Never Saw It Coming: (An eSpecial from New American Library)

by Linwood Barclay

Only yesterday she’d been thinking she had to get that man out of her life. Now she’d bound herself to Kirk even more tightly by enlisting his help today. She’d lost all her leverage. How did you kick someone out when he knew you’d killed a man? Sure, they were in this together, up to a point. Kirk had helped her cover things up, destroyed evidence. But she was betting he could walk into the Milford police station and cut himself a deal if he was willing to roll on her.

  So he was more than an accomplice. He was a potential liability. How would he hold up to an interrogation by Detective Wedmore? She seemed to have a pretty good grasp on what had happened at the Garfield house. She was guessing, of course, but Keisha had been too, when she was relating her “vision” to Wendell Garfield, and look how close she’d gotten.

  As worried as Keisha was about getting caught, about what would happen to her, there was a greater concern underlying all of this.

  What would happen to Matthew?

  If the police took her away, if they charged her with murder, if she failed to persuade a jury that she’d acted in self-defense, and was sent to prison, what would happen to her boy?

  Here she was, cursing her mother on the one hand, and repeating the pattern she’d set on the other. Raising a child while living on the edges of the law, you had to know that one day it could all blow up in your face. But Keisha’d never considered her crimes as serious as those her mother committed. She didn’t hide bodies and steal Social Security checks. She wheedled money out of people, but it was always their choice, ultimately. The people she conned had to know, at some level, that they were being taken advantage of. They knew what was going on, and they didn’t mind.

  Keisha never expected anyone to die.

  What about Caroline? she wondered. Her cousin, in San Francisco? Would she take in Matthew, if it came to that?

  Caroline, whose mother was Keisha’s mother’s sister, was a nice, decent woman. She had an honest job as a concierge at the Ritz-Carlton, and a husband named Earl who drove for FedEx. They had three children. Two girls, twelve and fifteen, and a son, seven. Good, hard-working people.

  So decent, in fact, that they had little to do with Keisha. She was the family’s shame, the one who was raised by the family’s previous embarrassment, the one who made her living in a sketchy way, the one who got knocked up by a soldier who’d rather do another tour in Iraq than be a father.

  But no matter how much Caroline might look down her nose at her cousin, she never took it out on Matthew. Even though she didn’t see her second cousin often, she never forgot to phone him on his birthday, or send him a small present at Christmas. This past year, she even mailed him some chocolate eggs at Easter.

  Matthew’d be better off with Caroline and Earl, Keisha thought, even if I don’t get arrested.

  No, no, that wasn’t true. For all her faults, Keisha believed she was a good mother. She loved her son more than anything in the world, and he loved her. As long as it was possible for them to be together, they would be.

  Should she call her cousin? Keisha contemplated phoning Caroline, telling her something had come up, she might have to send Matthew out there for a few days. Once he was there, if the police did pick her up, Caroline would hold onto him. She’d do the right thing. She was that kind of person.

  These thoughts ran through Keisha’s mind as she unlocked the front door of her rented house and walked into the living room. Saw Kirk’s unfinished beer and half-eaten Twinkie on the coffee table.

  She looked at the clock. Any moment now, Matthew would be home.

  Outside, she heard a car door slam. Seconds later, the front door opened and Kirk’s eyes landed on her.

  “Shit, I raced back here for the kid, but you’re already here. You couldn’t have called me?”

  “I just got dropped off a second ago,” Keisha said. “Did you do it? Did you get the bag?”

  He smiled triumphantly. “I got the bag.”

  If there were half a dozen weights on her shoulders, she felt one of them float away. “Oh thank God. It was still there? It hadn’t been opened?”

  “Still there, not opened,” he said. “You think I don’t know how to get things done?”

  “Okay, that’s good. Thank you.”

  “You get the five grand?”

  She nodded tiredly. “I got it.”

  He slapped his hands together. “Did she get cash, like I told her?”

  “She got cash.”

  “Let’s have a look.”

