder truck-hadn’t been going all that fast, probably no more than thirty miles per hour, but there’s a lot of weight to a truck like that, and it pushed Rooney’s van a good forty feet up the street before the driver behind the wheel of the truck had fully applied the brakes.

I had my phone out, ready to call 911, then figured, What the hell?

The fire department was already here. Chances were they were putting in a call for an ambulance.

I hoped so. Because at that moment, I felt a stabbing pain in my chest.

FIFTY-THREE

FROM where David had been sitting in the woods, he could see Sam, and he could see Brandon, but he could not see Carl anywhere. He had a view of the back and the side of the tent. David didn’t know whether Carl was still inside it, or had gone off to use the central bathrooms, and he didn’t know which would be worse. If Carl was in the tent, it might be tricky for Brandon to try to drag him out. But if Carl had gone to the bathroom, he might end up walking back into the middle of this confrontation at any moment.

He could hear only a little of what they were saying. Brandon was doing most of the talking. But he wasn’t always speaking directly to Sam. His eyes were moving from her to the tent and back again.

Carl, David guessed, was in the tent, maybe looking out. Yeah, that was it. Sam turned to look at the tent at one point and spoke sharply. Loud enough that David could hear. She’d told him not to come out.

In Sam’s hand was a small cooking pot. The way she was holding it, David surmised she was intending to use it to hit Brandon when and if she had the chance.

What she needed was what David had in his hands now. He was crouched down, the shotgun raised up to eye level, left hand supporting the barrel, right hand, and finger, poised over the trigger.

He was at least forty feet away. He was squinting down the barrel and had Brandon, more or less, in his sights. But what the hell did he know about shooting a shotgun? If he fired this thing, would the shot go wide and end up hitting Sam? Or tear through the tent and hit Carl?

Even if he did have some experience with a shotgun, was he really going to shoot Brandon if he tried something?

Probably not.

What would he tell the police? It sure wouldn’t be self-defense, what with him off hiding in the bushes.

No, he wouldn’t fire the shotgun. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t use it. If Brandon threatened Sam or Carl, he could run out and, with that shotgun in his hands, scare Brandon off.

That seemed like a sound strategy.

So long as Brandon didn’t have a gun.

If he did, he hadn’t pulled it out. He was standing there in jeans and a shirt. If he had a gun, the only place he could be hiding it was behind his back. That would mean he had it tucked into his belt. David was thinking that’d attract a lot of attention, some guy wandering through the campsite with a butt sticking out of his butt.

So maybe he didn’t have a gun.

Jesus, I hope he doesn’t.

David did not want to get into a gunfight with this guy. So if by some chance he did have a gun, walking into things waving a shotgun might just be the dumbest thing David could do. It would get Brandon riled up. Once everyone started shooting, there was no telling who’d end up dead.

What he should have done, David now concluded, was find the office and call the police. He’d considered it earlier and decided against it. Now he was sorry.

Now he was here, in the trees, shotgun in hand.

He could abort. He could set the shotgun down, sneak back through the woods the way he’d come, and make the call. It wasn’t too late to handle the situation sensibly. If Brandon made a grab for the kid, the police could be there before he got out of the campsite.

Brandon’s car-he must have stolen or borrowed one from somebody-had to have been in the parking lot where David had left his own wheels. If he had known which one it was, he could have slashed a tire or two.

He wasn’t cut out for this. Any other time he’d been in a tough situation, it hadn’t taken him long to come to that conclusion. What was wrong with him that he didn’t learn?

David gently set the gun in the grass. He was ready to sneak back to the campsite entrance.

But hold on.

Brandon looked like he was getting ready to walk away. Was that possible? Had he really decided to slip out of that Boston hospital and find his way up here just so he could have a chat?

That didn’t seem likely.

David got back into position, picked up the shotgun again. Trained it in the general direction of the tent. Brandon, who had started walking away, suddenly pivoted. He started running flat out toward the small canvas enclosure.

Sam was booting it in the same direction, the metal pot still clutched in her hand. It looked to David as though her intention was to cut Brandon off.

Brandon had to be going for Carl.

David was already certain the boy had been at the door to the tent. It looked pretty clear to David that Brandon was going to grab his son and make a run for it.

What am I going to do?

He brought the shotgun up to his shoulder, eyed down the barrel. Could he take a shot? By the time he was even asking himself that question, Brandon had vanished. He was obscured by the tent. He was probably crawling into it now, going for Carl, hoping to grab an arm or a leg.

David couldn’t do anything about what he couldn’t see. So he sprang up from his crouching position and ran toward the tent, the shotgun angled across his chest.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Get away from the kid!”

Sam, just outside the tent door and still visible, stopped and looked in the direction of the voice. When her eyes settled on him, her jaw dropped.

“David?”

“Get back!” he shouted.

Now Brandon’s head popped up above the top of the tent. He saw David running toward them brandishing the shotgun.

Brandon quickly grabbed Sam around the waist and dragged her to the ground. The pot fell from her hand. She tried to say something, but all that came out was a scream.

David was almost to the tent. He made a wide approach, moving around the far side of the picnic table. He’d moved the shotgun into a firing position, holding it slightly above waist level.

What happened next happened very quickly.

Brandon grabbed the pot Sam had dropped.

David shouted, “Hold it!”

Sam screamed, “Brandon, it’s okay, it’ s-”

Brandon, coming out of a crouch like a runner shooting out of the blocks, pot raised menacingly, yelled at Sam and Carl, “Get down!”

David felt his finger on the trigger of the shotgun.

Sam cried, “David, no!”

Carl wailed, “Dad!”

David fired.

Brandon, already closing the distance between himself and David, spun hard to the right and went down. His right hand went to his neck. Blood came streaming out between his fingers.

“Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move!” David yelled, standing over Brandon.

Carl started to run toward his father, but Sam grabbed the boy and straitjacketed him with her arms.

“No!” Sam said. “God, no!”

David looked at her and said, “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” “You idiot!” she yelled at him over the cries of her son. “You stupid fucking idiot!”

“But…”

“He was sorry!” she said. “He came to say he was sorry!”

David, numb, lowered the shotgun. “What?”

The blood pouring from Brandon’s neck soaked into the forest floor and began to puddle by David’s shoes.

FIFTY-FOUR

ARLENE Harwood got off the phone and said to her husband, Don, “Good news.”

They were sitting in the living room of their son David’s house. “Lay it on me,” Don said.

“That was Marla.”

Gill was recovering. At the very least, he was holding his own. He’d ended up staying in the Promise Falls hospital instead of being moved to Albany, where so many other patients had been taken.

Most of Gill’s symptoms had receded. He had regained consciousness, although he was somewhat disoriented. He was no longer sick to his stomach and his vision did not seem to be seriously impaired.

“He’s not out of the woods yet,” Arlene said. “They still want to do tests to see if there’s any kind of permanent damage, but this is such good news.”

Derek Cutter and his family had stepped in to help. They’d been chauffeuring Marla back and forth to the hospital for regular visits. Derek’s parents had offered to take Matthew during these periods so Marla could concentrate on her father. Derek had been with her almost nonstop, and his folks had, with Marla’s permission, stayed overnight in her father’s house, with her, to help out where they could.

“That’s all good news,” Don said.

“You don’t look happy.”

“I am, I really am. That’s all good. You heard anything from David?”

“Nothing since he took off this morning looking for Sam and her boy. What’s Ethan doing?”

“Beats me.”

Arlene called out, “Ethan?”

A shout from upstairs: “Yeah?”

“Where are you?”

“Upstairs!”

“What are you doing?”

“On my computer!”

“Jesus, could you all stop shouting?” Don said, sitting in his recliner.

Arlene looked at him. “You’ve been out of sorts all day.”

“I have not.”

“Oh, please.”

Don picked up an old People magazine from the table next to him, leafed through it, put it back down.

“Talk to me,” Arlene said.

Don’s lips moved tentatively. “I’m going to go see him,” he said, finally.

“You’re going to see who?”

“Walden.”

“Walden Fisher?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m going to talk to him.” “Talk to him about what?”

“You know.”

“Don, are you sure that’s such a good idea?”

“The other day, when he came over here, and he went with me to the school to get Ethan, and we got a bite to eat?”

“I remember,” Arlene said. “That was the day I fell.”

“Yeah, well, that was horrible. I felt sick every second I was with him. Couldn’t wait to get home. I just felt… I just felt so guilty.”

“You shouldn’t feel that way.”

He looked at his wife. “I did nothing.”

“You weren’t the only one. There were lots of people who reacted the way you did. Everyone probably thought someone else was going to do something.”

“I should have been the one who thought different,” he said. “I can still hear it.”

Arlene winced. She knew what he was referring to.

“I can still hear the scream. Olivia, in the park, screaming her last breath.”

“You weren’t even that close,” Arlene said. “There were lots of people who were closer to the park than you were. And suppose you had done something. What would it have been? What could you have done, beyond taking out your phone and calling the police? By that time, the poor girl was gone.”

“I know. That’s not the point. I know it might not have made a difference. But I didn’t know that then. And maybe there were other things I could have done. I could have run in the direction of her scream. Even if I couldn’t save her, I might have gotten a look at who did it. But no, I just stood there, assumed someone else would do something, listened for another scream, and when I didn’t hear one, I got in my car and I came home.” He paused, studied Arlene, his face questioning. “What kind of man does that?”

“You’re a good man,” she said.

He looked away. “I want to tell Walden I’m sorry.”

“All that does is open old wounds for him,” Arlene said. “Are you doing this-this unburdening of yourself-for Walden? Or are you doing it for you? Because if you’re doing it for you, then it’s selfish. Spare Walden the pain.”

“Walden’s been through so much pain he probably doesn’t even feel it anymore,” Don said. “I’d be doing it because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Think on it,” Arlene advised. “It’s been three years. Another day thinking about it one way or the other won’t make any difference.”

“I hear her in my dreams sometimes,” he said. “Screaming.”

Arlene shook her head sadly.

He asked her, “What would you do?”

“Me?”

“If you were me? No, wait. You wouldn’t have gotten yourself in the fix I’m in. You’d have done the right thing. You’d have called the police or run to help. But let’s say you’re me. What would you do today? What would you do now? Wouldn’t you feel it was time to offer an apology? Isn’t a late apology better than no apology at all?”

She still had nothing to say.

He moved forward in his chair. “What would you have me tell Ethan?”

“You don’t have to tell Ethan anything.”

“If he ever hears this story, I would hope by then that at least there’d be a postscript, where I tried to make it right.”

“You can’t make it right,” Arlene said. “If you rented one of those skywriting planes and wrote out ‘I’m sorry’ over Walden Fisher’s house, it wouldn’t make anything right. What’s done is done. You can’t change anything. You want to confess? Become a Catholic. They’ve got a place where you can do that sort of thing.”

Don stood up out of his chair. “There’s no talking to you,” he said, and wandered off into the kitchen.

FIFTY-FIVE

Duckworth

“IT only lasted a second,” I told the female paramedic.

“Describe it for me again,” she said.

“I was running down the driveway, and when the van got hit, I stopped, and that’s when I felt it. But it only hit me for a moment. I’m fine.”

She was wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my arm, then squeezing the bulb. “I want to check you out.”

“How’s the guy in the van?” I asked. “Rooney?”

“They’ve taken him to PFG,” she said. “He wasn’t conscious, but he was alive.”

She was tending to me on the front porch of the house where Victor Rooney rented his room. The fire truck and the van it had crashed into were still there, as were three police cars and the second ambulance to the scene. The first had already left with Rooney. No one in the fire truck had been injured.

“Really, I’m okay,” I said. All I could think about was what was in the garage. I’d already put in a call for a crime scene unit. They’d go through the place inch by inch, speck by speck. I’d warned them that they might want to bring along their hazmat suits. They’d probably have been wearing them anyway, but now there was the added possibility of sodium azide traces.

The paramedic wasn’t listening to my protests. “Your blood pressure is okay,” she said, “but I think you should come in and get checked out.”

“Later,” I said. “I’ll come in later.”

I was more excited about what we were going to find in that garage than I was worried about my health. “I think it was just muscular,” I told her. “Go. I absolve you.”

She didn’t look very happy with me, but she finally withdrew. By the time she was getting into her ambulance, the crime scene unit had arrived, as well as Wanda Therrieult.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said. “Never better.”

“What are we looking at?”

I pointed to the garage. “One body. I think it may be a missing Thackeray student named George Lydecker.”

An unmarked car raced up the street and squealed to a halt out front of the house. Rhonda Finderman got out.

“Chief,” I said.

“Bring me up to speed.”

I gave her the broad strokes.

“This is our guy? This is the guy that poisoned the water?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s not nailed down. If they find traces of sodium azide in there, that’ll help do it. But there’s a lot in that garage that connects to my number-twenty-three theory.”

