The Accident

by Linwood Barclay

  “What is it? Stomach?”

  “I feel weird.”

  “Pizza? Too much soda?”

  Kelly shrugged.

  “Did something happen? Did something happen with Emily?”

  “No.”

  “No, nothing happened? Or no, nothing happened with Emily?”

  “I just want to go home.”

  “Did Emily or somebody say something? About your mother?”

  “No.”

  “You looked like you didn’t even want to talk to Mr. Slocum. Did something happen with him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” The hairs were standing up on the back of my neck again. I was getting a bad vibe off him there. I didn’t know what it was. But there was something I didn’t like. “Did he … did he make you feel uncomfortable?”

  “Everything’s fine,” Kelly said, but she wouldn’t look at me.

  My mind was taking me places I didn’t want to go. There were questions I felt I needed to ask, but it wasn’t going to be easy to ask them.

  “Look, honey, if something happened, you need to tell me about it.”

  “I can’t.”

  I glanced over at her, but she was still looking straight ahead. “You can’t?”

  Kelly didn’t say anything.

  “Something happened, but you can’t talk about it, is that what you’re saying?”

  Kelly’s lips tightened. I felt a spike of anxiety.

  “Did someone make you promise not to say anything?”

  After a moment, she said, “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  I kept my voice as even as possible. “You’re not going to get in trouble. Sometimes, grown-ups, they’ll make kids promise not to tell something, but that’s wrong. Any time a grown-up does that, it’s to cover up something that they’ve done. It’s not because of anything bad you’ve done. And even if they say you’re going to get in trouble if you tell, you won’t.”

  Kelly’s head went up and down a fraction of an inch.

  “This thing … that happened,” I said, tentatively. “Was Emily there? Did she see it?”

  “No.”

  “Where was Emily?”

  “I don’t know. She hadn’t found me yet.”

  “Found you?”

  “I was hiding, and then she was going to hide.”

  “From her father?”

  “No,” she said impatiently. “We were hiding from each other. In different parts of the house, but then we were trying to sneak up on each other.”

  “Okay,” I said, starting to clue in. “Did she come in later? Did she find you?”

  A shake of the head.

  We were by the hospital, the point where we’d normally turn down Seaside Avenue to our place, which was neither by the sea nor within view of it. But I felt, now that Kelly was talking, pulling in to the driveway might shut her down. So I went past our street and wandered down Bridgeport Avenue. If Kelly noticed we were missing the turn to our place, she didn’t mention it.

  Okay, no more stalling. This was my life—our life—now. Dad and daughter had to talk about things that Dad would have been very happy to hand over to Mom.

  “Sweetheart, this is really difficult for me to ask, but I have to, okay?”

  She looked me in the eye, then turned away.

  “Did Mr. Slocum do something to you? Did he touch you? Did he do something that you didn’t want him to do? Because if he did, that’s wrong, and we need to talk about it.” It seemed unthinkable. The guy was a cop, for crying out loud. But I didn’t care if he was the goddamn head of the FBI. If he touched my kid, I was going to beat the living shit out of him.

  “He didn’t touch me,” she said.

  “Okay.” I started to imagine different scenarios. “Did he say something to you? Show something to you?”

  “No, he didn’t do any of those things.”

  I let out a long breath. “Then what, honey? What did he do?”

  “He didn’t do anything, okay?” Kelly turned and looked at me directly, as though getting ready to accuse me of something. “It wasn’t him. It was her.”

  “Her? Who?”

  “It was Emily’s mom.”

  EIGHT

  “Emily’s mom touched you?” I asked, bewildered. That seemed even more unthinkable.

  “No, she didn’t touch me,” Kelly said. “She got mad at me.”

  “Mad at you? Why would she get mad at you?”

  “I was in their room.” Now she wouldn’t look at me.

  “Their room? You mean, their bedroom?”

  Kelly nodded. “We were just playing.”

  “Playing in Emily’s parents’ bedroom?”

  “I was only hiding. In the closet. I wasn’t doing anything bad. But she got all mad because she didn’t know I was there and she was on the phone.”

  I was upset, but part of me was relieved, as well. The worst-case scenario appeared to be off the table. Kelly being where she wasn’t supposed to be, hiding in Ann and Darren Slocum’s bedroom—well, if I’d found Emily hanging out in my bedroom closet, I’d probably be pissed about it myself.

  “Okay, so let me get this straight,” I said carefully. “You were hiding in Mr. and Mrs. Slocum’s bedroom and then Mrs. Slocum came in to use the phone?”

  Kelly nodded. “She came in and sat on the bed right near the closet and phoned somebody and I was really scared she was going to see me because the door was open a little bit but I thought if I tried to close it, she’d see that, so I didn’t do anything.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “So she was talking to one person and then she started talking to another person and—”

  “She hung up and called someone else?”

  “No, it was like another call came in while she was talking to the first person. And when she was talking to the second person, that’s when I guess she heard me breathing in the closet and she stopped talking and she opened the door and she got really mad and told me to come out.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone into their room,” I said. “Especially their closet. It’s private in there.”

  “So you’re mad, too.”