  She pointed to her purse, which she’d dropped onto the couch. He dug into it, found the envelope, and peered inside. He riffled his finger across the tops of the bills.

  “Sweet,” he said. “Have you counted it?”

  “Gail wouldn’t cheat me.”

  “We should go out for dinner tonight and celebrate,” Kirk said.

  “I don’t feel like celebrating.”

  “Come on. Live a little.”

  Keisha glared at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Huh?”

  “All the stuff that’s gone down today—I nearly died! A man is dead. This police woman, Wedmore, is sniffing around me, and I think she knows what happened. And you want to go out and celebrate?”

  He had the money out of the envelope and had turned the bills into a thick fan. “You have to live in the moment, babe. And at this moment, we’re loaded.”

  “I almost gave it back,” she said quietly.

  “You what?”

  “I almost gave it back. I’m not taking advantage of people like this any more. You don’t think today was some kind of message? Huh? You don’t think maybe somebody’s trying to tell me something?”

  He sneered. “Oh, that’s bullshit. Sometimes shit just happens. Then, the next day, different shit happens.”

  She shook her head and walked into the kitchen. He followed her in, saying, “Where you wanna go? Come on. The li’l fucker likes Chinese. We’ll go someplace he likes.”

  “His name is Matthew.”

  “Come on, you know I’m just goofin’ around.”

  She leaned against the counter and sighed. “What did you end up doing with it?” she asked.

  “With what?”

  “The bag. Where’d you finally dump it?”

  “Oh, it’s still in the truck,” he said offhandedly. “I was planning to get rid of it soon as the kid showed up. Go to the mall, get a snack, drop it off back of the place.”

  Keisha wondered if she should just turn herself in. It’d be faster. “You’re not serious.”

  “Yeah, I raced back ’cause you wanted someone to be here for the kid. Figured you wouldn’t be home in time. I’ll get rid of it, don’t worry.”

  “So that bag, it’s here, sitting in the driveway?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s all under control. Where is the kid, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” Keisha said. She left the kitchen and went to the front door to watch for Matthew, saw Kirk’s truck parked by her car.

  She couldn’t see the bag in the back of it.

  “Kirk!” she shouted. “I don’t see any bag!”

  “It’s there,” he said wearily. “It’s just tucked up under the rear window, is all.”

  She was going to go out and see for herself, but stopped when a dark vehicle stopped at the end the driveway. An unmarked police car. Rona Wedmore got out, looked at the house, saw Keisha standing in the doorway, and smiled.

  “Perfect,” Keisha said.

  Twenty-nine

  As Detective Wedmore walked past Kirk’s truck, she glanced into the cargo bed, empty save for the green garbage bag with the red tie at the top. Keisha opened the door wide as Wedmore mounted the three steps.

  “Detective,” she said.

  “Ms. Ceylon,” Wedmore said, nodding. “Mind if I come in?”

  Keisha admitted her into the house. Wedmore saw Kirk standing there and said, “Hi, how are you? I’m Detective Wedmore with the Milford police.”

  Kirk’s right hand was
busy stuffing the five thousand in cash into the back of his pants, so he awkwardly extended his left. Wedmore accepted it as though she always shook hands that way.

  “Hey,” he said with false cheerfulness. “I’m Kirk. Nice to meet you.” He flashed a smile.

  “What’d you do to your face there?”

  He touched his scratched cheek. “Nothin’,” he said.

  “I had an interesting chat with Mrs. Beaudry,” Rona Wedmore said to Keisha. “She brought up something I wanted to bounce off you.”

  “Sure,” Keisha said. “Did you want to talk privately?”

  “No, this is fine,” the detective said, smiling again at Kirk, who still had one hand rubbing the lump of cash in the back of his jeans. “This all comes back to the card.”

  “My business card,” Keisha said.

  “That’s right. She says …” Wedmore stopped herself and looked at Kirk. “I’m sorry, I’m probably being very rude here. Has Ms. Ceylon told you about what’s happened today?”

  “Uh, a little,” he said hesitantly. “Some dude got killed or something.”

