“As a matter of fact, he did. There were some details the cops didn’t release because they’re still investigating. They’re assuming accidental death, but they’re following up on a few things before they make a final ruling.”
“And...?”
“Well, like the papers said, the cops think Goslin injured himself in the workshop behind his house. Priscilla Begley never looked in there, but when the cops checked it out, they found blood all over a work table and an electric hedge cutter he was apparently trying to fix. They think the machine turned on unexpectedly.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. They found two of his fingers on the floor.”
My skin flushes hot as a couple of mental gears clink together almost audibly.
“They think he tried to call 911, but his phone was dead,” Miles continues. “So he panicked, jumped in his car to drive to the ER, then passed out behind the wheel.”
I’m not listening anymore. I’ve planted myself in front of Miles’ computer and am frantically googling Goslin’s name. I find another article about his body being discovered, but, like the first two, it does not contain a photograph. I need to see a picture.
A picture, a picture, a picture...
I google “obituary Edgar Goslin,” and a link pops up to the Sullivan Funeral Home in Wentworth. I click it and a memorial page for Goslin—freshly posted—opens. In the center of the screen is a photo of the man himself. It’s probably fifteen years out of date, but the face is unmistakable.
It’s the face of the man in Trooper Dan’s video, the man whose fingers Troop removed with the lopper.
“Goslin didn’t die by accident,” I say to Miles.
“What?”
“He was murdered. By the same guys who tried to murder me. They cut his fingers off, bled him out.” Recalling from the video the plastic bag that was wrapped around Goslin’s hand to catch his blood, I add, “They staged it to look like an accident. Guess they didn’t want him found right away, so they moved his car to a hard-to-spot location, planted the body in it, spread his blood around the workshop and the car.”
I have trouble interpreting the stunned look on Miles’ face. Is he stunned by the information I’ve given him or by how deeply delusional I am?
I need to be alone for a minute. To think. To process. I don’t want to make a fuss about it, though, so I just excuse myself to that timeless temple of self-reflection, the bathroom.
I’m shaking as if I’m in a walk-in freezer as I sit there on the throne with the lid down. If Goslin was not the agent behind my attempted murder, then who could have been? Gary Abelsen? He’s an Alzheimer’s patient in an assisted-living community. Who else could possibly have the motivation to take such extreme measures? And why the damn eighteen-year delay?
Suddenly the great blue whale that was doing pushups in the middle of the room stands up on its tailfin and starts Riverdancing. The fundamental assumption on which all my reasoning has been based since day one is that I am the one and only person who has direct knowledge of the lethal events that took place in my car on my graduation night in 1999.
What if that weren’t true?
What if two of us actually remember what happened?
Since the moment I heard—or thought I heard—crashing sounds on Carlisle Road on that blighted drive, I have unquestioningly believed that Miles passed out cold after tossing the bottle. And that he had no idea he threw it off the wrong bridge. After all, I had to take him to the the damn ER. And no one could fake unconsciousness well enough to fool an ER staff. Right?
But then I realize—with a hollow laugh—that I myself, only nine days ago, played possum convincingly enough to fool a team of professional killers.
What if—my mind doesn’t even want to go there—Miles was just faking? What if he heard the crashing sounds too? What if he knew full well what he did and just didn’t want to deal with it? What if he left me to make the moral call and to hold the moral bag, knowing, quite correctly, that I would latch onto it with a death grip?
Miles was an ambitious guy, even back in college, and highly protective of his blue-blood, Teflon-man image. Even back then, he figured someday he’d be living a big life in the public eye. In fact, I believe the reason he decided to marry Beth was that he saw her as his ticket to the show. Her family had money, his family had a name and social connections and a Yankee pedigree. Together they could go places. The night of the bottle-throwing incident, he was agonizing over that very decision, grappling with the choice between following his heart and following the path his career ambition and family DNA had already laid out for him at the tender age of 21. And it was ripping him apart.
Clearly, he ended up choosing the road more traveled.
But what if Miles has always known people died at his hands that night? What if some part of him has always been dreading the day the truth comes crawling out of the ground like a body buried alive in a horror movie? And what if exigent circumstances in his life—such as, oh, I don’t know, winning a fast-track ticket to the U.S. Senate and beyond—were suddenly demanding he rid his closets of old skeletons, pronto?
And if, let’s just say if, Miles wanted to clean up this particular closet, who would need to be permanently silenced? Who but the one person on Earth who knows exactly what happened in that car? Finnian T. Carroll at your service. And death by apparent suicide, with a signed confession to boot, would be the ideal way to dispense with said Mr. Carroll.
I think about the careful wording of the suicide note. Why did it alter the fact that the bottle was a gift from me? Answer: because if my unnamed “friend” had been the recipient of the gift (which he was), then he would have logically ended up with the bottle (which he did), not I. No good. Then why mention the friend at all, and why say we passed the bottle back and forth? Answer: in case Miles’ fingerprints ever do get matched to the shards. That is still a possibility; the cops took prints from the glass, and those prints are still in the system. And if Miles’ fingerprints were suddenly to appear in a database—say, because he just joined the U.S. Senate and had to be fingerprinted for the federal job—a belated match might pop up. The mention in the note that we both handled the bottle offers a tidy explanation as to how his prints got on the glass, while still leaving me as the guilty party.
