The Accident

by Linwood Barclay

  She brought up a knee and connected.

  “Shit!” he screamed, and again relaxed his grip on her.

  Ann twisted under his weight, skittered along the trunk lid, turned up the passenger side of the car. There was little more than a couple of feet between it and the edge of the pier.

  “Goddamn it, Ann.” The man reached for her again, grabbing her jacket. But he didn’t have much of a hold on it, and she jerked herself away. She pulled so hard, however, that she stumbled toward the pier’s edge.

  Ann attempted to regain her balance, but she’d have needed another couple of feet to do it. She went over, her head striking the edge on the way.

  A second later, there was a splash, and then nothing more.

  The man peered over the side. The water was black as the night, and it took a moment for him to spot her. She lay facedown in the water, arms extended. Then, with a quiet grace, her arms pulled into her body and she rolled slowly onto her back. She stared up lifelessly for several seconds as an invisible force dragged her legs downward. A moment later, the rest of her followed, her face a pale jellyfish slipping beneath the surface.

  TEN

  Once I’d tucked Kelly into bed and done my best to assure her I was not angry, at least not with her, and that she had nothing to worry about regarding her encounter with Ann Slocum, I went down to the kitchen, poured myself a scotch. I took it with me to my basement office.

  I sat there and thought about what to do.

  The Slocums’ number was probably already in the speed dial of the upstairs phones, the ones Sheila used, but it wasn’t programmed into my office phone. I didn’t feel like trudging back upstairs now that I had my drink and a place to sit, so I hauled the phone book over and looked up their number. I picked up the phone, prepared to start punching in digits. But my index finger failed to move.

  I replaced the receiver.

  I had tried, before putting her to bed, to get Kelly to recall as much as she could of what Ann had said on the phone, after first persuading her that I’d do everything I could to make sure Emily remained her friend.

  Kelly had sat curled up against a nest of pillows, hugging Hoppy, and using the same technique she employed when spelling words, or reciting memorized verses of poetry. She closed her eyes.

  “Okay,” she had said, eyes squeezed shut. “Mrs. Slocum phoned this person to ask if their wrists were okay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “She said, ‘I hope your wrists are all better and you should wear long sleeves in case there are marks.’ ”

  “She was talking to someone who broke their wrists?”

  “I guess so.”

  “What did she say to them?”

  “I don’t know. Something about seeing them next Wednesday.”

  “Like another appointment? Like someone’s wrists were in a cast and the cast comes off next week?”

  She nodded. “I think so. But that was when the other call happened. It might have been one of those calls you hate so much.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, when they call at dinner and ask you to give them money or buy the newspaper?”

  “A telemarketer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why do you think it was a telemarketer?”

  “Well, the first thing Mrs. Slocum said was, ‘Why are you calling?’ And something about her cell phone being off.”

  This wasn’t making any sense. Why would Ann Slocum care if Kelly overheard her on the phone with a telemarketer?

  “What else did she say?”

  “She said something about paying for something, and getting something back, or something like that. She was trying to get a good deal.”

  “I’m not getting this,” I said. “She was trying to make a deal with a telemarketer?”

  “And then she said don’t be stupid because you’ll get bullets in your brain.”

  I massaged my forehead, baffled, although I could imagine myself telling a telemarketer I’d like to shoot him in the head.

  “Did she say anything about Mr. Slocum?” I asked. After all, Ann had made Kelly promise not to mention the call to her husband. Maybe that meant something. Although none of this made sense. Kelly shook her head no.

  “Anything else?”

  “Not really. Am I in trouble?”

  I stooped and kissed her. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Mrs. Slocum isn’t going to come here and get mad at me again, is she?”

  “Not a chance. I’ll leave your door open, so if you have a bad dream or something, I’ll hear you, or you can come and see me. But I’m going downstairs right now. Okay?”

  She said okay, tucked Hoppy in, and turned off her light.

  Slumped wearily at my desk, I tried to reason it out.

  The first part of the conversation, which sounded like Ann checking up on someone who’d been injured, seemed innocuous enough. But the second call was more puzzling. If it was just a nuisance call, maybe Ann was pissed that she’d had to cut off the first caller to deal with it. I could understand that. Maybe that was why she made some kind of threat about shooting the person.

  People threatened things all the time they didn’t really mean. How often had I done it? In my line of work, pretty much every day. I wanted to kill our suppliers who didn’t deliver on time. I wanted to kill the guys at the lumberyard who sent us warped boards. The other day I’d told Ken Wang he was a dead man after he’d driven a nail through a water line that was just behind the drywall.

  Just because Ann Slocum said she wanted to put a bullet in someone’s brain didn’t mean she had any intention of doing it. But she might not have been happy to find out a small child was listening to her lose her cool. And she wouldn’t want her daughter to know she’d spoken to someone that way on the phone.

  But had she really said anything that she’d care if her husband found out about?

  All that aside, my one concern was Kelly. She didn’t deserve to have been frightened that way. I could accept that Ann would be upset finding Kelly hiding in her closet, but getting that angry with her, threatening her with the loss of Emily as a friend, then ordering her to stay in the room and taking the cordless phone with her so Kelly couldn’t make a call—what the fuck was that?