  “That’s right. Wendell Garfield.”

  “That’s the guy was on TV asking for help to find his wife. Yeah, I know who you mean.”

  “When we found Mr. Garfield, he had Ms. Ceylon’s business card in his shirt pocket.”

  Kirk’s eyes went wide. “Wow, well, that’s something. Isn’t that something, Keisha?”

  Shut up, she thought. She should have said it out loud.

  Kirk said, “So maybe he was thinking of hiring Keisha to find out what happened to his wife. She does that, you know. She’s got this gift. She can see shit.” He smiled at her and put a hand on her shoulder. “And she likes to help people.”

  Shut up shut up shut up.

  Wedmore turned her attention back to Keisha. “You had a theory about how Mr. Garfield got your card. A theory that didn’t include you handing it to him yourself.”

  Keisha said, “I don’t know how he got my card, but yes, I do think maybe he could have gotten it from his sister, Gail. Since she’s already been coming to see me for some time for consultations.”

  “Right, that’s what you said. So I asked Mrs. Beaudry about that. Whether she had given her brother your card.”

  Keisha waited.

  “And she said it was possible. She didn’t actually remember doing it, but she said she could have given it to him, or to Mrs. Garfield.”

  “Well, there you are,” Keisha said, not feeling as relieved as she’d have liked.

  “So I asked her how many of your business cards she still has. And she said, so far as she knows, none. Which would seem to mean that the only card she might ever have gotten from you ended up with Mr. Garfield.”

  “Like she told you, she thinks it was possible.”

  “Yes. I asked her, if she only ever had the one card from you, when did you actually give it to her.”

  “Well,” Keisha said, “if you’re asking me, I have no idea. I hand out cards all the time. I could have had some on the table there and she took one on her way out.”

  Wedmore nodded, looking at the coffee table decorated with beer and half a Twinkie. “I can see how that might happen. But the thing is, she was able to tell me when it happened. When she got the card. She says you told her earlier today.”

  “I did?”

  “She says you brought it up. She told me that during a session some time ago—something to do with Amelia Earhart, I think she said?”

  “Gail believes she channels the spirits of some notable people throughout history.”

  “Nuttier than a fruitcake,” Kirk said, grinning. “I mean, I’m just sayin’.”

  Keisha shot him a look, then told Wedmore, “I take all of my clients’ beliefs very seriously, Detective, even if Kirk doesn’t. I don’t mock them.”

  “No, of course not. Anyway, Mrs. Beaudry was saying that while she was—do you say channeling?”

  “Yes.”

  “While she was channeling Amelia Earhart, she says that she asked you for one of your cards because she believed it could help someone. She says you reminded her of that this morning.”

  “I think—yes, I do believe I mentioned that earlier today.”

  “But Mrs. Beaudry doesn’t actually remember asking for it.”

  “Often she does not remember discussions she has with me when she’s channeling another person.”

  Wedmore nodded slowly and smiled. “So it was as Amelia Earhart that she asked for this card?”

  Keisha sighed. “It’s not quite like that. I mean, Gail is still always Gail, even when she’s channeling someone else. So I believe it was Gail asking for that card. But she may not recall the incident clearly because of the confluence of personalities at the time.”

  “Uh huh,” Wedmore said. “But don’t you find it interesting?”

  “It’s all very interesting. Helping people connect with past lives is fascinating work, Detective.”

  “No, not that, though I grant you, that is pretty interesting. No, what I find interesting, fascinating, in fact, is that you brought this up today. That you happened to remind Mrs. Beaudry about this incident, about giving her a card. And this was before I spoke to you and told you we’d found your card on Mr. Garfield’s body. Don’t you find that curious?”

  There was a noise at the door behind them. They all turned and saw Matthew, backpack slung over his shoulder, coming into the house. He stopped short when he saw the three people—one of whom he’d never seen before—standing there.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” Keisha said, grateful for the interruption. She moved around Wedmore, greeted her son with a hug and helped him slide the backpack off his shoulders.

