The Accident

by Linwood Barclay

  “You’re not the only one who has stresses.”

  “And now you’re adding to them. You have to give me that money.”

  “It’s up to you. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “You have no idea what you’re doing,” Belinda said to him.

  “Oh, I know,” he said. “I’m doing the responsible thing.”

  She wondered if he’d still be saying that after a visit from Sommer.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I found my way to the Bridgeport Business College and parked in a visitor’s spot. It didn’t look all that much like a college. It was a long, flat, industrial-looking building without an ounce of academic charm. But it reportedly had good courses, and that was what had led Sheila to come here for her night classes.

  I didn’t know whether Allan Butterfield was part of the regular faculty, or merely taught an evening course here on the side. I went through the entrance doors and approached a man sitting at the information desk in the drab foyer.

  “I’m looking for a teacher, his name’s Butterfield.”

  He didn’t need to consult anything. He pointed. “Take that hall to the end, go right, office is on the left. Just look for the signs.”

  I was standing outside Allan Butterfield’s door a minute later, and rapped on it.

  “Hello?” said a muffled voice from inside.

  I turned the knob and opened the door on a small, cluttered office space. There was just enough room for a desk and a couple of chairs. Papers and books were stacked helter-skelter.

  Butterfield wasn’t alone. A redheaded woman in her early twenties sat on the other side of the desk from Butterfield. An open laptop was balanced on her knees.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  “Oh, hi,” Butterfield said. “Glen, Glen Garber.” He remembered me from our meeting after Sheila’s death, when I’d been attempting to trace Sheila’s final hours.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said.

  “I’m just finishing up here with—”

  “Now.”

  The woman closed her laptop and said, “That’s okay, I can come back later, Mr. Butterfield.”

  “Sorry, Jenny,” he told her. “Why don’t you pop in tomorrow?”

  She nodded, grabbed a jacket she had draped over the back of her chair, and squeezed past me to get out the door. I took her chair without being invited.

  “So, Glen,” he said. First time I met him, I put him in his early forties. Five-five, pudgy. Mostly bald, a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. “Last time we spoke, you were trying to track down Sheila’s movements the day of the … well, I know you were extremely concerned. Have you gotten some answers to your questions? Achieved some sort of closure?”

  “Closure,” I repeated. The word tasted like sour milk in my mouth. “No, no closure.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  No sense beating around the bush. “Why are there so many calls from you to my wife’s cell phone before she died?”

  He opened his mouth but nothing came out. Not for a good second or two. I could see he was trying to think of something, but the best he could come up with on short notice was “I’m sorry—I—what?”

  “There’s a slew of calls from you to my wife. Missed calls. It looks to me like she was receiving them, but didn’t want to take them.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, I’m sure, occasionally, I may have had reason to call your wife about the course she was taking, she had questions related to the assignments, but—”

  “I think that’s bullshit, Allan.”

  “Honestly, Glen, I—”

  “You need to know that I’m having a very, very bad day, which happens to be part of a very, very bad month. So when I tell you I’m not in the mood for bullshit, you need to believe me. Why all the calls?”

  Butterfield appeared to be assessing his chances at escape. The office was so crowded, he’d never get out from behind that desk and through the door without stumbling over something before I could block his path.

  “It was totally my fault,” he said. There was a slight tremor in his voice.

  “What was your fault?”

  “I behaved, I behaved inappropriately. Sheila—Ms. Garber—she was a very nice person. Just a naturally nice person.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know.”

  “She was just … she was very special. Considerate. She was someone … someone I could talk to.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t really have anyone in my life, you see. I’ve never been married. I was engaged once, in my twenties, but it didn’t work out.” He nodded sadly. “I don’t think I was … she said I tried a little too hard. Anyway, I rent a room upstairs in a nice old house on Park. I have this job, and I like it, and the people here, they’re good to work with, but I don’t have a lot of friends.”

  “Allan, just tell me—”

  “Please. The thing is, I’m not accustomed to kindnesses. Your wife was very nice to me.”

  “Nice how?”

  “One night, I happened to mention in class that I wasn’t quite my usual self, that my aunt had just died. My mother died when I was only ten years old, and my aunt and uncle took me in, so she was very close to me. I said I had to leave class a little early, because I was going to stay with my uncle for a few days. He was never very good at looking after himself at the best of times, and now, well, I needed to make sure he was taking care of himself. We have a break halfway through class, and evidently Sheila went to the ShopRite, then she quietly took me aside and handed me this bag with a coffee cake and some bananas and some tea and said, ‘Here, that should get you through tomorrow morning with you and your uncle.’ And you know what she did? She apologized for the coffee cake. Because it was store-bought. Said if she’d known, before class, she’d have made something herself. I was so touched, by her thoughtfulness. Did she ever tell you about that?”

  “No,” I said. But it did sound like Sheila.

  “This is very hard for me to say to you,” Butterfield said. “I mean, it’ll just seem, I don’t know, maybe it’ll seem strange to you, but I was very much affected when she passed away.”

  “Why all the calls, Allan?”

  He frowned and looked down at his messy desk. “I made a fool of myself.”

