by Harlan Coben
Myron and Win stood in the Hamlet Motel parking lot.
“What do you make of it?” Win asked.
“I don’t like it,” Myron said.
“How so?”
“Why is Hester Crimstein so desperate to see me all of a sudden? She’s been trying to get rid of me from the moment I returned. Now I’m the answer to a problem?”
“It is bizarre,” Win agreed.
“And not only that, I don’t like this whole hush-hush release for Esperanza.”
“It happens.”
“Sure, it happens. But if it did, why hasn’t Esperanza called me? Why is Hester making the call for her?”
“Why indeed?”
Myron thought about it. “Do you think she’s involved in all this?”
“I cannot imagine how,” Win said. Then: “Except that she may have spoken to Bonnie Haid.”
“So?”
“So then she may have deduced that we are in Wilston.”
“And now she urgently wants us to return,” Myron said.
“Yes.”
“So she’s trying to get us out of Wilston.”
“It is a possibility,” Win said.
“So what is she afraid we’ll find?”
Win shrugged. “She’s Esperanza’s advocate.”
“So something detrimental to Esperanza.”
“Logical,” Win said.
A couple in their eighties stumbled out of one of the motel rooms. The old man had his arm around the woman’s shoulder. They both looked postsex. At noon. Nice to see. Myron and Win watched them in silence.
“I pushed too hard last time,” Myron said.
Win did not reply.
“You warned me. You told me I didn’t keep my eye on the prize. But I didn’t listen.”
Win still said nothing.
“Am I doing the same now?”
“You are not good at letting things go,” Win said.
“That’s not an answer.”
Win frowned. “I’m not some holy wise man on the mount,” he said. “I don’t have all the answers.”
“I want to know what you think.”
Win squinted, though the sun was pretty much gone by now. “Last time, you lost sight of your goal,” he said. “Do you know what your goal is this time?”
Myron thought about it. “Freeing Esperanza,” he said. “And finding the truth.”
Win smiled. “And if those two are mutually contradictory?”
“Then I bury the truth.”
Win nodded. “You seem to have a good handle on the goal.”
“Should I let it go anyway?” Myron asked.
Win looked at him. “There’s one other complication.”
“What’s that?”
“Lucy Mayor.”
“I’m not actively looking for her. I’d love to find her, but I don’t expect to.”
“Still,” Win said, “she is your personal connection into all this.”
Myron shook his head.
“The diskette came to you, Myron. You can’t run away from that. You’re not built that way. Somehow you and this missing girl are linked.”
Silence.
Myron checked the address and name Big Cyndi had given him. The phone was listed to a Barbara Cromwell at 12 Claremont Road. The name meant nothing to him. “There’s a rental car place down the street,” Myron said. “You go back. Talk to Hester Crimstein. See what you can learn.”
“And you?”
“I’m going to check out Barbara Cromwell of Twelve Claremont Road.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Win said.
“A good one?”
“I didn’t say that.”
CHAPTER 34
Massachusetts, like Myron’s home state of New Jersey, can quickly turn from big city to full-fledged town to hicksville. That was the case here. Twelve Claremont Road—why the numbers reached twelve when the whole road had only three buildings on it Myron could not say—was an old farmhouse. At least it looked old. The color, probably once a deep red, had faded to a barely visible, watery pastel. The top of the structure curled forward as though suffering from osteoporosis. The front roof overhang had split down the middle, the right lip dipping forward like the mouth of a stroke victim. There were loose boards and major cracks and the grass was tall enough to go on the adult rides at a Six Flags.
He stopped in front of Barbara Cromwell’s house and debated his approach. He hit the redial button and Big Cyndi answered.
“Got anything yet?”
“Not very much, Mr. Bolitar. Barbara Cromwell is thirty-one years old. She was divorced four years ago from a Lawrence Cromwell.”
“Children?”
“That’s all I have right now, Mr. Bolitar. I’m terribly sorry.”
He thanked her and said to keep trying. He looked back at the house. There was a dull, steady thudding in his chest. Thirty-one years old. He reached into his pocket and took out the computer rendering of the aged Lucy Mayor. He stared at it. How old would Lucy be if she were still alive? Twenty-nine, maybe thirty. Close in age, but who cares? He shook the thought away, but it didn’t go easy.
Now what?
He turned off the engine. A curtain jumped in an upstairs window. Spotted. No choice now. He opened the door and walked up the drive. It had been paved at one time, but the grass now laid claim to all but a few patches of tar. The side yard had one of those plastic Fisher-Price tree houses with a slide and rope ladder; the loud yellow, blue, and red of the play set shone through the brown grass like gems against black velvet. He reached the door. No bell, so he knocked and waited.
He could hear house sounds, someone running, someone whispering. A child called out, “Mom!” Someone hushed him.
Myron heard footsteps, and then a woman said, “Yes?”
“Ms. Cromwell?”
“What do you want?”
“Ms. Cromwell, my name is Myron Bolitar. I’d like to talk to you a moment.”
“I don’t want to buy anything.”
