Broken Promise

by Linwood Barclay

  “I needed to keep busy doing something. And it’s what I do. I look after people at Davidson House.”

  “Well, I’ll bet you’re one of their favorites,” Mrs. Stemple said. “What do you think you’ll do?”

  “I can’t wait much longer for Marshall. I’m going to pack my stuff and get out of here in a little while, but if it’s okay with you, I’m going to hang out here awhile. In case Marshall calls, and to make sure that policeman isn’t going back to his place.”

  “Okay by me. Don’t get much company,” she said.

  “I’m going to try calling him again.”

  “It’s only been a minute.”

  But Sarita left the chair and tried anyway. Fifteen seconds later, she was back sitting down.

  She used another tissue to dab at her eyes. “I think something bad has happened. Maybe he’s been arrested.”

  Doris said, “None of my business, but you want to tell me what kind of trouble you’re in?”

  “I . . . figured out something. I heard some things, and I told someone. I told Mrs. Gaynor. She was the lady I worked for. I thought it was the right thing to do. I told her something she wasn’t supposed to know, I guess.” She swallowed hard. “And now she’s dead.”

  “Good lord,” said Mrs. Stemple. “You know who killed that woman? I saw that on the news.”

  Sarita shook her head. “Not for certain. But Mr. Gaynor . . . I never liked him. I’ve never trusted him. There’s something not right about him. When I found her . . .” She had to stop. Her eyes opened wider, as if seeing something that, in her memory, was more vivid than what was actually around her.

  “When I found her, I tried to set things straight.”

  “And what was that, darlin’?”

  Sarita didn’t hear the question. “But I didn’t do enough. I should have explained.” She turned and looked at the old woman. “I . . . I hate to ask this, but would you have any money?”

  “Money?”

  Sarita nodded. “I need to get to New York. Maybe a bus, or on the train. I have to get to Albany first. I’d tell you I’d pay you back, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it. Not anytime soon. If you had anything you could spare—I have to tell you the truth—you’ll probably never see it again.”

  The old woman smiled. “You wait here.” She grabbed the remote button for the chair and slowly, almost magically, she was elevated into a standing position. She walked slowly into her bedroom, where she could be heard opening and closing several drawers. When she returned, she had several bills in her hand, which she handed to Sarita.

  “There’s four hundred and twenty-five dollars there,” she said.

  Sarita appeared ready to weep. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “I bet no one ever gave you a tip at Davidson Place for all the work you done, did they?”

  Sarita shook her head.

  “Well, then, you take that, and you get out of here.”

  “Thank you,” Sarita said. “Thank you so much. For that, and for not giving me away when the policeman came to the door.”

  “No problem.”

  “I wouldn’t ever want to get you into trouble.”

  Mrs. Stemple shrugged. “I’ve dealt with cops before. Back when I was your age, when I was a working girl, I had to deal with those assholes all the time. I don’t know what you and your boyfriend did, darling, but I don’t give a rat’s ass.”

  FIFTY

  WALDEN Fisher trekked up to the Promise Falls cemetery almost every day. He liked to go up after he’d had breakfast, but once he’d taken Victor Rooney back to his van, he’d decided to run a few errands, and his visit to the cemetery got pushed back to midday.

  Just so long as he got there.

  He’d only started making this a daily trip since Beth had died. He had wanted to come up here more often to kneel at his daughter Olivia’s headstone and say a few words, but Beth would not accompany him. It was too upsetting for her. Even when they were just driving around town, both of them in the car, Walden had to make sure their travels did not take them past the cemetery.

  All Beth had to see was the gates of the place to be overcome.

  Sometimes in the evenings, and on weekends when he wasn’t working, Walden would tell Beth he was off to Home Depot, and come up here instead to visit his daughter. But one couldn’t justify a daily visit to the hardware giant. No home needed that much maintenance. So he got up here only once a week or so.

  But now, with Beth gone, with his wife and daughter both here sharing a plot, there was nothing to stop him from coming as often as he wanted.