  I decided to let him tell it at his own speed.

  “I told you, before, that Sheila and I had gone out for a drink one night. That was all it was. Honestly. It was nice, just having someone to talk to. I told her, when I was younger, that I wanted to be a travel writer. That I had this dream of going all around the world and writing about it. And she said to me, she said, if that’s what you want to do, you should do it. I said, I’m forty-four. I have this teaching job. I can’t do that. She said, take a vacation, go someplace interesting, and write about it. See if I could sell the story to a magazine or newspaper. She said, don’t quit. Try to do it on the side, see where it goes.” He nodded happily, but looked as though he might cry. “So, next week, I go to Spain. I’m going to do it.”

  “That’s great,” I said, still waiting.

  “So after I booked the trip, I wanted to thank her. I asked her out to dinner. I suggested she come early on a class night, and I would take her out. To show my gratitude.”

  “And she said?”

  “She said, ‘Oh, Allan, I couldn’t do that.’ I realized that what I had asked her for was a date. A married woman, and I had asked her for a date. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was so sorry, so embarrassed by my actions. I just … liked talking to her. She was so encouraging. She made me believe in myself, and then I did something so stupid.”

  I still didn’t know what the calls were about, but figured he was just about to get to that part of the story.

  “I guess I never felt a single apology was sufficient. I phoned a couple of times, said I was sorry. And then I was worried maybe she would drop the course, so I phoned
her again, but she stopped taking my calls.” He looked crushed. “I thought, if she would answer just one last time, I’d make a final apology, but she didn’t. Someone reached out to me, and I ended up pushing them away.” He sighed. “It’s kind of what I do.”

  “Do you think she intended to come to class that night?” I asked. “She never said anything to me about not going.”

  “It’s kind of what I’ve wondered, too,” Butterfield said. “And she was really liking the course, and looking forward to helping you. The week before, she told me about her plans for a business of her own.”

  “What did she say about that?”

  “She wanted to run a business from her home, maybe set up a website where people could order things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Common prescription items. I—I told her I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. That the quality of the goods, it might be difficult to verify, and that if they didn’t do what they were supposed to do, she might open herself up to certain liabilities. She said she hadn’t thought about that, and she would look into it. She said she’d hardly sold anything so far, and if she had reason to believe the drugs were dangerous, she wouldn’t sell them.”

  I got up and extended a hand. “Find lots to write about in Spain.”

  I was almost to the Milford exit when I called the office.

  “Garber Contracting,” said Sally Diehl. “How may I help you?”

  “It’s me. You don’t look at call display anymore?”

  “I just had a glazed donut,” she replied cheerfully, “and was too busy licking my fingers to notice it was you.”

  I wondered if there was a way to find out from her where I might find Theo without letting her know I wanted to murder him.

  “You hear back from Alfie?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” I lied. “I was hoping to ask Theo a couple of things first. You know where he is?”

  “Why do you want to see him?” Sounding defensive.

  “I just need to ask him a couple of things,” I said. “No big deal.”

  She hesitated. “He’s rewiring a house down on Ward, right near the harbor, around the corner from your place. It’s a huge reno.”

  “Got an address?”

  She didn’t have the number, but said I wouldn’t be able to miss the place. If the house was being totally remodeled, there’d be a Dumpster out front, and of course, it wasn’t hard to spot Theo’s truck, what with his name being on the side and that set of plastic testicles dangling from the back bumper.

  “That it?” Sally asked.

  “Yeah, for now.”

  “Thing is, I was going to give you a call. Doug went home.”

  “What, is he sick?”

  “I don’t think it was like that. He didn’t even call the office to tell me. I got a call from KF. He said Doug got a call, he thinks from his wife, and flew out of there like a bat out of hell.”

  “No idea what happened?”

  “I tried him on his cell and he talked to me for like three seconds. He said, ‘They’re taking my house. And that was it.’ ”

  “Shit,” I said. “Okay, look, I’m going to take a ride by there and see what’s going on.”

  “Let me know, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  I kept on 95, going past the Connecticut Post Mall on my left, and got off at Woodmont Road. Five minutes after that, I was pulling up in front of Doug and Betsy Pinder’s place.

  The front yard was in total disarray.

  It looked as though the Pinders had decided to move, had gathered all their possessions in front of the house in a matter of minutes, and then canceled the moving van.

  There was a dresser with drawers hanging out, half-open suitcases with clothes spilling everywhere, pots and pans scattered on the grass, a Rubbermaid cutlery holder sitting on the sidewalk. Three kitchen chairs, a television, DVD player, a scattering of DVD cases. An end table, lamps on their sides. It was as though someone knew they had ten minutes to empty the house before it blew up, and this was what they’d managed to save.

  But the house had not blown up. It was still standing. But there was a new lock affixed to the door, and some official-looking notice stapled to it.

  Wandering about, in the midst of this wreckage, like people scavenging for mementos in a house that’s just been ravaged by a tornado, were Doug and Betsy Pinder. She was doing more crying than looking, and Doug was just standing there, slumped and pale, appearing to be somewhere between dumbfounded and in shock.

