The Accident

by Linwood Barclay

  “I understand,” Mrs. Wilkinson said.

  Rick said, “What am I going to tell my dad when he notices his gun’s missing?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Mrs. Wilkinson told Rick. No one spoke for a moment. Finally, she said, “I didn’t know Corey was going to do something stupid like this. I’d never have allowed it.”

  I was going to tell her I knew that. I was going to tell her that I appreciated that her strategy was to kill us in court, not on the street. But all I did was nod.

  It seemed we were done here. As they started to turn for the door I said, “Rick. One last thing.”

  The kid looked at me, scared.

  “Lose that ball off your antenna before the cops spot it.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Shortly after they left, the phone rang.

  “Mr. Garber, Detective Julie Stryker here.” The woman investigating Theo Stamos’s murder. “I have a question for you. Why might Theo Stamos have been writing a letter to you?”

  “A letter?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Was it threatening? I’d told him he couldn’t work for me anymore. You found a letter like that?”

  “It was shoved under some papers on the kitchen table. Looks like he was making notes about what to say to you in a letter, or maybe on the phone. Getting his thoughts in order.”

  “What did the notes say?”

  “He appears to have been trying to draft some sort of apology, maybe even a confession. Can you think of anything he might want to confess to you?”

  “I told you about that house he wired for me that burned down.”

  “There was an incident between the two of you the other day. I spoke to a Hank Simmons. Mr. Stamos was doing some work for him.”

  “Yes.” I had a feeling she might find out about that sooner or later. “I confronted him with some news. I’d just heard from the fire department that electrical parts he’d installed were no good. It was what caused the fire.”

  “You didn’t mention this earlier.” Stryker didn’t sound pleased.

  “I told you about the electrical parts.”

  “According to Mr. Simmons, you cut some … rubber testicles off Mr. Stamos’s truck?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  A pause, then, “I can’t say I blame you there.”

  Talking to her, I realized, was probably unwise. Hang up and call Edwin, I thought. I really might need a lawyer. Was my confrontation with Theo about to make me into a murder suspect? After all, I’d been up there, too, to his trailer. I’d found the body. Was Stryker thinking I had something to do with his murder?

  But if she considered me a suspect, would she be interviewing me over the phone? Wouldn’t there have been a police car parked out front, waiting for my return?

  And of course, they did have Doug in custody.

  “So is that what the apology’s about?” I asked. “The fire?”

  “Hard to say. At the top of the page is your name, and under that some words. Let me read you what he wrote. Keep in mind, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Just phrases jotted down in very messy handwriting. And he wasn’t much of a speller, either. Let’s see here … Okay. ‘Mr. Garber, you judged me, not fair’ and ‘sorry about Wilson.’ Who’s Wilson?”

  “It was the Wilson house that burned down.”

  “Okay. Then, ‘just trying to make a living’ and ‘thought parts up to’ and it looks like c, o, maybe a b, and—”

  “Probably ‘code.’ The parts were up to code, he thought.”

  “And ‘can’t cover it up anymore.’ Does that make sense?”

  “No,” I said.

  “And then the last thing scribbled down is ‘sorry about your wife.’ Why would Theo Stamos be sorry about your wife, Mr. Garber?”

  I felt chilled. “Is there anything else?”

  “That’s it. What’s he got to be sorry for where your wife is concerned? Is she there? Would you be able to put her on?”

  “My wife’s dead.” I heard the bleakness in my voice.

  “Oh,” said Stryker. “When did she pass away?”

  “Three weeks ago.”

  “That recently.”

  “Yes.”

  “Had she been ill?”

  “No. Her car got hit in a traffic accident. She was killed.”

  I could sense her interest growing. “Was Mr. Stamos at fault in that accident? Would that be why he was sorry?”

  “I don’t know why he would say that. He wasn’t driving the other car.”

  “So he wasn’t involved in the accident?”

  “No … no,” I said.

  “You seemed to hesitate there.”

  “No,” I repeated. What the hell did it mean? Why had Theo written that? Of course, plenty of people had said something along those lines to me in the past weeks. Sorry about Sheila. But it was out of context here. It didn’t make sense.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Now I have a question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Are you sure about Doug? Do you really think he killed Theo?”

  “We charged him, Mr. Garber. There’s your answer.”

  “What about the gun you found in the car? I’ll bet, even if it’s the gun that killed Theo, that Doug’s fingerprints aren’t on it.”

  A pause. “What makes you say that?”

  “I haven’t been there for Doug lately. But I am now. I don’t think he did it. He hasn’t got it in him to kill somebody.”

  “Then who did?” she asked. When I couldn’t think of an answer, she sighed. Then she said, “Well, if you come to some conclusion, give me a call.”

  There was a banging on the front door.

  “Betsy,” I said, in surprise, as I opened it.

  She stood there on the porch, a hand on one hip, looking like she wanted to punch my lights out. There was a car idling at the curb, her mother behind the wheel.

  “I came for Doug’s truck,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The police got my car, they took it to some crime lab or something, and I need wheels. I want Doug’s truck.”

