The Twenty-Three

by Linwood Barclay

  Several years passed before Olivia Fisher. He had pulled her over near the Promise Falls Mall. She was doing seventy in a forty. A serious offense, but he knocked the ticket back to fifty. Not before, however, engaging her in enough chitchat to find out she was graduating from Thackeray, that she was engaged, that she did not yet have any children.

  Several days later, he staked out her address. She was still living with her parents, Elizabeth and Walden. He saw her leave by herself in the same car she’d been driving when he’d ticketed her. Followed her to downtown Promise Falls. She parked the car and wandered into the park, not far from the falls.

  It was getting dark, and there were no other people nearby.

  He walked right up to her. Smiled, said, “Ms. Fisher?”

  She didn’t recognize him. Angus got that a lot. People meet you when you’re in uniform, then run into you another time when you’re in your street clothes, and they can’t place you. You’re out of context.

  She said, “Uh, hello?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Happens all the time. I’m not in uniform. I was the mean old cop who gave you a speeding ticket the other day.”

  “Oh, yes.” She smiled. “You’re right. I knew you looked familiar, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen you.”

  Angus nodded his understanding. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  “What?”

  “For the ticket. It’s my job.”

  “Oh, I know. Don’t worry about that.”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  The knife was already in his right hand, down at his side, the blade hidden against his pant leg.

  “Just waiting for my boyfriend.”

  Angus looked beyond her shoulder. “The falls are gorgeous tonight, the way the lights on the bridge reflect in them.”

  Olivia Fisher turned to look.

  It was all the time he needed.

  Left arm around the throat. Body pulled tight to his. Right arm around the front to her left side. Blade in. Then pull hard to the right. Down slightly in the middle.

  Like a smile.

  She let out such a scream.

  He should have gotten his hand over her mouth, kept her from making such a noise. Not much he could do about it now.

  He pulled out the knife, let her drop to the ground.

  No time to savor the moment. That scream was sure to draw people. He ran. Bounded up a set of concrete steps that led up to the bridge that spanned the falls. He scaled them two at a time, tossing the knife into the falls along the way.

  Rosemary Gaynor had gone more smoothly. He was in her home, didn’t have to worry about being seen, or heard. He’d parked two blocks away. Went right to the front door, rang the bell. When she opened it, she recognized him, even though he was not in uniform.

  “Officer?” she’d said.

  Angus made the motion of tipping an imaginary hat. “So sorry to bother you,” he said. “It’s about the ticket I wrote you the other day. I’ve been instructed to do a follow-up with you, and I didn’t get to it while I was still on my shift, so I thought I’d pop by on my way home.”

  “A follow-up?”

  “In fact, they’ve sent me here to tear it up. I didn’t realize that the zone where I clocked you was before the actual point where the speed limit drops.”

  “You’re kidding,” she said, and laughed. “How often does that happen? Won’t you come in?”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  The rest was easy.

  And now, here he was, the Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend.

  A new opportunity had presented itself.

  He was more rattled than usual this time. He figured that was due to the shooting at the hospital. Killing people in secret was one thing, but an event that public, with implications for his job—his future—was quite another.

  He needed to try to put that aside and concentrate on the task at hand. But complicating things further had been that call from Detective Duckworth.

  Duckworth had connected the dots.

  Angus believed it was all going to be over very soon. There might only be time for one more.

  Sonja Roper.

  The nurse at Promise Falls General. In their short conversation he’d learned she had no children. Not yet. But she had a boyfriend—a pilot who wasn’t due home until tomorrow—and they were certainly planning to have children in the future.

  So there was still time to save those kids.

  To spare them inevitable lives of torment and misery.

  It hadn’t taken Angus any time at all to figure out where Sonja Roper lived. A quick call to the hospital confirmed she was off today. He parked a couple of blocks from her home. He’d slapped the stolen green Vermont plates on the car shortly after he’d left home.

  She’ll be my fifth, he thought.

  But then he corrected himself mentally. Sixth.

  He often forgot to count his mother.

  Everyone thought she must have been depressed when, late one night, she leapt off that overpass straight into the path of a transport truck heading south on I-90.

  There were some stories you didn’t share even with your therapist.

  SIXTY

  SONJA Roper had ended up working not just a double, but a triple shift the day before at Promise Falls General Hospital. Well, almost.

  She had arrived for a seven-hour shift that began at six in the morning, and by half past, the patients were starting to turn up. Things hadn’t slowed down by the time her shift ended at one, so she hung in. By midafternoon, word had spread that the water was contaminated, and admissions had slowed to a trickle, no pun intended. For the most part, anyone who was going to get sick had gotten so. Her second shift would have ended at seven, but they still had their hands full treating the people who’d been admitted. She put in another three hours, and went home at ten.

  Sonja had never seen anything like it in her life.

  Not that she’d been around forever. She’d been working at the hospital for only two years. But still, that was not the kind of day you ever wanted to see. They trained for it—they did their best to be ready—but hoped and prayed they’d never have to deal with that kind of emergency.