  He didn’t always bring flowers, but today he did. He’d popped into a florist on Richmond, at the foot of Proctor, for a bouquet of spring flowers. It was only after he’d gotten back into his car that he realized the woman behind the counter had shortchanged him, giving him a five instead of a ten.

  There were some things you couldn’t worry about.

  He parked his van on the gravel lane that led through the cemetery and walked slowly over to the Fisher family plot. There was a headstone for Olivia, one for Beth, space for a third.

  “Soon enough,” he said, setting a bouquet in front of each stone. He went down on one knee, positioning himself midway between the stones so he could address them both.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” Walden said. “Sun’s shining. Everyone’s hoping we have nice weather for the Memorial Day weekend. Still a couple of weeks away. No sense listening to what the weathermen have to say. They can’t get what it’s going to be like tomorrow right, so who knows what the long weekend’s going to be like. I’m not going anywhere, of course. I’ll be right here.”

  He paused, focused on the words “Elizabeth Fisher” carved into granite.

  “The other day, I couldn’t stop thinking about that paprika chicken dish you always used to make. I went all through your box of recipe cards and through all those cooking books you saved, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. And then it hit me that you probably never even had the recipe written down anywhere, that it was all in your head, so I thought, I’m going to give it a try. Because I almost never really bother when it comes to dinner. Lots of frozen dinners, microwave stuff, the kind of food you’d never let into the house. So I thought, I’ll make something. How hard could it be, right? Some chicken, some paprika, you throw it in the oven. Right. So I got some chicken and gave it a try, and did you ever stop to notice how much paprika looks like cayenne?” He shook his head. “Darn near killed myself with the first bite. Went into a coughing fit. Had to drink a glass of water real fast. You would have laughed your head off. It was a sight to see, I’m telling you. So I had to throw the whole mess out, and went and got myself some KFC and brought it home.”

  Walden went quiet for a moment. Then: “I miss you both so much. You were my whole world; that’s what you two were.”

  He turned to OLIVIA FISHER. “You had your whole life ahead of you. Just finishing up school, ready to fly on your own. Whoever did this to you, he didn’t just take you away from me. He killed your mother, too. It just took longer where she was concerned. It was a broken heart that caused her cancer. I know it. And I guess, if a broken heart can kill ya, he’ll get me eventually, too. Of course, it wasn’t just him that broke my heart. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Truth is, I’m guessing it won’t be all that long before I’m joining you. Soon we’ll all be together again, and you know, it takes away the fear of dying. It really does. I’m almost to the point where I can get up in the morning and say, If it happens today, that’s okay. I’m ready.”

  Walden Fisher put both hands on his raised knee, pushed himself back into a standing position.

  “I’m gonna keep coming to visit,” he told them. “Long as I’m still breathin’, I’ll be up here.”

  He put the tips of his fingers to his lips, then touched his wife’s headstone. Repeated the process for his daughter.

  Walden turned and walked slowly back to his van.

&nb
sp; FIFTY-ONE

  SEEING no cars in the distance in either direction, and confident that there would be none for the next couple of minutes, Jack Sturgess and Bill Gaynor dragged Marshall Kemper’s body out of his van and into the forest. He weighed about two hundred pounds, but he felt like a lot more than that to the two men, who were, at this stage of their lives, unaccustomed to what amounted to manual labor.

  “My hands are killing me,” Gaynor said. “I haven’t dug a hole since I was in my teens.”

  “You should have brought gloves,” Sturgess said.

  “I would have, if you’d told me before we left what it was you had planned for me to do.”

  “Maybe when I asked you to bring a shovel, that should have been a clue.”

  Once they had Kemper into the woods, and out of sight in case anyone drove by, they dropped him and caught their breath. The grave Gaynor had dug was another twenty yards in.

  “I want to know who this son of a bitch is,” Sturgess said, and knelt down, careful not to touch the knees of his pants to the forest floor, and worked the dead man’s wallet out of his back pocket. “It said Kemper on the ownership. But if that isn’t his van, he could have been lying.”