  “Come by tomorrow,” I told her. “When I’m at the office.”

  “I got a set of keys for his truck, but I don’t have a key for the gate. Give me that and I can go get it.”

  “Betsy, I’m not giving you the keys to anything. Your mother can drive you around until tomorrow.”

  “If you don’t trust me and think I’m going to run off with all your precious little power tools, then come on down and unlock the place so I can get the truck. Won’t take five minutes.”

  “Tomorrow,” I repeated. “It’s been a long day and I have things I have to do.”

  “Oh, really,” she jeered, hands on both hips now. “It’s been a bad day for you. First I lose my home, and the day after that my husband gets arrested for murder. But you’ve had a bad day.”

  I sighed. “You want to come in?”

  She weighed the offer, then, without saying anything, stepped into the house.

  “Tell me how Doug is,” I said.

  “How he is? How the fuck do you think he would be? He’s in jail.”

  “Betsy, I’m really asking here. How is he?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”

  “They won’t let you see him?”

  She didn’t like the question, looked off to the side. “I haven’t exactly had a chance. But they’ve probably got him locked up where I couldn’t see him anyway.” She looked, briefly, at her hands, which appeared to be trembling ever so slightly. “God, I’m a nervous wreck.” She shoved her hands into the front pockets of her skintight jeans.

  “Have you got him a lawyer?”

  She laughed. “A lawyer? Are you kidding me? How the hell am I supposed to afford a lawyer?”

  “Can’t you get a court-appointed one?”

  “Yeah, right. And how good would one of those be?”

  I tho
ught about the money between the studs in my study. I could hire a lawyer for Doug with that.

  “Besides,” Betsy added, “I’ve had stuff to do.”

  “Getting the truck? That’s your number one priority?”

  “I need wheels. My mom needs her car back.”

  “Have you written him off, Betsy? Is that it? You don’t care what happens to Doug?”

  “Of course I care. But they’ve got him. They wouldn’t have charged him if they didn’t have the goods on him, that’s what my mom says. I mean, I guess they know he was there, up at Theo’s trailer. There’s the gun in the car, and they say it was the one that shot him. What more do they need? I have to tell you, I didn’t even know he had a gun.” She gave her head a shake. “You think you know someone.”

  “I didn’t know you were this cold, Betsy.”

  “I just want a decent life,” she spat. “I deserve better than this. That makes me some kind of criminal?”

  “Doug said to me one time, like he was making a joke, that he wondered if you had some money tucked away someplace. Why would he say that?”

  “If I had some secret stash, would I be living with my mom and begging you to let me get at my husband’s piece-of-shit pickup truck?”

  “That’s not an answer, Betsy. Is Doug right? Do you have some money stashed away? I noticed those stacks of bills in your kitchen didn’t stop you from going out shopping. You still had some money somewhere even as your cards were probably getting canceled.”

  “I can’t believe you. I really can’t. You think I’m turning tricks or something?”

  “No,” I said, although I thought it was an interesting thing to say, given what I’d found out about Ann Slocum.

  She shook her head angrily. “Okay, so sometimes, my mom helps me out. She gives me a little something here and there.”

  “Betsy, level with me here.”

  “Okay, look, she may not look like she’s living the high life, but there was some money, she had this uncle a couple of years back, there was about eighty thou after his house was sold. She was the only relative left, so she got it all.”

  “And Doug didn’t know about this?”

  “Hell, no. I’m not crazy. Mom snuck me some once in a while, when we were short, or if we couldn’t pay the minimums on the Visas.” She laughed. “If all those different banks wanted to keep sending us credit cards, it seemed wrong not to use them. I’m not one to be ungrateful.”

  “This has lost you a house, Betsy.”

  The hands came out of the pockets and went back on the hips. “When did you start thinking you were so much better than everybody else? Is it something you’re born with, or do you develop the attitude over time?”

  “What were you doing when Doug went out to Theo’s place?”

  “Huh?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m just asking, Betsy. What were you doing while Doug was out?”

  “I didn’t even know he’d gone until I got up in the morning and my car was gone. What do you mean, what was I doing? I was sleeping.”

  “You ever been up to Theo’s place?”

  “What? No. Why would I have been there?”

  “How did you know he lived in a trailer?”

  “What?”

  “Just a minute ago, you mentioned Theo’s place was a trailer. How did you know that?”

  “What the hell are you getting at? I guess the cops must have told me, I don’t know. What’s wrong with you? And are you going to let me get that truck or not?”

  “Drop by tomorrow,” I said. “If I’m not there, Sally might be. Or KF. Someone will help you out. But right now, we’re closed.”

  I showed her out the door and closed it behind her.

  Something was bothering me. I kept thinking about what Doug had said, how he and Betsy didn’t even sleep together when they were at her mother’s house. When Doug left the house to go see Theo, for all he knew, Betsy wasn’t even home at the time.

  She could have been anywhere.

  I wasn’t sure where I was going with this, why I was suspecting Betsy of … something. It must have had to do with her apparent lack of concern for what had happened to Doug. She hadn’t even been to see him since his arrest. She seemed content to accept the police version of events.