Finderman said, “What did you find?”

I told her about the squirrel traps, the mannequin parts. I’d even noticed a can of red paint, which I was betting matched the “You’ll be sorry” warning on the Ferris wheel at Five Mountains.

Rooney, I told Finderman, had a motive for harming the people of Promise Falls. The twenty-two people who’d ignored Olivia Fisher’s cries.

“You’re one short,” Finderman said. “You’re saying all that stuff in the garage links to your Mr. Twenty-three.”

“He’s the twenty-third,” I said. “He blamed himself, too.” I felt a little uneasy as I said it, though. Like trying to squeeze that proverbial square peg through a round hole. I wanted things to fit.

Finderman looked skeptical. “Maybe so. When Rooney wakes up-if he wakes up-let’s hope he’ll fill us in on a few things. At the very least, he’s a major suspect in a series of tragedies in this town.”

“As well as the murder of whoever’s in the garage,” I said.

“We need to set up a news conference,” she said.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I mean, what we’ve found here, it looks promising, but there’s still a lot of work to do.”

“Barry, the town’s completely on edge. We need to give people something. We need to let the people know we’ve made a significant discovery.”

I didn’t see any way out of it. Maybe she was right.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s set it up for this afternoon. We’ll know even more then. Like if that’s George Lydecker in there.”

Rhonda thought that was fine. But she would put the word out to the media that something was coming.

“What about the others?” the chief asked me. “Rosemary Gaynor, and this latest one, at Thackeray. Lorraine Plummer?” She was doing better at keeping herself up to speed.

“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “It’s very possible all these dots connect, but I don’t know how.”

“Okay. I’ll let you know when we set a time to face the cameras.” She smiled and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Nice work, Barry. Really, really nice.”

I got back to the station two hours later. By that time, we’d pretty much confirmed that the deceased was, indeed, George Lydecker. I knew Angus Carlson was on leave, but I put in a call to him anyway, since he’d investigated the student’s disappearance.

I got him on his cell.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said.

“It’s okay.”

“We found George Lydecker. And very possibly our water poisoner.”

Angus told me Lydecker had a reputation for sneaking into unlocked garages and snooping around, stealing things. That got me wondering whether George had simply found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Victor had discovered him in that garage, and feared George might tell the police what he’d seen-even at the risk of getting himself into trouble for the break-in-Victor might have seen no option but to kill him.

One small tumbler falling into place.

“How you managing?” I asked Angus.

“Okay. I just want them to realize I had a good reason to shoot that guy.”

“I haven’t heard anything that suggests anyone feels you didn’t. This is just how it is in an officer-involved shooting. Things have to run their course.”

“Got it.”

“What are you doing today?” I asked. “I mean, look at the bright side. The whole town’s going to hell and you got yourself a day off.” When Angus didn’t say anything right away, I said, “Okay, not funny.”

“Might visit my mom,” he said.

“Well, hang in there,” I said.

“Barry?” Angus said quickly before I ended the call.

“Yeah?”

“Why’d he do it? Why’d Victor want to kill the whole town?”

“Not sure,” I said. “My guess is payback.”

“What do you mean, payback?”

“For Olivia Fisher. The town wasn’t there for her.”

“Jesus Christ,” Angus said.

“Yeah, I know.”

When we were done talking, I leaned back in my chair. Rubbed my chest. I was pretty sure it was nothing, what had happened in Victor’s driveway. A sharp pain that had lasted only a second. Probably cramped up somehow when I started running. I’d get myself checked out when the dust settled.

If it ever did.

The phone rang. I snatched up the receiver. It was reception.

“There’s a Cal Weaver here to see you.”

“Send him in,” I said.

I got up, leaving my sport jacket on the back of my chair, and met him coming down the hall. We shook hands. “Good to see you’re okay,” I said.

“Never had a chance to drink the water yesterday,” he said. “Had a fire at my place a few nights ago and was staying out of town.”

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Got somewhere we can talk?”

I led him into an interrogation room and closed the door. We sat down opposite each other.

“I remember this room,” he said.

“Feeling wistful?”

“I didn’t spend much time in here. Never made it to detective.” “Until you left.”

“Yeah,” he said. He put his palms flat down on the table’s cold, metal surface. “You haven’t closed the Miriam Chalmers thing.”

“No,” I said. “I like Clive Duncomb for it, but he’s dead. So we’re not exactly in a position to lay charges. Why?”

Cal gave that some thought. “You know my involvement. I’d been working for Adam Chalmers’s daughter after that thing at the drive-in.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Lucy Brighton.”

“That’s right. Lucy.”

“Does she have some information that might help us?”

“She’s dead,” Cal said. “Yesterday. The water.”

“Shit,” I said. “I haven’t seen a complete list of casualties yet.”

“Her daughter phoned me after she found her mother on the floor of the kitchen. Crystal. She’s eleven. She’s been through a lot.”

I shook my head. “I still don’t know why you’re here.”

He ran his hand across the surface of the table. “Like I said, I wondered if you had enough on Duncomb to satisfy you he was the one. He was bad news. He was a bad cop before he became a bad security chief.”

“Yeah,” I said. “No argument there.”

“It’s not going to hurt his reputation any if he gets saddled with Miriam’s murder.”

I leaned in. “What’s going on?”

“I just wanted to know if the investigation was more or less at an end.”

“Not if there’s someone else out there who needs to be brought to justice,” I said.

“There isn’t,” Cal said. “If Duncomb’s a good fit for this, that’s fine. I wouldn’t want to do anything that messes that up.”

“Cal.”

He smiled. “They talk a lot about victims of crime, and with good reason. The family members who have to deal with the loss of a loved one. They give victim impact statements at sentencing hearings. They get to tell the judge how their lives have changed. But there are other victims of crime, ones you don’t hear about so much. The relatives of perpetrators. Their lives get turned upside down, too. They’re not responsible for what happened, but they get blamed. They get shunned. They have to live with the shame of what someone with their blood did. They have to move away, start over again. Even though they go through a tremendous amount of pain, no one much gives a shit about them.”

I waited.

“Sometimes,” Cal said, “in a perfect world, under the right circumstances, it would be better if they never knew in the first place.”

He pushed his chair back, stood. “It was good to see you, Barry.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We should grab a beer sometime.”

He smiled, slipped past me, and left the interrogation room.

When I got back to my desk, I noticed the ends of two envelopes sticking out from the inside pocket of my sport jacket. They’d been jammed in there since yesterday. I grabbed them, tossed them onto my desk. They were the reminders from the Promise Falls police to Olivia Fisher to pay her speeding tickets. I’d taken them from Walden with the hope that I could get the town to stop sending them after all this time.

I slit the envelopes, pulled out the notices, and tossed them onto my desk as the phone rang again.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, dropping into my chair and grabbing the receiver at the same time.

“Ten minutes,” Rhonda Finderman said. “Presser’s going to be out front of the building.”

“Got it,” I said.

That meant making myself presentable, and that meant finding a mirror. I stood, threw on my jacket, and opened my bottom desk drawer to find a tie. I usually wore one to work but hadn’t bothered today. I found a blue-and-silver-striped one that looked more or less clean, if wrinkled, and took it with me into the men’s room.

I stood before the mirror, did up the tie, folded my collar back down over it. Ran my fingers through my hair. Checked for anything between my teeth. I wished Maureen were here. Not in the actual men’s room, but at the station, to give me the once-over before I went before the cameras. A few years ago, she’d recorded me on the six o’clock news when I’d made a statement for the press about the death of Thackeray College’s president.

She’d played it for me when I got home, paused it at just the right moment.

“You see that?” she’d said.

“See what?”

She’d gone right up to the screen and pointed to my mouth.

“That,” she said, “is a donut sprinkle.”

So ever since, I’d made an effort when I went before the cameras.

I came back to my desk. I still had another five minutes before I had to go outside. I sat down and unfolded the two notices to Olivia Fisher. As I was reading through them, I picked up the phone and entered the extension that would connect me to the traffic department’s fine collection office.

“Traffic, Harrigan.”

“Hey,” I said. “It’s Detective Barry Duckworth. I’m wondering if you can do a favor for me.”

“Let me guess. You got a parking ticket.”

“No,” I said. I explained that notices of an unpaid fine were still being sent out to a homicide victim.

“Oh, shit, that’s awful,” Harrigan said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“There should be a number on the top of the notice there-that’d be the ticket number. You see that?”

“Yeah.”

“You want to read that off to me?”

I did. “Will that cover both notices?”

“Yeah, we can put a stop to those.”

“That’s terrific,” I said, my eye scanning down the page at the other information that had been included. The make and model and year of Olivia’s vehicle, which happened to be a 2004 Nissan Sentra.

“I hardly knew what to say when this person’s father showed me these-”

I stopped midsentence. I’d come upon another bit of information from the original ticket that stopped me cold.

“You there?” Harrigan said.

“I’m here,” I said.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

My mind had suddenly kicked into overdrive. I was trying to bring up a conversation from a few weeks ago.

When I’d been talking to Bill Gaynor.

Right after the discovery of his wife’s body.

What was it I’d asked him? Right. Had his wife ever been in any kind of trouble with the law? Was she in any way known to the police?

What was it he’d said?

“Are you serious? Of course not. Okay, she got a speeding ticket a week or so ago, but I’d hardly call that being in trouble with the law.”

Yeah, that was what he’d said.

“Detective Duckworth?” Harrigan said.

“Yeah, I’m here. Listen, can you find a more recent ticket in the system if I give you a name? I haven’t got the ticket number or anything like that. But it would have been for driving over the posted speed limit.”

“Sure.”

“Rosemary Gaynor.”

“Spell it.”

I did. In the background I could hear several keystrokes.

“Yeah, okay, I think I have it here. This would have been on April twenty-two. Does that sound about right?”

“It does. Read me every single detail off that ticket.”

Harrigan obliged.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “That’s good. Thank you.”

I hung up the phone, trying to get my head around what I’d just learned. Wondering if it meant anything. Wondering if it was just a coincidence.

The phone rang.

“We’re on,” Rhonda Finderman said.

“You’re on your own,” I told her.

FIFTY-SIX

“I need more stuff,” Crystal said to Cal about an hour after he and Dwayne got back to the house. Cal had made a quick visit to the police station, and now was sitting on the porch of his sister and brother-in-law’s place.

“What stuff?” Cal asked.

“I need more paper and pencils and my homework and more clothes,” she said. “They’re all in my house. I need to go to the house and get all that stuff. Is my mom still there?”

“No,” Cal said. “She’s not.”

“Did the funeral people take her away?”

“More or less,” he said. “I can check into that for you.”

Crystal appeared to be thinking. “Did they do anything with what happened in the house when they took my mom away?”

Cal guessed what Crystal was referring to. Her mother had been violently ill in the kitchen and the bathroom. “They didn’t,” he said. “But it’s been taken care of.”

What Cal had not told Crystal was that, on his way back with Dwayne, he’d called the morgue to confirm that Lucy’s body had been removed from the house. Then he’d told Dwayne there was a way he could pay him back for getting him out of his arrangement with Harry.

“You name it,” Dwayne had said.

“It won’t be fun.”

They went to Lucy’s house and cleaned up. “Jesus,” Dwayne had said when he saw what they had to do.

“I’ll find cleaning supplies,” Cal had said.

It took them the better part of an hour to get the job done. Cal opened most of the windows to let fresh air blow through.

Anyone who came into the house now, Cal believed, wouldn’t know what had happened.

Except for Crystal, of course.

“So all the throw-up is gone?” Crystal asked.

Cal nodded.

The girl did some more thinking. “I want to go back over.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

“I have to get things. And you won’t know where everything is.”

“Still, I think-”

She looked up into his face. “I can do it.”

Cal put his palm to her cheek. “Okay. Do you want to go now?”

Cal tipped his head in the direction of his car, parked at the curb.

“I guess,” she said.

“I’ll let Celeste know.”

Cal went into the house and found his sister upstairs, sitting alone in her bedroom.

“Heading out for a while,” he told her.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“You don’t have to keep saying that.”

“I feel like I can’t say it enough. You really got Dwayne out of a mess.”

Cal nodded. “I won’t save him again,” he said.

“It won’t happen again,” Celeste said. “He’s not a bad man.”

Cal looked her in the eye. “Maybe not. But he’s a stupid one. And that can be just as dangerous.”

“You think I should leave him.”

“The risks he takes ultimately become your risks. When he enters into business with bad people, he’s taking you along for the ride. He does something like this again, it won’t be the other guy I take it out on.”

On the way over in the car, Crystal asked, “Do you believe in ghosts?” She was looking down at her clipboard, sketching something, not watching the world go by as they drove to her house.

He glanced over at her. “No,” he said. “Why?”

