The Twenty-Three 3 (Promise Falls)

by Linwood Barclay

  Near that door, the man Cal had seen give money to Dwayne was moving some packages. He looked up, saw Cal, and waved him away. Shouted something that sounded like “Closed!”

  So Cal knocked.

  The man shook his head, stopped what he was doing, and walked all the way to the front. He unlocked the door and opened it a foot.

  “We’re closed,” he said. He was wearing a small name tag that read HARRY.

  “Sorry,” Cal said. “I just saw you go in, so I thought you were open.”

  “It’s Saturday of a holiday weekend,” Harry said. “So we’re closed.”

  “But you’re working,” Cal said amiably. “Listen, have you got, like, ten seconds to help me out? My company’s moving to a new location soon, so we’re going to need all new cards, letterhead, invoices, the whole nine yards. I was wondering what something like that would run me.”

  Harry seemed to be weighing whether it would be easier to just help Cal out or close the door in his face.

  “Fine,” he said, opening the door wider. “Ten seconds.”

  Harry took a position behind the chest-high counter as Cal approached and rested his elbows on it.

  “Did you get your earlier stationery with us?” Harry asked. “If so, it should all be in the computer. We just change the address and print it all out. It saves you a little, because we don’t have to do any designing for you, but most of the cost is in the actual printing.”

  “No, it wasn’t done here.”

  “Well, like I said, it doesn’t make that much difference anyway,” Harry told him. “How much you need? Five hundred of everything? A thousand? Two thousand? Gets a bit cheaper as the numbers go up. And then, maybe you need more invoices than business cards, or letterhead. We can accommodate what you need.”

  “Five hundred of everything would be what? Invoices, letterhead, envelopes, business cards.”

  Harry did some scribbling on a notepad. “You’re looking at around four fifty.”

  “How long’s it take? I could wait for it.”

  Harry shook his head. “Not for an order like that. You’re looking at about a week or—”

  Two loud metallic bangs echoed out from the back. Someone had pounded on the metal garage door.

  “What’s that?” Cal asked. “Just about gave me a heart attack.”

  “Delivery,” he said.

  “Everybody’s working on Saturday,” Cal remarked.

  “Why don’t you come back on Tuesday? We open at nine.”

  Another bang on the door, louder this time.

  “Hang on,” Harry said, and bolted for the back of the shop. He punched a big red button on the wall and the garage door began to rise.

  There was a pickup truck backed up to the door. Cal recognized it immediately as his brother-in-law’s.

  As Cal turned to look out the front window, he heard the truck pull in, the garage door slide back down. Then hurried footsteps as Harry returned to the counter.

  “Sorry, mister, but you really need to come back on—”

  “That’s fine, no problem. I’ll do that,” Cal said, turning long enough to offer up a smile of thanks. He headed for the door.

  • • •

  Cal made the decision not to follow Dwayne at this point. From the industrial park he went back to his hotel, packed up his things, and checked out. By the time he got back to Dwayne and Celeste’s house, Dwayne’s pickup was there, backed up tight to the garage. Crystal was at the living room window, looking out.

  Cal parked on the street and as he went around to the trunk to grab his bag, Crystal came out the front door with a slice of pizza in her hand.

  “You’re missing dinner,” she said.

  Cal glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes past five.

  “Looks good,” he said. “What kind is that?”

  “Hawaiian,” she said. “With pineapple on it. But there’re other kinds, too.”

  “Really?”

  “There’s a pepperoni one. And a veggie one. And wings. He brought home lots of stuff,” Crystal said.

  “You mean Dwayne?”

  The girl nodded. “I forgot his name.”

  “That’s okay. How are you doing?”

  “I want my dad to come.”

  “I know,” Cal said.

  “Dwayne didn’t want to watch the Weather Channel.”

  “Not everyone finds it as interesting as you do,” he said. “And it is Dwayne and Celeste’s TV.”

  She moved in close enough that her shoulder was touching the side of his waist, but she was looking down and beyond him.

  “What happened to my mother?” she asked.

  “The police came. They’ll take your mom out. They’ll look after things.”

  “Was she still dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew that. It was a stupid question.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Cal said.

  “I want to know what happens next,” she said.

  “I don’t know, exactly. That’ll be up to your dad, mostly.”

  “I mean, like right away,” Crystal said. “Do they cut my mom open and stuff like on TV?”

  Cal rested a hand tentatively on her shoulder. When she didn’t flinch, he held it there more firmly.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “There’ll be an autopsy to be sure of the cause of death. You know what that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, yes, they might have to do some of that.”

  Her shoulder pressed into him a little harder. “You don’t talk to me like I’m a little kid.”

  “You deserve the truth,” Cal said. “I don’t know any way to get through this without being honest with you.” He patted her. “Believe me, if I could find a way, I’d try.”

  “My mom said your wife died. And that you had a son and he died, too.”

  “That’s right.” He paused. “It was a few years ago. Before I moved back here.”

  “Are you sad anymore?”

  Cal tightened his grip on the girl’s shoulder. “Every minute of every day,” he said.

  Crystal thought about that for a few seconds, saying nothing. Then, abruptly, she moved away from him and walked back into the house.