  I picked up the phone again, started to dial.

  Hung up.

  And what the hell was all that at the door when I came to get Kelly? Clearly, Ann didn’t know my daughter had a phone on her. Suppose Kelly hadn’t called me to come get her? What, exactly, would Ann have done next?

  I thought about what I would say to Ann when I got her on the phone.

  Don’t you ever pull that kind of shit with my daughter again.

  Something like that.

  If I called.

  Even though my opinion of Sheila’s judgment had taken a nosedive in recent weeks, I couldn’t help but wonder how she’d handle this situation. After all, she and Ann were friends. Sheila always seemed to know, far better than I, how to handle a prickly situation, how to defuse a social time bomb. She was best at it with me. Once, after a guy in an Escalade cut me off on the Merritt Parkway, I’d sped after him, hoping to catch up and pull alongside so I could flip him the bird.

  “Look in your rearview mirror,” Sheila said softly as I leaned on the accelerator.

  “He’s in front of me, not behind me,” I said.

  “Look in your rearview mirror,” she said again.

  I thought, Shit, a cop’s tailing me. But when I looked in the mirror, what I saw was Kelly in her booster seat.

  “If giving this guy the finger trumps your daughter’s safety, then by all means,” Sheila said.

  My foot came off the gas.

  Quite a wise approach from a woman who drove up the wrong ramp and killed herself and two others. The memories of that night did not square with those I had of Sheila as a calm, reasonable person. I thought I knew what her prevailing view of my current predicament would be.

  Suppose
I did get Ann Slocum on the phone and gave her a piece of my mind? I might get some satisfaction out of it. But what would the fallout be for Kelly? Would Emily’s mom turn her daughter against Kelly? Would it send Emily into the enemy camp at school, with the kids who called Kelly “Boozer the Loser”?

  I emptied my glass and debated whether to go back upstairs for a refill. As I sat there, feeling the warmth spread through my body, the phone rang.

  I grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Glen? It’s Belinda.”

  “Oh, hey, Belinda.” I glanced at the clock. Nearly ten.

  “I know it’s late,” she said.

  “That’s okay.”

  “I was thinking I should give you a call. I don’t think I’ve even seen you since the funeral. I was feeling bad I hadn’t been in touch, but I wanted to give you your space, you know?”

  “Sure.”

  “How’s Kelly doing? Is she back at school?”

  “She could be better. But she’ll get through this. We’ll get through this.”

  “I know, I know, she’s such a terrific girl. I just … I just keep thinking about Sheila. I mean, I know she was only my friend, that your loss is so much greater, but it hurts, it just hurts so much.”

  She sounded as though she might start to cry. I didn’t need this right now.

  “I wish I could have seen her one last time,” she continued. What did she mean by that? That she wished she could have spent time with Sheila one more time before she died? “I guess, what with the car catching on fire …”

  Oh. Belinda was referring to the closed casket. “They got the fire out before it took over the inside of the car. She wasn’t … touched.” I pushed away memories of the shattered glass sparkling in her hair, the blood …

  “Right,” Belinda said. “I think I’d heard that, although I’d wondered, whether Sheila … you just don’t like to let your mind go there, thinking about how badly … I really don’t know how to say this.”

  Why did she have to know whether Sheila was burned beyond recognition? Why on earth would she think I’d want to talk about this? This was how you comfort a man who’s just lost his wife? Ask whether there was anything left of her?

  “I felt a closed casket was best. For Kelly.”

  “Of course, of course, I can understand that.”

  “It’s kind of late, Belinda, and—”

  “This is very difficult, Glen, but Sheila’s purse … was it recovered?”

  “Her purse? Yes, it was. I got it from the police.” They’d searched the bag, looking for evidence, receipts. Wondering where she’d bought the bottle of vodka they’d found, empty, in the car. They didn’t find anything.

  “The thing is—this is so awkward, Glen—but the thing is, I’d given Sheila an envelope, and I was wondering—this is horrible, I shouldn’t even be asking you this …”

  “Belinda.”

  “I wondered if maybe it had been in her purse, that’s all.”

  “I went through her belongings, Belinda. I didn’t notice any envelope.”

  “A brown business envelope. Oversized, you know.”

  “I didn’t see anything like that. What was in it?”

  She hesitated. “I’m sorry?”

  “I said, what was in it?”

  “Um, there was a bit of cash in it. Sheila was going to pick up something for me next time she was in the city.”

  “In the city? New York?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Sheila didn’t go into New York all that often.”

  “I think she’d been planning a girls’ day out, a shopping trip, and there was something I was going to have her get for me.”

  “I can’t see you missing out on a trip like that.”

  Belinda laughed nervously. “Well, that week was pretty hectic for me and I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it.”

  “How much was in the envelope?”

  Another pause. “Not that much, just a little.”

  “I didn’t see anything like that,” I said. “It might have burned up in the car, but if it was in her purse, it would have survived. Did Sheila tell you she was going into the city that day?”