“Will my mom’s ghost be in the house?”

Cal shook his head. “No. But your memories of her will be. And that’s okay.”

“I don’t want to live there all by myself.”

Cal tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “You won’t be doing that. It’s against the law for someone your age to live by herself. You have to be eighteen to live on your own.”

“Eighteen?”

“That’s when the law considers you an adult,” Cal told her.

“Oh.” She drew some more lines, then turned the pencil at a sharp angle and moved it back and forth furiously. Shading.

“My mom owned the house, right?”

“I would imagine so. Unless she was renting it from someone.”

“She used to talk about a mortgage.”

“Okay,” Cal said. “Then she owned it. She paid money each month for you to live there. That was the mortgage.”

“How much did she pay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would it be like a million dollars?”

“No, it wouldn’t be that much. It would be something she could afford, based on what she made at her job at the school.”

They pulled into the driveway. Crystal got out quickly, leaving her artwork on the floor in front of her seat. She got to the door first and waited until Cal got there with the key.

“You’re sure it’s okay?” she asked.

“I think so,” Cal said.

He inserted the key and pushed open the door. Crystal tentatively stepped inside. She stopped, raised her head, reminding Cal of an animal stopping to pick up any dangerous scents.

Slowly, she walked deeper into the house, and stopped again at the base of the stairs. Her eyes went up to the second floor, but she didn’t move. Cal stood patiently behind her and, after a few seconds, rested his fingers on her shoulders.

He felt Crystal’s muscles twitch in the millisecond before she made the decision to go up. She got to the bathroom door, which Cal had deliberately left wide open when he and Dwayne had finished cleaning. She stood outside looking in for about ten seconds, then went to check the other rooms upstairs. She popped her head into her own room, then entered her mother’s.

“You okay?” Cal asked.

She said, “This could be your room.”

“Crystal.”

“Does everything my mom owned go to me?”

Cal had no idea what arrangements Lucy had made with her ex-husband, but he said, “More or less.”

“So if this is my house, can I give it to you? Because you don’t have one. So you could have this room, and I’ll sleep where I always have. Because I don’t want to stay with your sister and Dwayne.”

Cal said, “Why don’t you start grabbing the things you need?”

“Why can’t I just stay here now? Why do I have to go back? I don’t like Dwayne. He did bad things to you.”

Cal started considering options. He didn’t think it was appropriate for him to stay in this house, just the two of them. Not even for a night.

Even though he couldn’t think of anything he’d like more.

“I don’t know about that, Crystal. You see-”

“Hello?”

A voice from downstairs. A man’s voice.

“Anyone home?”

Crystal looked at Cal for half a second and, without saying a word, scooted down the stairs to the front door.

Cal heard the man say, “Crystal!”

And he heard Crystal say, “Daddy!”

“Oh, sweetheart, I got here as fast as I could.”

Cal reached the bottom of the stairs and found the man on his knees, arms around his daughter. As soon as he saw Cal, he got to his feet.

“Gerald Brighton?” Cal asked.

“That’s right.”

Cal extended a hand. “Cal Weaver. We spoke on the phone.”

Gerald Brighton nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

“It’s good that you’re here.”

“Hit up everybody I knew for money for the flight. Didn’t know I had that many friends.” He smiled as he looked at his daughter. “Got a ticket for you to come back with me.”

“Well,” Cal said. “Mr. Brighton, I’m sorry for your loss.”

The man gave Crystal another hug, kissed the top of her head. “Everything’s going to be okay. Daddy’s here. I’m going to get everything sorted out. You’re going to live with me now. You’ll really like San Francisco.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice muffled, her face pressed into his chest.

“She has some things at my sister’s place,” Cal said.

“We’ll come by later, pick them up,” Gerald Brighton said. “I’ll give you a call to let you know we’re coming.”

“Of course,” Cal said.

“Thank you for all your help.”

“Don’t mention it.” He smiled. “She’s a great kid. A real lifesaver. Good-bye, Crystal.”

“Good-bye,” she said, still clinging to her father.

Cal walked out, got into his car, and saw that Crystal had forgotten her clipboard and drawing paper. He reached down into the passenger footwell and grabbed it.

Crystal had drawn a house, complete with driveway, windows, smoke coming out of the chimney.

She’d drawn faces in two of the windows, and attached labels to them. One read “Crystal” and the other said “Cal.”

He drove back to his sister’s place. Gerald and Crystal could pick up the drawing and the clipboard when they came for the rest of her things.

FIFTY-SEVEN

Duckworth

I didn’t give Rhonda Finderman an opportunity to object to my bailing on the press conference. I put down the receiver and started heading for the door. Once I was in my car, I got out my phone and made a call to Angus Carlson’s cell phone.

The phone rang several times before it went to voice mail.

“You’ve reached Angus Carlson. I can’t take your call right now, so why not leave a message at the tone?”

After the beep, I said, “Hey, Angus, it’s Barry again. I know I shouldn’t be bothering you with shit right now, but there’s something I’d really like to bounce off you. It’s urgent.”

I ended the call, kept the phone in my hand, and sat there for several seconds, pondering my next move. Placed another call to the building I was parked behind.

“Dispatch.”

“It’s Detective Duckworth. I need an address and home phone number for Angus Carlson.”

I heard several keystrokes before I was given the information. I scribbled it down on a small notepad, then phoned Carlson’s home. After three rings, a woman answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi. It’s Detective Duckworth calling. Who’s this?”

“Hi, Detective. This is Gale. Angus’s wife. How are you?”

“Good, thank you, Gale.”

“Angus has lots of nice things to say about you.”

“Gale, is Angus there?”

“No, I’m afraid he isn’t. Have you tried his cell?”

“I have. He didn’t answer.”

“Oh,” Gale said. “Well, if I hear from him, I can tell him you called.”

“I really need to speak with him. Do you have any idea where he might be?”

Gale didn’t say anything right away. “Well, he just went out a little while ago.”

“Where did he go?”

“I really… I don’t want to get him in any trouble.”

The hairs went up on the back of my neck. “What kind of trouble?”

“It’s just-okay, you know about what happened yesterday?”

“At the hospital,” I said. “Yes.”

“And he’s on leave while the shooting is investigated?”

“That’s right,” I said. “I’m sure that will go in his favor.”

“Yeah, that’s what we’re both hoping. The thing is, he’s sort of working today.”

“What do you mean, working?”

“He kind of had an idea-actually, it was my idea, and I wasn’t even sure there was anything to it-but he had this thing he wanted to check out.”

“About what?”

“About the water being poisoned.”

“What was he checking out?”

“Okay, he’s going to be mad if I tell you this, but I think I should do it anyway.”

“Gale, please.”

“You know that used bookstore? Naman’s?”

“Yes. Someone torched it the other night.”

“That’s the one,” she said. “So, I dropped by there yesterday, and I didn’t even know that had happened, and the owner, Naman-he’s Muslim or something like that, you know-he was cleaning the place up, and I saw a book there that got me thinking.”

“A book.”

“A book all about poisons. How to make them.”

“Really?”

“And I thought, it’s probably nothing. But I told Angus, and he thought it might mean something, so he decided to look into it.”

“He’s gone to the bookstore?”

“That’s what he said. I guess he thought if he found out who poisoned the water, that’d look really good on him when this hearing into the shooting comes up.”

“Thanks, Gale,” I said. “Thanks very much.”

There were plenty of available parking spaces out front of Naman’s Books. I was thinking I’d look for Angus’s car, then realized I didn’t know what he drove. The shop was boarded up with plywood sheets, but I could hear noises inside. I tried the door and found it open.

“Hello?” I said, poking my head in.

“Who is it?” someone called out from the back of the shop.

“Police.”

Footsteps approached. A man with coffee-colored skin opened the door wide.

“Naman?” I said.

He nodded. “Mr. Safar, yes. I am Naman.”

I showed him my ID. “May I come in?”

“What is this about? I am very busy. I’m still trying to clean this place up.”

“Sorry to bother you. May I come in?” I asked again.

He shrugged. It was as close to an invitation as I was going to get. I didn’t know how bad the shop had looked initially, but there was clearly more work to be done. Swollen, water-damaged books remained scattered on the floor, and the smell of smoke was powerful. I could see through to the back of the shop, where light streamed through an open door. The edge of a Dumpster was visible.

A couple of floor lamps had been set up inside the store, powered by extension cords that led out the back door.

“Have you people found out who did this yet?” he asked me as he gathered damaged books into a blue Rubbermaid container.

“I can’t say what progress is being made,” I said. “I haven’t been involved in the investigation. But I can look into it for you.”

“Never mind,” he said.

Halfway down the shop was another open door. I glanced in as I walked by it, saw that it led to a basement.

“Lots of damage down here, too?” I asked.

“Water had to be pumped out,” Naman said. “Now it has to dry. That’ll take weeks.”

Hours earlier, I was fairly certain we had our poisoner. There was still plenty of work to do, but Victor Rooney was looking like our guy. There hadn’t been anything to point to Naman Safar. One damaged book about poison didn’t make him a terrorist. And during my brief call to Angus to ask him about George Lydecker’s habit of breaking into garages, I’d told him we might have our guy.

So maybe Angus wasn’t convinced. If Angus thought there was something to what Gale had seen, had he already been here? Had he already talked to Naman?

“Did another Promise Falls detective come to see you today?” I asked.

“What? No. No one. I keep thinking someone will come and tell me what is going on, but you are the first today.”

“You’re sure?” I asked.

Naman looked at me like I was the stupidest member of the Promise Falls police he had ever encountered, and maybe he was right. “I think I would know if a police officer had been here.”

“Of course you would,” I said. “Forgive me.” I peered farther into the doorway to the basement. “Mind if I look down here?”

“What for?”

“Just wanted to see how bad the damage is.”

“I told you. Everything down there is still wet.”

“Let me just have a look. Is there a light?”

“They have still not turned the electric back on.”

“That’s okay,” I said, took out my phone, and turned on the flashlight app. “This isn’t great, but it’ll do.”

Naman stared at me.

I descended a set of open-back wood steps. It wasn’t a deep basement. When I reached the bottom, the ceiling was just brushing the top of my head. I held up the phone, casting light around the room.

I glanced back up the stairs. Naman was silhouetted in the doorway, watching me.

“There was an inch of water down there after the fire,” he said.

The water was gone, but the concrete floor still looked damp, and the air was musty and rank.

The room was pretty much empty, save for a few wooden skids on the floor, and a furnace off in the corner. If I’d been thinking, in the back of my mind, that Angus had been here, and Naman had knocked him out and thrown him down the stairs, then that thinking had been wrong.

Except I’d yet to look behind the furnace.

“What are you doing down there?” Naman asked. “I had to haul boxes and boxes of books from down there and throw them out. It is cleaned out.”

“One second,” I said.

I held the phone with my arm extended as I moved toward the furnace. That was when I heard steps behind me. I turned, saw Naman was halfway down the stairs.

“Please stay there, sir,” I said.

“What are you looking for?” he said, taking another step down. “Sir, I won’t ask you again. Please stay there.”

Naman stayed.

I reached the furnace, crouched under some ductwork, and looked behind it.

There was nothing-and nobody-there.

I crossed the room and said, “Let’s go back upstairs, Mr. Safar.”

“Fine,” he said, and trudged his way up the steps. Once we were both back in the shop, I said, “What’s upstairs?”

“Apartment,” he said.

I realized I knew that. “Mr. Weaver,” I said.

“That’s right. He had to move out because of the smoke and everything. So now, in addition to everything else, I have lost a tenant.”

I walked through the store, out the back door, and into the light. I peered over the lip of the Dumpster, which was filled with destroyed books and cardboard and other refuse.

I gave the man one of my business cards. “I’m sorry to have troubled you. If a Detective Carlson comes by, please call me.”

He looked scornfully at the card and said, “Whatever.”

I drove to the Carlson house. On the way, I tried Angus’s cell phone once more, but he did not pick up. I was hoping that maybe, in the time I’d gone to the used bookstore, he’d returned home.

Gale came to the door and said, “Detective Duckworth.”

I nodded, extended a hand. “Hello, Gale.”

“Did you find him?”

“No,” I said. “May I come in?”

“Yes, sure. Can I get you something? A coffee?”

“That’s okay.”

“He wasn’t at the bookstore?”

“No. And I don’t think he’d been there, either.”

“That’s weird,” she said. “That’s where he said he was going. After you left, I tried calling him, but he didn’t answer.” Gale, suddenly worried, said, “What do you think’s happened to him?”

“I don’t know that anything has happened to him,” I said. “Can you think of anyplace else he might have gone?”

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“What about his mother?” I asked. “Does she live around here? Do you think he might have gone to talk to her about what he went through yesterday?”

Gale’s face crumpled. Her lips turned into a jagged line.

“Oh, dear,” she said.

