Far From True (31 page)

Cal

“SAM!”
I said, still looking at that closed office door only a few feet away from me.

Even over the low-level rumble of the washing machines I had just started, I thought I heard a lock being turned.

Something about that seemed wrong.

Not taking my eye off the door, I set Crystal’s graphic novel on the top of the washer. But I’d set it on the edge and it fell, open to some inside page, on the floor.

I left it there and moved toward the door.

“Hey, Sam!” I said. “I think one of the washers is on the blink!”

No response.

I got up close to the door, put my ear to it. Someone was whispering on the other side. I was pretty sure it was Sam’s voice.

“Sam, everything okay in there?” I said, my mouth right up to the door.

A pause. Then, “Yes. Everything is fine.”

Her stilted reply didn’t sound fine to me.

“One of the washers seems to be broken,” I said through the door.

Another pause. “I’ll take . . . a look at it in a minute.”

I unholstered my gun, held it in my right hand, pointed toward the floor.

I said, “What’s the plan, Ed?”

A long pause this time. If Samantha had been in there alone, she would have said, almost immediately, “What?” Or maybe, “Ed?”

The fact that she said nothing right away told me he was in there with her. When I called out his name, it threw him. He needed a few seconds to think of something to tell Sam to say to me.

Finally, it came.

“There’s no Ed here,” Sam said, her voice sounding close to breaking.

I said, “Ed, you need to open this door and send Sam out. You hurt, Sam?”

“Not so far,” she said.

“That’s good,” I said, keeping my voice even. “That’s good, Ed. You let Sam out, and I think there’s a pretty good chance no one’s going to get hurt. Whaddya say to that?”

Two seconds. Then, “Fuck you!”

Ed’s presence confirmed.

“He’s got a gun!” Sam screamed.

“Shut up!” Ed shouted.

I moved, took up a position to the side of the door.

“Ed, this is the kind of situation that could get out of hand very quickly. Whatever you came here planning to do, it’s not going to work. It’s not something you’re going to be able to get away with. Best thing you can do now is walk away. You came in through the back, right? So just go. Walk out the door and go. I won’t come
after you. Just leave Sam where she is and take off. You hearing me?”

“I hear ya,” Ed Noble said.

“That sound like a plan to you?”

“I guess. Sure. No harm done, right?”

“That’s right. Just get out of here.”

“You’re right,” he said, almost cheerfully. “I don’t know what I was thinking. There are better ways to resolve things, right?”

I heard the dead bolt slide back into the door.

“I mean, people have their differences, but the best thing to do is sit down and work them out reasonably.”

The doorknob turned slowly.

“That’s right, Ed. I like your attitude,” I said, bringing up my gun. “I’m glad we could work things out without anyone getting hurt. You still okay, Sam?”

Nothing.

“Sam?”

And she screamed:
“Look ou—”

The door burst open. Ed Noble, his nose heavily bandaged, came out like a sprinter out of the blocks at the sound of the starter’s pistol. He was crouched low, gun in hand, head turning my way as he launched out of the room. He rolled his body a quarter turn, heading deliberately for the floor on his right shoulder, gun up, pointed my way.

It looked like a stunt he’d probably seen in a movie. Maybe Liam Neeson or Kiefer Sutherland could pull off a midflight shot and hit the target, but when Noble fired, the bullet went wide, somewhere off to the left, and into a dryer.

The round glass window shattered.

Just because Noble wasn’t the world’s best shot didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. Which was why, the second he started coming out the door, I headed for the floor as well. But even though I was armed, I wasn’t going to shoot wildly.

If I was going to shoot, I was going to make it count.

Noble wasn’t happy with just one shot. Once he’d skidded to a stop, he took another, this one a little closer to home. It hit another dryer on the wall behind me, this time only a couple of feet up from the floor.

“Shit!” he said.

Lying on my side, one arm tight against the floor, I extended my arms, both hands on the gun, and prepared to fire.

But Noble scurried, crablike, toward the broad table near the back of the Laundromat where customers folded their clothes.

This was dangerously close to the office door, where, I now noticed, Sam was standing, wide-eyed, one hand over her mouth, watching.

“Get back!” I shouted.

I was getting to my feet, gun in my right hand, thinking back to the days when I was still a cop and wore Kevlar while on duty. I didn’t have any such protection now. Hunched over, I ran to the other side of the room where I’d have a clearer shot at Noble, who was flat on his back now, aiming my way.

Another shot, this one going into the ceiling.

I fired, aiming for body mass. But in the millisecond before I squeezed the trigger, he rolled toward the office. The bullet hit the floor and ricocheted, pinging off an appliance. Any more shots that way might find their way into the adjoining room and hit Sam.

Not even ten seconds had gone by since this had all started.

I was getting to my feet just as Noble was scrambling to his. “Don’t fucking move!” I shouted.

He glanced my way, rose and fired again. I leapt to the right, noticed movement in the open office door.

It all happened very fast.

While Noble was looking in my direction, Sam stepped into the main room, right arm outstretched, like she was getting ready to throw out the first pitch.

But it wasn’t a baseball in her hand. It was the leather satchel full of quarters, the drawstring wound tightly around her wrist.

She swung it with everything she had.

Noble saw it just before it connected, but not in time to do anything about it. The sack of metal caught him squarely on that broken nose, and the yelp of pain was louder than any of the shots that had been fired. He stumbled back two steps.

“Fucking Jesus!” he screamed, putting his free hand over his face. He still had the gun in his right hand, but he’d blinded himself with his left.

I could have shot him—and God knows I wanted to—but instead I ran toward him, flat out, tackling him around the waist, bringing him down onto the floor so hard it knocked the wind out of him.

I went for the gun first, putting both hands on his right wrist and slamming it to the floor once, twice, until the gun slipped from his fingers.

