Broken Promise: A Thriller

by Linwood Barclay

“It’s okay,” I told him. “It’s okay.” I wrapped my arms around him, held on to him tightly as I watched a different drama play out before me.

  “Marla,” Agnes said.

  Marla turned, saw her mother approaching with Matthew in her arms.

  “Mama?” she said, her voice breaking.

  “You know Matthew, of course,” Agnes said, and held the child out to her.

  “What are you doing?” Marla asked.

  “Take him. Hold him. He’s yours.”

  Marla hesitantly took the boy into her own arms. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he’s your baby. He’s the baby you carried. The baby you gave birth to.”

  “How . . . how . . .”

  Marla’s eyes filled instantly with tears. Her expression was one of joy mixed with total bafflement.

  “Don’t worry about that right now,” Agnes said, putting her arms around Marla and the child.

  “Oh, my God,” Marla whispered. “Oh, my God, it can’t be true.”

  “It’s true, child. It’s true.”

  Weeping, Marla said, “Thank you, Mom! Thank you so much! Thank you! I love you so much! You’re the best mother in the whole world! Thank you for finding him! I don’t know how you did it, how it can be possible, but thank you! Thank you for believing me!”

  Agnes ended the hug, looked at Marla, and said, “I have to go. You take care.”

  “Mama?”

  I watched Agnes return to her car, the door still open. She got behind the wheel, slowly backed out onto the street, and drove away as Marla took hold of Matthew’s tiny wrist so that he could, along with his mother, wave good-bye.

  THE NEXT DAY

  SEVENTY-ONE

  David

  “SO, you ready to get started?” Randall Finley asked me.

  When I’d seen his name pop up on my cell I should have let it go to message. But like a fool, I answered.

  “It’s only been twenty-four hours,” I told him.

  “Yeah, but from what I hear, your sister’s in the clear.”

  “Cousin,” I said.

  “Cousin, sister, whatever. She’s innocent, right?”

  “Right. But there are a few other things we still have to deal with.”

  “Like?”

  “A funeral for my aunt, for one,” I said.

  “Oh, shit, yeah,” Finley said. “Fucking hell, I heard about that. She jumped off the falls?”

  Right after she drove away from my parents’ house.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “My condolences,” the former mayor said.

  “Plus, I have to find a place to live. There was a fire at my parents’ house.”

  “That might be a blessing in disguise. Living with your parents at your age, that’s not good.”

  “They’ll be moving in with me while they rebuild the kitchen,” I said.

  “Ouch. Man, you are the poster boy for shit out of luck. So, what do you think? A couple of days? Because soon I want to announce that I’m running. I need to put together a platform, shit like that. About how empathetic I am, how I feel for the common man.”

  “It seems so self-evident,” I said.

  “Yeah, but some people don’t pick up the signals. You have to spell it out for them. You know what I’m saying.”

  “I think so. Why don’t I call you toward the end of the week.”

  Finley sighed. “I suppose. It’s a good thing I’m a soft touch. Most employers, they might not take it so well, someone taking time off before they’ve even started the fucking job.”

  He ended the call.

  I was parked out front of the Pickenses’ house. Gill and Marla were inside. She’d be looking after Matthew, and no doubt he was busy making funeral arrangements for Agnes.

  The Promise Falls Department of Child and Family Services, pending a more formal review later, decided to let Marla look after Matthew for now, so long as she was living with Gill. Even though the child was hers, and a terrible crime had been perpetrated against her, there was still the issue of her mental stability. She had, after all, tried to kidnap a baby from the hospital. In addition, she’d tried to take her own life. But Marla had agreed to intensive counseling and regular visitations from a caseworker.

  While Marla was the only one getting professional help, that didn’t mean she was the only one who needed it.

  My mother was devastated.

  Her sister was dead. And Agnes might have had her sister’s last words to her in mind as she plunged to her death off Promise Falls.

  You’ve always been hard, Agnes, but I never knew you were a monster.

  Despite the monstrous things Agnes had done, Mom wished she had said something else.

  At some level, I think Mom blamed herself. That maybe if she’d been a better older sibling, none of this would have happened.

  They found Agnes downriver, her body lodged on a rock where the rapids get shallow. She wasn’t the first person to die from going off the bridge that spans that rushing cliff of water, and she probably wouldn’t be the last. But I doubted anyone before or after had done it with the same sense of purpose.

  According to witness accounts, Agnes walked calmly along the sidewalk to the center of the bridge, set down her purse, perched her butt on the railing, and gracefully swung both legs around and over.

  Before anyone else could even react, she was gone.

  I couldn’t decide whether there was courage in what she did, or colossal cowardice. Maybe some of both. The fact that she never told Marla what she’d done to her tipped me toward the latter.

  She’d left that for Gill and others to explain.

  Considering everything, Ethan was riding this out okay. Moving to a motel for a few nights while I looked for a place for us to live was an adventure. The fire’d been contained before it spread upstairs and destroyed any of his things. The model railroad Dad had built in the basement had gotten soaked, but the engines and boxcars and the Promise Falls water tower would dry out eventually.