“What?” I said. “What did I say?”

“Angus wouldn’t have gone to see his mother.”

“Why not?”

“She’s dead. She’s been dead for years.”

FIFTY-EIGHT

Duckworth

“HIS mother is dead?” I said. “I don’ t-earlier today I asked him what he was going to do and he said he might visit her.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

“Why would he say he might see her, and why would he act like he was talking to his mother on the phone, if she’s dead?”

“It’s something he does. It helps him. When he was in therapy, it was something that was suggested to him. That when he was stressed-out, when he was angry, he could verbalize his feelings. That it would help him, help release the tension.”

“Let’s sit down,” I said, and steered her into her own living room. We took chairs across from each other, a coffee table between us. “When did his mother die?”

“When he was seventeen,” she said. “Nearly twenty years ago.”

“What happened to her?”

“She killed herself. Jumped off a bridge onto the interstate. She wasn’t right in the head, if you know what I mean.”

“Depression?”

“That, and other things. Angus’s father walked out on them when Angus was eight, and his mother raised him until she passed away.”

“Sounds like a rough childhood,” I said.

“She was… she was not a very good mother to him,” Gale said.

“Abuse?”

She nodded. “Not just physical, but psychological, too. She wasn’t always that way. When he was little, she was pretty happy and normal, for the most part. But then something happened to her after her husband walked out. She changed. Like, her mind completely changed. It’s amazing that Angus turned out to be as well-adjusted as he is. You know, for the most part.”

“What do you mean, for the most part?”

“He has this thing… he has this thing about us never having children. He doesn’t want to have them. Like he’s afraid I’m going to turn into the kind of monster his mother was.” Her eyes filled with tears as she leaned forward. “I would never become that kind of person.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” I said. “Since he couldn’t have gone to see his mother, are you sure you have no idea where he might be?”

She shook her head. “None.”

“You say you tried phoning him, but he didn’t answer?”

“That’s right.”

“What about texting him?”

“I didn’t do that.”

“It’s easy not to answer the phone, but a person almost always looks at a text. I want you to send him one.”

She got up, went to the kitchen, and returned with a cell phone.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Something that will make him call home. Something he can’t ignore.”

Her lower lip began to quiver. “What’s going on? Why do you need to talk to him so badly?”

“Text this to him. Call me. Put an exclamation mark after that.”

“What’s going on?” she asked again.

“Just do that, but don’t send it yet.”

With one thumb, she typed the two words. “Okay, now what?”

I tried to think of something that would make any man call home immediately. Besides an invitation to sex. Or, in the case of someone like me, cake.

“Say there’s a leak under the sink. Water everywhere.”

“But there is no-”

“Please.”

“I don’t like lying to him,” she said. “It’s not right.”

“I’ll tell him I made you do it. I’ll explain. The important thing right now is that we get him to phone you. Soon as the phone rings, hand it to me.”

Gale took two deep breaths, then typed what I’d asked.

“Send it,” I said.

She hit the button.

“Now we wait,” I said.

We sat there across from each other, not saying a word, counting the seconds. Ten, fifteen, thirty.

A full minute went by.

When the phone rang in Gale’s hands, she jumped, as though it had the power to electrocute her. I extended my hand and she placed the phone in it. I hit the button to accept the call.

“Angus,” I said.

A pause, while he dealt with the surprise. “Barry?”

“That’s right.”

“What’ s-what’s going on? I just got a text from Gale about a busted pipe or something. Are you there?”

“I’m here, with Gale.”

“How bad is it? Which sink?”

“There’s no leak, Angus. I’m sorry. It was a trick. I made Gale do it, so you’d call. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.”

“Jesus, what the hell?”

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t want to do it. I went looking for you at the used bookstore.”

“The what?”

“Naman’s. Gale said you were going there.”

“She shouldn’t have said anything. I was just checking out a possible lead. Probably nothing.”

“But you never went.”

A pause at the other end. “It’s my next stop.”

“Where are you now?”

“Just driving around. What is it you want, Barry? What’s so goddamn important?”

“There’s something I need your help on. I wouldn’t have pulled a stunt like this if it wasn’t important.”

“Fine. Go ahead.”

“Not over the phone, Angus. It’d be easier to talk face-to-face.”

“What is it? Just tell me.”

“Seriously, Angus, this is a conversation I’d rather have with you in person.”

There was a long pause from Angus. Then, “I don’t think so. If you can’t give me some idea what it’s about, it’ll just have to wait until the next time we run into each other.”

I ran my tongue over my front teeth. “Okay, then,” I said slowly. “Did you know that about a week before Olivia Fisher died, and a few days before Rosemary Gaynor died, they each got a speeding ticket?”

A long pause. Then, “No. How would I know that?”

“Because you wrote them,” I said. “Both of them.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” he said. “I was in uniform. I drove around. I wrote tickets.”

“And you interviewed Lorraine Plummer just days before she was murdered.”

An even longer pause at the other end. “Yeah, of course I did. I told you all about it. I don’t know what you’re getting at, Barry.”

“It seems odd you never thought to mention that you’d met Fisher, and Gaynor, too.”

“I write a lot of tickets, Barry. Do you remember everyone you gave a ticket to when you were in uniform?”

Gale was watching me, her eyes wide.

“I’m struck by the fact that you came into contact, one way or another, with each of these three women shortly before they were all killed. I’m trying to get my head around that. That you never thought to mention it in the cases of Fisher and Gaynor.”

“What did I say just five seconds ago? I didn’t remember. I don’t remember.”

“We need to talk. Face-to-face. Let’s sort this out. I’m sure it can all be explained away. What do you say?”

I waited for a reply.

“Angus?”

He’d ended the call.

I looked at Gale, saw a tear running down her cheek. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

It was then that my eye caught a framed picture on the mantel over the fireplace. It was a portrait shot, faded over time, of a woman in her thirties. Good-looking, with dark eyes and black hair that fell gently to her shoulders. She looked, at a glance, not unlike Olivia Fisher or Rosemary Gaynor or Lorraine Plummer.

“Who’s that?” I asked Gale.

She followed my gaze, sniffed, and said, “That’s Angus’s mother.”

FIFTY-NINE

ANGUS had never intended to pay a visit to Naman.

He’d put very little stock in Gale’s suspicion that the used bookseller might be involved with contaminating the town water supply just because he had a book on poisons. What had been done to Promise Falls was not the work of some guy who got the idea out of the pages of a book. It had been done by someone with a working knowledge of the town’s infrastructure. That sure didn’t sound like Naman. And from what little Duckworth had told him in their first conversation of the day, Victor Rooney sounded like someone who fit that profile.

But interviewing the bookseller was an excellent pretext to get out of the house, to leave Gale on her own.

He had seen another one.

Someone else who bore a striking resemblance to his mother.

It was happening more now than it used to. Was that because he was seeing more women who fit the profile? Or was the need greater?

Did it matter?

After Olivia Fisher, he’d gone three years before doing it again. But then he’d pulled over Rosemary Gaynor for doing sixty in a forty. There was something about her, something in her eyes, something in the way her dark hair fell to her shoulders, that made him think of her.

If he’d known she already had a child, he might have given her a pass. But there was no baby seat in the back of her car, nothing that immediately gave away that she was a mother. It was only after he’d killed her that he learned there had been a baby boy asleep upstairs.

There was no point in killing them after they’d given birth. It was too late then. You had to get them before.

With Lorraine Plummer, it had been much easier to get it right. She was a student. No serious boyfriend, no imminent marriage. Motherhood might be years away.

Perhaps that was why the need struck him again so soon after Rosemary Gaynor. Because he’d gotten it wrong.

But she certainly looked the part. She looked so much like Leanna.

They’d been having regular chats lately. Somewhat one-sided, of course. That therapist he’d been seeing way back before he and Gale even moved to Promise Falls from Ohio suggested them. Give a voice to your feelings, he’d been told. Even if she can’t hear you, you get to hear yourself. Let the feelings out.

At times, it seemed to make a difference.

Sometimes, he’d talk to her, phone in hand, like he had a toll-free line to hell. Or he’d talk to her while driving, as though she were in the seat next to him. Other times, he would look at her picture on the mantel in the living room. Tell her what was on his mind. Give it to her straight.

Gale didn’t understand. She thought it was crazy. Asked him not to do it.

Move on, she said. It’s over. She can’t hurt you anymore.

Easy for her to say.

Let’s start a family of our own, Gale kept saying.

She just didn’t get it.

He was always very careful to make sure they took all the necessary precautions, and not just when it came to sex. He’d been careful to choose a girl who looked nothing like his mother. Different hairstyle, facial structure, body type. He wanted her to be as unlike his mother as possible.

After all, he’d hate to think that he might have to kill Gale.

Angus loved Gale.

They were, he believed, a perfect couple. He’d always been able to talk to her. He’d told her all about his childhood. How things got so much worse after his father left. How his mother had slowly descended into a kind of madness at times.

Angus hadn’t told Gale everything his mother had done. Some things he couldn’t bring himself to say aloud. Only his therapist heard the grisly details, and even in the privacy of the doctor’s office, there was one story Angus had always held back.

He’d told Gale of the lesser offenses. The relentless criticisms. That he was an accident. She’d never intended to have him. He was dumb like his father.

First came the insult. And then, when his lip would begin to quiver, she’d frown and say, “Oh, come, now. You have to learn to take these things. I’d be doing you no favor not to point out your shortcomings.”

And then she’d lean in, nose to nose, and say, “Give your mom a smile. A good boy always gives his mom a smile.”

A smile.

But being a good boy was an unattainable goal, as his mother constantly reminded him.

Good boys didn’t roughhouse or run through the living room. Good boys walked on the stairs, never jumped. Good boys didn’t get their clothes mussed up. Good boys didn’t make farting noises. Good boys didn’t get bad marks at school.

Good boys didn’t look at dirty magazines and do nasty things with themselves under the covers.

That was one of the stories he’d never been able to tell Gale. The night, when he was thirteen, when his mother burst into his room and caught him in the middle of doing that.

How she’d whipped the covers off the bed, exposed his nakedness, his withering hardness. He’d made a grab for the covers, but she held them firm.

“I thought you were a good boy,” she said.

“Please!” he whimpered, trying to get her to let go of the bed-covers. “Leave me alone!”

“If you think that’s such a smart thing to do, if you’re so proud of that kind of behavior, then go ahead and finish,” she said. “I’ll wait.”

He rolled onto his side, curling up into a ball, as though shielding himself from an imminent lashing. But her taunting had a much greater sting.

“I’m waiting,” she said.

He wrapped his arms around his knees, pulled them in closer to his chest, felt a tear run down his cheek to the pillow.

“Just as I thought,” his mother said. “Even those most basic tasks you can’t finish.”

And then she leaned in, kissed him on the forehead, and said, “All right now, let’s move on. Give your mom a smile.”

Pulling up the corners of his mouth felt like lifting a set of five-hundred-pound dumbbells.

After his mother died, he went to live with Aunt Belinda for two years. It just about killed him when she said to him one day, “I know my sister wasn’t the best of mothers, and it tore me apart watching how she treated you, but what could I do?”

She could have saved him, he thought. That’s what she could have done.

He thought, often, how much better it would have been if his mother had never had him. A life that never was would be preferable to what he’d endured.

That life seemed to turn around when he met Gale. Kind, loving, ego-boosting. After a stint in police college, he landed a job with the Cleveland force. Gale got work as a kindergarten teacher’s aide.

But a perfect life with the perfect woman was not enough to turn things around.

Charlene Quint was his first. (Well, not technically.) A Cleveland waitress. Twenty-seven. Engaged. Pulled her over for failing to signal a turn. When she turned her head just the right way, he could see Leanna in her. He had her address, made a house call a week later.

It had simultaneously felt like the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do. But it had also felt good.

When he accepted a job with the Promise Falls police, and he and Gale moved away from Cleveland, and he was no longer exposed to the geographic markers of his formative years, he thought the feelings would dissipate.

Several years passed before Olivia Fisher. He had pulled her over near the Promise Falls Mall. She was doing seventy in a forty. A serious offense, but he knocked the ticket back to fifty. Not before, however, engaging her in enough chitchat to find out she was graduating from Thackeray, that she was engaged, that she did not yet have any children.

Several days later, he staked out her address. She was still living with her parents, Elizabeth and Walden. He saw her leave by herself in the same car she’d been driving when he’d ticketed her. Followed her to downtown Promise Falls. She parked the car and wandered into the park, not far from the falls.

It was getting dark, and there were no other people nearby.

He walked right up to her. Smiled, said, “Ms. Fisher?”

She didn’t recognize him. Angus got that a lot. People meet you when you’re in uniform, then run into you another time when you’re in your street clothes, and they can’t place you. You’re out of context.

