Broken Promise

by Linwood Barclay

  Carlson wasn’t going to waste his entire day out there.

  Next stop: Five Mountains.

  He went straight to the administration offices, where he found Fenwick. According to Duckworth’s exhaustive note, she was going to draw up a list of people who had operated the Ferris wheel during the months the park was open. While it was possible anyone with some mechanical smarts might have been able to get the ride going, someone who’d actually run the thing would have an edge.

  “I’m still freaked out about this,” Fenwick said, sitting at her computer, tapping away.

  “Sure,” Carlson said. “That’s totally understandable, you being here alone and all, late at night.”

  “I thought I was going to have a list for you this afternoon, but I haven’t heard from our former facilities supervisor. He’d know who ran each ride, but of course, head office fired him, and it’s not like he’s in any rush to do me a favor. If I don’t hear from him by the end of today I’ll call him. Weren’t you in uniform last night?”

  “I was,” he said.

  “You look pretty good out of uniform,” Gloria Fenwick said, smiling.

  “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me today.”

  “I think maybe it came out wrong.”

  “I think it came out just right,” Carlson said.

  He asked her about how someone would gain access to the park. The admin offices were behind a locked gate, and a fence ran around the perimeter of the property. Who had keys? he wanted to know.

  Fenwick explained that once most of the Five Mountains staff had been fired, the locks were changed. Fenwick and a couple of other office staff who were tasked with winding the place down had keys, as did the security firm that checked on the property several times a day. That was it.

  “You seem to be taking this very seriously,” she said. “I mean, as unsettling as it was, there was no real damage done.”

  “Detective Duckworth takes everything very seriously,” Carlson said.

  He thanked her, said good-bye, and checked out the Ferris wheel first. In the light of day, things looked a lot less sinister. Of course, the mannequins had been taken away, which helped. There was nothing to suggest anything out of the ordinary had gone on here the night before.

  Carlson left the Ferris wheel and headed for the closest fence that surrounded the property. If whoever brought in the mannequins didn’t have a key, and there was no indication the locks had been broken or tampered with, the fence had to have been breached somewhere.

  It was a wire fence, about nine feet tall. A single strand of barbed wire ran along the top of it to discourage intruders. Not that effective, but then again, Five Mountains probably didn’t want to run several strands. They wouldn’t want to be sending off a prison vibe.

  Rides and exhibits backed up to the fence, where the grass grew taller and was untended. Carlson figured someone could put a ladder up against the fence. It was rigid enough. Drag three mannequins up, toss them over. But then the intruder would have to get over, too.

  A lot of work.

  The park property, a rough rectangle, was about fifteen acres, so it was a long, slow trek along the fence. Carlson didn’t notice anything until he’d rounded the second corner.

  The fence had been cut.

  Someone would have needed something like bolt cutters, he figured. The chain link had been cut along a post, starting at ground level and going up about five feet. Several links had also been severed along the bottom, creating a simple doorway.

  The grass, Carlson noted, was matted down on both sides of the fence. About twenty yards beyond it was a two-lane road that ran along the back of the amusement park property.

  He could see where someone had worn down a path in the grass between the fence and the road. He thought about what must have been involved. Someone drives up in a truck or van, has to unload three mannequins. Probably has to drag them one at a time to the fence, push them through. Maybe then he moves or hides the truck, returns, carries the mannequins one by one to the Ferris wheel, because that’s going to take some time.

  Gets the three dummies—which probably had their message painted on them before being brought out here—positioned into one of the carriages. Which, Duckworth had noted, was numbered 23.

  As if that really mattered.

  The Ferris wheel gets turned on, and the intruder takes off. Gets through the opening in the fence, hops behind the wheel of his truck or van, and speeds away.

  Carlson wondered why anyone would go to that much trouble. It was backbreaking work. This didn’t strike him as something a few teenagers would do for a lark.

  This was someone who really wanted to send a message.

  YOU’LL BE SORRY.

  Who was it meant for? Why did the person sending it feel aggrieved? And if this was a real threat, what was coming next?

  “Beats me,” Angus Carlson said to himself.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  JACK Sturgess came back out of Doris Stemple’s apartment for the second time, got out his phone, and called Bill Gaynor.

  “Pick me up,” he said.

  Seconds later, the Audi whisked down the street, came to an abrupt stop long enough for Sturgess to get in on the passenger side, then sped off.

  Matthew, in back, strapped into his car seat, was crying. More like shrieking.

  “Jesus, can’t you shut him up?” Sturgess said.

  “He’s a baby, Jack. That’s what they do. Where are we going?”

  “Bus terminal. Christ, I can’t hear myself think.”

  Gaynor turned his head around every three seconds to catch Matthew’s eye. “Hey, sport, come on! It’s okay! Have some Cheerios.”

  The tiny round “O”s of cereal were littered across the backseat. Matthew showed no interest in them beyond batting them about with his tiny hands.

  “I need to get him home,” Gaynor said. “He’s been out all morning and he needs a good sleep.”

