Broken Promise (18 page)

“She was. She truly was.”

Marla glanced at her father. “Don’t.”

He stopped. “Please, honey. Just put that down. I’m betting Dr. Sturgess can give you something that will make you feel better.”

“I can help you,” the doctor said. “Let us all help you, Marla.”

“They’re going to put me away,” she said. “I’m going to go to jail.”

“No,” Agnes said. “We won’t let that happen. We’ll hire the best lawyers there are. If Natalie isn’t the best, we’ll get someone else.”

“That’s right,” Gill said. “Whatever it takes.”

“I don’t think so,” Marla said, then brought the blade down on her wrist and drew it across.

“No!” Agnes screamed, her hands going to her mouth.

Gill rushed forward and clutched Marla’s right arm to wrest the knife from her, but she made no effort to hold on to it. It clattered to the floor, narrowly missing Gill’s shoe.

Marla allowed her left arm to drop. Blood emerged from her wrist, coated her hand like dark red paint, and dripped off the tips of her fingers.

Dr. Sturgess raced forward, grabbing a tea towel hanging from the oven door handle along the way, and bound it tightly around Marla’s bleeding wrist while Gill held on to her. Agnes was frozen, hands still over her mouth, watching the scene in front of her in horror.

“Call nine-one-one!” the doctor screamed at her. “Agnes! Call an ambulance!”

She ran to the wall phone, picked up the receiver, and punched in the number.

Marla, for the first time since she’d had Matthew taken away from her, allowed herself a smile.

TWENTY-THREE

David

ETHAN
must have been watching from his bedroom window and seen me pull into the driveway in his grandmother’s ancient Taurus, because he was waiting for me at the door when I came into the house. Mom and Dad were in the kitchen, so he didn’t have to worry about interrogating me in front of them.

“Did you get it?” he asked. “Did you get the watch?”

I shook my head solemnly. “No.”

“Was nobody home?”

“They were home. Carl’s mother talked to him and told me he said he didn’t have it.”

“He’s lying!”

“I know,” I said.

“Didn’t you tell his mom that he was lying?”

“Come on out front,” I said. I led him onto the porch and directed him to the white wicker chairs. I put him in one and I took the other. “It’s complicated,” I said.

“But he has it. He’s lying.”

“If I’d told his mother that, it wouldn’t have helped. She wouldn’t have believed me. Look, if someone came here and said you’d stolen something, and you said you hadn’t, I wouldn’t believe them; I would believe you.”

“But I would never steal anything,” he countered.

“Yeah, well, you did kind of take that watch without permission,” I reminded him.

That stopped him for a second. “But that wasn’t really stealing. I was going to put it back.”

I nodded, rested a hand on his shoulder. “What I’m trying to say is, parents don’t like to think their kids have done things they shouldn’t. We just naturally defend you. And that’s what Carl’s mom did with him.”

“Did you talk to Carl?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I’d already decided not to mention Samantha Worthington’s shotgun. “His mother took steps to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Ethan looked defeated. “What about Poppa?”

“You’re going to have to tell him,” I said.

“Me?”

I nodded. “Yup.”

“Can’t you tell him?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t take it. I tried to save your bacon on this one, buddy. But I couldn’t. So you’re going to have to own up to what you did.”

“Will he kick us out?”

“No, he won’t do that. Let’s go find him.”

Mom was in the kitchen, her weight mostly on one leg as she stood by the counter peeling potatoes.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked.

“I think he’s out in the garage,” she said. “He’s gotten awfully quiet this afternoon. He was okay at first, but as the day’s gone on, I don’t know. Something’s not right.”

“Is he sick?” I asked. “His heart’s not acting up, is it?”

Mom shook her head, downplaying the seriousness. “Nothing like that. I thought maybe he was mad at me for being such an idiot and tripping on the stairs, but I don’t think that’s it. I’m wondering if it has something to do with Walden.”

“Walden?” I asked.

“Walden Fisher. He called your father out of the blue, wanted to go get coffee. You remember him?”

I did not.

“Your father helped him get a job with the town years ago. I’m betting you remember that horrible business with Olivia Fisher?”