  When she was finally able to go home, she was not sure she’d be able to keep her eyes open for the drive. One of the orderlies was leaving at the same time and offered her a lift home. She could come back for her car on Sunday.

  She and her boyfriend, Stan, were renting a small house on Klondike. She was sorry he wouldn’t be there when she got home. He was spending the night in Seattle, and if she remembered correctly, he’d be in Chicago Sunday night, flying home Monday.

  Sonja just wanted to crawl into bed with him and fall asleep in his arms.

  They had managed to talk on the phone around six. She told him how bad things were in Promise Falls, and he told her how proud he was of her, doing her part to help people through such a horrible time.

  “I love you, Stan,” she said.

  “I love you, too,” he said.

  The good news was that she was asleep thirty seconds after her head hit the pillow. The bad news was her dreams were all about what she’d seen that day in the emergency ward. People throwing up, collapsing, dying right in front of her. The anguished cries of relatives who were powerless to do anything.

  She woke up a couple of times but quickly went back to sleep. When she opened her eyes in the morning and looked at the clock, it was fifteen minutes past eleven.

  “Wow,” Sonja said.

  She thought about having a shower. Word was that a shower was safe. But she liked to do a four-mile run three mornings a week, and this struck her as a good day to clear her head. She got up, slipped on some sweats and running shoes, clipped an iPod Shuffle to her collar, and worked the buds into her ears.

  When she opened the front door, the morning sun blinded her.

  She did a few stretches on the front lawn first, set her iPod to play the best of Mado
nna, and headed out.

  Sonja loved the feel of the warm sun on her face, the fresh air entering her lungs. This was exactly what she needed.

  By the time she got back, she was drenched in sweat; her legs were numb and her lungs aching. She’d really pushed that last half mile.

  But she felt good.

  She unlocked the front door, stepped inside, pulled the buds from her ears, and dropped the iPod into a decorative bowl with her keys. She went into the kitchen and turned the tap on full blast, letting the water get cold.

  Then it hit her. “What am I thinking?” She turned off the tap and took a bottle of Poland Spring water from the refrigerator and took two long gulps.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Just a second!” she said.

  She put the bottle down on the counter, walked briskly to the front door, and opened it wide.

  “Ms. Roper?”

  The man smiled, nodded respectfully.

  “I know you,” she said slowly.

  “We met yesterday at the hospital. I was asking—”

  “You’re the policeman,” Sonja said. “I remember you. But I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Carlson,” he said. “Angus Carlson.”

  She gestured down at herself. Her running clothes were dark with perspiration. “You have to excuse me. I just did a run. I’m sweating buckets. Pretty dumb, huh, when I don’t even know if the water’s safe to shower with yet?”

  “For what it’s worth, I’ve heard it is. But I’m sorry. Should I come back later?”

  “No, no, it’s okay.”

  “They say we need to wait another day or two before we drink anything from the tap, but for cleaning, showering, the crisis is over.”

  “Really? That’s some good news, I guess. Because if anyone ever needed a shower, it’s me. So what’s up?”

  “We’re still, of course, actively investigating the cause of the water contamination, and we’re reinterviewing people who might have noticed something—anything—that might be helpful.”

  “What could I have seen?” she asked.

  “Well, we think it’s possible that whoever did this—and we do think it was an individual with an agenda, and not some kind of environmental accident or something—he might very well have come to the hospital to see the results of his handiwork, actually see the people being ill.”

  “Oh my God, that’s just awful,” Sonja Roper said.

  “I know. That’s why I wanted to ask you if you noticed anything unusual yesterday. Anything at all.”

  “Are you kidding? It was all unusual.”

  Carlson nodded understandingly. “Of course it was. But what I’m thinking is, did you notice anyone who didn’t seem to belong? Someone who was just hanging around, not actually with anyone? Someone who was lurking?”

  “I’d have to think about that a second. God, where are my manners? You want to step inside?”

  “I suppose. Thank you.”

  “I’m so rude. Forgive me.”

  “Not at all,” Angus said.

  SIXTY-ONE

  Duckworth

  “WHAT kind of car is your husband driving?” I asked Gale Carlson.

  “A Ford. A Fusion.”

  “Color?”

  “Um . . . dark blue,” she said.

  “Plate number?”

  She spluttered, “I have no idea.”

  “Year?”

  Gale remained flustered. “I think, 2007. We bought it used.”

  I got out my phone, entered a number. “Hey, I need you to look up a registration. I need a plate number on a dark blue 2007 Ford Fusion, registered to Angus Carlson. Yeah, that Angus Carlson. Call me when you have it.”

  Then I called Rhonda Finderman.

  “Barry? Jesus, why the hell did you bail on me?” she said, answering after one ring.