  “That was … that was the sense I had, Glen.”

  “She told me she had some errands to run, but she didn’t mention anything about going into Manhattan.”

  “Listen, Glen, I never should have even brought this up. I should let you go. I’m so sorry for calling.”

  She didn’t even wait for me to say goodbye. She just hung up.

  I still had the receiver in my hand, debating with myself again whether to call Ann Slocum and give her hell for the way she’d treated Kelly, when I heard the doorbell ring upstairs.

  It was Joan Mueller. Her hair, freed from its ponytail, was falling on her shoulders, and she had on a snug, scooped T that revealed a hint of a purple lace bra.

  “I saw you pull in a little while ago and saw the lights were on,” she said once I had the door open.

  “I had to pick up Kelly at a friend’s,” I told her.

  “She’s gone to bed?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Did you want to step in?” I regretted it as soon as I suggested it.

  “Well, okay,” she said brightly, brushing me as she went past. She stood at the entrance to the living room, wondering, maybe, whether I was going to invite her to sit down. “Thanks. I love Friday nights. No kids getting dropped off in the morning. That’s the good part. Not knowing what to do with myself, that’s the tough part.”

  “What can I do for you, Joan? I haven’t forgotten your kitchen tap.”

  She smiled. “I just wanted to thank you for earlier.” She stuck her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, her thumbs tucked into the belt loops.

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “I kind of used you,” she said, and grinned. “Like a bodyguard.” She had to be talking about when Carl Bain showed up. “I needed a big strong man beside me, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “The two parts of my day I hate the most are when Carl drops off his kid and when he picks him up at the end of the day. He creeps me out, that guy. I get this bad vibe off him, you know? Like he’s just waiting to blow up?”

  “Has he said something to you? Threatened you?”

  She slipped her hands out of her pockets and waved them about as she answered. “Okay, the thing is, I think he’s worried about what his kid might be saying when he comes over. Carlson, he’s just a little guy, and they say whatever comes into their head, you know?”

  “Sure.”

  “And the odd time, he’ll say something about his mother. Alicia? That’s the mother’s name. Although he calls her his mommy, he doesn’t call her Alicia.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course. Like I need to tell you that. Anyway, sometimes, you know, you ask a kid, Hey, what’s your mother doing today? And this one time, he says his mother had to go to the hospital because she broke her arm. And I’m like, Oh no, how did she do that, and Carlson says because his dad pushed her down the stairs.”

  “Jeez.”

  “Yeah, no shit? But the next day, he says to me, he was wrong. She didn’t get pushed down the stairs. His dad told him that his mommy tripped. So I figure, he must have gone home, right? And said to his dad, Oh, I was telling the babysitter about Mommy going to the hospital after she got shoved down the stairs, and he must have freaked, tells his kid that he’s got it all wrong, she tripped.” She stuck out her lower lip and blew out hard enough that a few strands of hair momentarily floated.

  “So every day he comes by, you think he’s wondering what you’re thinking,” I said.

  “Kinda, yeah.”

  “When did the boy say this?”

  “First time he mentioned it was around three, four weeks ago. He—the dad, Carl, I mean—seemed okay, but lately, he’s been kind of on edge, asking me, did I make any phone calls or anything?”

  “Phone calls a
bout what?”

  “He didn’t say. But I wonder if someone might have called the police about him or something.”

  “Did you?”

  She shook her head very slowly. “No way. I mean, I thought about it, Glen. But the thing is, I can’t afford to lose a customer, you know what I’m saying? I need every one of those kids, at least till the money from the oil company comes through. I just don’t want Carl taking it out on me, if someone did put in a call to the police. And I thought, if he knew I had a strong man living next door to me, maybe he’d think twice before he did anything like that.”

  I thought she put a little emphasis on “strong man.”

  “Well, I’m glad I could help,” I said.

  She tilted her head to one side and looked me in the eye. “It’s going to come in, you know. I mean, eventually. And it’s going to be a good settlement. I’ll be pretty well fixed.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “It’s about time.”

  She let that hang out there a moment. “Anyway, what I wondered was, you don’t think Sheila might have reported him, do you?”

  “Sheila?”

  “I was talking to her, I guess a few days before the accident and all, wondering what I should do about what Carlson said had happened to his mother, thinking it was kind of a bad thing, knowing some woman got her arm broke and not doing anything about it. I was saying, you think I should make an anonymous call kind of thing, and if they arrested him, did she think I’d still get to babysit Carlson?”

  “You talked about this with Sheila?”

  Joan nodded. “Just the once. Did she mention anything to you about this? That she was thinking of calling the police or anything?”

  “No,” I said. “She never did.”

  Joan nodded again. “She mentioned you were under a lot of stress, with that house you were building that burned down. Maybe she didn’t want to burden you with it.”

  She sighed and slapped her hands on her thighs. “Anyway, look, I should go. What a joy, right? Your neighbor bringing her problems over late at night.” She slipped into a mocking voice. “Hey, neighbor, got a cup of sugar and by the way could you be my bodyguard?” She laughed, then stopped abruptly. “So, I’ll see you,” she said.