Broken Promise (26 page)

“His wife got killed today,” the man said.

“I know. I was here when he found her.”

The man took another step out of his house, squinted in my direction. “I saw you this morning. I was watching from the window. There was a fight on the lawn, a woman with their baby.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“What the hell’s been going on? I asked the police but they didn’t tell me a damn thing. They had plenty of questions, but weren’t interested in answering mine.”

I cut across the lawn and met him at his front step. “What do you want to know?” I asked him. “My name is David, by the way.”

“I’m Terrence,” he said, nodding. “Terrence Rodd. I’ve lived here twenty years. My wife, Hillary, passed away four years ago, so it’s just me here. But I’m not moving out unless I have to. Guess how old I am.”

“I’m not good at ages,” I said. “Sixty-eight.”

“Don’t mess with me,” Terrence said. “Really, how old do you think I am?”

I pondered. “Seventy-nine,” I said. I really thought eighty, but it was like when you put a four-dollar item on sale for three ninety-nine. It looks better.

“Eighty-eight,” Terrence said. He tapped his temple with the tip of his index finger. “But I’m still as sharp up here as I ever was. So you tell me, what happened there?”

“Someone stabbed Rosemary Gaynor to death,” I said. “It was pretty horrible.”

“Who did it?”

I shook my head. “Far as I know, there hasn’t been an arrest.”

“So it wasn’t Bill, then,” he said, nodding.

That threw me. “If it had been, would you have been surprised?” I asked.

“Well, yes and no. Yes, because he sure doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d do it, but no, because isn’t it usually the husband who does it when a wife gets killed? I spent a lifetime analyzing statistics, so you kind of look at what’s most likely to happen. What’s your interest in this?”

“Like I said, I was here when Mr. Gaynor found her.”

That seemed to be enough for him. He nodded. “Nice couple. Hell of a thing. Everybody on the street’s probably making damn sure their doors are locked tonight, but most of these things, it’s somebody you know that does it. Even if it wasn’t Bill, which I’m not saying I think it is.”

“I get that.”

“Cute little baby, too. Baby’s okay, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Thank God. I’m freezing out here in my bathrobe. Nice talking to ya.”

“You mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”

He hesitated. He’d have to invite me in if he wanted to warm up. “You didn’t do it, did you?”

“No,” I said.

“Hang on one second.” He went back into the house, closed the door. It reopened in ten seconds. Now he had a phone in his hand.

He held it up in front of me. “Smile.”

I smiled. There was a flash. He turned his attention to the phone, tapped away.

“I’m just gonna e-mail this to my daughter in Des Moines. If I end up dead, they’ll have your picture.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

There was a
whoosh
as the e-mail was sent. “Come on in,” he said.

I followed him into the house. He said, “I keep a lot of lights on until I go to bed. I don’t sleep too well, wander the house a lot. Don’t usually go to bed till about one in the morning. Try watching one of those classic movies on Turner, then I go to bed, but I wake up early.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Usually can’t sleep in past six. Used to read the paper in the morning, but the goddamn assholes shut the
Standard
down.”

“I heard,” I said.

“Come into the kitchen. Want some hot chocolate? I usually make some hot chocolate at night.”

“That’d be nice.”

The place was done in lots of wood: wood cabinets, wood floor, even wood panels over the fridge and other appliances. Not one thing out of place, either. Nothing in the sink, no piles of bills and envelopes by the phone. A real estate photographer could have walked in and not had to do a moment’s prep.

“Beautiful home,” I said.

He filled two mugs with milk from the fridge and put them into the microwave. Set it for ninety seconds. “I’ll give it a stir halfway through,” he said.

“Did you know the Gaynors well?”

Terrence shrugged. “Said hi coming in and out, that kind of thing. And they have a nanny, too, comes by most days. Name of Sarita. She was the nicest of the bunch, really.”

“Yeah?”

“Sweet girl. I know you’re not supposed to call them girls anymore. She was a woman. Tough little thing. Went from one job to the other. I think she was sending money back to family in Mexico. Don’t think she was here legally, but hey, people do what they have to do.”