Hmm, in this scenario, who else would need to die? Answer: the only other person who seems to know something about what really happened that night—Edgar Goslin. Maybe Goslin figured out somehow that Miles was in the car with me that night. Maybe—oh, shit—maybe he learned it from my own father! I know the two of them talked, Edgar and my dad. That’s right! And my dad knew Miles was with me that night: he bought me the scotch as a gift for Miles. Maybe that’s why Goslin came to Musqasset a few days before his death. To talk to Miles.
To blackmail him.
And maybe that’s why Goslin is dead.
Damn. Once I get past my resistance to that single, elemental idea—that Miles has always known he killed those people that night—the dominoes just start toppling.
Whoa there, though, Jumpy Jumpface. Slow down. I’m getting carried away. There’s one major kink in this line of reasoning. That is, it turns on a premise I simply cannot bring myself to believe—that Miles would be willing to kill me. That does not ring a true chord in my gut. Flawed as Miles is, I know he loves me. Unequivocally. In fact, I believe he loves me more than he loves any other person alive, except maybe his children. He loves me more than he loves Beth, that’s for sure. More than anyone in his family of origin. More than any other friend.
He knows I love him, too, as no one else does. And he needs that love. In fact, he gets something from me that goes even beyond love. I think, on some level, I give Miles his center. A big chun
k of it anyway. Deep down, I don’t think Miles knows who he is without me to reflect and affirm him. To kill me would be a terrifying act of self-annihilation, and that is something I truly don’t think Miles is capable of.
And yet, the facts are pointing to Miles in a way you’d have to be insane to ignore.
An idea occurs to me. A possible way to put Miles to the test.
In light of the fact that Goslin was the man in Troop’s video, I realize there’s one other person who might be involved in all of this. It is a name that will be forever branded on my brain cells but that I have never spoken aloud. If I say the name to Miles and his eyes betray recognition, that would go a long way to telling me Miles is indeed hip-deep in this thing.
I exit the bathroom and return to the study.
Miles is waiting for me anxiously, the photo of Goslin still staring belligerently from the computer screen. Miles gives me the perfect opening by asking, “What did you mean about Goslin being killed by the same people who tried to kill you?”
I describe to him the video Trooper Dan showed me when I was strapped into the chair. “It was Goslin in that video,” I say. “They asked him who else knew what he knew. He didn’t answer, so they cut off two of his fingers. He started screaming a name over and over, and I’ll never forget it.” I watch Miles’ eyes carefully as I say the name. “Clarence Woodcock.”
Damned if I don’t see a flicker of panic in his eyes. He tries to cover it, but it’s too late. He knows the name. And he’s thrown by it.
. . . . .
Miles is pacing back and forth in the study. He wants me to believe he’s thinking about the Goslin situation, but what he’s really thinking about—I know Miles—is that name. Clarence Woodcock. It’s eating at him. He looks at his watch in a fake sort of way.
“Listen, I’ve got to make a couple of phone calls,” he says. “It might take me ten or fifteen minutes. Help yourself to a beer or a sandwich. Don’t go anywhere, though, okay? We’ve got to talk about this some more. I won’t be long.” With that, he trots upstairs.
What is he up to? Who is he calling? Should I be worried about my safety? Probably. But fear of imminent grievous harm is a state I have become oddly accustomed to.
I turn back to the computer and, just for the hell of it, type “Clarence Woodcock, Wentworth” into the search engine.
The top item that comes up is a Wentworth Tribune piece, “Former Wentworth Police Officer Found Dead in Home.” It’s dated August 23. My heart takes a swan dive into my belly.
The article:
John Clarence Woodcock Jr., a private investigator and former detective in the Wentworth Police Department, was found dead in his Wentworth home this morning by a family member. Cause of death is under investigation but may have been an accidental fall on a staircase. Police believe death occurred sometime between 12 a.m. and 10 a.m. on Thursday, August 22.
Woodcock, 62, known to friends and associates by his middle name Clarence, served on the Wentworth police force from 1982 until 1996, when he resigned and started a private investigation business. A widower, Woodcock had lived alone in his home at 4 Boxford Terrace for the past twelve years. His body was discovered by his daughter, Melissa Rodak, 39, who went to the home to check on him when he failed to answer his phone several times.
No further information has been released at this time.
Maybe I’ll take that beer after all. I go to the kitchen, pour a third of a Sam Adams down my throat, and bite into an apple. I wonder if my sister Angie knows anything about this Woodcock guy. On the spur of the moment, I thumb her name on my phone. Again, the call seems to go through but then disconnects. I try again, same result.
If I had half a brain, I would run out of the house this minute, try to call the Maine state police, tell them everything I know, and hole up in the woods until the cops arrive. If Miles is involved in all of this, as I am coming to believe he must be, then I don’t have to worry about protecting him anymore. I can come clean about the entire mess.
