Broken Promise

by Linwood Barclay

  Here it was, only midafternoon. I’d found a body, been interrogated by the police, and now had been threatened with a shotgun. I was afraid to wonder what the rest of the day would bring.

  My phone rang.

  I dug the cell out of my pocket and looked at the number. It was not one I recognized. Maybe it was Detective Duckworth with more questions. I accepted the call and put the phone to my ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this David Harwood?” It was a man’s voice. Gruff, and louder than it needed to be.

  “Who’s calling?” I asked.

  “Randall Finley. You know who I am?”

  It would have been hard not to, particularly in my line of work. The former mayor, whose bid for higher office crashed and burned when it got out that he had used the services of an underage prostitute.

  “Yeah, I know who you are,” I said.

  “I used to read your stuff in the Standard. You were a good reporter. Think you interviewed me more than once in the past.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So anyway, why I’m calling. I hear you got hired back by the paper just as it went down the toilet.”

  I said nothing.

  “That had to be a hell of a thing. You’d gone to Boston, am I right?”

  “That’s right,” I said slowly.

  “And then came back. Raising a boy on your own, that’s what I hear. After that business with your wife a few years ago.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Finley?”

  “I don’t know if you know what I’m up to these days.”

  “Not really.”

  “Since I got out of serving the people I started up a business. Bottling springwater. Pure, delicious, chemical-free water,” Finley said. “It’s a thriving business.”

  “Great.”

  “But I’m also thinking of getting back into public service. Going to take another try running Promise Falls.”

  What a thought.

  “Well,” I said. “That’s something. But the thing is, I’m not a reporter these days. The Standard is gone. I’m not freelancing for anyone, either. Freelance has totally dried up. If you want publicity for your plans, if you’re putting out a release or something, you’re probably best contacting media in Albany. They still cover stories up this way if they’re interesting enough, and I think I can say a comeback bid by you would get their attention.”

  “No, no, you’re way off,” Finley said. “I’m offering you a position. A job.”

  I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  “You there?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m here.”

  “You sound pretty excited,” he said.

  “I don’t think I’m your guy,” I said.

  “I haven’t even told you what the job entails. Thing is, I can’t manage everything. I can’t manage this company, run a campaign, do PR, answer phone calls, field media inquiries, get the word out, all that shit, without my fucking head blowing up. You know what I’m saying?”

  “Sure.”

  “I need an administrative assistant, I guess you would call it. Handle the media, do publicity, put shit up on Facebook and Twitter, which I totally fucking don’t understand, but I get that these days you have to use everything that’s out there. Am I right?”

  “Like I said, I don’t think I’m your guy.”

  “Why?” Finley asked. “Because I’m an asshole?”

  He caught me again at a loss for words.

  “Because that’s what I am. Ask around. Hell, you don’t need to ask around. You worked for the paper. You know what I’m like. I’m an asshole. So what? Do you know how many people would have jobs if they refused to work for assholes? The whole fucking country would be unemployed. So what if I’m an asshole? I’m an asshole willing to pay you a thousand bucks a week. How does that sound?”

  The door opened. Sam was back.

  “I have to go,” I said, raising an index finger at Sam.

  “You’d start right away if you’re interested,” Finley said. “Tell you what. Think on it overnight and let me know tomorrow. You’re not the only guy from the Standard who’s out of work, you know. But from asking around, sounded like you might be the best. A grand a week. Think about it. It’ll be fun. We’ll be stirring up some major shit.”

  Randall Finley ended the call.

  Dumbfounded, I put the phone back into my jacket and looked apologetically at Samantha Worthington.

  “Sorry about that,” I said.

  “My kid doesn’t have that watch,” she said, and closed the door.

  TWENTY-ONE

  BARRY Duckworth didn’t have enough on Marla Pickens to hold her. He had no choice but to let her leave with Natalie Bondurant. But he didn’t think it would be long before he had her back in that interrogation room. The techs were at her house, looking for evidence. He’d already heard they’d found blood by the front door, and on the handle of the stroller. A DNA analysis wouldn’t be coming overnight, but if that blood matched Rosemary Gaynor’s, Marla Pickens was going down. And with any luck, Duckworth thought, he’d have something on her even before that.

  The fact that she had Rosemary’s baby—Jesus, it just hit him that he’d stumbled into a horror movie—was not in itself proof that Marla had killed the woman. Damning, yes, but not proof. Her story about an angel coming to the door and handing over Matthew was pure and utter bullshit, with no supporting evidence, so it didn’t worry him much. It wasn’t that he had to disprove that story. He just had to prove Marla was at that house on Breckonwood Drive.

  And he had to find the nanny.

  Sarita.

  Bill Gaynor had been no help there, but they had found his wife’s cell phone in her purse, which was sitting in plain view on the kitchen counter. If Rosemary Gaynor’s killer had taken anything from it, and there was nothing to suggest he had, he’d apparently had no interest in her cash or credit cards.

  He? Duckworth thought. More likely she.