  I got out of the truck and walked up the drive, past Doug’s old truck and Betsy’s Infiniti. Whatever authorities had come and brought things to a head this way were long gone.

  “Hey,” I said. Betsy, standing by one of the metal and vinyl chairs from their kitchen set, looked at me through teary eyes, then turned away.

  Doug glanced up and said, “Oh, Glenny. Sorry, I had to leave the site.”

  “What’s happened here, Doug?”

  “They locked us out,” he said, his voice breaking. “The sons of bitches locked us out of our own home.”

  “And you let them,” Betsy snapped. “You didn’t do a goddamn thing to stop them.”

  “What the hell was I supposed to do?” he shouted at her. “Did you want me to shoot them? Was that what you wanted me to do?”

  I put my hand on Doug’s arm. “Tell me what happened.”

  Now he turned on me. “And no thanks to you,” he said. “I came to you for help and you didn’t give a shit.”

  “Whatever kind of trouble you’re in,” I said, keeping my voice low and calm, “I don’t think a week or two of advance pay was going to solve it. You know that and I know that. So what happened?”

  “They foreclosed,” he said. “They came in and kicked us out.”

  “That kind of thing doesn’t happen overnight,” I said. “You have to be at least, what, three months behind on your mortgage? And they send a letter, and put a note on your door and—”

  “You think I didn’t see it coming? Why the hell do you think I was asking you for help?” He shook his head. “I should have made that call about you.”

  “All that unopened mail, all those bills,” I said, ignoring his last comment. “Maybe a few of the warnings were in there.”

  “What the hell am I going to do?” he said, waving his arms at his belongings. “What the hell are we going to do?”

  “Oh great, now you’re thinking about a plan,” Betsy sniped. “Too bad you hadn’t been thinking about something a little sooner, Einstein.”

  Doug glared at her. “Yeah, you’re totally blameless. You didn’t have a goddamn thing to do with this. How could you? You were never home. You were at the mall.”

  Betsy’s eyes filled with rage. She pointed her finger at her husband and jabbed into the air repeatedly. “Maybe you should have manned up, taken control of the situation. Who’s supposed to have a handle on things? Huh? Who’s supposed to be some kind of a goddamn provider? You? Don’t make me laugh. When have you ever stepped up to the plate?”

  “You know what you do?” he spat. “You don’t just suck the money out of me. You suck the life out of me, that’s what you do. I got nothing left. Nothing. You’ve got it all, babe. You’ve got all I ever had to give.”

  “Really? Is that why now I’ve got nothing but shit? Because that’s all you’ve ever given me since—”

  Doug moved on her. He had his hands out in front of him. He was going for her neck. Rather than run, Betsy stood, frozen in place, wide-eyed, as Doug bolted forward. He had about ten feet to close between them, which gave me enough time to get my arms around him from behind before he could latch onto Betsy.

  “Doug!” I shouted into his ear. “Doug!”

  He tried to wrestle away from me. He was a strong, wiry guy, like most people who work in construction. But I was just as fit, and I’d locked my fingers together on his chest, pinning his arms in place. He squirmed around for a second or two, then went docil
e.

  Once Betsy saw that he was under control, she resumed her taunting, that finger jabbing into the air again. “You think this is what I wanted? You think I like standing out on my own goddamn lawn, can’t get into my home? You think—”

  “Betsy!” I shouted. “Shut up!”

  “And who the hell do you think you—”

  “Both of you! Just shut up for a second.”

  Betsy lowered the finger as I released my grip on Doug. “Look,” I said, “I get it. You’re upset and want to kill each other. If that’s what you want to do, maybe I should just let you. God knows I got enough other things to deal with. But it’s not going to solve your problem. You need to deal with the situation.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Doug said.

  I’d had enough. “Listen to me, you dumb son of a bitch. You’ve known this day was coming. You can blame Betsy, or me, or Sally for not bailing you out, but the fact is you and Betsy own this mess.” I turned on Betsy. “Same goes for you. You can either deal with this mess now and try to get your life back together, or you can stand out here screaming at each other. Which is it?”

  Betsy had tears in her eyes. “He wouldn’t even open the bills. He just stuffed them in a drawer.”

  Doug countered, “What was the point of opening them? It’s not like we could pay them.” To me, he said, “They ripped us off. The banks. They sold us a bill of goods. Said we could get this place for, like, nothing down, then when it came time to renew, they’re all like, Hey, we told you this was going to happen. But they didn’t, Glenny, the bastards didn’t tell us anything like that. Those fucking bankers, they take government bailouts and give themselves fat fucking bonuses and people like us get screwed!”

  “Doug,” I said, too tired to say anything else.

  He picked up the stack of DVDs and threw them across the yard, flinging them like Frisbees. Then he grabbed a kitchen chair and smashed it several times into the dresser. Betsy and I stood back and let him do it. When he was done, he put the chair down, sat himself on it, and hung his head.

  To Betsy, I said, “Where can you stay?”

  “My mom’s, I guess. In Derby.”

  “She’s got room for both of you?” I asked.