But evidently I am not the proud owner of half a brain, because I sit back down at the computer. I retrieve the results of the Sure Search inquiry I did earlier on Goslin. There I see it, the name John Woodcock, among Goslin’s known associates. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it earlier; must have been the “John” that threw me off. (I see another name I also overlooked before—Theo Abelsen—but I don’t have time to think about it now.)
I do some more digging online and learn that Woodcock was a well-liked cop in his day and a community advocate for the disabled. However, he “resigned” from the police force under a cloud of suspicion. Seems he was under internal investigation for taking payoffs from known criminals. He agreed to walk away without pension benefits in exchange for avoiding indictment.
The timing of his death leaves no doubt that he was part of the purge that included Goslin and was meant to include me as well. A huge development, obviously. I don’t know whether to share it with Miles or keep it to myself. Good sense tells me to play this card close to the vest.
What is Miles up to right now? I take my shoes off and tiptoe toward the staircase leading to the second floor. Listening, I hear nothing but the soft hum of a printer. I quietly ascend the carpeted stairs. Judging by the open bedroom doors and the stillness in the air, Miles’ kids aren’t home. I approach the room next to the master bedroom, the one Beth uses as her office and exercise room. I see Miles seated at Beth’s desk, moving a mouse around and staring at her computer screen, his jaw hanging open and his skin clammy-looking.
The printer near the door is churning out pages.
I step into the room, expecting Miles to react in surprise or guilt, but he doesn’t. I reach into the printer tray and glance at one of the pages. Appears to be a printout of a bank statement.
“What is this?” I ask Miles, not really expecting an answer.
“Beth’s trust fund,” he says numbly.
Ah, the one to which she gained access when she turned twenty-one (and which, of course, played no role in Miles’ decision to marry her).
I look more closely at the printout in my hand, then pick up a couple more sheets of paper from the tray. Printed on the pages is a long series of check images, going back to the year 2000. All the checks are made out to the same party: John Clarence Woodcock Agency, LLC.
Chapter 36
“I don’t usually look at her private banking stuff,” says Miles defensively, as if Beth’s privacy were my main concern at this point. “But once in a while, when we’re doing our taxes or something, I... I remembered seeing that name.”
He looks into my eyes and I into his. I can tell he is feeling deeply bewildered, deeply betrayed. I feel sad for my friend. His life may be changing irrevocably in this very moment.
Questions, enormous questions, must be asked of Beth, and right soon, but neither of us seems ready to think about how to proceed with that.
The decision is taken out of our hands. We hear the jingling of the bell on the back door downstairs. We look at each other in mute paralysis. Beth’s voice calls out, “They’re here! Their boat came in! No more laughing, no more fun!” A beat passes. “Miles...?”
Miles seems powerless to use his voice, and it’s certainly not my place to answer for him. I expect him to hastily shut off Beth’s computer and dash out of her room, but he doesn’t.
We hear Beth start up the stairs. “Did you hear me? They’re here. My parents. They’re anchored outside the harbor because of the storm, but they want to have dinner with... Miles?” She is in the upstairs hall now. Her voice drops in pitch as she realizes where Miles is. “Miles?” She pokes her head around the doorframe. “What are you doing in my room?” She steps fully into the doorway. “Finn! Wh
at are you doing here?”
When neither of us replies, she marches to the computer. “Miles, what the fuck? Why are you looking at my personal bank accounts, and why is he here?”
Miles says in a surprisingly neutral voice, “Who is Clarence Woodcock?”
A shock tremor jitters Beth’s face before she resets it into a mask of righteous anger. “My private bank accounts are none of your god-damn business!”
“Why have you been writing him checks since the year after we graduated from college?” Miles asks, pointing to the printer tray. He’s either forgotten I’m in the room or doesn’t care.
Beth fixes Miles with one of the iciest glares I have ever seen issue from human eyes. “You and I will discuss this in private,” she says. “In private.”
“Actually, Beth, I think—”
She cuts him off. “IN. PRIVATE.” She snaps off the final “t” sound as if cracking a bone over her knee.
Miles caves. He says to me, “You better scoot along, Finn, I’ll talk to you later.”
“I don’t think I’ll be doing any scooting right now, Miles. I think we need to—”
“Go! Now!” He suddenly looks ready to blow steam out his ears. “Beth and I will deal with this privately, and I will call you later!”
“No,” I say, raising my voice a bit now. “You don’t get to exclude me from this. Not when I’m the person whose neck is on the chopping block, and you two seem to know—”
“Finnian! I will handle Beth! That’s final!”
“You don’t get to make that call, Miles!” I snap. “Beth is a grownup, and she and I have business to clean up.”
“Are we finally going to do that, Finn?” she says. Her tone is stark and devoid of clemency.
For a moment, I don’t know what she means, but then a light comes on in some dark backroom of my mind. Beth transforms, right before my eyes, into her twenty-one-year-old self, complete with U2 tee-shirt and ill-advised Winona Ryder pixie cut. The doorway framing her dissolves into a hospital entrance. I am seeing her on graduation night, 1999.
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