  “Hey … buddy,” Kirk said. Matthew didn’t look at him as she pulled off his winter coat.

  “Who are you?” Matthew asked the detective.

  “I’m Rona Wedmore,” she said, and Keisha was grateful that she had not identified herself as a police officer. But the feeling was short-lived.

  “Are you a cop?” he asked. “That’s a cop car out front, isn’t it? I can tell because it’s got those little hubcaps and the big antenna on the back.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m a cop.”

  “Cool,” he said. “How fast can your car go?”

  “I’ve never driven it flat out, but it can go pretty good.”

  “You ever chased anybody with it?”

  “Not that car. But back when I was in uniform, in a regular police car, I chased a couple of people.”

  “I’d like to do that,” Matthew said.

  “You have to be really careful, though,” Wedmore said. “If the chase starts getting too dangerous, innocent people can get hurt.”

  Keisha said, “Sweetheart, why don’t you go to your room while we finish up talking with the detective.”

  “You have to help me with my math,” he said.

  “We can do that later, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said, and walked away.

  “Nice boy,” Wedmore said.

  Keisha felt a lump in her throat. “Yes.”

  “Lots of questions about the car, but he wasn’t the slightest bit interested in why I might be here.”

  “He likes cars,” Kirk said. “Gonna grow up to be a real car nut, I bet. Kind of like me. You see those wheels over there? They’re for my truck.”

  Wedmore persisted with Keisha. “So, Ms. Ceylon, you didn’t answer my question.”

  “I’m sorry, I kind of lost track there.” Except she hadn’t.

  “Don’t you think it’s curious you’d go to all the trouble of reminding Mrs. Beaudry about the time she asked you for your business card, just before I was going to question you about why Mr. Garfield had one on him?”

  Keisha said nothing. Kirk filled the silence. “Like I said before, the woman’s a total Froot Loop. I mean, no disrespect intended, and Keisha, she does her best with these nutcases, but come on, you really going to believe anythi
ng a woman says who thinks she was Emily Lockhart or whoever you said?”

  Wedmore asked him, “So you think Mrs. Beaudry is wrong? That she never did take a card from Ms. Ceylon, and never did give it to her brother?”

  Kirk made a face that suggested his brain was hurting. “Oh, well, that part, that part sounds about right.”

  “Mrs. Beaudry strikes me as a—what’s the word—suggestible woman,” Wedmore said to Keisha. “Would you agree with that?”

  “Not … necessarily.”

  “I’m thinking, it wouldn’t be that hard to plant an idea in her head. That’s what I’m thinking you did with the card. You made her think you gave her a card, when you never gave her one at all.”

  “I gave her one,” Keisha said forcefully. “I’m sure I did.”

  “A couple of minutes ago, you didn’t have any memory of doing that.”

  “You’ve reminded me of some things, that’s all. There’s been a lot going on. I’m still not over being taken into that house, seeing all that blood.”

  “Sure, I can understand how upsetting it would be to see that again.”

  Keisha turned on her and said sharply, “I told you, I was never there. You hear me? Never. You may think that stupid little card puts me there, but that’s bullshit. Complete and total bullshit.”

  “Yeah,” Kirk said.

  Now Keisha looked at him, just as angrily. “Don’t you have something to do? An errand to run? A delivery?”

  He blinked. “Yeah, I do.” He nodded at Wedmore. “I should get going.”

  “I have you blocked in,” Wedmore said. “I’ll come out with you.”

  Kirk threw on his coat, pulling it down at the bottom to make sure it covered the bulge of cash. He checked the pocket to make sure he had his keys and said, “So, Keesh, be back in a bit, okay?”

  He went out the door, followed by Wedmore. Keisha, worried about anything he might say to the detective, stepped outside, wrapping her arms around herself against the cold.

  “You don’t have to worry about Keisha,” Kirk said. “She’s a good person.”

  “I’m sure,” Wedmore said as they approached the truck. “This what you have to deliver?”

  She pointed to the bag in the cargo bed.

  “Huh?” Kirk said, his hand on the door handle.