“It would explain a lot. The way things have gone down. This guy who called me, it sounds like maybe he’s got it figured out.”
“What’s he want?” Sturgess asked.
“Fifty thousand.”
“Jesus.”
“I haven’t got it,” Gaynor said. “After I came up with a hundred grand for you, I’ve got nothing left. I’m going to have to put Rose’s funeral on my line of credit.”
“Let me think,” Sturgess said.
“Give me half of what I paid you,” Gaynor said. “A loan. I’ll pay it back. There’ll be insurance money coming in.”
“Rosemary’s million-dollar policy,” the doctor said. “Clearly your blackmailer doesn’t know about that or he’d be asking for a lot more than fifty thousand.”
“So you know I’ll be able to reimburse you once my company makes good on the policy. So help me now with the fifty.”
“That’s . . . going to be difficult,” Sturgess said. “I don’t have it to give.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Gaynor said, whispering angrily, glancing back at Matthew to make sure he wasn’t choking on a Cheerio. “How could someone blow through a hundred thousand dollars that fast?”
“My financial needs are none of your business, Bill. Sounds to me like if anyone is to blame here, it’s at your end. You need to fix this, and you need to fix it fast.”
“I’m telling you I don’t have the money. Maybe I should just not pay him, let him say whatever the hell he wants to say, to whoever he wants to tell it to. The police’d be pretty goddamn interested.”
“Don’t joke, Bill.”
“Who said I’m joking? If this gets out, all I have to say is I knew nothing about it. Not at the time. That I thought everything was aboveboard. You know who they’ll come after? You, that’s who. Is it the gambling, Jack? Is that where the money went? Did even a dime of that money go to where you said it was going to go? You kept it all, didn’t you, to pay off your debts? How do you think that’ll look when it comes out? What you did for the money, and what you did with it when you got it?”
“Just shut up!” Sturgess said. “I’m trying to work this out.”
“You’d better work it out fast. The call is set for ten thirty. I’m supposed to be at the bank when it opens. And what if when I get there the accounts are frozen or something, because of Rose’s death? Then there won’t be a damn thing I can do about this.”
“Tell him you have the money,” the doctor said. “When he calls you, tell him you’ve got it.”
“But I won’t.”
“That’s okay. This guy, do you think he knows you to see you?”
“How would I know that?”
“You didn’t recognize the voice?”
“I’m telling you, Jack, I don’t know who it is.”
“We have to assume he knows what you look like, so you’re going to have to be the one who meets him. Has he said where he wants to meet?”
“No. He’ll probably do that when we talk at ten thirty.”
“We need to think about that. We need to know how he wants to do the handoff. It needs to be in a very public—no, not a public place. Not a place with cameras. Someplace isolated. That’d be better. Soon as you know what he wants to do, you call me. Don’t commit to anything. Tell him you’ve got the funeral home on the other line and you have to deal with it; you’ll call him back. Then we’ll talk, figure out how we’re going to do this.”
“What are you talking about, Jack?” Gaynor asked. “What are you going to do?”
“You won’t pay him, but you’ll make him think he’s going to be paid.”
“What? A briefcase full of cut-up paper? I’m not fucking James Bond, Jack. And what about Matthew? I’m supposed to bring along a baby to pay off a blackmailer?”
“Get a grip, Bill. Listen to me. There’s two things we have to do. One, we have to shut this asshole down, make it clear to him that he can’t pull something like this. And two, we have to find out how he knows what he knows.” The doctor paused. “If he found this out from Sarita, then we have to find her.”
“The police have to be looking for her,” Gaynor said. “I’m betting she’s gone to ground. She’s in hiding.”
“But the police still might find her,” Sturgess said. “We need to find her first.”
FORTY
AGNES Pickens, breezing into the administrative offices of Promise Falls General, shouted into the office of her assistant, Carol Osgoode, as she strode down the hall to her own.
“Yes, Ms. Pickens?” Carol said, getting out from behind her computer and running to the door.
“In my office!” Agnes said.
Agnes was already seated behind her desk, her eyes on the doorway as Carol appeared. She wasn’t out of her twenties, this girl, and there were times when Agnes wondered whether she needed someone older to assist her, but what Carol lacked in life experience she more than made up in dedication. She did what she was told, and she did it quickly.
“What happened after I left yesterday?” Agnes asked, her chin angled slightly up so she could look Carol, whom she had not invited to take a seat, directly in the eye.
“At the board meeting?”
“Yes, of course the board meeting. Did anything happen?”
“Everyone just left. I mean, you were running the meeting, and so they all went off and did whatever it is they do,” Carol said.
Agnes nodded. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. I was worried they might have tried to carry on without me.”
Carol shook her head. “I don’t think anyone would dare,” she said.
Agnes’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”
Carol looked panicked. “I didn’t mean anything negative. It’s just . . . everyone knows you’re in charge here, and no one would try to do anything without your knowledge. I told them I figured you would want to reschedule as soon as possible, but of course, that was before anyone had any idea what sorts of things you were dealing with.”