She said, “Uh, hello?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Happens all the time. I’m not in uniform. I was the mean old cop who gave you a speeding ticket the other day.”

“Oh, yes.” She smiled. “You’re right. I knew you looked familiar, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen you.”

Angus nodded his understanding. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“What?”

“For the ticket. It’s my job.”

“Oh, I know. Don’t worry about that.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

The knife was already in his right hand, down at his side, the blade hidden against his pant leg.

“Just waiting for my boyfriend.”

Angus looked beyond her shoulder. “The falls are gorgeous tonight, the way the lights on the bridge reflect in them.”

Olivia Fisher turned to look.

It was all the time he needed.

Left arm around the throat. Body pulled tight to his. Right arm around the front to her left side. Blade in. Then pull hard to the right. Down slightly in the middle.

Like a smile.

She let out such a scream.

He should have gotten his hand over her mouth, kept her from making such a noise. Not much he could do about it now.

He pulled out the knife, let her drop to the ground.

No time to savor the moment. That scream was sure to draw people. He ran. Bounded up a set of concrete steps that led up to the bridge that spanned the falls. He scaled them two at a time, tossing the knife into the falls along the way.

Rosemary Gaynor had gone more smoothly. He was in her home, didn’t have to worry about being seen, or heard. He’d parked two blocks away. Went right to the front door, rang the bell. When she opened it, she recognized him, even though he was not in uniform.

“Officer?” she’d said.

Angus made the motion of tipping an imaginary hat. “So sorry to bother you,” he said. “It’s about the ticket I wrote you the other day. I’ve been instructed to do a follow-up with you, and I didn’t get to it while I was still on my shift, so I thought I’d pop by on my way home.”

“A follow-up?”

“In fact, they’ve sent me here to tear it up. I didn’t realize that the zone where I clocked you was before the actual point where the speed limit drops.”

“You’re kidding,” she said, and laughed. “How often does that happen? Won’t you come in?”

“That’s very kind of you.”

The rest was easy.

And now, here he was, the Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend.

A new opportunity had presented itself.

He was more rattled than usual this time. He figured that was due to the shooting at the hospital. Killing people in secret was one thing, but an event that public, with implications for his job-his future-was quite another.

He needed to try to put that aside and concentrate on the task at hand. But complicating things further had been that call from Detective Duckworth.

Duckworth had connected the dots.

Angus believed it was all going to be over very soon. There might only be time for one more.

Sonja Roper.

The nurse at Promise Falls General. In their short conversation he’d learned she had no children. Not yet. But she had a boyfriend-a pilot who wasn’t due home until tomorrow-and they were certainly planning to have children in the future.

So there was still time to save those kids.

To spare them inevitable lives of torment and misery.

It hadn’t taken Angus any time at all to figure out where Sonja Roper lived. A quick call to the hospital confirmed she was off today. He parked a couple of blocks from her home. He’d slapped the stolen green Vermont plates on the car shortly after he’d left home.

She’ll be my fifth, he thought.

But then he corrected himself mentally. Sixth.

He often forgot to count his mother.

Everyone thought she must have been depressed when, late one night, she leapt off that overpass straight into the path of a transport truck heading south on I-90.

There were some stories you didn’t share even with your therapist.

SIXTY

SONJA Roper had ended up working not just a double, but a triple shift the day before at Promise Falls General Hospital. Well, almost.

She had arrived for a seven-hour shift that began at six in the morning, and by half past, the patients were starting to turn up. Things hadn’t slowed down by the time her shift ended at one, so she hung in. By midafternoon, word had spread that the water was contaminated, and admissions had slowed to a trickle, no pun intended. For the most part, anyone who was going to get sick had gotten so. Her second shift would have ended at seven, but they still had their hands full treating the people who’d been admitted. She put in another three hours, and went home at ten.

Sonja had never seen anything like it in her life.

Not that she’d been around forever. She’d been working at the hospital for only two years. But still, that was not the kind of day you ever wanted to see. They trained for it-they did their best to be ready-but hoped and prayed they’d never have to deal with that kind of emergency.

When she was finally able to go home, she was not sure she’d be able to keep her eyes open for the drive. One of the orderlies was leaving at the same time and offered her a lift home. She could come back for her car on Sunday.

She and her boyfriend, Stan, were renting a small house on Klondike. She was sorry he wouldn’t be there when she got home. He was spending the night in Seattle, and if she remembered correctly, he’d be in Chicago Sunday night, flying home Monday.

Sonja just wanted to crawl into bed with him and fall asleep in his arms.

They had managed to talk on the phone around six. She told him how bad things were in Promise Falls, and he told her how proud he was of her, doing her part to help people through such a horrible time.

“I love you, Stan,” she said.

“I love you, too,” he said.

The good news was that she was asleep thirty seconds after her head hit the pillow. The bad news was her dreams were all about what she’d seen that day in the emergency ward. People throwing up, collapsing, dying right in front of her. The anguished cries of relatives who were powerless to do anything.

She woke up a couple of times but quickly went back to sleep. When she opened her eyes in the morning and looked at the clock, it was fifteen minutes past eleven.

“Wow,” Sonja said.

She thought about having a shower. Word was that a shower was safe. But she liked to do a four-mile run three mornings a week, and this struck her as a good day to clear her head. She got up, slipped on some sweats and running shoes, clipped an iPod Shuffle to her collar, and worked the buds into her ears.

When she opened the front door, the morning sun blinded her.

She did a few stretches on the front lawn first, set her iPod to play the best of Madonna, and headed out.

Sonja loved the feel of the warm sun on her face, the fresh air entering her lungs. This was exactly what she needed.

By the time she got back, she was drenched in sweat; her legs were numb and her lungs aching. She’d really pushed that last half mile.

But she felt good.

She unlocked the front door, stepped inside, pulled the buds from her ears, and dropped the iPod into a decorative bowl with her keys. She went into the kitchen and turned the tap on full blast, letting the water get cold.

Then it hit her. “What am I thinking?” She turned off the tap and took a bottle of Poland Spring water from the refrigerator and took two long gulps.

There was a knock at the door.

“Just a second!” she said.

She put the bottle down on the counter, walked briskly to the front door, and opened it wide.

“Ms. Roper?”

The man smiled, nodded respectfully.

“I know you,” she said slowly.

“We met yesterday at the hospital. I was asking-”

“You’re the policeman,” Sonja said. “I remember you. But I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Carlson,” he said. “Angus Carlson.”

She gestured down at herself. Her running clothes were dark with perspiration. “You have to excuse me. I just did a run. I’m sweating buckets. Pretty dumb, huh, when I don’t even know if the water’s safe to shower with yet?”

“For what it’s worth, I’ve heard it is. But I’m sorry. Should I come back later?”

“No, no, it’s okay.”

“They say we need to wait another day or two before we drink anything from the tap, but for cleaning, showering, the crisis is over.”

“Really? That’s some good news, I guess. Because if anyone ever needed a shower, it’s me. So what’s up?”

“We’re still, of course, actively investigating the cause of the water contamination, and we’re reinterviewing people who might have noticed something-anything-that might be helpful.”

“What could I have seen?” she asked.

“Well, we think it’s possible that whoever did this-and we do think it was an individual with an agenda, and not some kind of environmental accident or something-he might very well have come to the hospital to see the results of his handiwork, actually see the people being ill.”

“Oh my God, that’s just awful,” Sonja Roper said.

“I know. That’s why I wanted to ask you if you noticed anything unusual yesterday. Anything at all.”

“Are you kidding? It was all unusual.”

Carlson nodded understandingly. “Of course it was. But what I’m thinking is, did you notice anyone who didn’t seem to belong? Someone who was just hanging around, not actually with anyone? Someone who was lurking?”

“I’d have to think about that a second. God, where are my manners? You want to step inside?”

“I suppose. Thank you.”

“I’m so rude. Forgive me.”

“Not at all,” Angus said.

SIXTY-ONE

Duckworth

“WHAT kind of car is your husband driving?” I asked Gale Carlson.

“A Ford. A Fusion.”

“Color?”

“Um… dark blue,” she said.

“Plate number?”

She spluttered, “I have no idea.”

“Year?”

Gale remained flustered. “I think, 2007. We bought it used.”

I got out my phone, entered a number. “Hey, I need you to look up a registration. I need a plate number on a dark blue 2007 Ford Fusion, registered to Angus Carlson. Yeah, that Angus Carlson. Call me when you have it.”

Then I called Rhonda Finderman.

“Barry? Jesus, why the hell did you bail on me?” she said, answering after one ring.

“Chief, I need you to-”

“I wanted you beside me when I did that conference. Everyone turned up. All the major networks. CNN was there, the Albany media. They had a lot of questions and a lot of them I just had to wing. It would have gone a lot better if you’ d-”

“Listen to me. Call whoever we call when we need to track a cell phone.”

“What?”

“Take this down.”

I gave her Angus’s cell phone number and service provider. “We need to see if they can triangulate his location.”

“Why, Barry? What’s happened to Angus? Does this have something to do with the shooting at the hospital?”

“No.”

“Barry, talk to me.”

I moved away from Gale, far enough to be sure she would not hear me. “Angus just moved to the top of the suspect list in the Fisher, Gaynor, and Plummer murders.”

For about three seconds, nothing. Then, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I can’t get into it now. I need to find him.”

“Jesus, Barry.”

“I know. Can you do the phone thing?”

“Leave it with me.”

“Tell me what’s going on,” Gale asked me after I’d ended the call. “Please tell me what’s happening.”

“We have to find Angus,” I told her.

“Why were you asking him about those women who’d been murdered? You were acting like you thought he had something to do with it.”

“Gale, talk to me about him.”

Her face was crumpling. “I don’t understand what you’re asking. He’s my husband. I love him.”

“How’s he been lately? Has he been moody? Has he seemed different?”

“He’s always been moody,” Gale said, shaking her head, as though trying to shake off my questions. “It’s the job. It’s being with the police. It’s hard on him. And then what happened yesterday, he’s very stressed-out about that.”

“Before yesterday,” I said. “How has he been?”

“He’s damaged,” she said. “He’s always been damaged. It was what drew me to him in the first place. He had so much pain. You have no idea. I wanted to help him with that. And I’ve been doing it, every single day. I know he comes across as funny sometimes, always making jokes, the wisecracks. It’s an act. It masks the pain. Why were you asking him about those women?”

I wondered whether, deep down, she’d always suspected something. Maybe, maybe not. Often, it was the people closest to you that you knew the least about.

My phone rang.

“I’ve got a plate for you,” my contact said.

I wrote down the information, ended the call, then made another, to the Promise Falls police dispatcher.

“We need to find this car,” I said. I provided a full description, with plate number. “It’s Angus Carlson. We need to find him immediately.”

“Is he in trouble?” the dispatcher asked.

“Yes,” I said. But not the way the dispatcher meant, so I added, “He needs to be approached with caution.”

“What?”

“Get the word out,” I said, and slipped the phone back into my pocket.

“He wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Gale said. “He wouldn’t.” She turned away, wringing her hands.

I said, “Text him. Tell him to come home.”

She tapped away on the phone. “I’m telling him I love him. I’m telling him I need him.”

We waited for the three little dots that would indicate he was forming a reply, but there was nothing.

“This is all my fault,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been asking him lately-I’ve been asking him a lot-about our having a child. Trying to get him to warm to the idea.”

“I don’t think this has anything to do with that,” I said.

“It might, it really might,” she said pleadingly. This was what she wanted it to be about. It was less horrific than the other possibilities that had to be going through her mind.

“Why?” I asked.

“He had such a horrible upbringing. After his father left, his mother… like I said, she changed. Angus didn’t want to have children because there’s such a huge risk that the parents will turn out to be monsters. I’d say to him, ‘Do you think that’s what I could turn into? A monster?’ And he’d say you just never know with people. We have these long talks about it, me trying to convince him that I’d never be like that, no matter what happened. Maybe he was worried about himself, that he had the potential to transform from a wonderful father to a bad one. But I know that would be impossible.”

She found a tissue, dabbed her eyes.

“Sometimes he would say…”

I waited. When she wouldn’t continue, I said, “Sometimes he would say what?”

“Sometimes he would say it’d be a better world if no more children were brought into it. At all. Period.”

She picked up the phone, looked expectantly at the screen.

“I should tell him,” she said, her thumb poised over the screen.

“Tell him what?” I asked.

SIXTY-TWO

“COULD you give me two seconds to freshen up?” Sonja Roper asked Angus Carlson.

“Sure, of course,” he said.

“I just want to splash some water on my face,” she said. “But it felt good, to run off some of that tension from yesterday. I hope I never, ever see another day like that.”

Angus believed he could help her with that.