  Cal followed. Dinner was being presented in the living room, in front of the television. There were three open pizza boxes and a container of chicken wings with hot sauce crowding the coffee table. The TV was tuned to baseball. Dwayne was on the couch, holding a gnawed wing between thumb and forefinger. When he saw Cal, he said, “Just missed the end of a Toronto-Seattle game.”

  “Don’t watch much baseball,” he said.

  “Hey, grab a beer and have some pizza!” Dwayne said amiably. “We got your veggie, which I got for Celeste, and Hawaiian and another one here with sausage and shit on it. Didn’t know what the kid liked, but she seems to like the one with the pineapple. And there’re wings, too, but they’re kinda messy.”

  “Looks great,” Cal said. “Where’s Celeste?”

  “In the kitchen,” he said, and went back to watching the television.

  Crystal was eating her pizza at the kitchen table with a can of ginger ale. Celeste was at the fridge, taking out a beer for herself. She cracked the top, took a swig.

  “Oh, hey,” she said, a smile on her face. “Did you get some pizza?”

  “Just about to.”

  “Beer?”

  “Why would I say no to that?”

  She handed him one, then brought down a plate from the cupboard. “Get some pizza. But the veggie is mine.” She gave him a look of mock fury.

  “Like I’m gonna steal your veggie,” he said. “Dwayne seems pretty upbeat.”

  “I know,” she said, whispering. “I’m trying not to make a big deal about it. It’s just nice to see him happy for once.”

  “Sure. He brought home a feast.”

  Keeping her voice low, Celeste said, “He got a deposit on a job. Or a retainer, or something. I think he said Walmart. They pay him a ce
rtain amount a month, and if they have any paving needs in their lot, they call him and he fixes it. So, some months he might do no work for them, but he still gets paid, and other months he might have a lot of potholes to fill or whatever, but it all balances out.”

  “Sounds like a good deal,” Cal said. “I’m gonna get something to eat.”

  “Remember, hands off the veggie.”

  “You couldn’t pay me to eat that,” he said. He took his plate and his beer and went into the living room. He grabbed a slice of Hawaiian and a slice of pepperoni, plus half a dozen wings, and sat down on a La-Z-Boy chair.

  “Don’t get too comfy there,” Dwayne said, grinning. “Soon as I’m done here, I’m dropping into that chair and not moving till bedtime.”

  “I’ll consider myself warned,” Cal said. “Listen, this is a lot of food. Let me pay you back for this.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “At least let me contribute.”

  A firm shake of the head. “No fucking way.” He glanced around suddenly. “Where’s the kid? Celeste already told me not to swear in front of the kid.”

  “She’s in the kitchen.”

  “Good.”

  “Celeste told me about your good news. About the Walmart retainer.”

  Dwayne fixed his eyes on the TV. “Yeah, well, it’s a good thing, no doubt about that.”

  “Nice to have something to celebrate on a day like this,” Cal said.

  Dwayne glanced his way, puzzled, as though he’d forgotten about all the people who had died in Promise Falls that day. “Oh, right, for sure. You know, they were handing out free water by the park today, but hey”—he raised his beer—“who needs that stuff?”

  Cal returned the salute with his own bottle.

  “Remember what W. C. Fields said about water?” Cal asked.

  “W. C. who?”

  “Fields. A comic from years ago. Anyway, he said he didn’t drink water because”—Cal lowered his voice—“fish fuck in it.”

  Dwayne laughed, slapped a palm on one knee. “That’s a good one.”

  Cal set his plate and beer on a small table next to his chair, dabbed his mouth with a napkin, and said, “Think I’ll hit the can before I have anything else.”

  “There’s a plan,” Dwayne said.

  Cal slipped out of the living room, but instead of heading upstairs, he quietly went out the back door, down the steps, and meandered in the direction of Dwayne’s pickup. He’d backed it to within a foot of the garage door.

  The pickup had what was called a tonneau cover over the bed, made of black vinyl. It kept items in the truck from falling out, and could be locked to foil would-be thieves. It could be tipped up at the back to allow an item to be dropped in, without opening the tailgate.

  Cal went around to the far side of the truck and attempted to lift the cover an inch, testing to see whether it was locked. It was not.

  He got out his phone, opened the flashlight app. There was still plenty of sunlight, but he wasn’t planning to open the cover that far. He raised it about a foot, which cast light near the tailgate. Cal stuck the flashlight in, and there was just enough light to see that not only was there nothing near the end of the bed, but nothing was in there at all.

  He dropped the cover back into place and put away his phone.

  There was a regular door on the property line side of the garage, which, Cal was pleased to note, was out of sight from the house. He tried the door.

  Locked.

  Shit.

  He wanted to know what it was Dwayne might have been picking up at the back end of that printing shop. He was willing to bet it was not several thousand invoices for his paving company.

  There was a small window, divided into four smaller panes, in the side door. At first Cal thought the glass was simply too dirty to see through, then realized that something had been taped over it. A piece of black paper, or a garbage bag.

  He had a set of picks hidden under the spare tire in his trunk. The state of New York frowned on the possession of burglar’s tools, but sometimes they came in handy in his line of work. So he kept them out of sight.