  My son had been through worse. We’d get through this together.

  I was about to get out of the car to see how Marla and Gill were doing when my cell phone rang. I didn’t immediately recognize the number, but at least it wasn’t Finley’s, so I answered.

  “Hello?”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  A woman’s voice.

  “Sam?” I said. “Is this Samantha?”

  “You suckered me right in, didn’t you? Nicely done. I should have known you were working for them. I knew they wanted Carl back, but I never thought they’d stoop this low.”

  “Sam, I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “That was good, fucking me right there in the kitchen where they could look in through the window, get some nice pics. Talk about getting screwed in more ways than one.”

  Even as my heart pounded, I tried to figure out what had happened.

  The blue pickup truck with the tinted windows.

  “Sam, listen to me—I didn’t do anything. I never—”

  “I’ll get you for this. I will. Don’t come knocking on my door again. Next time I’ll pull the trigger.”

  And then she hung up.

  I called her back immediately but she wouldn’t answer. When it went to voice mail, I said, “Whatever you’re thinking I did, I did not do it. I swear. If I’ve caused you trouble, I’m sorry, but I did not set you up.” I hesitated. “The truth is, I want to see you again.”

  I tried to think of anything else I could say and came up blank. So I ended the call and pocketed the phone.

  “Shit,” I said under my breath.

  Gill opened the door ten seconds after I rang the bell. “David,” he said, his voice flat, empty. “Come in.”

  “I wanted to see h
ow Marla was doing,” I said.

  “Of course. She’s in the kitchen with Matthew. I’m just on the phone, sorting out the details. For Agnes.”

  I nodded.

  “I hope you’re not expecting me to thank you,” Gill said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You were instrumental in getting to the truth. I suppose that’s something. But now my wife is dead, and I’m looking after my daughter and a grandson. That’s what the truth brought me.”

  There was nothing I could say.

  I followed him into the kitchen. A high chair had been acquired in the last day. Matthew was secured into it with a tiny safety belt that ran around his waist. Marla was sitting in a kitchen chair opposite him, feeding him with a tiny red plastic spoon some green pureed stuff from a small glass jar.

  “David!” she said. She put down the baby food, jumped to her feet, and threw her arms around me. She planted a kiss on my cheek. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “You, too,” I said.

  Marla sat back down, said, “Grab a chair. I’m just in the middle of giving him his lunch.”

  I found a chair and sat. “What is that stuff?”

  “Peas,” she said. “He’s Hoovering it.” She glanced at me. “Let me ask you a question.”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you think I should keep calling him Matthew? I mean, that’s the name the Gaynors gave him, but I would have named him something different.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Because even though he’s little, it’s probably already a name he responds to. If I were going to call him something different—and I’m leaning toward Kyle—I’d have to start doing it right now.”

  “I’m not sure I’m the one to advise you on this. I mean, it might even be a legal matter. There’ll probably be a few of those.”

  Marla nodded, understanding. “You’re right. I’m going to talk it over with Mom.”

  I felt a chill. I glanced over at Gill, who was by the phone, making notes. He looked my way with dead eyes.

  “With your mom,” I said.

  “When she’s able to come back,” she said. Marla must have seen the look in my eye, and she smiled. “I know what you’re thinking. That Mom jumped off the falls. That’s what they’re all saying.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “But she had to fake her death. She needs time for things to cool off. Then she’ll come back and help me.”

  I was speechless.

  “They’re saying a lot of things about her,” Marla continued. “Things that can’t possibly be true. That Dr. Sturgess was a very, very bad man. He must have tricked Mom into thinking my baby had died. It was a conspiracy. The Gaynors were part of it. Mom couldn’t have been involved in anything like that.”

  Another smile. Marla slipped a spoonful of peas into Matthew’s mouth. Half dribbled down his chin.

  “Oh, look at you,” she said. “Are you a messy boy? You are a messy boy. Isn’t he beautiful, David?”

  “He is that.”

  “I think he looks a little like Dad,” she said, and then called over to her father, “Don’t you see it?”

  “If you say so,” he said. Then, struggling, he added, “I can see some of Agnes in him. In his eyes.”

  Marla studied her baby. “I see that. I do. I think I actually do, which is pretty amazing for me. Do you see it, David?”

  I looked. “Maybe so.” I stood. “I’m going to check in on you every once in a while, if that’s okay.”

  “I’d love that,” Marla said. “It’s kind of chaotic around here right now. There’s so much to get organized. I might not even go back to my house. At least, not for a few months. When Mom gets back, she’ll sort it all out.” A grin. “That’s what she does, you know. Soon as she walks through that door, she’ll take charge.”

  I gave Marla a hug and said to Gill, “Thanks. See you at the service. I can find my way out.”

  When I opened the front door to leave, there were two men standing there. A young man I’d met before, and an older gentleman who I’d have guessed, from a quick glance, was his father.

  Derek Cutter had just been about to press the doorbell, and I’d startled him.

  “Oh!” he said. “Mr. Harwood.”