“I suppose my troubles are the talk of the place,” Agnes said.
“Everyone’s concerned,” Carol said. “For you and Marla. And I just . . . I just can’t . . .”
“Carol?”
Agnes’s assistant put her hands over her face and began to weep.
“Good heavens, Carol?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry. I’ll go now and—”
Agnes came around the desk, put her arm around the woman’s shoulder, and steered her into a leather chair. “Let me get you a tissue,” she said, and snatched several from a box on a shelf behind her desk. She handed them to Carol, who dabbed her eyes and then blew her nose. She wadded the tissue into a ball and surrounded it with her hands.
“What’s going on, Carol?”
“Nothing, nothing,” she said. “I just feel . . . I feel so terrible for you and what you’re going through. I mean, I know there’s no end of tragedies in this building every day, but when something happens to someone you know, someone you work for . . .”
“It’s okay,” Agnes said.
“You’re dealing with it so well, and I really admire that. I just don’t know how you do it.”
Agnes pulled over another chair so she could sit knee-to-knee with her assistant. “Believe me, Carol, inside, I’m a basket case.” She put a hand on Carol’s knee. “I can’t believe you’d be this upset about something happening to me.”
Carol looked at her with red eyes. “Why would you say that?”
“Because, my dear, I can be a first-class bitch.” Agnes smiled. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”
Carol allowed herself a short laugh that sounded more like a clearing of the throat. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Not to my face, you wouldn’t,” Agnes said. “I know what I am, I know how I come across. You can’t run a place like this and be a nice person. And when you’re a woman you have to be even tougher, and you can’t worry about what they th
ink of you. But it doesn’t mean you don’t feel, or that you’re not hurting inside.”
“I know.”
“You take a lot of abuse from me and you keep on going, and I respect that about you. And I’m touched that you’d be so worried about my situation. But you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll sort things out. We’ll get through this. Gill and I and Marla, we’ll do whatever it takes. That’s the way I’ve always been. Maybe sometimes I come across like I don’t care, but that’s not true.”
Carol nodded.
“Are you going to be okay?” Agnes asked. “Do you want to take the day?”
She shook her head violently. “No, I’m certainly not going to leave you, not when you have this much to deal with. I mean, how would it look? You can come to work, but I have to go home?”
Agnes patted her hand. “Okay, then. I want you to reschedule that board meeting for tomorrow, first thing. And let everyone know there’s a chance I might have to cancel again. My—our—situation is a bit unpredictable at the moment.”
“Of course.”
“And now I’m going to go up and see how Marla is doing. I think I’ll have her sent home today.”
“I couldn’t believe it when I heard.”
“Well, everything about this is pretty unbelievable. Gill’s going to take some time off, or at least conduct all his business from the house, so there’ll be someone there with Marla at all times. He’s there now. We’ll spell each other.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Carol said. She stood. “Thank you for this. And there’s just one other thing I’d like to say.”
“Okay,” Agnes said, and waited.
“I just know Marla didn’t do anything bad.”
“Well, that’s nice of you, Carol.”
“I’ve met her lots of times, and I don’t think she has a mean bone in her body. She’s a good person.”
Agnes smiled. “Let everyone know about the rescheduled meeting. I’ll be back in a while.”
Agnes left her office, heading for the elevators. Carol returned to her own desk, tossed her tissue into the wastebasket tucked under it, then took a small makeup mirror from her purse to make sure she looked presentable. When she was finished with that, she took out her cell phone. She found the number she was looking for, then put the phone to her ear and listened to the rings.
After five, someone picked up.
Carol said, “Hey, it’s me. . . . I just had the most amazing conversation with, you know, my boss. . . . She was so nice to me. I’ve been a total wreck about what’s going on, and I kind of lost it and she was really comforting. I’ve never really seen her like that before. . . . Yeah, kind of weird . . . And it got me thinking about us, you know, that maybe it’s time to, you know. I mean, there’s just no future. . . . I know, I know. . . . I just don’t think I can keep doing this. . . . I kind of figured you’d be thinking along the same lines. . . . I know. . . . I hear ya. . . . Look, I have to go; there’s a lot going on here. . . . Don’t say that. . . . You’re going to make me cry. . . . I love you, too, Gill.”
FORTY-ONE
WALDEN Fisher ended up taking Victor Rooney back to his house after escorting the man out of that bar. Walden wasn’t certain that, if he’d dropped Victor off at his own house, he wouldn’t just head back out and get himself into more trouble.
So he put Victor in the spare room, the one that had once been his daughter Olivia’s bedroom, and where, Walden suspected, Victor had probably slept on more than one occasion when he was seeing Olivia, when Walden and his wife had been out to dinner or out of town.
It was a long time since anything like that had bothered Walden. Back then, he’d suspected his daughter and Victor were having sex, and he couldn’t say he was happy about it at the time, but he and Beth had been young once, too, and it wasn’t as if they’d waited for their wedding night.