“The woman who was . . .” I might have finished the sentence if Ethan hadn’t been standing there. The woman who was fatally stabbed in the park by the falls.

Even though I’d never finished the sentence, Mom knew where I was going. “That’s the one. She was Walden’s daughter. Anyway, Walden’s wife just died, too, poor man. He still works for the town, and he wanted to ask your father some questions about all these things that went on back when your father worked there. Don’t ask me what because I don’t know and I don’t care.” She looked at Ethan. “What’s with the face?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“You want a cookie?”

“No, thank you.”

“Come on,” I said to him. “Let’s go find Poppa.”

He was, as Mom had said, in the garage. It was a separate building in back of the house that was a second workshop for Dad. It was hard to keep it warm in the winter, so he’d set up a place to work in the basement, too. But when the weather was nice, he spent a lot of time out here puttering.

We found him standing at the workbench, sorting screws and dropping them into a drawer made up of dozens of small plastic cubicles. Dad was a good sorter.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hmm,” he said, barely acknowledging us. Ethan shot me a worried look, one that said,
Maybe this isn’t a good time
.

“Dad, you got a sec?”

He half turned to look at us, and I don’t know how this could be, but he looked older than when I’d seen him earlier in the day. I thought about his heart.

“What is it?” he asked.

I nudged Ethan’s shoulder.

“I have to tell you something,” my son said. “You promise not to get mad?”

My father eyed him curiously. “I know you haven’t wrecked my car. You can’t reach the pedals. There can’t be anything much worse than that. So, okay.”

“You know the fight I had with Carl Worthington?”

“Yup.”

“It was about your dad’s watch. The one you had in a box downstairs with other stuff.”

“Okay,” Dad said.

“I kind of took it from the box and took it to school to show people, and Carl took it and wouldn’t give it back, and I’m really sorry and I know I shouldn’t have done it and I should have asked you if I could take it to school, and I’ll pay you back.”

Dad’s eyes softened. “That’s what the fight was about.”

“I grabbed him to try to get it back but he kept it. And Dad went over there to get it back but Carl lied and said he didn’t have it.” He paused for a breath. “But I know that none of this would have happened if I hadn’t taken it in the first place.”

Dad said nothing for several seconds. Then: “Well, it didn’t keep time anyway. There’s people done worse things than what you did.”

He put his hand to Ethan’s cheek, held it there for a moment, then went back to sorting screws.

Ethan looked like a death row inmate who’d gotten a call from the governor at two minutes to midnight. I nodded toward the house, indicating he should take off. He did.

“Everything okay, Dad?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, his back to me.

“You let Ethan off pretty easy.”

“He’s a good boy,” Dad said. “He screwed up.” A pause. “We all do.”

“Mom said you met up with an old friend from work today.”

“Not really,” he said. “His dad was a friend of mine.”

“Was it good to see him?”

A shrug, his back still to me as he separated Robertsons from Phillips. “Yes and no. I don’t really keep up with folks I worked with. Say hello if I see them on the street is all, like Tate.”

I had no idea who Tate was.

Dad continued. “I’ve got enough to do without living in the past. It’s not good for you, dwelling on things that happened a long time ago that you can’t do a damn thing about.”

“What are we talking about here, Dad?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Absolutely nothing.”

An awkward silence ensued, but it wasn’t for lack of things to talk about. Marla and the baby and Rosemary Gaynor. I still couldn’t shake the image of that dead woman on the floor. As hard as I tried to mentally push it away, it kept coming back.

I figured even if I could block it out, it would be replaced with the image of a shotgun in my face.

I decided to go with something else to make conversation.

“I got offered a job today,” I said.

That prompted Dad to turn and face me. “Hey, that’s great news, son. That’s terrific.”

“I haven’t said yes. In fact, I’m not sure I want to say yes.”

He frowned. “What is it?”

“Remember Randall Finley?”

“Yeah, of course. Good man, Finley.”

“What?” That took me by surprise.

“Oh, yeah, he was a good mayor. You telling me
he
offered you a job?”

“Yeah. A kind of executive-assistant thing. Campaign manager, maybe. He’s thinking about running again, but he’s got his hands full overseeing his water-bottling company. Needs someone to do PR for him, deal with media, stuff like that.”

