Far From True

by Linwood Barclay

  “You’re shittin’ me,” he’d said. “There was actually a band called Turtles?”

  “The Turtles,” she’d corrected him. “Like The Beatles. No one says just Beatles. And if you could name a band after what sounded like bugs, why not turtles?”

  “So happy together,” he said, pulling her into him as they walked through the grounds of Thackeray College. This was back when she was still a student there.

  The better part of a year before it happened.

  Three years ago this week.

  The sirens wailed.

  Victor lay there, very still, listening. One of them sounded like it was coming from the east side of the city, the other from the north. Police cars, or ambulances, most likely. Didn’t sound like a fire truck. They had those deeper, throatier sirens. Lots of bass.

  If they were ambulances, they were probably headed to PFG.

  Busy morning out there on the streets of Promise Falls.

  What, oh, what could be happening?

  He wasn’t hungover, which was so often the case. A relatively clear head this morning. He hadn’t been out drinking the night before, but he had felt like rewarding himself with a beer when he got home.

  Quietly, he’d opened the fridge and taken out a bottle of Bud. He hadn’t wanted to wake his landlady, Emily Townsend. She’d hung on to this house after her husband’s death, and rented a room upstairs to him. He’d taken the bottle with him, downed half of it going up the stairs. He’d fallen asleep too quickly to finish it off.

  And now it would be warm.

  Victor reached for it anyway and took a swig, made a face, put the bottle back on the bedside table but too close to the edge. It hit the floor, spilling beer onto Victor’s socks and the throw rug.

  “Oh, shit,” he said, grabbing the bottle before it emptied completely.

  He swung his feet out from under the covers and, careful not to step in the beer, stood up alongside the bed. He was dressed in a pair of blue boxers. He opened the bedroom door, walked five steps down the hall to the bathroom, which was unoccupied, and grabbed a towel off one of the racks.

  Victor Rooney paused at the top of the stairs.

  There was the smell of freshly brewed coffee, but the house was unusually quiet. Emily was an early riser, and she put the coffee on first thing. She drank at least twenty cups a day, had a pot going almost all the time.

  Victor did not hear her stirring in the kitchen or anywhere else in the house.

  “Emily?” he called out.

  When no one called back, he returned to his room, dropped the bath towel on the floor where the beer had spilled, and tamped it down with his bare foot. Put all his weight on it at one point. When he’d blotted up all the beer he believed was possible, he took the damp towel and placed it in a hamper at the bottom of the hallway linen closet.

  Back in his room, he pulled on his jeans and took a fresh pair of socks and a T-shirt from his dresser.

  He descended the stairs in his sock feet.

  Emily Townsend was not in the kitchen.

  Victor noticed that there was an inch of coffee in the bottom of the pot, but he decided against coffee today. He went to the refrigerator and pondered whether eight fifteen was too early for a Bud.

  Perhaps.

  Sirens continued to wail.

  He took out a container of Minute Maid orange juice and poured himself a glass. Drank it down in one gulp.

  Pondered breakfast.

  Most days he had cereal. But if Emily was making bacon and eggs or pancakes or French toast—anything that required more effort—he was always quick to get in on that. But it did not appear that his landlady was going to any extra trouble today.

  “Emily?” he called out again.

  There was a door off the kitchen that led to the backyard. Two, if one counted the screen door. The inner door was ajar, which led Victor to think perhaps Emily had gone outside.

  Victor refilled his glass with orange juice, then swung the door farther open, took a look at the small backyard through the screen door.

  Well, there was Emily.

  Face-planted on the driveway, about ten feet away from her cute little blue Toyota, car keys in one hand. She’d probably been carrying her purse with the other, but it was at the edge of the drive, where, presumably, she had dropped it. Her wallet and the small case in which she carried her reading glasses had tumbled out.

  She was not moving. From where Victor stood, he couldn’t even see her back going up and down ever so gently, an indication that she might still be alive.

  He put his juice glass on the counter and decided maybe it would be a good idea to go outside and take a closer look.

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