  “No, I’m just saying. What did she say to you?”

  “She asked me if I’d been listening.”

  Before I knew it, we were all the way to Devon, so I hung a left on Naugatuck and started working our way back on Milford Point Road. “Mrs. Slocum probably wouldn’t have said what she was saying on the phone if she knew someone was in the room with her.”

  “Yeah, that’s for sure,” Kelly muttered.

  “What?” I asked. “What was she saying?”

  She gave me a look. “You mean you want me to tell you? Even though I wasn’t supposed to hear? Doesn’t that mean you’re sort of listening in, too?”

  I shook my head. “Okay, it’s none of my business what she said, just like it was none of yours. But I mean, generally, what was it about? Why was she so upset you heard her?”

  “The first person or the second?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  “Because she wasn’t mad at the first person. She was mad at the second person.”

  “The second caller? She was mad at that person?”

  A nod.

  “Do you know who it was?”

  A head shake.

  “So what was she saying?”

  “I can’t talk about it,” Kelly said. “Mrs. Slocum said I wasn’t supposed to.”

  I weighed that. Kelly had eavesdropped on a conversation she wasn’t supposed to hear. What Ann Slocum had to say on the phone wasn’t my business, either. But at the same time, I needed to get to the bottom of this. I needed to know whether Ann’s response was within reason, or if she’d crossed a line.

  “Okay, let’s not worry about what exactly she said on the phone, but what did she say to you after?”

  “She asked me how long I’d been hiding there, and then she asked me if I heard what she wa
s saying on the phone and I said no, not really, which wasn’t exactly true, and then she said I shouldn’t have done that and she said I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what she was talking about.”

  “Like me,” I said.

  “Not, like, anybody. She said I wasn’t supposed to tell Emily and I wasn’t supposed to tell Mr. Slocum, either.”

  That was interesting. It was one thing, Kelly overhearing something that was Slocum family business, that shouldn’t be discussed outside their home. But now it seemed what my daughter had heard was a little more specific than that. “Did she say why?”

  Kelly fingered her backpack. “Nope. She just said not to tell. She said if I ever told anyone, she wouldn’t let me and Emily be friends anymore.” Her voice wobbled. “I don’t have very many friends and I don’t want Emily not to be my friend.”

  “Of course you don’t,” I said, trying very hard to hide my anger at Ann Slocum’s insensitivity. Kelly had just lost her mother, for crying out loud. “What happened then?”

  “She left.”

  “The bedroom? She left the bedroom?” A nod. “Didn’t you both leave?” A shake. “Wait a minute. She got mad because you were hiding in her bedroom, and then you stayed there? Why would you do such a thing?”

  “She made me. She told me to stay right there, because she had to think about what to do with me. She said it was like a time-out. And she took the talking part of the phone with her.”

  I was feeling prickly all over. What the hell was the woman thinking?

  “That’s when I called you,” Kelly said. “I’d put my phone back into my pocket just before she opened the door and she didn’t know I had it.”

  “Why did you have your phone out?”

  “When Emily opened the door to look for me I was going to shout ‘Surprise!’ and wanted to see her scream on video.”

  I gave my head a small shake. “Okay, so when she left the room and told you to stay there, that’s when you called me.” She nodded. “That was smart. When she left the room, did she lock the door?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it has a lock on it. But Mrs. Slocum told me not to move and I didn’t want to get in trouble so I stayed there. But she didn’t tell me I couldn’t phone you, so I did. But I thought she might get mad, so that’s why I was whispering. When you got there, Mr. Slocum started yelling for me and that’s when I came out.”

  “Honey, what she did, that was wrong. You shouldn’t have been there, in her closet, but she shouldn’t have done that. I’m gonna have a word with her tomorrow.”

  “Then she’ll know I told you, and Emily won’t be my friend anymore.”

  “I’ll make sure she doesn’t do that.”

  Kelly shook her head forcefully. “She might get mad.”

  “Honey, Emily’s mom’s not going to hurt you or anything.”

  “Maybe she’ll hurt you.”

  “What? What’s she going to do to me?”

  “She might put a bullet in your brain,” Kelly said. “That’s what she said she was going to do to the person she was talking to.”

  NINE

  Once Glen Garber had left with his daughter, Darren Slocum said to Ann, “What the hell was that all about?”

  “I don’t know. She felt sick, she went home. She’s a kid. She probably ate too much junk. Or maybe she misses her mom, I don’t know.” When she turned to walk away from him, he grabbed hold of her elbow.

  “Let go of me,” Ann said.

  “What was she doing in our bedroom? That’s where I found her, you know. When I asked her what she was doing there, she said you told her to stay there. I don’t want some kid nosing around our bedroom.”

  “The girls were playing hide-and-seek,” Ann explained. “I told her it was okay for her to hide in there.”

  “The kids should not be playing in our room. That’s off limits as far as—”

  “Okay, fine! Jesus, do we have to make a federal case out of this? You don’t think I’ve got enough to worry about?”

  “You? You think you’re the only one with things to worry about? You think they think you’re in this on your own? Let me tell you something. If they take you down, they’re taking me with them.”

