David
I decided Davidson Place would be my first stop.
The nursing home was on the west side of Promise Falls. A low-rise building in that netherworld between the suburbs and industrial land. I remembered from when I was a reporter how neighbors banded together to fight just about anything they believed would impact the quality of their domesticity. Group homes for mentally challenged kids. Halfway houses. Shopping malls. Homes too big for the lot.
But for the life of me, I had a hard time getting my head around why someone would object to a nursing home in their community. Were they worried about being kept awake at night by the sounds of shuffling feet?
I parked in the visitors’ lot and looked for reception. That took me to the lobby, where I saw several old souls sitting in wheelchairs, fast asleep. A woman behind the counter asked whether she could help me, and I said I was looking for Sarita.
“Sarita Gomez?” she asked.
I didn’t know, but I said, “Yes.”
“I haven’t seen her today, but I can check whether she’s in. Can I ask what it’s concerning?”
That was when it occurred to me that the police had not already been here. If Barry Duckworth had been asking for Sarita, it would be all over the building. Was it possible I had the jump on him? The Gaynors’ elderly neighbor had said something about not being able to remember the name of this place when he’d been talking to the police.
“It’s a personal matter,” I said, then added, in an attempt to make my inquiry sound work related, “It has to do with someone’s care.”
The woman figured out I was telling her it was none of her business. She picked up the phone, entered an extension, and said, “Gail, you seen Sarita around? Okay, uh-huh, got it.”
She hung up and looked at me. “Sarita didn’t come in for her shift yesterday and she’s not in today. I’m sorry.”
“Did she call in sick?” I asked.
The woman shrugged. “Probably. I didn’t get the details.”
“Would I be able to talk to her supervisor?” I leaned over the counter and said in a voice just above a whisper, “It’s very important. It’s the kind of thing I think Davidson Place would like to sort out quietly.”
The woman could read into that whatever she wanted. Maybe I had a loved one here. Maybe I had a complaint about the care of my ailing grandmother. Maybe there was a theft allegation.
“What’s your name?” she asked. I told her. “Just a minute.” She picked up the phone again. I turned away, only half listening. Then she said to me, “Mrs. Delaney will be down to see you shortly, Mr. Harwood. Have a seat over there.”
I dropped into a nearby vinyl chair. Across from me sat a man who I guessed was in his late eighties or early nineties, dressed in a shirt and pants that he’d probably acquired when he was forty pounds heavier. His neck stuck out of the collar like a flagpole in a golf-green hole. He was holding an Ed McBain paperback mystery, open to about the midpoint, staring at the page, and in the five minutes I waited for Mrs. Delaney to show up, I never saw his eyes move once, and the page was never turned.
“Mr. Harwood?”
I glanced up. “Yes. Mrs. Delaney?”
She nodded. “You were asking about Sarita Gomez?”
“I was hoping to speak with her,” I said, standing.
“I’d like to speak with her myself,” the woman said. “I’m afraid she isn’t here, and attempts to reach her have been unsuccessful.”
“Oh,” I said. “She hasn’t shown up for work?”
“May I ask what this is concerning? Do you have someone here at Davidson?”
“I don’t. This concerns work Sarita does outside of this facility.”
“Then why are you asking me about it?”
“I’m trying to locate her. I thought, since she works here, I might be able to talk to her, ask her a few questions.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Mrs. Delaney said. “Sarita did not show up this morning. She’s a good worker, and the residents here like her very much, but as I’m sure you can imagine, some kinds of employees are more reliable than others.”
“I’m sorry?”
“That fact that she’s—” The woman cut herself off.
“The fact that she’s what?” I thought, then took a shot. “Undocumented? Is Sarita working here illegally?”
“I’m sure that’s not the case,” Mrs. Delaney said.
“Do you have an address for her?” I asked.
“Just a number where she can be reached. I spoke to the person at that number and she tells me Sarita’s gone away. I couldn’t tell you whether she’ll be coming back or not. And you still haven’t told me what business you have with her.”
Time to hit her between the eyes. “She worked as a nanny for the Gaynors. That name mean anything to you?”
Mrs. Delaney shook her head. “Should it?”
“Did you watch the news last night? That woman who was fatally stabbed in her home over on Breckonwood?”
A flash of recognition. She had heard the story.
“That was horrible. But what does it have to do with Sarita?”
“She was their nanny.”
Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she said.
“I’m surprised the police haven’t been here already, but I think you should be expecting them.”
“This is unimaginable. Are you saying Sarita had something to do with that?”
I hesitated. “I’m saying she may know something about it.”
“Who are you, if you’re not with the police?” she asked pointedly.
“I’m investigating on behalf of an interested party,” I said, which was as artful a dodge as I could think of on the spot. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“It would have been yesterday morning sometime, I think. She probably had the six-to-one shift. She does four shifts a week here, mostly early mornings. I don’t know about these other people she works for, but I think she works there before she comes here. And she can work any shift on weekends. This is terrible. She couldn’t have had anything to do with this. Everyone likes Sarita.”