“Do you know what her other job was?”

“Nursing home. I was trying to remember the name of it earlier, when the cops were here asking questions, couldn’t think of it. There’s only about fifty of them in the area. Reason I know she worked at one is, I asked her what it was like there, in case I get to the point I can’t look after myself here on my own, and it sounds like an okay joint, but truth is, I hope one day, when it’s my time, I just go.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. I go to bed one night and just don’t wake up the next day. What do you think about that?”

“Who was it who said, ‘I expect to die at one hundred and ten, shot by a jealous husband’?”

“Thurgood Marshall, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court,” Terrence said, and chuckled. “That sounds good, too.” The microwave beeped. He took out the mugs, gave each a stir, and put them back into the oven for another minute and a half.

“I think I had more conversations with Sarita in the last ten months she’s been coming over than I’ve had with the Gaynors since they moved in. Although, a year back or so, they weren’t around much anyway.”

“Where were they?”

“Boston. Bill, he works for some insurance company based there, and he had to be away for several months, so Rosemary went and lived with him. Did the last few months of her pregnancy there; first time I saw them after they came back, she had the baby.”

The oven beeped again. He took out the mugs, handed one to me. I blew on it before taking a sip. It was good hot chocolate.

“I don’t have any marshmallows,” he said apologetically. “Used to buy them once in a while, would forget I had them; I’d open up the bag and they were hard as golf balls.”

We ended up straying off topic, at least from the topic I’d come to discuss. Terrence used to own horses, and he wanted to tell me all about it. I didn’t pay much attention, but he was a nice man, and the time passed pleasantly.

I thanked him for the hot chocolate and the conversation, and as I was heading back to the Taurus he said, “Davidson.”

“Sorry?”

“Davidson Place. It just came back to me. That’s where Sarita works.”

I headed back in the direction of my parents’ house, not sure I really knew anything more than when I’d set off from there. At least, not anything useful. But the following morning I’d do the same again. Ask questions.

I’d go to Davidson Place. I would look for Sarita.

I didn’t drive straight home. Made a couple of turns along the way that took me into a neighborhood I’d visited earlier in the day.

I pulled the car over to the curb and killed the engine. Left the key in the ignition. Sat behind the wheel, watching a house. There were no lights on.

Probably everyone had gone to bed.

Carl, as well as his mother, Samantha.

I stared at the house for about a minute, feeling hungry all over, before I turned the key and continued on my way.

THE SECOND DAY

THIRTY-FOUR

THE
naked woman was sitting on the edge of the bed, weeping.

The man who remained under the covers on the other side of the bed stirred, rolled over. He reached out and touched the tips of his fingers to the woman’s back.

“Hey, babe,” he said.

She continued to cry. Her face was in her hands, her elbows on her knees.

The man threw off the covers and huddled behind her on the mattress, on his knees, pressed his naked body up against hers and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

“How can it be okay?” she asked. “How can it ever be okay?”

“It just . . . I don’t know. But we’ll find a way.”

She shook her head and sobbed. “They’ll find me, Marshall. I know they’ll find me.”

“I’m going to look after you,” he said comfortingly. “I will. I’ll keep them from finding you.”

She broke free of him and walked to the bathroom of his small apartment, closed the door. He put his ear to it, said, “You okay in there, Sarita?”

“Yes,” she said. “I just need a minute.”

Marshall stood outside the door, wondering what he should do. He looked about his place, which consisted of a single room, not counting the bathroom. A small fridge, hot plate, and sink over in one corner, a bed, a couple of cushioned chairs he’d scored on junk day when people were putting things out on the street.

A toilet flushed, a tap ran, and then the door opened. Sarita stood in front of him, head down, and said, “I’m going to have to go home. I’m going to have to go back to Monclova.”

“No, you’re not going back to Mexico,” he said, taking her into his arms again. “You’ve got a life here. You’ve got me.”

“No, I have no life here. I go home, or I just disappear somewhere, get a job, start doing the whole thing all over again.” She sniffed. “I need to make a living. I have people counting on me. I can make more money here.”