  He examined a driver’s license. “Okay, that’s good. Marshall Kemper. Address matches the ownership. You ever heard of this guy?”

  “What was the first name again?”

  “Marshall.”

  Gaynor thought a moment. “I think I may have heard Sarita talk about him. To Rose. A boyfriend or something.”

  For the third time since Sturgess had stuck the needle into the man’s neck, the dead man’s cell phone rang. Sturgess dug into his pocket, found the device, studied it.

  “Stemple,” he said.

  “What?” said Gaynor.

  “That’s who’s trying to call him. Stemple.”

  “It could be Sarita,” Gaynor said. “She doesn’t own a cell phone. She uses other people’s phones.”

  The phone continued to ring in Sturgess’s hand. “Maybe I should answer it, ask her if she’s where Kemper said she is.”

  “I guess you could. . . .”

  “A joke,” Sturgess said.

  “I don’t see much very funny about this.”

  Sturgess powered the phone off, tucked it into his own pocket. “We don’t want anyone doing any triangulating,” he said. “I’ll turn it back on later, far from here, then ditch it.”

  “With the van?” Gaynor asked.

  That had been why Sturgess needed someone else along. He couldn’t have done this alone. He needed another driver, so Kemper’s van wouldn’t be left sitting here and lead the police to his body.

  “Whose property is this?” Gaynor asked. “Who’s Boone?”

  “Patient of mine,” he said. “Taylor Boone. Rich old guy, got a nice house way up that lane, up top of a hill. Beautiful view.”

  “How the hell do you know he’s not going to turn in that drive any second now?”

  “I picked this spot because I know Taylor’s off in Europe right now, and because this is as good a place as any to get rid of him.”

  Gaynor looked down at the dead man. “What the hell did you inject him with?”

  “Are you writing a report?” Sturgess said. “It did the job. Come on; we have to get this done, then go find your nanny.”

  “I’m gonna be sick,” he said. And then he was, violently.

  “That’s great,” Sturgess said. “Litter the scene with your DNA. Cover that mess up with some dirt.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this. I just don’t know.”

  “You need me to remind you what we’d have been facing if everything came out? Disgrace would be the least of it. Jail time, more than likely. And now, well, we’d hardly get off with a slap on the wrist now, would we?”

  “I’m not the one who gave him a fatal injection.”

  “That’s right,” Sturgess said. “You’re an innocent bystander. Grab his legs.”

  The doctor got Kemper under the arms. The man was heavy, and they couldn’t help dragging his butt across the forest floor. When they reached the hole, they heaved the body in. A shovel was sticking out of the dirt pile next to it.

  “Okay, fill it in,” Sturgess said.

  “You,” he said. “I told you, my hands are raw.”

  Sturgess took two handkerchiefs from his suit jacket, wrapped them around his hands, and took a turn with the shovel.

  “We can’t do this to Sarita,” said Gaynor.

  “No one said we had to,” Sturgess said. “I’m sure we can talk some sense into her.”

  “Like you tried with this guy?”

  “He was blackmailing you. Some people can’t be reasoned with.”

  “I can’t believe Sarita put him up to this. She’s a decent person.”

  Sturgess stopped shoveling to catch his breath. “Really? And look at the shitstorm she’s brought down on you. On us.”

  “We don’t know for sure it was her,” Gaynor said.

  “Who else could it be? Who else could have known? More than once, when you and I were having a conversation at your house, I’d come out a door and there she was. She’s all ears, that woman. She’s a sneak.”

  Sturgess shook his head tiredly, and tossed the shovel at Gaynor, who fumbled the catch. The tool landed in the dirt. Sturgess offered the two handkerchiefs.

  “These’ll help.”

  Gaynor wrapped them around his palms. “How does a guy like you become a doctor?”

  “I help people,” he said. “I’ve always helped people. I helped you and Rosemary. I’ve dedicated my life to helping people.”

  Gaynor continued to throw dirt onto Marshall Kemper. Once the body was fully covered, he patted down the earth with the back of the shovel. Sturgess walked across the grave, compressing the dirt.