  Like Darren Slocum, Betsy Pinder wasn’t interested in challenging the facts. She was okay with things just the way they were.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Sommer brought the Chrysler to a stop half a block down from Belinda Morton’s house, turned off the headlights and killed the engine.

  Slocum, in the passenger seat, said, “I gotta ask you something.”

  Sommer looked at him.

  “Tell me you weren’t trying to kill Garber’s kid? When you shot out her window?”

  Sommer shook his head tiredly. “It was kids doing a drive-by. They went past when I was parked there. After that, it wasn’t safe to hang around, so I went to see Garber the next morning.”

  “Jesus, you couldn’t have just told me that? Here I’d been thinking you’d nearly killed my daughter’s best friend.”

  “And yet here you are, still doing business with me,” Sommer said.

  “What about Twain? Did you—”

  Sommer held up a hand. “Enough. Are you coming in with me?”

  “No,” Slocum said. “So long as you give me my share, I don’t need to.”

  Sommer got out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition. The warning bell chimed briefly as the overhead light came on. Slocum watched as Sommer walked purposefully toward the Morton house. Silhouetted by the streetlights, Sommer looked like Death, Slocum mused.

  George Morton was sitting in the family room, watching Judge Judy on the forty-two-inch plasma. “Honey, come in here and watch this,” he said. “Judy’s really going to town on this woman.”

  Tonight, it was some mother who was making a million excuses for her dumbass son, who’d taken the family car without permission to a party where lots of underage kids were drinking. One of the son’s drunk friends had taken the car for a spin and totaled it, and now this mother wanted the parents of the other kid to pay for the damages, ignoring the fact that if her own son hadn’t taken the car and let a drunk friend drive off with it, none of this would have happened.

  “Are you coming in here or not? You’re not still mad, are you? Listen, honey, I want to talk to you about something.”

  Belinda was in the kitchen, standing at the counter, looking over various real estate documents, unable to concentrate at all. Mad? He thought she was mad? More like homicidal. Sommer was expecting his money and that asshole husband of hers was still stubbornly holding on to it, keeping it locked up in his study safe, refusing to hand it over until Belinda told him what it was for. Totally improper, George kept saying, these large cash transactions. After all, he said, you’re not in business with criminals.

  When he was in the bathroom, she’d tried to open the safe using numbers from his Social Security card, his license plate, his birthday, even his mother’s birthday, which he never failed to remember, even in years when he forgot Belinda’s. But she hadn’t stumbled upon the right sequence yet.

  So now she was back in the kitchen, working on a new strategy. Something more dramatic. She would go down to the basement, get a hammer from her husband’s toolbox, then invite him into his study. There he’d find her standing next to that model galleon he’d spent about two hundred hours building several years ago, threatening to smash it into a million pieces if he didn’t open that goddamn safe right this second and give her the envelope stuffed with cash. There was no way he’d allow her to destroy that model. And she’d do it, there was no doubt in her mind. She’d smash it until it was nothing more than a pile of toothpicks.

  George called out, “Did you hear me, hon? I want to talk to you about something.”

  She came into the room. George picked up the remote, extended his arm and muted the judge. This must be something really i
mportant, she thought. She also wondered, What did George do to his wrist? It was the first she’d noticed it. He’d been so modest the last few days, not letting her see him naked, wearing long-sleeved shirts.

  “I’ve been thinking about this lawsuit that Wilkinson woman has launched against Glen,” he said.

  Belinda waited. It was her experience that George was never that interested in what she had to say, so she might as well see where this was going.

  “It’s a terrible thing,” he said. “It could wipe Glen out. And there he is, trying to raise a child alone. He’ll never be able to send her to college. It’ll set him back for years and years if the Wilkinson woman wins.”

  “You’re the one who was all high and mighty about doing what was right.”

  “I’m a little less sure now what, exactly, is right. I mean, just because Sheila might have experimented with marijuana, it doesn’t mean she was smoking it the night of her accident. And from what I hear, it wasn’t drugs they found in her bloodstream but alcohol.”

  “What’s going on, George? You never change your mind about anything.”

  “All I’m saying is, next time you meet with the lawyers, you should say that maybe you were wrong about these things. That since you first spoke, you remember these events more clearly, that Sheila really didn’t do anything that wrong.”

  “Where’s this coming from?”

  “I just want to do what’s right.”

  “You want to do what’s right? Open that goddamn safe.”

  “Well now, Belinda, that’s really a separate matter. I still want you to explain to me what that’s all about, and I want you to know I’m willing to be flexible about this. I’m wondering if maybe, just this once, I overstepped my bounds where—”

  “What the hell happened to your wrist?”

  “What? Nothing.”

  But she had grabbed hold of his arm and tugged the sleeve back. “What did you do to yourself? This didn’t just happen. It looks like it’s already healing. When’d this happen? You’ve been covering this up for days. Is this why you’ve been so weird lately? Not letting me see you naked, not sleeping with me, not—it’s both wrists?”