  “Soon enough,” Sturgess said.

  “Who’s at the bus terminal? Sarita? Is it her?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “From her neighbor. Where she was calling from. She said a cab picked her up a little while ago to take her there. She’s getting a bus to New York.”

  Matthew’s shrieking persisted.

  “Goddamn it!” Sturgess said. “I can’t think with all that screaming!”

  Gaynor made a fist and struck it against the top of the steering wheel.

  “Shut up! What the fuck would you like me to do? Rosemary is dead! Do you remember? My wife is fucking dead! Sarita took off! I’m his fucking father! What would you like me to do?” He raised his eyebrows, as if inviting a response. “Chuck him out the window? Leave him on a church doorstep? If you’ve got an idea I’d like to hear it!”

  Sturgess said nothing, stared straight ahead. Matthew continued to wail.

  “Nothing? Maybe you’ve got another needle? Want to stick it in him? Is that what’s going on in your head?”

  “Just get us to the bus station,” Sturgess said. “The sooner we find Sarita the sooner you can go home and look after your son.”

  Gaynor, slowly depressurizing, said, “I never should have listened to you.”

  “What?”

  “I never . . . never should have gone along with you on this.”

  Sturgess sighed. It was not the first time Gaynor had made such a complaint. “Well, Bill, there’s no turning back the clock. You did what you did. We made a deal. Now we’re dealing with the fallout.”

  “Fallout?” Gaynor shot the doctor a look. “Is that what you call my wife getting killed?”

  Sturgess returned the look. “We don’t really know what happened there.”

  Gaynor’s chin quivered. “I got a call, before you asked me to pick you up. They arrested her.”

  “Marla?”

  Gaynor nodded. “They’re picking her up right about now.”

  “Must have happened af
ter I spoke to Agnes,” the doctor said. “She’ll be devastated. Marla, too, of course.”

  “Everything points to her,” Gaynor said.

  “I suppose it does.”

  “But we know she didn’t do it,” Gaynor said. “I mean, we know she didn’t take Matthew. Right?”

  “There are things we know, and things we don’t know. But what we do know is where we’re vulnerable, and that’s where we have to act. Take this turn; it’ll get us there faster.”

  Matthew’s shrieking began to subside.

  “I think he’s crying himself to sleep,” Gaynor said.

  “At last, something to be thankful for. Okay, it’s just up here. We go in; we split up; we try to find her. Any buses waiting to go, we poke our heads in, see if she’s on one of them.”

  “I can’t leave Matthew in the car. Not here. It was okay in the woods, but not here.”

  Sturgess closed his eyes briefly, let out a long breath. Maybe an injection was the way to go. For both of them. There might be enough in the other syringe.

  “There’s no place to park.”

  “For Christ’s sake, park anywhere. I’ll go into the terminal while you get the kid out.”

  “Okay, but— Hey!”

  “What?”

  “They just went the other way!”

  “What? In a car?”

  “Sarita was in it!”

  “What?”

  “I’m sure of it. I caught a glimpse of her in the front seat. I’m sure it was her.”

  Gaynor hit the brakes, looked for an opening in the traffic so he could do a U-turn. “An old Taurus. I’m sure it was her.”

  “Who was driving?”

  “I think it was that guy.”

  “What guy?”

  “Harwood. The one who was at the house with the woman and Matthew.”

  “Shit,” Sturgess said. “Turn around. Go. Go.”

  “There’s cars com—”

  “Cut the fuck in!”

  Matthew resumed crying.

  Gaynor cut off someone in an Explorer, endured a blaring horn and an extended middle finger. He hit the gas. The Taurus was two cars ahead.

  “If I catch up to them, then what?” Gaynor asked.

  “Follow them for a while. It’s too busy here. Too many people.”

  “Too many people for what?”

  “Just stay on them, see where they go.”

  “What if they’re headed to the police?” Gaynor asked.

  The doctor didn’t have an immediate response to that. Instead he reached down toward the floor, where a small leather bag sat between his feet. He opened it, took out a syringe and a small glass vial.

  “Jack,” Gaynor said warily.

  “We’ll have to get very close to them, of course. Engage them in conversation. I need to bring him down first. Once he’s been done, it’ll be easier to do the nanny.”

  “Christ, Jack, what’s happened to you? You already killed one man.”

  The doctor shot him a look. “I seem to remember you were there. I seem to remember you digging a hole for his body. I seem to remember us putting him in there together and covering him up. Do you remember those events differently?”

  “This is crazy. We’re not . . . we’re not these kinds of people.”

  “Maybe we weren’t,” Sturgess said. “But we are now. If we want to survive.” He turned away, looked out the passenger window.

  “This has to end,” the doctor said.

  FIFTY-NINE

  David

  “LET’S go,” I said to Sarita, sitting next to me in the bus terminal. “The police might come looking for you here.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t we just drive. And talk.”