“No, ma’am, I’m not selling—”
“And I don’t accept door-to-door solicitations. You want a donation, you ask by mail.”
“I’m not here for any of that.”
Brief silence.
“Then what do you want?” she said.
“Ms. Cromwell”—he’d clipped on his most reassuring voice now—“would you mind opening your door?”
“I’m calling the police.”
“No, no, please, just wait a second.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to ask you about Clu Haid.”
There was a long pause. The little boy started talking again. The woman hushed him. “I don’t know anybody by that name.”
“Please open the door, Ms. Cromwell. We need to talk.”
“Look, mister, I’m friendly with all the cops around here. I say the word, they’ll lock you up for trespassing.”
“I understand your concerns,” Myron said. “How about if we talk by phone?”
“Just go away.”
The little boy started crying.
“Go away,” she repeated. “Or I’ll call the police.”
More crying.
“Okay,” Myron said. “I’m leaving.” Then, figuring what the hey, he shouted, “Does the name Lucy Mayor mean anything to you?”
The child’s crying was the only reply.
Myron let loose a sigh and started back to the car. Now what? He hadn’t even been able to see her. Maybe he could poke around the house, try to peek in a window. Oh, that was a great idea. Get arrested for peeping. Or worse, scare a little kid. And she’d call the cops for sure—
Hold the phone.
Barbara Cromwell said that she was friendly with the police in town. But so was Myron. In a way. Wilston was the town where Clu had been nabbed on that first drunk driving charge when he was in the minors. Myron had gotten him off with the help of two cops. He scanned the memory banks for names. It didn’t take him long. The arre
sting officer was named Kobler. Myron didn’t remember his first name. The sheriff was a guy named Ron Lemmon. Lemmon was in his fifties then. He might have retired. But odds were pretty good one of them would still be on the force. They might know something about the mysterious Barbara Cromwell.
Worth a shot anyway.
CHAPTER 35
One might expect the Wilston police station to be in a dinky little building. Not so. It was in the basement of a tall, fortresslike structure of dark, old brick. The steps down had one of those old bomb shelter signs, the black and yellow triangles still bright in the ominous circle. The image brought back memories of Burnet Hill Elementary School and the old bombing drills, a somewhat intense activity in which children were taught that crouching in a corridor was a suitable defense against a Soviet nuclear blitzkrieg.
Myron had never been to the station house before. After Clu’s accident he’d met with the two cops in the back booth of a diner on Route 9. The whole episode took less than ten minutes. No one wanted to hurt the up-and-coming superstar. No one wanted to ruin Clu’s promising young career. Dollars changed hands—some for the arresting officer, some for the sheriff in charge. Donations, they’d called it with a chuckle. Everyone smiled.
The desk sergeant looked up at Myron when he came in. He was around thirty and, like so many cops nowadays, built as if he spent more time in the weight room than the doughnut shop. His nametag read “Hobert.” “May I help you?”
“Does Sheriff Lemmon still work here?”
“No, sorry to say. Ron died, oh, gotta be a year now. Retired about two years before that.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, cancer. Ate through him like a hungry rat.” Hobert shrugged as if to say, What can you do?
“How about a guy named Kobler? I think he was a deputy about ten years ago.”
Hobert’s voice was suddenly tight. “Eddie’s not on the force anymore.”
“Does he still live in the area?”
“No. I think he lives in Wyoming. May I ask your name, sir?”
“Myron Bolitar.”
“Your name sounds familiar.”
“I used to play basketball.”
“Nah, that’s not it. I hate basketball.” He thought a moment, then shook his head. “So why are you asking about two former cops?”
“They’re sort of old friends.”
Hobert looked doubtful.
“I wanted to ask them about someone a client of mine has become involved with.”
“A client?”
Myron put on his helpless-puppy-dog smile. He usually used it on old ladies, but hey, waste not, want not. “I’m a sports agent. My job is to look after athletes and, well, make sure they’re not being taken advantage of. So this client of mine has an interest in a lady who lives in town. I just wanted to make sure she’s not a gold digger or anything.”
Two words: truly lame.
Hobert said, “What’s her name?”
“Barbara Cromwell.”
The officer blinked. “This a joke?”
“No.”
“One of your athletes is interested in dating Barbara Cromwell?”
Myron tried a little backpedal. “I might have gotten the name wrong,” he said.
“I think maybe you have.”
“Why’s that?”
“You mentioned Ron Lemmon before. The old sheriff.”
“Right.”
“Barbara Cromwell is his daughter.”
For a moment Myron just stood there. A fan whirred. A phone rang. Hobert said, “Excuse me a second,” and picked it up. Myron heard none of it. Someone had frozen the moment. Someone had suspended him above a dark hole, giving Myron plenty of time to stare down at the nothingness, until suddenly the same someone let go. Myron plunged down into the black, his hands wheeling, his body turning, waiting, almost hoping, to smash against the bottom.
CHAPTER 36
Myron stumbled back outside. He walked the town square. He grabbed something to eat at a Mexican place, wolfing it down without even tasting the food. Win called.