“Pay good?”

“Thousand a week.”

“What’s there to think about?” my father asked. “That’s good money.”

“Dad, he’s an asshole.”

Dad shrugged. “He’s a politician.”

“Remember the underage-hooker thing?”

Dad nodded. “But he didn’t
know
she was underage.”

Was this my father I was talking to? “You mean if she was just old enough, that made it okay?”

He looked down at the floor. “No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying there are degrees. Look at Clinton back in the nineties. Look at our own Spitzer, a few years back. They get a little bit of power and they think they can do anything; then they find out they can’t and get cut down to size. They learn. Does that mean we cut ’em off from ever making a contribution again?”

I said nothing.

“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “After your mother and I got married, but before I got a job with the town, I was out of work. There was a guy building houses on the south side of town who was looking to hire. I knew something about him. I knew he was a drunk, that he abused his wife, that he beat his kids. He was a total shit, this guy. And I had a wife to look after, rent to pay. I had responsibilities. I took that job. I wasn’t proud of myself, but looking after your mother came ahead of my pride. I decided I’d work that job, and keep looking for something better in the meantime. And as soon as I found something with the town, I gave that bastard my notice and left. But through it all, your mother never went hungry, and she never spent a day without a roof over her head.”

I swallowed. “I hear you.”

“Yeah, Finley’s an asshole. But I think he loves this town, and maybe he’s what Promise Falls needs right now. Someone to shake things up.”

I nodded. We stood there facing each other. I put my arms around him and patted his back.

“You’re a good man,” I said as he returned the hug.

“Don’t be so sure,” Dad said.

TWENTY-FOUR

IT
didn’t freak out Gloria Fenwick to be working in a deserted amusement park. At least, not in the daytime.

She’d worked for the corporation that owned Five Mountains and several other parks across the country, and she’d been posted at some of those other locations through the years. And that had meant being there in the off-season, winding things down after the children had gone back to school, their parents back to the drudgery of their jobs.

Fenwick was accustomed to strolling past riderless horses stuck in their tracks on the merry-go-round. She could never bring herself to ride any of the parks’ roller coasters, so the stillness of the Five Mountains Super Collider Coaster actually gave her comfort. She couldn’t stand close to it when it was in operation, feeling the supporting structure tremble and vibrate, always fearing the apparatus would collapse, sending dozens of people to their deaths.

The empty concession stands, the driverless bumper cars, the deserted parking lot. It was all just fine with Fenwick.

In the daytime.

But at night, well, that was a different story. At night, the place really did creep her out.

She felt reasonably secure in the park’s administrative offices, where she was now, as darkness fell. She had a mountain of work—no pun intended—still to deal with. There were several offers from different amusement parks for some of the Five Mountains rides. An Italian firm was putting up several million dollars for the Super Collider, which could be dismantled, shipped overseas, and reassembled. A group involved in the ongoing rebuilding of the Jersey Shore after Hurricane Sandy was interested in some of the concession stands. A representative from Disney wanted information on laid-off employees. They might have work for them at one of their theme parks.

Fenwick not only had to reply to all of them, but let the head office know about incoming offers. All the big decisions were made there. She was just the traffic cop, directing inquiries this way and that.

Plus, there were countless other duties involved in winding the place down. Dealing with creditors. One pending lawsuit from a woman whose dentures flew out while on the coaster. If all she’d wanted was some new teeth, Five Mountains would have bought her a set, but the woman was claiming emotional distress, too.

What a fucking world, Fenwick thought.

She didn’t work here entirely alone. She had an assistant most days, but he took off promptly at five, whether there was work left to deal with or not. And Five Mountains had engaged a security firm to watch the place, keep it from being vandalized, make sure homeless folks weren’t camped out in the inner workings of the log ride. Usually it was a guy named Norm through the day, who did three rounds: one at nine, another at one, and his last at five. In the evenings it was Malcolm. She knew for sure he inspected the park at ten, because she’d been here working that late on more than one occasion. He was supposed to come through again at two in the morning, and then four hours later at six.