You couldn’t run your kids’ lives, he told himself. It was hard enough when they were in their teens, but once they were adults, all bets were off. You could let them know you were there for them, but if you tried to tell them what to do, well, you might as well try teaching a goat how to drive a tractor.
Walden was in the garage out back of the house, tending to a few things, when he saw movement in the kitchen window. He returned to the house to find that Victor was up, hair tousled, eyes dark and heavy lidded.
“I wondered where the hell I was,” he said, his voice sounding as if it were coming through a can of gravel. “When I opened my eyes I knew I wasn’t home. I don’t even remember you bringing me here last night.”
“You were pretty out of it,” Walden said.
“I know where you found me. I remember that. But not a lot else.”
“You were about to get yourself beat up good.”
“What was I doing?”
Walden shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. There’s still coffee. Should be hot. You should have some.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he mumbled, and disappeared back into the house. Walden went in after him, poured him some coffee.
“Just black,” Victor said, taking the mug from Walden. “I feel kinda like shit.”
“You look kinda like shit.”
Victor grinned, took a sip.
“Victor, I know this is none of my business, but I’m gonna put my oar in anyway.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” he said.
“You’re a bright guy. I mean, you always were. Good at school. You picked up stuff fast. Good with your hands, as I recall. Mechanically inclined, but book-smart, too.”
“A real whiz kid,” he said, nodding.
“What I’m saying is, you’ve got something to offer. You have skills. There’s got to be someone in town here who could use those. But you have to stop getting wasted every night.”
“You been spying on me?”
“No, I’m just—I’m making an assumption. But tell me I’m wrong.”
Victor set his coffee on the counter. “Why aren’t you upset?”
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t get it. Why aren’t you a mess like I am? She was your fucking daughter.”
Walden came at him like a cannonball. He grabbed the man by his jacket, yanked him close to his face, then threw him up against the counter. Victor’s head flung back, hit the upper cupboards, rattled dishes. But Walden wasn’t finished. He grabbed hold of Victor again with everything he had, and this time threw him down onto the floor.
He was some three decades older than Victor, but Walden had no trouble throwing the man around. Maybe it helped that he was angry, and Victor was hungover.
“Never!” Walden shouted. “Never say that!” He brought back a leg and kicked Victor in the thigh. The younger man pulled in on himself, put his hands up over his head in case Walden’s shoe connected with him there next.
“I’m sorry! Jesus! I’m sorry!”
“You think you’re the only one who grieves?” Walden said, still shouting. “Goddamn your arrogance, you little shit.”
“Okay! I didn’t mean it!”
Walden collapsed into a kitchen chair, rested his arms on the table, and worked on catching his breath. Slowly Victor got to his feet, pulled out a chair on the other side of the table, and sat down.
“I was out of line,” he said.
Walden’s hands were shaking.
“Really. That was wrong. I should never have said anything like that. You’re a good man. I know you miss her. You’ve always been good to me. What you did for me last night, bringing me here, I appreciate that. That was real decent of you.”
Walden looked at his hands, put one over the other to stop the trembling. Slowly he spoke.
“I had Beth,” he said. Victor looked at him, not sure what he meant by that, so he waited. Walden continued. “I had Beth, so I had to hold it together. She went to pieces. She was never really able to move on. What would have happened to her; who would have looked after her if I went to the bar every night to feel sorry for myself? Where
would she have been then?”
He lifted his hand and pointed an accusing finger at Victor. “I couldn’t be as selfish as you. I couldn’t drown my sorrows the way you have. I had responsibilities, and I met them.”
“I had nobody to be responsible for,” Victor said. “So what difference did it make what I did?”
“What difference?” Walden asked. “Are you asking what’s the point?”
“Is there one? What about you? Now that your wife is gone? Now that you’ve lost the person—the people—who were most important to you, what’s the fucking point?”
“We honor them,” Walden said.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“When you do what you do, you shame Olivia.”
“What? I don’t get that. I don’t get that at all.”
“People see you and they think, What kind of man is he? Can’t make anything of himself. Full of self-pity. They wonder, What was Olivia thinking, that she’d spend the rest of her life with this man? What you do, the way you act, it diminishes Olivia. Makes people think less of her.”
“That’s horseshit. People aren’t entitled to grieve?”
“Of course they are. For a period. But then you have to show people what you’re made of. Show people what Olivia saw in you in the first place. So people know she was a good judge of character. It’s all about character.”
Victor appeared to be thinking about that. “I don’t know. What about you? How do you honor her? How do you honor Olivia? And Beth?”
“I’m finding my own way to do that,” Walden said. He looked away, out the window. “You should go,” he said.
“Okay,” Victor said, pushing back his chair.
“Of all the things you said last night, you were right about one thing.”
“What was that?”
“You shouldn’t have been late,” Walden said. He turned away, looked down at his right hand, spotted a rough fingernail, brought it to his mouth and bit it.
FORTY-TWO
David
I was planning to head straight to the address I had for Marshall Kemper, the Davidson Place custodian who’d booked off sick who, I hoped, might know where I could find Sarita Gomez.
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