  “I know, okay, you’re right. All I’m saying is, there’s enough shit going on around here that I don’t have time to have some stupid fight about where the girls are playing in the house.”

  “Letting Emily even have a sleepover was a stupid idea,” Darren said accusingly.

  Ann gave him a look of exasperation. “What are we supposed to do? Just stop having lives while we try to sort this out? What do you want me to do? Ship Emily off to live with my sister or something until everything is back to normal?”

  “And how the hell much did you spend on pizza?” he asked. Waving his arms in the air, he said, “You think we’ve got money to just throw around?”

  “Right, Darren. That twenty bucks I spent on pizza, that’d make all the difference right now. We tell them, hey, look, here’s twenty bucks, cut us some slack.”

  He turned away angrily, then just as quickly turned back.

  “Were you on the phone a while ago?”

  “What?”

  “The light on the extension in the kitchen. It came on. Was that you?”

  Ann rolled her eyes. “What’s going on with you?”

  “I’m asking, were you on the phone?”

  “The kid called her dad, remember? He just left?”

  That shut him up for a moment. The whole time he’d been talking, Ann had been thinking, I have to get out of here. But she needed a reason. Something believable.

  The phone rang.

  There was a cordless extension in the living room. Ann was closer. She snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”

  A voice shrieked, “He came to see me!”

  “Jesus, Belinda?”

  “He said I was running out of time! I was in the basement, I was getting some prescriptions ready and—”

  “Just calm down for a second and stop screaming in my ear. Who came to see you?”

  Darren said, “What’s going on?” Ann held up a palm.

  “The guy,” Belinda said. “The one you deal with. Honest to God, Ann, I thought, just for a second there … I didn’t know what he was going to do. I have to talk to you. We have to come up with this money. If we can just come up with thirty-seven thousand for him, and whatever you put in, I swear on my mother’s grave, I’ll pay you back.”

  Ann closed her eyes, thought about the money they needed. Maybe her earlier caller, the one she was going out to meet, could do more to bail them out. Say something like, This is it, this is the absolute last time, after this, I’ll never ask you for anything again.

  Something to think about.

  “Okay,” Ann said. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “I need to see you. We need to talk about this.”

  Perfect. “Okay,” Ann said. “I’ll head out now. I’ll call you on my cell in a minute and we’ll figure out where to meet.”

  “Okay,” Belinda said, sniffing. “I never should have got into this. Never. If I’d had any idea that—”

  “Belinda,” Ann said sharply. “I’ll see you soon.” She hung up and said to Darren, “He’s leaning on her.”

  “That’s just great,” he said.

  “I’m going out.”

  “Why?”

  “Belinda needs to talk about this.”

  Darren ran his fingers into his hair and pulled. He looked like he wanted to hit something. “You know we’re totally fucked, right? You never should have brought Belinda into this. She’s an idiot. That was your call. Not mine.”

  “I have to go.” Ann brushed past him, grabbed her jacket, car keys, and a purse that was on a bench near the front door, and left.

  Darren turned around and saw Emily standing, tentatively, at the far end of the living room.

  “Why’s everyone always fighting?” she asked.

  “Go t
o bed,” her father said, his voice like low, rumbling thunder. “Go to bed right this second.”

  Emily turned and ran.

  Darren pulled back the curtain on the front door window, watched as his wife backed her Beemer out of the drive, took note of which direction she headed.

  Ann was grateful to Belinda for calling when she did. It made her exit from the house a lot simpler. But it didn’t mean Ann had to meet up with her right away. She had to get this other meeting out of the way first. Let Belinda sweat it out for a while. After all, she had only herself to blame.

  It was dark down by the harbor, and the stars were out. It was cold, in the mid-fifties. Every few seconds there was a wind gust, sending dead leaves fluttering down from the trees.

  Ann Slocum parked up close to the edge of the pier and, because of the cold, decided to wait in the car, with the motor running, until she saw headlights approaching. There were still boats moored down here, but the harbor was deserted. Not a bad place to meet if you didn’t want to be seen.

  Five minutes later, headlights flared in her rearview mirror. The car came straight up from behind, the lights so bright Ann had to adjust her mirror to keep them out of her eyes.

  She opened her door and walked around to the back of her car, her shoes crunching on the gravel underfoot. The driver of the other car opened his door and jumped out hurriedly.

  “Hey,” Ann said. “What are you—”

  “Who was it?” the man asked, charging toward her.

  “Who was who?”

  “When you were on the phone, who was it?”

  “It’s nothing, it’s nobody, it’s nothing for you to worry—Get your hands off me!”

  He’d grabbed her by the shoulders and was shaking her. “I need to know who it was!”

  She planted both her palms on his chest and shoved, forcing him back enough that he released her. She turned and started walking back to get into her car.

  “Don’t you walk away from me,” he snarled, grabbing her left elbow and spinning her around. She stumbled, braced herself against the back of the car. He closed in on her, grabbing her wrists and pinning them to the trunk lid. He pressed himself up against her, put his mouth to her ear.

  “I’m not taking any more of this shit,” he said, softly. “All of this, it’s over.”