  “Hi, Derek.”

  “Mr. Harwood, this is my dad.”

  The older man extended a hand. His grip was firm. “Jim Cutter,” he said. On the street I spotted a pickup truck with the words “Cutter’s Lawn Service” painted on the side.

  “Good to meet you. I’m David.” I looked at Derek. “You heard.”

  The Thackeray student nodded. “Marla called me.” He swallowed. “I’m a dad after all.”

  Jim Cutter, standing slightly behind his son, rested his palms on the young man’s shoulders. “Not exactly ideal circumstances, but we came to get acquainted, just the same.”

  I called out to Marla that she had visitors, then got in my car and headed home.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  THE dead doctor was looking good for it.

  Motive was certainly not a problem, Detective Barry Duckworth thought. If Dr. Jack Sturgess feared that Rosemary Gaynor was going to start asking too many questions about the circumstances surrounding the adoption of Matthew, he might have seen he had no option but to kill her.

  He’d certainly shown no hesitation where Marshall Kemper was concerned. Bill Gaynor, who had decided to come clean about everything he knew, had led them to the man’s body in the woods. Duckworth had also determined that Sturgess had murdered Kemper’s elderly neighbor in a bid to cover his tracks.

  So the man certainly had it in him to kill when it came to saving himself.

  Angus Carlson had been building a timeline of where Sturgess had been the day that Rosemary Gaynor was killed, and there were plenty of gaps in his schedule. So he’d had opportunity. And she would have had no hesitation in letting him into her home. He was her doctor, after all.

  But still, there was no actual physical evidence that connected Sturgess to the crime. And the way the Gaynor woman had been killed didn’t seem to fit the doctor’s style.

  He’d killed Kemper with a fatal injection. He’d attempted to kill David Harwood and his father the same way. He’d smothered Kemper’s neighbor with a pillow, but that made some sense. What happened to her might easily have been dismissed as death by natural causes.

  But did it follow that a man who killed two people bloodlessly would virtually disembowel somebody? Did a man who used a needle or a pillow carve up a woman like a Halloween pumpkin?

  Duckworth had discussed this matter, and others, with Bill Gaynor, who was in custody and facing a slew of charges.

  “I don’t know,” Gaynor had told him. “A year ago I wouldn’t have believed Jack was capable of what he did this week. I don’t know anything anymore. I’m starting to think it’s possible.”

  Gaynor did tell him that he and Sturgess had been able to persuade Rosemary months ago that the adoption of Matthew was legitimate. The doctor told her Matthew’s mother was a sixteen-year-old girl from a poor family, that raising this child she was carrying would be more than she or her parents could handle. The girl’s identity would have to remain secret, but Sturgess drew up some bogus paperwork for Rosemary to sign that went straight into the Promise Falls General paper shredder. The doctor had persuaded Gaynor that he’d find a way to funnel some of the money to Marla, even though he’d always planned to keep all of it for himself.

  Chief Rhonda Finderman was eager to see the Gaynor case closed. She wanted one in the win column. And the beauty of this was, Sturgess didn’t have to be convicted in a court of law.

  Duckworth asked her for more time to nail down some of the details.

  “Soon,” he told her.

  The Gaynor case wasn’t the only thing troubling him.

  There
were those damn squirrels. The three painted mannequins. That Thackeray student who’d been shot to death by that asshole Clive Duncomb.

  The number 23.

  Sitting at his desk, he doodled the number several times. There was a very good chance it didn’t mean a damn thing.

  He thought about the squirrels. Just the squirrels.

  Let’s say you’re some sick bastard trying to make a statement. You decide the way you’re going to get your point across is by killing some animals. And that’s what you do. But why not ten? Why not a dozen? Maybe twenty-five.

  Why do you pick a number like twenty-three?

  Duckworth Googled it. The first thing that came up was the Wikipedia entry. “Always a reliable source,” Duckworth said under his breath.

  It was the ninth prime number.

  It was the sum of three other consecutive prime numbers: five, seven, and eleven.

  It was the atomic number of vanadium, whatever the hell vanadium was. Duckworth thought that might be one of the coffee flavors Wanda had offered him.

  It was the number on Michael Jordan’s shirt when he played for the Chicago Bulls.

  In one of the Matrix movies, Neo was told that—

  The phone rang.

  “Duckworth.”

  “It’s Wanda.”

  “Hey, I was just thinking of you. What’s vanadium?”

  “It’s a kind of mineral,” she said. “It has some medical applications.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I took science. You take a bit of that when you become a doctor. Is this important?”

  “Probably not. I was just—”

  “I don’t care what you’re doing,” the medical examiner said. “Just get your ass over here.”

  • • •

  “What were you doing three years ago this month?” Wanda Therrieult asked him after he’d arrived.

  “I don’t know, offhand,” Duckworth said. “Working, I’d guess.”

  “I’m betting you weren’t. I wasn’t. I was taking some time to be with my sister, who was in her last few weeks.”

  “I remember that,” Duckworth said. “Duluth.”