“I can lend you some,” he said. “Shit, I can give you some money. I don’t have a lot, but I got two, three hundred I could give you.”

Sarita laughed. “Seriously? How long would that last me?”

“I know, I know. It’s not like I’m a fucking millionaire, you know? But now that you mention money, I was kind of thinking about something in the night.”

She pushed past him and found her underwear on the floor at the foot of the bed. She stepped into her panties, then slipped on her bra while Marshall stood and watched her.

“Whatever it is, I don’t want to know,” Sarita said.

“Come on, you have to at least hear me out. It could be the answer to your problems. For
both
of us, really. If you need to get away, that’s cool; I get that. But I could come with you.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“Come on,” he said. “We’re in this together.”

“No,” Sarita said. “We’re
not
. You haven’t done anything wrong. Except for hiding me. When they find out you’ve been keeping me here, you could be in all kinds of trouble, and not just because I’m not supposed to be here.”

She pulled on her jeans, then put on a blouse and began to button it up. Marshall glanced around, saw his boxers on the floor, and stepped into them. “I’m gonna call in sick,” he said. “We’ll figure out something.”

He picked up a cell phone on his side of the bed. “Yeah, hey, Manny, I’ve got some kind of bug, been puking my guts up all night. Can’t afford to give something like that to the geezers. Yeah, okay, thanks.”

He put the phone back down.

“That’s disrespectful,” Sarita said. “They’re nice old people.”

“I don’t mean anything by it,” he said. “Anyway, I don’t have to go in. So now we can talk about my idea.”

She shook her head. “My only idea is to get as far away from here as fast as I can. Maybe you could drive me to Albany or something? And then I can catch a train.”

“Where are you going to go?”

“New York? I got a cousin there. I just have to find her.”

“Sit down,” he said.

“I don’t—”

“Just sit down and hear me out, okay?”

She dropped onto the end of the bed and looked up at him. “What?”

“There’s stuff this Gaynor guy isn’t going to want to come out, right?”

“Maybe it’s already out there,” she said.

“Yeah, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s not going to come out. Maybe they’ll pin his wife’s murder on someone right away and they won’t find out about the other stuff. You put in a call; you tell him you can keep that from ever happening. For, you know, a price.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Sarita said. “It’s all going to come out.”

“’Cause of what you did,” Marshall said. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I
had
to do it,” she said.

“But maybe it won’t matter. Maybe it won’t come out.”

“You’re crazy,” she said. “I have to get out of here. You think the police aren’t looking for me? I guarantee it.”

“You won’t be easy to find. How do they trace you? You got no phone, no license, no credit cards. You’ve bailed from your apartment. You’re, like, totally off the grid. It’s like you don’t even exist.” He smiled, tickled the underside of her chin with his index finger. She turned her head away. “Come on; it’s like you’re a spy or something.”

“I am no spy. I feed old people and babies and then clean up their piss and shit. That’s what I do.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “Listen, you hide out here while I go empty out what I got at the ATM. You take it, get on a train to New York. But you have to promise you’ll get in touch when you get there. I need to know you’re okay. I love you. You know that, right? I love you more than anything in the whole world.”

Sarita was tearing up again. She put her hands over her face.

“I can’t get it out of my mind,” she said.

Marshall hugged her again. “I know, I know.”

“Seeing Ms. Gaynor like that. It was so awful, how she looked.”

“I’m tellin’ ya,” he said. “It’s an opportunity. He’s got money. Fancy house, nice car. Guy like that has to have money. I mean, shit, you worked for them. You ever see financial statements, that kind of thing?”

She brought her hands down, thought a moment. “Sometimes,” she said quietly. “But I never really looked at them. I didn’t bring in the mail or anything. I just helped with the house and the baby. Ms. Gaynor, she was so upset. She thought having a baby would make her happy, but it just made it worse.”

“Yeah, well, raising kids is no joke,” Marshall said. “I think I’d get pretty depressed if I had to look after a baby.”