  I wondered whether she would try to run. Hoping she wouldn’t want to take off without her luggage, I stood and grabbed the handle of her bag. “I’ll take this for you,” I said. “I’m just parked outside.”

  Slowly, resignedly, she stood. We walked in measured paces toward the door. I didn’t want her to fall behind, didn’t want her out of my sight for a second. Once we were outside, I pointed to my mother’s car. “I’m just up here.”

  I opened the front passenger door, got her settled in, watched her do up her seat belt, then dropped her bag into the trunk. I got in next to her, started the engine, and headed off.

  “You said we would just drive, right?”

  I nodded.

  “No going to the police station.”

  Another nod.

  “I want you to tell me what happened. I want you to tell me why you’ve been on the run, why you’ve disappeared.”

  Sarita said nothing.

  I decided to start with the big question. “Did you kill Rosemary Gaynor?”

  Her eyes went wide with shock. “Is that what people think? Is that what the police think?”

  “They think Marla did it,” I said. “But I don’t. So I’m asking you if you did it.”

  “No!” she said. “I did not kill Ms. Gaynor! I loved her! She was good to me. She was a very good lady. I loved working for her. It’s a horrible thing what happened to her.”

  “Do you know who did kill her?”

  Sarita hesitated. “I don’t.”

  “But do you have an idea?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. It was just . . . it was so awful.”

  The way she said it told me something. “You found her. You were there.”

  “I found her,” she said, nodding. “But I wasn’t there when it happened. I must have gotten there right after.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I got there in the afternoon. I had done an early morning shift at Davidson Place. I have two jobs. Many days I work a shift at one and a shift at the other, although at the Gaynors’, I do not call it a shift. A shift is when you work for a company, but they’re a family, so it is different. But I did my shift at Davidson, then took the bus to the Gaynors’. I have a key, but I always ring the bell. It is courtesy. You do not walk straight into a person’s house. But I rang the bell and no one answered. I thought maybe Ms. Gaynor was out. Maybe she was shopping or something like that. Or maybe she was in the bathroom, or changing Matthew’s diaper and could not come to the door right away. So in a case like that, I use my key to open the door.”

  “So you went inside.”

  “Yes, but it turns out the door was open. I come in, and I call for her. I figure she must be home because the door is not locked. I call a few times, and she does not answer, and then I go into . . .”

  She turned her head down and toward the window. Her shoulders shook. While I waited, I took a left, followed by a right, taking a route that would lead us out of downtown.

  Sarita lifted her head, but did not glance my way as she continued. “I go into the kitchen and she is there, and there is blood everywhere, and even though I am afraid to, I touch her, just in case maybe she is not dead, maybe she is breathing, maybe there is a pulse, but she is dead.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  “You did not call the police.”

  She shook her head. “I did not. I could not do that. I am in this country illegally and no one knows about me. Not officially. Someone like me, the police don’t care what happens to me. They would find a way to charge me with something, maybe even think that I did it, that I killed Ms. Gaynor, because that is what they will do. But I called Marshall so he could come get me.”

  She paused, caught her breath. “You asked me if I had any idea who did it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I had to wonder . . . I had to wonder if it was Mr. Gaynor.”

  “Why?”

  “I wondered if he knew that his wife was starting to figure things out. That he’d never been honest with her about everything. I wondered if maybe she had confronted him and he’d gotten angry with her. But even so, I mean, I didn’t like him; I never liked him, but he didn’t seem
like a man who would do something like that.”

  “Sarita, what are you talking about?”

  “It’s all my fault,” she said, and started to cry. “If that’s what happened, it’s all my fault. I should have kept quiet. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  We were heading north out of Promise Falls. With lighter traffic, it was easier to concentrate on what Sarita was saying. Although I was having a hard time figuring out what she was talking about.

  “Said anything about what?”

  “I knew about Marla,” she said. “I knew about your cousin. I knew what had happened at the hospital.”

  “About her trying to take a baby?”

  Sarita nodded. “I have friends who work at the hospital who also work at Davidson, and everyone was talking about the girl who tried to steal a baby. That she was out of her head because her own baby had died a few months earlier. And I heard that it was Dr. Sturgess who was the crazy lady’s doctor.”

  “You know Dr. Sturgess,” I said.

  Sarita nodded. “He is the Gaynors’ doctor. And he and Mr. Gaynor are old friends, from a long time ago.”

  I glanced in my mirror. There was a car there, a black sedan that looked a lot like a car I’d seen in my mirror a few minutes ago. It did not look like a police car.

  “They talk a lot,” Sarita said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The doctor would come over, and they would go into Mr. Gaynor’s office. He has an office in the home. They would close the door and they would talk many times.”

  “About what?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I hear bits and pieces. Usually about money. I think Mr. Gaynor had a problem. And maybe the doctor, too.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “Gambling, I think. They both had troubles like that. Ms. Gaynor, sometimes she would talk to me, tell me her husband made good money working for the insurance company, but there were times when they still had money problems because Mr. Gaynor liked to bet on things. Dr. Sturgess, too. He was way worse.”