  “Chief, I need you to—”

  “I wanted you beside me when I did that conference. Everyone turned up. All the major networks. CNN was there, the Albany media. They had a lot of questions and a lot of them I just had to wing. It would have gone a lot better if you’ d—”

  “Listen to me. Call whoever we call when we need to track a cell phone.”

  “What?”

  “Take this down.”

  I gave her Angus’s cell phone number and service provider. “We need to see if they can triangulate his location.”

  “Why, Barry? What’s happened to Angus? Does this have something to do with the shooting at the hospital?”

  “No.”

  “Barry, talk to me.”

  I moved away from Gale, far enough to be sure she would not hear me. “Angus just moved to the top of the suspect list in the Fisher, Gaynor, and Plummer murders.”

  For about three seconds, nothing. Then, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I can’t get into it now. I need to find him.”

  “Jesus, Barry.”

  “I know. Can you do the phone thing?”

  “Leave it with me.”

  “Tell me what’s going on,” Gale asked me after I’d ended the call. “Please tell me what’s happening.”

  “We have to find Angus,” I told her.

  “Why were you asking him about those women who’d been murdered? You were acting like you thought he had something to do with it.”

  “Gale, talk to me about him.”

  Her face was crumpling. “I don’t understand what you’re asking. He’s my husband. I love him.”

  “How’s he been lately? Has he been moody? Has he seemed different?”

  “He’s always been moody,” Gale said, shaking her head, as though trying to shake off my questions. “It’s the job. It’s being with the police. It’s hard on him. And then what happened yesterday, he’s very stressed-out about that.”

  “Before yesterday,” I said. “How has he been?”

  “He’s damaged,” she said. “He’s always been damaged. It was what drew me to him in the first place. He had so much pain. You have no idea. I wanted to help him with that. And I’ve been doing it, every single day. I know he comes across as funny sometimes, always making jokes, the wisecracks. It’s an act. It masks the pain. Why were you asking him about those women?”

  I wondered whether, deep down, she’d always suspected something. Maybe, maybe not. Often, it was the people closest to you that you knew the least about.

  My phone rang.

  “I’ve got a plate for you,” my contact said.

  I wrote down the information, ended the call, then made another, to the Promise Falls police dispatcher.

  “We need to find this car,” I said. I provided a full description, with plate number. “It’s Angus Carlson. We need to find him immediately.”

  “Is he in trouble?” the dispatcher asked.

  “Yes,” I said. But not the way the dispatcher meant, so I added, “He needs to be approached with caution.”

  “What?”

  “Get the word out,” I said, and slipped the phone back into my pocket.

  “He wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Gale said. “He wouldn’t.” She turned away, wringing her hands.

  I said, “Text him. Tell him to come home.”

  She tapped away on the phone. “I’m telling him I love him. I’m telling him I need him.”

  We waited for the three little dots that would indicate he was forming a reply, but there was nothing.

  “This is all my fault,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been asking him lately—I’ve been asking him a lot—about our having a child. Trying to get him to warm to the idea.”

  “I don’t think this has anything to do with that,” I said.

  “It might, it really might,” she said pleadingly. This was what she wanted it to be about. It was less horrific than the other possibilities that had to be going through her mind.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “He had such a horrible upbringing. After his f
ather left, his mother . . . like I said, she changed. Angus didn’t want to have children because there’s such a huge risk that the parents will turn out to be monsters. I’d say to him, ‘Do you think that’s what I could turn into? A monster?’ And he’d say you just never know with people. We have these long talks about it, me trying to convince him that I’d never be like that, no matter what happened. Maybe he was worried about himself, that he had the potential to transform from a wonderful father to a bad one. But I know that would be impossible.”

  She found a tissue, dabbed her eyes.

  “Sometimes he would say . . .”

  I waited. When she wouldn’t continue, I said, “Sometimes he would say what?”

  “Sometimes he would say it’d be a better world if no more children were brought into it. At all. Period.”

  She picked up the phone, looked expectantly at the screen.

  “I should tell him,” she said, her thumb poised over the screen.

  “Tell him what?” I asked.

  SIXTY-TWO

  “COULD you give me two seconds to freshen up?” Sonja Roper asked Angus Carlson.

  “Sure, of course,” he said.

  “I just want to splash some water on my face,” she said. “But it felt good, to run off some of that tension from yesterday. I hope I never, ever see another day like that.”

  Angus believed he could help her with that.

  But he felt he was working against a deadline. The clock was ticking. Duckworth would be trying to find him. He was probably putting out a BOLO right now for his car. He’d have gotten the plate for his Ford, but they weren’t going to find it that way, not with that stolen green Vermont plate slapped over his own. But that would slow them down for only so long.

  On top of that, Sonja Roper wanted to freshen up, maybe get changed. Which meant she was probably heading into the bathroom and, if she had any smarts at all, locking the door. He couldn’t kick the door down. That would give her time to respond, to get into a defensive position.

  “Let’s hope none of us ever see another day like that,” Carlson said. “It was the worst day in the history of this town, that’s for sure.”