“You say you tried to call her?”
“She doesn’t have a phone. I called her landlady. She said she’s taken off.” She leaned in. “That sounds bad, doesn’t it?”
“Does she have friends here? Anyone who might know where I might be able to find her?”
She went mute. I knew she’d thought of someone instantly, but was debating whether to tell me. Finally she said, “There’s someone here I think she’s been seeing. You know, in a relationship.”
“Who?”
“Marshall Kemper. He’s one of our custodians.”
“I need to talk to him.”
She hesitated. “Follow me.”
She led me out of the lobby, down a hallway, then down a flight of stairs to the basement, and then through another hallway of pipes and ductwork and the industrial sounds of air conditioners and pumps. When she got to a door marked OPERATIONS MANAGER, she knocked, and a second later a short, stout black man answered.
“Yeah?”
“Manny,” Mrs. Delaney said, “we’re looking for Marshall. Where would he be this time of day?”
“Normally he’d be getting the trash pickup ready, but this turns out not to be a normal day. Marshall phoned in sick a while ago.”
Mrs. Delaney looked at me.
“I need an address,” I said.
THIRTY-NINE
“THERE’S a problem,” Bill Gaynor said, speaking into the kitchen phone while Matthew, in his high chair, stuffed dry Cheerios into his mouth.
“What kind of problem?” Dr. Jack Sturgess said.
“I got a call. Someone wanting money. Blackmail. The guy was a goddamn blackmailer.”
Gaynor turned his back t
o his son and kept his voice down. He didn’t want Matthew to hear foul language. He worried the kid would be spouting expletives before he could say “Daddy.” A word, Gaynor thought sadly, his son was likely to utter before “Mommy.”
“Who was it?”
“It’s not like he said, ‘Hi, I’m Joe Smith, your neighborhood extortionist.’ He didn’t identify himself. But he must be someone who knows Sarita.”
“Why?” Sturgess asked.
“I’ve been thinking about this. Rose had been funny these last few weeks. I think she knew the truth somehow. I think it was weighing on her. I can’t say for sure, but it was little things she said, the way she was acting. And I’ve been trying to figure out, if she did know, who might she have found out from? Who might have helped her put it together?”
“Sarita?” the doctor said.
“Yeah. I’m wondering if she could have been in a position to know something.”
Sturgess thought about that. “It’s possible.”
“It would explain a lot. The way things have gone down. This guy who called me, it sounds like maybe he’s got it figured out.”
“What’s he want?” Sturgess asked.
“Fifty thousand.”
“Jesus.”
“I haven’t got it,” Gaynor said. “After I came up with a hundred grand for you, I’ve got nothing left. I’m going to have to put Rose’s funeral on my line of credit.”
“Let me think,” Sturgess said.
“Give me half of what I paid you,” Gaynor said. “A loan. I’ll pay it back. There’ll be insurance money coming in.”
“Rosemary’s million-dollar policy,” the doctor said. “Clearly your blackmailer doesn’t know about that or he’d be asking for a lot more than fifty thousand.”
“So you know I’ll be able to reimburse you once my company makes good on the policy. So help me now with the fifty.”
“That’s . . . going to be difficult,” Sturgess said. “I don’t have it to give.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Gaynor said, whispering angrily, glancing back at Matthew to make sure he wasn’t choking on a Cheerio. “How could someone blow through a hundred thousand dollars that fast?”
“My financial needs are none of your business, Bill. Sounds to me like if anyone is to blame here, it’s at your end. You need to fix this, and you need to fix it fast.”
“I’m telling you I don’t have the money. Maybe I should just not pay him, let him say whatever the hell he wants to say, to whoever he wants to tell it to. The police’d be pretty goddamn interested.”
“Don’t joke, Bill.”
“Who said I’m joking? If this gets out, all I have to say is I knew nothing about it. Not at the time. That I thought everything was aboveboard. You know who they’ll come after? You, that’s who. Is it the gambling, Jack? Is that where the money went? Did even a dime of that money go to where you said it was going to go? You kept it all, didn’t you, to pay off your debts? How do you think that’ll look when it comes out? What you did for the money, and what you did with it when you got it?”
“Just shut up!” Sturgess said. “I’m trying to work this out.”
“You’d better work it out fast. The call is set for ten thirty. I’m supposed to be at the bank when it opens. And what if when I get there the accounts are frozen or something, because of Rose’s death? Then there won’t be a damn thing I can do about this.”
“Tell him you have the money,” the doctor said. “When he calls you, tell him you’ve got it.”
“But I won’t.”
“That’s okay. This guy, do you think he knows you to see you?”
“How would I know that?”
“You didn’t recognize the voice?”
“I’m telling you, Jack, I don’t know who it is.”
“We have to assume he knows what you look like, so you’re going to have to be the one who meets him. Has he said where he wants to meet?”
“No. He’ll probably do that when we talk at ten thirty.”