But he felt he was working against a deadline. The clock was ticking. Duckworth would be trying to find him. He was probably putting out a BOLO right now for his car. He’d have gotten the plate for his Ford, but they weren’t going to find it that way, not with that stolen green Vermont plate slapped over his own. But that would slow them down for only so long.

On top of that, Sonja Roper wanted to freshen up, maybe get changed. Which meant she was probably heading into the bathroom and, if she had any smarts at all, locking the door. He couldn’t kick the door down. That would give her time to respond, to get into a defensive position.

“Let’s hope none of us ever see another day like that,” Carlson said. “It was the worst day in the history of this town, that’s for sure.”

“It’s kind of like what I imagine a plane crash would be like, although I hate to even say that, considering what my boyfriend does for a living. All those casualties, all at once. But with a crash, it’d be all kinds of physical injuries. Missing limbs, lacerations. With a mass poisoning, there wasn’t blood, but it didn’t make it any less horrifying, but it was different, you know?”

“Yes,” he said.

Maybe he could corner her in the kitchen before she went to the bathroom.

“Who would do such a thing?” she asked. “Why would someone want to do that?”

Angus shook his head.

“I just don’t know.”

Except now he did know, or at least had a pretty good idea.

When Barry Duckworth called to ask him what he knew about George Lydecker, who’d been found in Victor Rooney’s garage, he’d disclosed what he believed Rooney’s motive had been.

Payback.

Rooney may have been taking revenge on a citizenry that did nothing to help Olivia Fisher. Which meant the deaths of more than a hundred Promise Falls residents led right back to Angus Carlson.

He was having a hard time getting his head around that.

He wasn’t sure how he felt.

Angus was selective about those who had to die. He did not kill men. Men did not bear children. Yes, of course, they had a role to play in the reproductive process. But women were the ultimate givers of life. So all those men who had died the day before-it was a terrible thing. All the elderly, of both sexes. All the children, even the girls, who should have been entitled to at least a few more years.

It was wrong. So unnecessary.

That’s a very, very sick person, Angus thought.

He rejected the notion that he was somehow liable for all that. Every individual had to be held responsible for his or her actions. Like when some nutcase says a movie made him kill. Was it the director’s fault? The studio’s? Should the screenwriter be charged? No, Angus thought. It was the fault of that nutcase, plain and simple.

Wasn’t he willing to take responsibility for what he was doing? Of course he was. His mother played a role in his motivations, but in the end, it was up to him.

And right now, it was up to him to kill Sonja Roper.

She excused herself, walked down the hall, and disappeared into a room. Carlson heard the door close and lock. Seconds later, the sound of water running in a sink.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He wasn’t taking any more calls. He wasn’t going to be tricked by Duckworth again. But it might be a text, and he was curious to see what it was.

It was, as he’d guessed it would be, Gale.

I love you. I need you. Please come home.

He shook his head sadly. That was probably Duckworth’s doing. Telling her what to write.

Angus turned his attention back to Sonja.

He could position himself on the far side of the bathroom door.

When she came out, she’d probably head back toward the living room. She’d exit the bathroom and turn left. He could wait to her right. The second she emerged, he could grab her from behind, pull her close to him, do it quickly.

Make the smile.

He got up, went down the hall. Stood against the wall just beyond the door. He could hear her moving around in there. A toilet flush. He reached down into his front pocket, where he kept the knife. It was an automatic, a blade just over three inches. One touch of the button and the blade would emerge. Short handle with a strong grip. Expensive. He’d hated throwing one away every time, but it was the prudent thing to do. In the case of Olivia Fisher, imperative.

You didn’t want to be caught with a bloody knife on your person.

He took the weapon from his pocket, extended the blade.

Inside the bathroom, no more running water. He sensed she was ready to come out.

He was ready, too.

And then it hit him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He needed to have done more than mute his phone. He should have turned it off completely. Duckworth might be trying to track his location.

Angus reached for his phone with his free hand, and as he did, it vibrated again.

Another text.

He decided to look at it before powering the phone down.

It was another one from Gale. It read:

Im pregnant.

SIXTY-THREE

Duckworth

“WHAT did he say?” I asked after Gale sent her most recent text message.

“He hasn’t said anything,” she said.

When Gale told me she’d learned, three weeks ago, that she was expecting a child, I thought maybe the news would be enough to jolt Angus Carlson into coming back to the house.

“Wait,” she said. “He’s writing something. Here.” She turned the phone so I could see it.

I dont believe you.

Gale typed: It’s true. Please come home.

Another stretch of time without a reply. Maybe a minute, which felt like an eternity in the world of texting. Then: Dworth made you say this.

Gale replied: He wanted me to tell u. But it is true. Have known for 3wks. Afraid to tell u.

My cell phone rang. It was Chief Finderman.

“We have an approximate location on the phone,” she told me.

“Where?”

“Klondike Street. Near Rossland.”

“If they can pinpoint it any better, let me know,” I said. “Start having cars focus on that neighborhood. I’m heading there.”

“I hope you’re wrong about this,” Rhonda said.

“Me, too,” I said, but wasn’t sure I meant it. If Angus Carlson was our serial killer, I wanted him caught. If it reflected badly on the department, and Rhonda Finderman in particular, so be it.

I finished with Rhonda and looked at Gale, who was still staring at her phone. “Anything else?”

She held the device up to me. Angus had written: Should have told me.

“Tell him the two of you need to talk about it. Right now.”

She tapped. I heard the whoosh.

“You’re coming with me,” I said.

“Where are we going? Do you know where he is?”

“Roughly,” I said.

“Just tell me what it is you think he’s done,” she said, not moving. “You kept mentioning those women who’d been killed. Did Angus make some kind of mistake? Did he screw up the investigation? Is that why you’re mad at him?”

I thought maybe she’d already figured it out, but was clinging to the hope that her husband wasn’t a killer.

“I need to talk to him about those investigations, yes,” I said.

Gale swallowed hard. It looked like a marble working its way down her throat. “You think it’s him.”

“I don’t know that,” I said.

“It might be him,” she said.

“Gale.”

“He said something to me last night. Just before we went to sleep. I could tell he was thinking about something. He said he’d been talking to a nurse at the hospital, that she was getting married soon, that they wanted to have kids.” She paused. “How it made him sad.”

I felt my blood starting to run cold. “Did he mention a name?” “No.”

“Anything else about her?”

Gale shook her head. Suddenly, she let out a short scream. Her phone had buzzed in her hand.

“It’s Angus. He says he has to think.”

I’d already stepped out front. I called the hospital, asked to be put through to the emergency ward. Someone picked up and said, “Emergency. Nurse Fielding.”

I identified myself. It took a little convincing, but she finally remembered me from when I was there the day before. “I’m trying to track down someone who works in the ER who was there yesterday-”

“Everyone was here yesterday,” she said.

“This nurse probably was in her twenties or thirties, dark hair, and she might live on Klondike Street.”

“Oh, that’s probably Sonja,” Nurse Fielding said.

“Sonja? Can you spell that? And do you have a last name?”

She spelled the first name, and then said, “Roper.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Is she there today?”

“No, she did a double and a half yesterday.”

“Do you have a contact number, and an exact address?”

“Hang on a second.”

While I waited, I said to Gale, “Anything else from him?”

“No,” she said.

I had my notepad out, waiting for Nurse Fielding to report back. A few seconds later, she came on.

“Okay, Sonja lives at 31 Klondike,” she said.

Shit.

“And do you have a number for her?”

She gave me one. “I think it’s a cell,” she said. “I don’t think she has a landline.”

I ended the call and said to Gale, “Let’s go.” On the way to the car, I dialed Sonja Roper’s number.

SIXTY-FOUR

WHEN Gale texted him the news that she was pregnant, Angus became so fixated on the phone, staring at the words, that he lost track of what he’d come to Sonja Roper’s house to do.

How could she be pregnant?

How could Gale have betrayed him that way?

Angus wondered, first, whether she was telling him the truth. But if she was, how had it happened? Of course, no method of birth control was one hundred percent effective. But he thought they’d been careful, unless Gale was deliberately not being careful.

He slipped the knife back into his pocket, wrote Gale back, accusing her of lying, then said she should have told him as soon as she’d known.

What would he have done had he known? he wondered.

Would he have killed Gale?

No, no, he wouldn’t have done that. That was unthinkable.

He’d have had her go to a clinic. He’d have made her terminate the pregnancy.

He was almost sure that was what he would have done.

Except… now he was overwhelmed with the idea that he might actually be a father. That a child of his was growing inside Gale.

How did that make him feel? In the first few seconds after she’d texted him, he was angry. Then confused. Then-

The bathroom door swung open.

Sonja Roper stepped out, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, hair wet. Her feet were bare.

“Shit!” she said when she realized Angus was hovering right by the door, phone in hand. She jumped, spun around to face him, and backed her way into the living room. “What were you doing there?”

“I was… I was just on my phone. Texting.”

“Why were you hiding outside the door there?”

“I wasn’ t-I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“What kind of creep are you?”

“I didn’t look in. I didn’t try the door.”

“Look, I don’t know what questions you’ve got, but you should leave.”

“My wife is pregnant,” he said.

“What?”

“She just texted me. She’s pregnant.”

Sonja, bewildered, said, “Well… that’s just great. But it doesn’t explain why you were creeping around outside my door.”

“She didn’t tell me. She’s known for three weeks.”

“I guess you should talk to her about that,” Sonja said. “Like, right now would be a good time.”

A cell phone began to ring. The sound was coming from the kitchen.

“Don’t answer that,” Angus said.

“Excuse me?”

“I said don’t answer it. We have to talk.”

“Get out,” she said as the phone continued to ring. “I want you out of here right now.”

Angus slowly started walking down the hall toward her. “What do you think I should do?” he asked her.

“What?” Sonja said, glancing behind her with each backward step she took.

In the distance, the sound of sirens.

“What should I do about my wife being pregnant?” He looked at her plaintively. “I’m not sure how to handle it. It’s all feeling a bit overwhelming. There’s only so much one person can do. I came here to solve one problem, but now another’s overtaken it. But is it a problem?”

“You’re off your nut,” Sonja said, turned, and ran.

She pushed the front door open with both hands and burst out of the house as though there’d been an explosion as two police cars raced up the street, lights flashing, sirens wailing. Sonja waved her arms as she ran across the lawn.

Angus came out the door after her, but once on the front step he stopped. He saw the cars screaming toward the house.

He got out his phone and texted to Gale: Guess I will come home now.

He stared at the screen as the police cars screeched to a halt out front of the house.

Coming to you, Gale wrote back.

A female officer was out of the first car. Sonja Roper was talking to her, pointing to Carlson.

“Detective Carlson!” the officer said. “Are you Detective Carlson?”

He typed: Ok.

Then he looked up and said, “Yes, I’m Carlson.”

Another car, plain black without markings, rounded the corner.

Carlson recognized it immediately as an unmarked Promise Falls police car. He was pretty sure that was Barry Duckworth behind the wheel.

With Gale in the seat next to him.

Gale threw open the door as Duckworth brought the car to a stop.

“Gale!” Duckworth said. “Wait!”

But she wasn’t going to wait. She ran past the marked cars, ignored the female officer’s call to stop, and ran directly to her husband. He stood there, waited. She got to within a foot of him, and when she stopped, he smiled.

“Maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t tell me,” Angus said. “I don’t know what I might have had to do.”

Gale suddenly went weak and dropped to her knees in front of him.

SIXTY-FIVE

Duckworth

RHONDA Finderman sat in on the interrogation.

Angus insisted he did not want a lawyer. Once he’d signed off on that, and we were ready to record his statement, he told us everything, with plenty of corroborating detail.

About Olivia Fisher, and Rosemary Gaynor, and, most recently, Lorraine Plummer. There was a murder in Cleveland, too. Once I had the details on that, I’d be getting in touch with the Cleveland police so they could move that one to the solved column.

Angus explained to us how he was saving unborn children from a life of misery.

“I screwed up with Rosemary Gaynor,” he said. “I didn’t realize she already had a child.”

“And it wasn’t her child,” I pointed out. “Rosemary Gaynor couldn’t have children.”

He grimaced, looking like a kid who’d gotten only an A when he was expecting an A-plus.

Chief Finderman didn’t say a word through the whole thing. Bad enough that one of her own was a serial killer. This was the man she’d moved up to detective status. I didn’t envy her when she went before the cameras on this one.

“I want your thoughts on something,” Angus said at one point.

“About what?” I asked.

“Well, it’s about Victor Rooney and the poisoning of the water. I want to know if you think that’s my fault.”

“I don’t think my opinion on that matters, Angus,” I said.

“No, really, I’d like to know. I value your opinion.”

“Why don’t you tell me if you think it’s your fault?”

“At first, I thought maybe it was. But I think Victor has to own it. It was his decision. Regardless of what I did, or those other people who did nothing, he made the choice to do what he did.”