  When Duckworth was finished with Marla Pickens, he checked his own phone, which he’d felt vibrate during the interrogation. An e-mail from one of the officers on the scene informed him that there was a contact listing for “Sarita” in the Gaynor woman’s phone.

  No last name.

  So Duckworth tapped on the number, automatically dialing it, and listened.

  After three rings: “Hello?”

  The voice sounded female, so he asked, “Is this Sarita?”

  “Sarita?”

  “That’s right. Are you Sarita?”

  “Sarita who?”

  Duckworth sighed. “I’m trying to get in touch with Sarita. Am I talking to Sarita?” Bill Gaynor had suggested Sarita was an illegal immigrant, but the detective did not detect any kind of foreign accent.

  “I don’t have a last name. I’m looking for Sarita. She works as a nanny.”

  “Who is calling?”

  He hesitated. “Duckworth. Detective Duckworth, with the Promise Falls police.”

  “I don’t know any Sarita. There is no Sarita here. You have the wrong number.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s very important that I speak to Sarita.”

  “Like I said, I don’t know how you got this number.”

  “If you’re not Sarita, then do you know her? Because I—”

  The call ended. Duckworth had been hung up on. “Shit,” he said. He never should have identified himself as being with the police.

  He returned to his desk, and just as he’d suspected, word had gotten around about his first call of the day. Placed in front of his computer monitor was a jar of salted peanuts, with a yellow sticky note attached that read, For paying your informants.

  The twenty-three dead squirrels. Was that actually today? It seemed like a week ago.

  He cracked the lid, poured out a handful of nuts, tossed them into his mouth. Then he entered the phone number he’d just dialed into the Google search field on his computer. If it was a landline, there was a
good chance the name of the person who owned that phone would come up.

  No such luck.

  But not all was lost, even if the phone was a cell. Unless it was a throwaway, they’d be able to attach a name to it in no time. Duckworth could get someone on that. The Internet abounded with firms offering to track down cell-phone identities for a price, but they often promised more than they could actually deliver.

  Duckworth forwarded the officer’s e-mail containing Sarita’s number to Connor Stigler, in communications, with the words: Whose number is this?

  Then he phoned his wife, Maureen.

  “Did you have one?” she asked him.

  “Have one what?”

  “On the way to work. A doughnut.”

  “I did not.” It was nice not to have to lie for once. “It was a close one, though.”

  “You sound like you’re eating something right now.”

  “Peanuts,” he said. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Gee, I don’t know,” she said. “What are you making?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Why is it always my responsibility? Maybe you didn’t get the memo. I work, too.”

  “Okay. I’m bringing home a bucket of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy.”

  “Well played,” Maureen said. “I’m serving fish. Pickerel.” She paused. “And some greens.”

  “Greens,” Duckworth said. “Maybe I will pick up fried chicken.”

  Maureen ignored the threat. “Will you be late?”

  “Maybe. I’ll keep you posted. Heard from Trevor?”

  Their son. Twenty-four years old, looking for work. He didn’t live with them, or anyone else, for that matter. Not anymore. The love of his life, a girl named Trish, who’d traveled across Europe with him, had recently broken things off. Trevor, devastated, now had a two-bedroom apartment all to himself. Barry and Maureen didn’t hear from him as often as they’d like, and they worried about him.

  “Not today,” Maureen said. “Maybe I’ll give him a call. See if he wants to come for dinner.”

  “For fish? Good luck with that.”

  “It doesn’t have to be today.”

  “Okay, do that. Listen, gotta go.”

  He’d noticed that he already had an e-mail back from Connor.

  It read: L SELFRIDGE 209 ARMOUR ROAD.

  As he was pushing his chair back from the desk, uniformed officer Angus Carlson walked past, glanced at Duckworth and the jar of peanuts, and smiled.

  Before Duckworth could level an accusation, Carlson said, “Wasn’t me.” Paused, then added, “I’d have to be nuts to mock a superior officer.”

  • • •

  The Armour Road address was a rooming house, a three-story Victorian home that had been broken down into apartments. There was a buzzer by the front door labeled MANAGER. Duckworth buzzed. Moments later, a short, heavyset woman with little more than a few wisps of hair came to the door and opened it a few inches.

  “Yeah?”

  “Ms. Selfridge?” he asked.

  “Mrs. But the mister died a few years back. We don’t have any vacancies, but you can leave your name if you’d like.”

  “I’m not looking for a room,” he said. “That was pretty rude of you, cutting me off like that.”

  Her eyes danced. “Huh?”

  “On the phone, a few minutes ago. When I was asking for Sarita.”

  “How’d you find where I live?”

  “You pay the bill on that cell phone, Mrs. Selfridge. There are some things you don’t need Homeland Security for.”

  “I told you before, I don’t know any Sarita.”

  “I’m thinking you do.”

  She started to close the door but Duckworth got his shoe in.

  “You got no right,” she said.

  “I’m guessing Sarita likes to keep under the radar, so you let her use your phone. That way she doesn’t need to get one in her own name. You tack on a little to the rent every month for the service?”

  “I don’t know what you’re jawin’ about.”