“We were correct,” Win said. “Hester Crimstein was trying to divert our attention.”
“She admitted it?”
“No. She offers no explanation. She claims that she will speak with you and only you and only in person. She then pushed me for details on your whereabouts.”
No surprise.
“Would you like me to”—Win paused—“interrogate her?”
“Please no,” Myron said. “Ethics aside, I don’t think there’s much need anymore.”
“Oh?”
“Sawyer Wells said he was a drug counselor at Rockwell.”
“I remember.”
“Billy Lee Palms was treated at Rockwell. His mother mentioned it when I visited her house.
“Hmm,” Win said. “Wonderful coincidence.”
“Not a coincidence,” Myron said. “It explains everything.”
When he finished talking to Win, he strolled the main street of Wilston seven or eight times over. The shopkeepers, light on business, smiled at him. He smiled back. He nodded hello to the large assortment of people passing by. The town was so stuck in the sixties, the kind of place where people still wore unkempt beards and black caps and looked like Seals and Crofts at an outdoor concert. He liked it here. He liked it a lot.
He thought about his mother and his father. He thought about them getting old and wondered why he could not accept it. He thought about how his father’s “chest pains” were partially his fault, how the strain of his running away had at least tangentially contributed to what happened. He thought about what it would have been like for his parents if they had suffered the same fate as Sophie and Gary Mayor, if he had disappeared at seventeen without a trace and were never found. He thought about Jessica and how she claimed she would fight for him. He thought about Brenda and what he had done. He thought about Terese and last night and what, if anything, it meant. He thought about Win and Esperanza and the sacrifices that friends make.
For a long time he did not think about Clu’s murder or Billy Lee’s death. He did not think about Lucy Mayor and her disappearance and his connection to it. But that lasted only so long. Eventually he made a few phone calls, did some digging, confirmed what he already suspected.
The answers never come with cries of “Eureka!” You stumble toward them, often in total darkness. You stagger through an unlit room at night, tripping over the unseen, lumbering forward, bruising your shins, toppling over and righting yourself, feeling your way across the walls and hoping your hand happens upon the light switch. And then—to keep within this piss-poor but sadly accurate analogy—when you find the switch, when you flick it on and bathe the room in light, sometimes the room is just as you pictured it. And then sometimes, like now, you wonder if you’d have been better off staying forever stumbling in the dark.
Win of course would say that Myron was limiting the analogy. He would point out that there were other options. You could simply leave the room. You could let your eyes get accustomed to the dark, and while you would never see everything clearly, that was okay. You could even flick the switch back off once you turned it on. In the case of Horace and Brenda Slaughter, Win would be right. In the case of Clu Haid, Myron was not so sure.
He had found the light switch. He had flicked it on. But the analogy did not hold—and not just because it was a dumb one from the start. Everything in the room was still murky, as though he were looking through a shower curtain. He could see lights and shadows. He could make out shapes. But to know exactly what had happened, he would have to push aside the curtain.
He could still back off, let the curtain rest or even flick the light back off. But that was the problem with darkness and Win’s options. In the dark you cannot see the rot fester. The rot is free to continue to eat away, undisturbed, until it consumes everything, even the man huddled in the corner, trying like hell to stay away from that damned light switch.
So
Myron got in his car. He drove back out to the farmhouse on Claremont Road. He knocked on the door, and again Barbara Cromwell told him to go away. “I know why Clu Haid came here,” he told her. He kept talking. And eventually she let him in.
When he left, Myron called Win again. They talked a long time. First about Clu Haid’s murder. Then about Myron’s dad. It helped. But not a lot. He called Terese and told her what he knew. She said that she’d tried to check some of the facts with her sources.
“So Win was right,” Terese said. “You are personally connected.”
“Yes.”
“I blame myself every day,” Terese said. “You get used to it.”
Again he wanted to ask more. Again he knew that it wasn’t time.
Myron made two more calls on the cell phone. The first was to the law office of Hester Crimstein.
“Where are you?” Hester snapped.
“I assume you’re in contact with Bonnie Haid,” he said.
Pause. Then: “Oh Christ, Myron, what did you do?”
“They aren’t telling you everything, Hester. In fact, I bet Esperanza barely told you anything.”
“Where are you, dammit?”
“I’ll be in your office in three hours. Have Bonnie there.”
His final call was to Sophie Mayor. When she answered, he said three words: “I found Lucy.”
CHAPTER 37
Myron tried to drive like Win, but that was beyond his capabilities. He sped, but he still hit construction on Route 95. You always hit construction on Route 95. It was a Connecticut state law. He listened to the radio. He made phone calls. He felt frightened.
Hester Crimstein was a senior partner in a high-rise, higher-bill, mega New York law firm. The attractive receptionist had clearly been expecting him. She led him down a hallway lined with what looked like mahogany wallpaper and into a conference room. There was a rectangular table big enough to seat twenty, pens and legal pads in front of each chair, billable no doubt to some unsuspecting client at wildly inflated prices. Hester Crimstein sat next to Bonnie Haid, their backs to the window. They started to rise when he entered.