“We need to think about that. We need to know how he wants to do the handoff. It needs to be in a very public—no, not a public place. Not a place with cameras. Someplace isolated. That’d be better. Soon as you know what he wants to do, you call me. Don’t commit to anything. Tell him you’ve got the funeral home on the other line and you have to deal with it; you’ll call him back. Then we’ll talk, figure out how we’re going to do this.”
“What are you talking about, Jack?” Gaynor asked. “What are you going to do?”
“You won’t pay him, but you’ll make him think he’s going to be paid.”
“What? A briefcase full of cut-up paper? I’m not fucking James Bond, Jack. And what about Matthew? I’m supposed to bring along a baby to pay off a blackmailer?”
“Get a grip, Bill. Listen to me. There’s two things we have to do. One, we have to shut this asshole down, make it clear to him that he can’t pull something like this. And two, we have to find out how he knows what he knows.” The doctor paused. “If he found this out from Sarita, then we have to find her.”
“The police have to be looking for her,” Gaynor said. “I’m betting she’s gone to ground. She’s in hiding.”
“But the police still might find her,” Sturgess said. “We need to find her first.”
FORTY
AGNES Pickens, breezing into the administrative offices of Promise Falls General, shouted into the office of her assistant, Carol Osgoode, as she strode down the hall to her own.
“Yes, Ms. Pickens?” Carol said, getting out from behind her computer and running to the door.
“In my office!” Agnes said.
Agnes was already seated behind her desk, her eyes on the doorway as Carol appeared. She wasn’t out of her twenties, this girl, and there were times when Agnes wondered whether she needed someone older to assist her, but what Carol lacked in life experience she more than made up in dedication. She did what she was told, and she did it quickly.
“What happened after I left yesterday?” Agnes asked, her chin angled slightly up so she could look Carol, whom she had not invited to take a seat, directly in the eye.
“At the board meeting?”
“Yes, of course the board meeting. Did anything happen?”
“Everyone just left. I mean, you were running the meeting, and so they all went off and did whatever it is they do,” Carol said.
Agnes nodded. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. I was worried they might have tried to carry on without me.”
Carol shook her head. “I don’t think anyone would dare,” she said.
Agnes’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”
Carol looked panicked. “I didn’t mean anything negative. It’s just . . . everyone knows you’re in charge here, and no one would try to do anything without your knowledge. I told them I figured you would want to reschedule as soon as possible, but of course, that was before anyone had any idea what sorts of things you were dealing with.”
“I suppose my troubles are the talk of the place,” Agnes said.
“Everyone’s concerned,” Carol said. “For you and Marla. And I just . . . I just can’t . . .”
“Carol?”
Agnes’s assistant put her hands over her face and began to weep.
“Good heavens, Carol?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry. I’ll go now and—”
Agnes came around the desk, put her arm around the woman’s shoulder, and steered her into a leather chair. “Let me get you a tissue,” she said, and snatched several from a box on a shelf behind her desk. She handed them to Carol, who dabbed her eyes and then blew her nose. She wadded the tissue into a ball and surrounded it with her hands.
“What’s going on, Carol?”
“Nothing, nothing
,” she said. “I just feel . . . I feel so terrible for you and what you’re going through. I mean, I know there’s no end of tragedies in this building every day, but when something happens to someone you know, someone you work for . . .”
“It’s okay,” Agnes said.
“You’re dealing with it so well, and I really admire that. I just don’t know how you do it.”
Agnes pulled over another chair so she could sit knee-to-knee with her assistant. “Believe me, Carol, inside, I’m a basket case.” She put a hand on Carol’s knee. “I can’t believe you’d be this upset about something happening to me.”
Carol looked at her with red eyes. “Why would you say that?”
“Because, my dear, I can be a first-class bitch.” Agnes smiled. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”
Carol allowed herself a short laugh that sounded more like a clearing of the throat. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Not to my face, you wouldn’t,” Agnes said. “I know what I am, I know how I come across. You can’t run a place like this and be a nice person. And when you’re a woman you have to be even tougher, and you can’t worry about what they think of you. But it doesn’t mean you don’t feel, or that you’re not hurting inside.”
“I know.”
“You take a lot of abuse from me and you keep on going, and I respect that about you. And I’m touched that you’d be so worried about my situation. But you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll sort things out. We’ll get through this. Gill and I and Marla, we’ll do whatever it takes. That’s the way I’ve always been. Maybe sometimes I come across like I don’t care, but that’s not true.”
Carol nodded.
“Are you going to be okay?” Agnes asked. “Do you want to take the day?”
She shook her head violently. “No, I’m certainly not going to leave you, not when you have this much to deal with. I mean, how would it look? You can come to work, but I have to go home?”
Agnes patted her hand. “Okay, then. I want you to reschedule that board meeting for tomorrow, first thing. And let everyone know there’s a chance I might have to cancel again. My—our—situation is a bit unpredictable at the moment.”
Broken Promise: A Thriller Page 24