  Duckworth looked around, like a would-be buyer appraising the house. “When’s the last time you had a fire inspection, Mrs. Selfridge? Someone to go through, room by room, make sure everything’s up to code?”

  “You’re talking crazy talk.”

  “I could give them a call right now if you’d like. Invite them over to—” He stopped midsentence, his nose in the air. “What’s that I smell?” he asked.

  “That’s chocolate-chip banana bread,” she said. “I just took it out of the oven.”

  Duckworth gave her his warmest smile. “My God, that smells wonderful. I have this theory that when you arrive in heaven, the first thing you smell will be something like that.”

  “I make it whenever I’ve got a lot of old bananas that are too ripe to eat. But you mush them all up and bake ’em and they’re good to eat.”

  “My mother used to do that. She’d even put black bananas in the freezer until she got around to making banana bread.”

  “I do that, too.” Anxiously, she said, “This business with the fire inspection. I’m pretty up to code here, smoke detectors and all that. There’s no need for them to come in here and get their shorts all in a knot about little picky things.”

  “They can be picky,” Duckworth said. “I suppose we could talk about it over some of that banana bread.”

  The woman gave him a withering look, sighed, and opened the door wide.

  “You don’t even have to tell me where your kitchen is,” he said. “I can follow the scent, like a dog chasing down a rabbit.”

  Seconds later he was parked at the woman’s small kitchen table.

  “This is asking a lot,” Duckworth said, “but would you mind cutting me off an end piece? Where it’s crustier? It’s never better than when it’s still warm.”

  Mrs. Selfridge obliged. She cut him a slice off the end, and one more, set it on a chipped pale green plate, and placed it in front of him.

  “You want it buttered?” she asked.

  “No, no, that’s fine,” Duckworth said. “I’m trying to cut back.”

  “You want milk with it?” she asked. “That’s the way my Leonard would have it. And I got a splash of coffee left in the pot if you’d like that.”

  “Coffee’d be just fine,” he said. She set a mug in front of him and sat down. Watched him bite into the end piece.

  “Dear God,” he said. “That’s wonderful.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She paused, then asked, “So what is it you want to know about Sarita?”

  Duckworth held up a hand. “Nothing just yet.” He took another bite of banana bread, then sipped his coffee. “I really needed this. And I don’t even feel guilty, because I haven’t had any other treats today.”

  “You trying to lose weight? I’m not saying you should. I’m just asking.”

  He nodded. “I could stand to lose a few. But it’s hard when you love to eat.”

  “You’re telling me,” she said. “Some days I look down and wonder where my feet is.”

  Duckworth laughed. “Aren’t we entitled to a little pleasure in life? And if good food gives us pleasure, can we not be forgiven for enjoying it?”

  Mrs. Selfridge nodded slowly, rested her hands on the table.

  “And I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Today is twenty years.”

  “You’ve been married twenty years?”

  He shook his head. “Twenty years with the police. It’s my anniversary today.”

  “Well, congratulations. They do something special for you today at the police station?”

  “Not one damn thing,” Duckworth said, taking another bite.

  The woman watched him eat. She said, “I don’t know where she’s gone.”

  “Hmm?” the detective said, like he’d forgotten why he was here.

  “Sarita. I don’t know where she’s at.”

  “Wh
en did you see her last?”

  “Yesterday. Late afternoon.”

  “What’s her name? Her last name?”

  “Gomez. Sarita Gomez.”

  “And she rents a room here from you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does she live here alone?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Since when?”

  “She’s been renting from me going on three years now. Never a speck of trouble from her. She’s a good girl.”

  “How old?”

  “Twenty-six? Seven? Something like that. She makes money and sends it home to help her family.”

  “Her family where?”

  “Mexico, I think. Don’t know where exactly. It’s never been any of my business. But she told me that much.”

  “You know how she makes a living?”

  “She did some work looking after some lady’s baby, and she also did shifts at a nursing home or two, I think. She couldn’t afford a cell phone, so I always let her use mine, just so long as she didn’t run up long-distance charges to Mexico on it.”

  “You know which nursing home?”

  Mrs. Selfridge shook her head. “Beats me. But the people she did nannying for are named Gaynor. Lady’s name is Rosemary. But I don’t know much more than that. But Sarita must have had a shift yesterday, ’cause she was dressed for it. In like a nurse’s uniform.”

  “And tell me about yesterday. The last time you saw her.”

  “I heard the front door open real hard and then running up the stairs. Her room’s right over mine and I could hear her banging about, so I went up to see and she was stuffing some things into a suitcase. I says, ‘What’s up?’ And she says she’s going away.”

  “Going away where?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “She say for how long?”

  Mrs. Selfridge shook her head. “But she didn’t say she was giving up the apartment or anything. But I’ll tell you this, she was rattled pretty good.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “Nope. But I says to her, ‘You okay? You’ve got some blood on your sleeve there.’ And she looks at it and starts taking her uniform off and putting on something else and she’s running around like a chicken with its head cut off, right? And she runs downstairs with her bag and there’s a car waiting for her out front.”