  He tucked the small satchel into his pocket and trotted back up the driveway. As he went past the house, he glanced at it to make sure Dwayne didn’t happen to be looking out the back window.

  Once he was hidden beyond the corner of the garage, he went down on one knee so he could be at eye level with the lock. He set the satchel on the ground and drew out two picks. The lock didn’t look very challenging, and he thought he could defeat it in two to three minutes.

  After three minutes, he concluded it wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d first thought. But some locks were like that. Maybe this one would take him six.

  Cal was so focused on what he was doing, and so confident he was out of sight, that he had failed to notice Dwayne standing down by the front end of his pickup truck.

  “I thought you were going for a crap,” Dwayne said.

  Cal’s head turned abruptly.

  “But then I happened to look out the living room window and saw you going to your car, and I wondered what the hell you were doing.”

  Cal withdrew the picks, put them back in the satchel, and stood. He offered no apology as he looked his brother-in-law in the eye.

  “What’s in the garage, Dwayne?” he asked.

  Dwayne walked slowly up the side of the truck, past the corner of the garage, and stopped when he was no more than a foot away.

  “What’s it to you?” Dwayne asked.

  “I know where you got the pizza money, and it wasn’t from Walmart.”

  “What?”

  “The guy at the printing shop. You met him earlier, got paid, and then made a pickup at the shop.”

  The muscles in Dwayne’s neck tightened. “You’ve been following me?”

  “I saw you in the alley, taking the money,” he said. “Then I followed the other guy.”

  “You fucking son of a bitch. Who are you working for? Or did Celeste put you up to this?”

  Cal shook his head, ignored the questions. “Just open the garage.”

  “It was Celeste, wasn’t it?”

  “No. But she is worried about you. She says you’ve been gone a lot. Sometimes at odd hours. She senses something’s going on, but she doesn’t know what.”

  “Whatever’s going on is between her and me.”

  “No,” Cal said. “She’s my sister. If you’re into something bad, Dwayne, it could blow back on her. Open the garage.”

  “I’m not opening the garage. You need to get in your car and get the fuck out of here and take that freaky little kid with you.”

  “Does Celeste know what’s in here?”

  “You’re not hearing me, Cal. Get off my property.”

  “I suppose you could call the cops and have me arrested for trespassing.” Cal reached into his pocket for his phone. “You want to make the call or you want me to do it?”

  Dwayne’s eyes blinked. “You’re sticking your nose in where it don’t belong,” Dwayne warned. “Something bad could happen to you.”

  Cal smiled and closed the gap between them by a few inches. “You seem to be under the impression that I give a fuck. Everything bad that can happen to me has already happened. Open the garage.”

  Dwayne slowly shook his head, dropped his chin down to his chest in defeat. He dug into his pockets and withdrew a set of keys. In addition to the big remote for the truck, there were half a dozen others.

  “Just gotta find the right one here,” he mumbled, moving in front of the door. He’d settled on a key, had it ready to slide into the lock.

  Cal saw it coming, but he was too late to stop it.

  Dwayne turned abruptly, ran a fist straight into his gut. Cal doubled over and collapsed into the weeds and grass surrounding the garage foundation.

  “Really sorry about this, man,” Dwayne said, making another fist and driving it straight into Cal’s head.

  This time, Cal went
down all the way. Didn’t even feel the sharp edges of gravel jabbing into his cheek.

  Now Dwayne unlocked the garage door, and dragged Cal inside.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  BRANDON Worthington had definitely heard what his ex-wife’s stupid old neighbor was hoping he hadn’t heard. When he’d said he thought Sam and Carl “might have gone camp—”

  Well, it didn’t take Stephen Hawking to figure out what he was about to say was “camping.” And the more Brandon thought about it, the more sense it made.

  Back when they were first going out, and even after they’d been married awhile, they’d gone camping. They even did it a few times after they had Carl. Camping was about as cheap a vacation as you could take. No airline tickets, no expensive hotels. You just found a patch of land and pitched your tent.

  Not that there weren’t some costs. He and Sam didn’t usually strike off into the middle of some woods somewhere. Fuck that. They tried that once, and it was no fun, unless your idea of a good time is hanging your bare ass over a log when you’ve got to do your business.

  So after that experience, when they wanted to go away for the weekend with the tent, they’d find a licensed campground. KOA or something like that. At least then you had some facilities. A big restroom with toilets and sinks and even showers. Brandon didn’t mind cooking and sleeping under the stars, but when he had to deal with his morning constitutional, he wanted an honest-to-God toilet, thank you very much. He hadn’t exactly grown up roughing it. His father, Garnet, had worked in the financial industry his whole career, and his mother, Yolanda, had inherited money—a pretty good chunk of it, too—when her parents died.

  Which made it all the weirder when he decided to rob banks. Although, the way he looked at it, it wasn’t all that weird. Once he and Sam were married, and living on their own, Brandon had just assumed his parents would buy them a house—and not some shitty starter home, either—and a decent car, maybe even a place on the Cape they could drive to on weekends in the summer.

  Who knew his father was going to cut him off, insist Brandon make it on his own?