“I see.”

“You don’t agree?” he asked.

“Like I said, my opinion doesn’t matter here,” I told him. “But let me ask you this. If you hadn’t killed Olivia Fisher, would more than a hundred people have died in Promise Falls this weekend?”

Angus Carlson gave that some thought. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Thank you for your kindness toward Gale,” he said.

“Sure.”

Angus shook his head slowly and sighed. “Given that what’s done is done, I hope it’s a boy.”

Finderman and I left Angus in the interrogation room to confer.

“What a mess,” she said. “And please don’t say it is what it is.” “That’s not one of my sayings,” I said, steering her toward the coffee machine. “But it’s kind of apt.”

“God, Barry. One of our own.”

“It’ll be bad,” I said. “We just have to ride it out.”

“I’m the one who has to ride it out. You found a killer. I promoted one.”

“You think we might try to find a silver lining here?” I said, grabbing two mugs, glancing into them to ensure that they were at least remotely clean. “We caught a serial killer. We’ve solved three homicides. And maybe another one or two for the folks in Cleveland. Did you notice, when I asked him about his mother’s death, how uncomfortable he got? I think they should be taking another look at that, too.”

It was difficult for Finderman to see an upside at the moment, but she tried. “In the course of one day you’ve found the guy who poisoned the town’s water, and exposed a multiple murderer. Christ, they’ll be making a movie about you.”

“You heard anything about Rooney?” I asked, pouring coffee into the two mugs. I held up the container of cream, but she shook her head. I handed her a mug.

“He’s in the ICU,” Rhonda said. “That fire truck hit him good. But he’s far from a goner. They think he might regain consciousness before too long.” She took a sip of the coffee. “I’m always amazed that this is not terrible.”

I nodded. “Let’s hope he’ll be as forthcoming as Carlson was about why he did what he did.”

Rhonda turned her back to the wall and let it hold her up. “I’m beat, but you look about a hundred times worse.”

I smiled. “Yeah. I’m tired.”

“I heard you had some trouble at Rooney’s house. When the paramedics came. You had some chest pain.”

I waved a hand. “It was nothing. I was running. It only lasted a second.”

“Promise me you’ll get yourself checked out.”

“I will.” I paused. “I did. Saw the doctor a couple of days ago. She said-get this-I need to lose some weight.”

“Ridiculous,” the chief said, doing a good job of keeping a straight face.

“Tell me about it. Maureen’s been trying to kill me with vegetables.”

“Wear a wire,” Rhonda said. “We record her telling you to eat them all up, we swoop in, we arrest her.”

I was too weary to laugh. “I’m sorry about the other thing.” She didn’t pretend not to know what I was talking about. “It happens.”

“I was talking to Maureen. It was a private conversation. Trevor heard it, told Finley. Finley had something on Trevor-nothing huge, but enough-and put the squeeze on him.”

“It’s not that it came out,” Rhonda said. “It’s that you believed I fucked up.”

I nodded. “I thought so at the time, but it was frustration. In the last month, since the shit started hitting the fan by the bucketful, I’ve made more fuckups than I can count.” I paused. “Maybe I’m done.”

“No.”

“It’s twenty years.”

“Seriously?”

“May’ ninety-five, I came on. Slightly younger, and a whole lot thinner.”

“I didn’t know. We should do something. Some kind of party.”

“I think I’ll celebrate with sleep,” I said.

“Can you stay awake long enough for another press conference? One you’ll actually show up to?”

I nodded. “Yes. But there’s something I have to do first.”

Her eyebrows went up slightly. “Go on.”

“I don’t want Walden Fisher to learn about it on the news. I don’t want him turning on the radio and finding out we’ve got the guy who killed his daughter. He needs to hear it in person before everyone else does.”

Rhonda Finderman nodded. “Okay.”

“I’m gonna head over that way now. Then I’ll make a call to Lorraine Plummer’s parents, and I guess Bill Gaynor deserves a heads-up as well, even if he is in jail.”

“I’ll tell him,” Rhonda said. “And I’ll get the paperwork going on the official charges against Carlson.”

I nodded a thank-you. I poured the rest of my coffee into the sink and left the building. I thought I was going to make a clean getaway, but Randall Finley was standing by my car.

“I thought these were your wheels,” he said. “I was just going to come in and look for you.”

“Hi, Randy.”

“Is it true?” he asked.

“Is what true?”

“Rumors are going around that you’ve got someone. In those murders. Of the women.”

“There’ll be a presser later today.”

“And I already heard about Victor Rooney. God, Barry, you’re having some kind of day. It was you, right? In both cases? You figured it out?”

There wasn’t the usual forced enthusiasm in his voice, which I attributed to grief. I was detecting what sounded like genuine admiration, but I was too tired to appreciate it.

“It’s been a day full of developments,” I conceded. “But there’s still a lot to nail down.”

“I meant what I said earlier. You should be the chief. You’re the man for the job.”

“We have a chief,” I said. “And she’s doing just fine. I haven’t forgotten the shit you pulled.” But there was no anger in my voice. “Besides, I don’t know what this has to do with you anymore.”

“I’ve reconsidered,” Finley said.

“You’ve what?”

“I’m still running. After a suitable period,” he said, and lowered his head in memory of the dead, “I’ll be back at it.”

“Why the change of heart?”

“What else am I going to do, Barry? Just sit around and put water into bottles? I’ll go out of my mind. I have to do more than that. I have to make a difference.”

He said it with such a straight face, I felt he believed it.

“I guess you have to do what you have to do,” I said, opening my car door and getting in.

“So what I’m saying is, if you hear anything a guy in my position might like to know, it’s in my nature to return the favor.”

God, we were right back where we’d started when he found those damn squirrels.

On the way, I phoned Maureen, filled her in.

“I wonder if any of the stores are open today,” she said.

“Why?”

“I might buy you a cake.”

“I accept.”

I thought she’d say something, but her voice had gone quiet.

“Maureen?”

“I’m here. I’m just… I’ve been just barely holding it together all day. There’s a list online.” She paused. “Of the dead.”

“Oh.”

“Some of them are people we know. Alicia, who I work with?”

“Right?”

“She lost both her parents. At one of the nursing homes. They said on the radio that there were forty-two fatalities in facilities for the elderly. They died before anyone could even get them to the hospital. It brings the number of dead to over two hundred.”

The scale of the tragedy had gotten so big I’d become numbed by it. I had lost the capacity to be shocked.

“I have a couple of things to do yet,” I told her, “and then Rhonda and I are going to make a statement about Angus Carlson’s arrest, and then I’ll be home.”

“I love you,” Maureen said.

“I love you, too.”

• • •

By the time I’d mounted the steps to Walden Fisher’s porch and rapped my knuckles on the door, I wasn’t sure I had anything left. I could feel the exhaustion washing over me. It was just as well Walden took the better part of thirty seconds to come to the door. I needed that much time to keep my head from spinning.

“Hello?” he said as he swung the door open. Then, recognizing me, he said, “Oh, Detective.”

“Mr. Fisher,” I said, extending a hand.

He had been rubbing the tip of his right thumb with his index finger. He spotted something scraggly on the nail and quickly bit it off. “Sorry,” he said. He offered that same hand and I took it with some reluctance.

“May I come in?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he said, and made way for me. “I was thinking you might come by.”

Had he already heard about Carlson?

“Really?” I said.

“It was on the news. About Victor. My God, I just can’t believe it. It’ s-it’s unthinkable what he did.”

Of course. That much had become public.

“I apologize for not coming by to tell you about that,” I said. “I should have. But there’s been another development, something even more important to you.”

He looked at me expectantly. “What?”

“I wouldn’t mind getting off my feet,” I said.

We took seats in the living room. Walden was on the edge of his, leaning forward. Next to him, on an end table, was a picture of his wife, Beth, and daughter, Olivia, taken, I guessed, when Olivia was around twelve years old.

Both smiling.

I said, “We have someone in custody in connection with Olivia’s death.”

His mouth dropped open an inch. “Victor?”

“No, not Victor. It’s a man named Angus Carlson.” I drew a breath. “A member of the Promise Falls police.”

Walden sat back in his chair, stunned. “Carlson?”

“That’s right.”

“But I met him. Yesterday, at the hospital.”

I nodded. “That’s right. Carlson has confessed to Olivia’s murder, and two others here in Promise Falls. There may be more, in Cleveland, that happened before he moved here.”

“Dear God,” he said. “He just came in and confessed?”

“No,” I said. “There were things that led to him. In fact, you played a role there, when you gave me those letters the town had sent to Olivia. We found Carlson just before he was going to do it again, I think. There’s going to be a statement this afternoon, but I wanted you to be the first to know about this.”

He shook his head slowly, still disbelieving.

“Why?” he asked.

I told him what Angus had told us. “I can’t say that it makes any sense.”

“In his mind it did,” Walden said.

I nodded. “You never really know what’s going on inside people’s heads.”

He was mulling it over, trying to take it in. “They’re going to show up at my door, aren’t they?”

“They?”

“Reporters,” he said. “Soon as you tell them about this, they’ll be swarming around out front.”

“That’s a reasonable expectation,” I said. “We can ask them to give the families-people like you-some space, but they don’t tend to listen.”

He looked down at himself. His plaid flannel shirt had several minor stains on it.

“Beth would kill me if I went before the cameras looking like this,” he said with a sad smile. “I should throw on a clean shirt. They might show up any minute.”

I didn’t think that was so, but then again, Finley had already heard about Carlson. Someone might have phoned in a tip to the media.

“It’s possible,” I said.

Walden stood. “Give me a minute,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

I stood as well as he crossed the room and went up the stairs.

Suddenly, I felt woozy.

It was a bit like how I’d felt when I’d chased Victor Rooney down the driveway, before the pain in my chest.

I took a few deep breaths. Oxygen, I thought. I needed oxygen.

The wooziness passed after several seconds, but there was a lingering feeling that I might be sick to my stomach.

There was probably a bathroom on the first floor. I walked in the direction of the kitchen, passed one door I thought might be a powder room, and opened it, only to discover it was a closet. But I got lucky with the second door.

I stepped into the two-piece bathroom, left the door open. There was a white porcelain pedestal sink next to a toilet. Behind me, a towel rack and a shelf with some knickknacks. What I wanted to do was splash some water on my face. I still wasn’t going to drink it, but if it was safe enough to shower with, I could splash some on my cheeks.

I turned on the cold tap, held one hand under it until the water was good and chilly, cupped my palms beneath it. I closed my eyes tight, tossed the water on my face.

Did it again.

I turned off the tap, reached behind me for the hand towel hanging there, and dried my face off.

I needed to take some weight off my feet. I placed my hands on both sides of the sink, and inadvertently knocked something off the side.

I looked down between the sink and the toilet and saw that I had knocked Walden’s metal nail file to the floor. About six inches long, with a clear blue plastic handle. It had landed next to a plastic wastepaper basket. I was worried the blood would rush to my head when I bent over to pick it up.

I needed a second.

While I was looking down, something in the trash basket caught my eye. Amid a few wadded tissues there was a small bottle, the kind that might contain cough syrup. But a glance at the label told me it was not cough syrup.

Bracing myself against the sink with one hand, I reached down into the basket with the other. Got my fingers around the bottle and brought it up to eye level.

I read the label.

Syrup of Ipecac.

I didn’t even know they still made that stuff. I remembered back when I was a kid, it was in most people’s medicine cabinets. But it had, over the years, fallen out of favor.

I certainly hadn’t forgotten what it was for.

It made you throw up. Violently.

I sensed someone standing just outside the door. I turned, the bottle of ipecac still in my hand.

Walden Fisher, wearing a nice, crisp white shirt, was staring at me.

SIXTY-SIX

OH, shit.

SIXTY-SEVEN

Duckworth

“I was feeling dizzy,” I told Walden. “Came in here for a minute to pull myself together.”

Walden said nothing.

I held up the bottle. “What’s the story on this, Walden?”

“That’s ipecac,” he said.

“I know. I can read. I haven’t seen this in a long time. But this looks like a relatively new bottle.” I took a closer look at it, turned it sideways. “Empty, too. Where’d you get this?”

“I bought it. Had to go to a few places before I found it.”

“It makes you throw up,” I said.

“Yeah,” Walden said.

“So why did you want it?”

“In case I ever needed it.”

“You must have used it very recently,” I said. “I mean, it was right there in the trash. So you must have had some in the last day or so.”

“That’s right,” he said hesitantly. “Yesterday morning. When I heard about the water being poisoned.”

His voice lacked conviction. I’d been in this line of work long enough to tell when someone was lying to me.

“At the hospital,” I reminded him, “you said you’d had some coffee? Ran out into the street, throwing up, just as the ambulance was coming by.”