  “We need to pull some brush over this, too,” he said.

  Both of them worked at that.

  Gaynor suddenly stopped, raised his head, like a deer sensing an approaching hunter. “Wait, I think I heard something.”

  Sturgess held his breath, listened. In the distance, the sound of a baby crying.

  “It’s Matthew,” Gaynor said. “He must have woke up.”

  They’d driven out here in Gaynor’s Audi. Since he still had no one to look after his son, he’d brought him along, and Sturgess didn’t have a child safety seat in the back of his Cadillac. The car was parked a hundred feet farther up the driveway, where it bore left and disappeared behind the trees.

  “He’s probably hungry,” the father said.

  Sturgess sighed. “Go—go look after your boy. Take the shovel, throw it in the trunk. I’ll catch up.”

  It had crossed his mind earlier to take the shovel himself and hit Gaynor across the head with it. He could have tossed him into the grave along with Kemper. But then he’d have had the problem of how to get the Audi, and the van, away from here.

  Not to mention the problem of what to do with the baby.

  That goddamn baby.

  He would have to watch Bill Gaynor closely. See if he came to present the same level of risk that this dead-and-buried asshole had. Yes, they’d been friends a very long time, but when it came to saving your own neck, you did what you had to do.

  And it wasn’t just his neck, either.

  But the more immediate problem was Sarita. Once she’d been dealt with, Sturgess could decide what to do about the poor grieving husband.

  FIFTY-TWO

  David

  AS I drove away from Sam’s place, I decided to try again to find Marshall Kemper or, even better, Sarita Gomez. Maybe someone would come to the door of his place this time.

  On the way, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened, about what I might be getting myself into. I didn’t need my life to be any more complicated, and Sam Worthington was definitely a complication.

  Any other man who’d just had impulsive, spontaneous sex with a woman he barely knew—and at her kitchen table,
no less—might be feeling pretty full of himself. Ain’t I somethin’? And who knew? Maybe this was the start of something. Maybe this rough, animalistic act was the beginning of an actual relationship. Maybe, out of this what some might call sordid encounter, something pretty decent might emerge. Granted, it might not be the sort of story you’d share with your grandkids one day, but hey, it was the kind of memory, when you called it up, someone might ask why you had that stupid grin all over your face.

  Except it wasn’t in my nature to see the glass as half-full. Not after the kinds of things I’d been through in recent years. I had more than enough to deal with at the moment: raising Ethan on my own, starting a new job, living with my parents. I was hoping that working for Finley, even if it didn’t last forever—God forbid—would allow me to rent a place for Ethan and myself. It’d be an interim step to finding us another house.

  The one thing I didn’t need to bring into the mix was a relationship. Especially not one with a woman who had as many problems going on in her life as I did. Arguably more.

  And yet, sometimes we do stupid things. Some needs blind us to reason.

  Maybe Sam had been thinking the same thing. As I was leaving, she’d said, “That was nice. We might do that again sometime.”

  Not, Call me. Not, What are you doing this weekend? Not, Would you like to come over for dinner tonight?

  Maybe she figured getting involved with me would screw up her life, too. I was reminded of what my father had said. What, exactly, did I have to offer, anyway?

  And yet, as I headed for Kemper’s address, I found myself wondering when the wifi at Sam’s house might kick out again.

  I decided this time not to park right out front. I pulled over and stopped the car three houses this side of Kemper’s apartment. I had a good view, although I couldn’t see in the windows to tell whether anyone was walking around in there.

  There was still no other car parked out front, so Kemper was probably out somewhere. I could sit here in my mother’s Taurus awhile and hope he showed up.

  Do some thinking.

  It had been half a decade since Jan had died, and yet there wasn’t a day I did not think about her. To say my emotions were mixed was to put it lightly. I’d loved Jan once. A love so great it ached. But those aches had eventually mutated into something very different, something bordering on poisonous. Jan had never been who she claimed to be, and it made everything I’d once felt for her false in retrospect.