“Is that what I said?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Then maybe I had some of that after I got back home,” he said. “I’m a little cloudy on the details.”

But things were coming into focus for me.

“Walden,” I said, “did you drink this stuff before you ran out into the street?”

“Like I said, so much has happened in the last day or so.”

“Why would you do that?” I asked. “Everyone else was sick from the tainted water, but you were sick from this. Walden, it’s almost like you wanted people to think you were made ill by the poisoned water, when maybe you weren’t.”

Walden moved his jaw around.

“Why would you do that, Walden? Why did you want everyone to think you’d been poisoned?”

That jaw kept moving around.

“Walden?”

“I took too much of it,” he said. “I just wanted to appear sick, like everyone else. But I swallowed so much, I really did a number on myself. Threw up so violently, my heart started palpitating. Actually thought I might die for a while there.”

“Jesus, Walden, why-”

He came at me fast, palms forward. He slammed them into my chest and I went into the wall hard enough to get the wind knocked out of me. I was about to reach for my gun, but instead I raised my hands to defend myself from the fists that were pounding my head.

Walden was in a blind fury, his fists driving into me faster than I could deflect them. I felt a cheekbone collapse; then the vision in my left eye went blurry with blood. We weren’t that different in age, but he was in better shape than I was, by a lot.

I started sliding down the wall. When I was on the way down, a fist went into my gut like a piston.

I was close to passing out.

He let me continue my slide until my butt was on the floor, my legs arranged haphazardly in front of me. Walden crouched down, found my gun, and unholstered it. By the time I was able to focus with my right eye-the flesh around my left was already puffing up and obscuring my view-he was standing over me with my own weapon pointed at my head.

I tasted blood in my mouth. My bottom lip was ballooning.

I said, “Walden.”

“You didn’t have to die,” he said. “You got lucky yesterday. You didn’t drink the water. You didn’t have to be one of them.”

“Jesus, Walden… put the gun down… Let’s talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said.

I mumbled, “If it was you… Victor… you must have set up Victor… How could you set up someone who loved your daughter?”

“Just shut up,” Walden said. “I have to think.”

“The squirrel trap, those mannequins…”

“I moved it all last night,” Walden said. “When he went to do his run.”

“And the boy,” I said. “That Lydecker kid.”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen. I caught him snooping.”

I swallowed, felt blood trickling down my throat. “You did it… for the same reason you had me believe Victor did it. Same motive, different person.”

“We felt the same way,” Walden said. “I just felt it more. This town failed Olivia. It had to be taught a lesson.”

“Twenty-two bystanders, and Victor…”

“I hoped he’d drink the water,” Walden said. “He was late. He was late and Olivia died. I wanted him to die, too. But now they’ll think he did it. At least… at least for a while.”

“What… what do you mean, for a while?”

Walden took several breaths before he spoke. “I thought… I thought I’d feel some satisfaction. That I would feel… vindicated. Something. But I don’t. I don’t think enough have been made to pay. I’m thinking… You know the Promise Falls Autumn Fair?”

Blood obscured my view of Walden. I blinked a few times, and said, “The fair?”

“In October,” he said. “I’m thinking, by then, everyone will feel safe again. They’ll have let their guard down. They’ll all believe it was Victor. Maybe a bomb… at the fair.”

“Walden… listen to me. You can’ t-”

“You know I have to kill you,” he said. “I think you’re a good man, but that doesn’t matter. There was a time, back when I started planning this, when I thought, once I’d made my point, I’d turn myself in. But now I see there’s more to do.”

I gurgled something.

“What?”

“Twenty-three,” I said. “All of that was you.”

“I was sending a message,” he said. “That justice was coming.

I wanted people to be afraid. I was so pleased when I saw you were figuring it out. That’s why I phoned you that time.”

“You’re an engineer,” I said. “You had the smarts for everything. The Ferris wheel, the bus, blowing up the drive-in. But Mason Helt…” For a moment there, things had gone dark. “Helt,” I said.

“He took theater. I approached him, said he was going to be part of a study, something sanctioned by the college. About fear and paranoia. He was skeptical, but a thousand bucks went a long way to convincing him. After, I knew it was a mistake, actually meeting with a third party, bringing someone else into this. I caught a break when he ended up dead. I might have had to kill him myself if that hadn’t happened.”

I mumbled something else.

“What’s that?” Walden said.

“Tate. Tate Whitehead.”

Walden nodded. “I knew there’d only be one person at the water plant, and that it would be him. I couldn’t be interrupted. It took a long time to bring in what I needed.”

“Sodium something.”

“Azide,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s it.”

“It took a long time to acquire what I needed. More than two years. I was stockpiling it, knowing I’d use it someday. I just didn’t know when. I knew I’d never do it while Beth was alive. I couldn’t run the risk of being sent away while she was still with me. But when she passed away, I knew it was time to move forward.”

“Walden… please don’t kill me… Turn yourself in. Your first instinct was the right one. Tell everyone why you did what you did. Make them understand how they failed you, how they failed Olivia.”

He looked at me solemnly. “I’m sorry. But no.”

“Walden, listen to me. You-”

There was the sound of a loud knocking.

Walden’s head whipped around. “Jesus.” Panic washed over his face.

“Walden?” someone shouted. “You home?”

I thought I recognized the voice, even with blood finding its way into my ears. I had a feeling that if I could stand, and look in the mirror, I’d be horrified by what I saw.

“Walden? It’s Don! Don Harwood!”

I was right. I did know the voice. David’s father.

Walden shouted: “Just a second!”

He leaned in close to me, the gun inches from my bloodied nose. “I’m going to talk to him,” he whispered. “If you make one sound, even a peep, I will kill him. I’ll shoot him with your gun. Do you understand me?”

I nodded.

“You have those cuffs,” he said.

“What?”

“Don’t you carry those plastic cuffs around?”

I barely managed a nod.

“Get them out,” he said. Then, shouting: “Be right there, Don!”

I struggled to get a hand into my pocket. I brought out one plastic cuff. Walden took one step back, keeping the gun trained on me. He was afraid to cuff me himself, probably fearing I’d try something. Which I would have.

“Put your hand up against the leg,” he said. He was pointing to the thick porcelain leg that supported the pedestal sink. “Cuff your wrist to that.”

That would keep me here in the bathroom, as opposed to cuffing my wrists together.

I did as I was instructed, and secured my right hand to the leg. Both my hands were bloody, and I was leaving red handprints on the floor as I shifted my body. I had gone from a sitting position to being stretched out on the floor, my head between the sink and the toilet.

“Remember,” he said. “One peep, and Don has to die, too. As it is, it only has to be you.”

He turned on the tap and rinsed his and my blood from his hands, dried them off, then slipped out into the hall and closed the door.

I lay there, 280 pounds of pain. With my free hand, I reached into my jacket and found my phone. I turned onto my side, blinked several times to get the blood out of my eyes so I could see the screen.

The door reopened.

Walden reached down and snatched the device from me. “I can’t believe I forgot that,” he said, and shut the door again.

I closed my eyes, rested my head on the cold tile floor. My ear was not far from the crack at the bottom of the door, allowing me to hear what was going on.

“Don, hey, how are you?” Walden said. “Sorry it took me so long.”

“No, it’s okay. Am I catching you at a bad time?”

“Well, I’m about to head out. Otherwise I’d invite you in.”

“Oh, okay, well,” said Don, “I’ll try to make this quick, although it’s kind of a hard thing to say in a hurry.”

“What’s hard to say?”

A long pause. “Well, Walden, the thing is… I wanted to tell you this when you came by the other day. When I had to go to the school and pick up my grandson? It’s something that’s been eating at me for a long time.”

“What?”

“You see-God, this is hard to say-but you see, I was one of them.”

Now it was Walden’s turn to pause. “One of them?”

“I was down by the park that night. The night, you know, that Olivia… that she died.”

“You were there?”

“I heard what was happening. I don’t even know that there’s anything I could have done. I wasn’t close. But I could have done something. I could’ve called the cops, or I could’ve run into the park. I keep playing it over and over in my head, wondering what I could have done that might have made a difference. I don’t honestly think I could have saved her, Walden, but maybe, if I’d been a better person, if I’d done something, maybe I’d have seen the son of a bitch who did it.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I have to get it off my chest. It’s eating me up, Walden.”

I thought about screaming. I thought about calling out for help. But I’d be killing Don Harwood. I couldn’t do that to him.

Although I wondered, given what Don was confessing to, whether Walden would decide to kill him anyway. I was hurting so much on my side that I shifted to my stomach, my free hand sliding across the tile, coming into contact with something.

I pulled on the leg of the sink, testing it, thinking maybe I could make it break free, that I could slip my hand out from the bottom. But the sound of the sink crashing to the floor was going to get Don killed as quickly as if I cried for help.

Walden said, “It’s okay.”

“No, Walden, it’s not okay. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’ll understand if you don’t, but I-”

“Really, it’s okay. It was good of you to come by, Don.”

“That’s it?” Don Harwood said.

“Don’t give it another thought.”

“Seriously? All this time, I’ve felt sick about this, and you don’t care?”

“They caught the man today,” Walden said.

“They did?”

“I just-I just got a call from the police. They’ve caught someone.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. I had no-”

A cell phone started ringing. Don said, “Hang on.” Then, “Hello? David? David, slow down… What happened? You got what? You got shot?… No, you shot someone? Oh God, David, no… They couldn’t do anything?… Where are you? Tell me where you are. I’ll get your mother, and we’ ll-”

“Don,” Walden said.

“David, hang on a second.” A pause, and then, “Walden, I have to go. Something awful’s happened.”

“Sure. It was good of you to come by.”

“Yeah, well,” Don said. “I have to go.”

I heard the door close.

I had no idea what Don’s phone call was about, but whatever it was, it wasn’t a priority for me.

Would Walden shoot me? Would he kill me with my own gun? Unlikely, I thought. It would make too much noise. It would leave a bullet hole in the bathroom to be repaired. He’d have to do it another way. Strangle me, maybe. Suffocate me. Disable my other arm and hold his hand over my mouth and nose until I was dead.

There’d be less mess that way.

The real challenge would be getting rid of me. I was probably a hundred pounds heavier-at least-than George Lydecker. If this bathroom had a bathtub, he could dump me into it once I was dead and cut me into pieces. But if he wanted to treat me like a side of beef, he was going to have to move me someplace else to do it.

Plus, there was the matter of my car out front. What was he going to do with that? I was hoping Don might have recognized it, asked Walden where I was. Then again, that probably would have gotten him killed. And now it sounded like Don had something else to worry about.

I heard steps coming back down the hall. The door opened.

“Did you hear that?” Walden asked. The gun was in his right hand. He must have hidden it when he was talking to Don.

“I heard,” I said.

“Everybody’s got problems,” he said offhandedly. “And you’re my latest one.” He looked at the way he had instructed me to cuff myself. “I screwed that up, didn’t I? I should have had you put both hands around the leg and hooked them up together. You have another cuff?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Take it out of your pocket.”

“I can’t reach it with this hand. It’s in my other pocket.” Walden sighed. “Try.”

I attempted to reach across my body into my opposite pocket, but I was like O. J. trying on the glove. I made it look a lot harder than it actually was.

“I can’t do it,” I said.

“Okay, don’t try anything funny,” he said. “Shift over that way.”

I rolled back onto my other side to allow Walden to get into my pocket. My free hand went under my body, where I’d kept the item my hand had brushed past while he’d been talking to Don.

He still had the gun in his hand, but it was pointed at the toilet and not at me. He fumbled around in my pocket with his left hand.

I rolled.

I rolled fast, and hard, and brought up my free hand, with the six-inch nail file clutched in my fist.

I swung my arm with all the strength I had left in me and plunged it into Walden Fisher’s neck.

Walden screamed and tumbled, then hit his head on the sink. The gun fell out of his hand.

“Jesus!” he shouted.

I pulled the nail file out and jammed it into him again, this time catching him at the base of his neck, just above the rib cage.

And again.

And again.

Walden keeled over, his head hitting the opposite wall, a hand to his throat, his mouth wide, blood coming from everywhere. He stirred slightly, made one feeble attempt to grab for the gun that was just out of reach, made a noise that sounded like nuts and bolts rattling around in a can, and then he was gone.

I lay there for several minutes, catching my own breath, waiting to see if he’d take another.

He was dead.

I shifted over as close as my tethered arm would let me, patted him down, trying to find my phone. As best I could tell, it wasn’t on him. So I crawled back to my original position, laid out on the floor on my back, one arm stretched out above my head, still attached to the sink.

Someone would come, eventually. Or maybe, once I had some strength back, I’d yank that sink right off the goddamn wall.

I closed my eyes, listening to my own breaths and the pulsing of my heart in my temples.

Thought about Maureen. Thought about Trevor.

Thought about cake.