Sam didn’t waste a second in grabbing it.

Noble was struggling for air, bringing up his knees, collapsing in on himself, blood streaming out from below the bandages that spanned his nose.

“Yo . . . lan . . . da!” he said between gasps. “She . . . ordered . . . it! It’s . . . all her . . . fault!”

Sam had Noble’s gun pointed straight at his head. “You motherfucker,” she said.

“Don’t,” I cautioned her. “Don’t shoot him, Sam. Not now. Not for you, and not for Carl.”

She didn’t lower the gun. “I’ve had it. I’ve just had it. I can’t take any more of this.”

“I know, I know. But he’s going down for this. Yolanda, too. Give me the gun, Sam.”

It took about ten seconds for her to hand it over. I tucked it into my jacket pocket.

She raised the bloodied bag of coins. “Could I hit him one more time with this?”

I sighed.

“What the hell?” I said. “Go ahead.”

AS
much as Barry Duckworth wanted to go in search of Randall Finley before he did anything else, he had other priorities. When he’d spotted the mayor’s news conference under way in the park, he’d been on the hunt for the professor, Peter Blackmore.

He’d gone to the man’s house, but no one had answered the doorbell. A peek through some windows suggested it wasn’t a case of him refusing to come to the door. Duckworth wondered whether Blackmore, even in the midst of personal tragedy, had decided to head out to the campus. Not to teach, but to confer with his good buddy Clive Duncomb.

He’d have been at the college more than an hour ago if he hadn’t made that impromptu trip to Greenwich to see Trevor.

By now, Blackmore might be back home. Rather than search for the man in person, Duckworth made some calls. To the man’s house, first, where there was no answer, then to the college’s English department. He reached a secretary and asked whether the professor was there.

“I saw him around,” the woman said. “He’s very distraught. I don’t know if you know, but he just lost his wife. I’ve no idea why he came in here today. I think he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He might be in his office right now. Would you like me to put you through?”

Duckworth said the last thing he wanted to do, given the circumstances, was trouble the man.

He pushed his foot down a little harder on the accelerator.

As he was driving onto the Thackeray grounds, he saw a car going the other way with Peter Blackmore behind the wheel. Duckworth hit the brakes, did a fast three-point turn, and sped after the car. He put on the flashing red lights in the grille, whooped the siren for a couple of seconds. Blackmore glanced in his mirror, put on his blinker like a model driver, and pulled over to the shoulder.

Blackmore was powering down his window and craning his neck around as Duckworth came up alongside the car.

“Officer, I’m sure I wasn’t speeding or—”

When he saw that he hadn’t been pulled over by a traffic cop, he said, “Oh.”

“Professor,” Duckworth said, leaning over, resting his arms on the driver’s windowsill. The detective was immediately alarmed by Blackmore’s appearance. His face was bruised and bloody. His knuckles, too. “Professor, what happened to you?”

“Oh,” he said, tentatively touching his face, as though he needed to remind himself that he’d been hurt. “Just a misunderstanding.”

“Who did this to you?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Duckworth stepped back. “Would you please get out of the car, sir?”

“Really, I’m fine.”

“Step out of the car, Professor.”

Blackmore nodded, turned off the ignition, got out, closed the door. “I haven’t been drinking or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. I mean, not in the last couple of hours, anyway.”

“I want to see how you are. You’ve been in some kind of altercation, Professor. Your hands are bloodied, you’ve got a black eye, and your cheek’s all puffed out. Suppose you tell me about that.”

“I’m fine, really.”

“What have you been doing since I saw you last night?”

“Just . . . you know. Thinking about Georgina. What happened.”

“You haven’t come in and made an official identification.”

“I . . . I’ve just been too upset. I’ll come in today.”

“Why did you go to your office?”

“I didn’t know what else to do. I was driving around all night, thinking. . . .”

“Driving around where?”

“Just around.”

“Did you drive over to the Chalmers house?”

The professor looked puzzled. “What?”

“Did you drive over to the Chalmerses’?”

“Why would I do that?”

“To see Miriam,” Duckworth suggested. “You were shocked to find out she wasn’t killed in the accident, that it was Georgina in that car with Adam. Maybe you had to prove it to yourself, that Miriam was really alive, before you could face going to identify your wife’s body.”

“I . . . I can see why you might think that. But the truth is, I couldn’t bear to find out, for sure. I couldn’t face having it confirmed. I didn’t want to see Miriam, and I didn’t want to go identify Georgina. I know . . . I know I have to face this. I just haven’t been ready.”

“Maybe,” Duckworth said, “it would help if we went out now, together, to see Miriam. Maybe that would be a helpful first step before the identification.”

The professor looked at Duckworth, his eyes narrowing. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Why’s that?”

He shook his head slowly. “She’ll . . . she’ll blame me, won’t she? My wife, with her husband? Maybe she’ll wonder whether I knew about it. Why I didn’t stop Georgina from seeing him.”

“Couldn’t it work just as easily the other way around? Don’t you have reason to be angry with her? Your wife would be alive if she hadn’t been with Adam. If Miriam hadn’t taken off for a couple
of days, it could have been her in that car at the drive-in instead of Georgina.”

Blackmore looked confused. “I just don’t know. I don’t know what to think of any of this.” He looked down at the pavement.

“Maybe you were angry with Miriam about that. Maybe you’ve been troubled about this whole arrangement you’ve had with the Chalmerses.” Duckworth waited a beat. “And Clive Duncomb and his wife.”

Blackmore lifted his head to look the detective in the eye. “I’m sorry?”

“Is ‘arrangement’ the right word? I’m not quite up to speed on how all this works. Trading spouses. That kind of thing.”

The professor appeared to wither before Duckworth’s eyes. “I . . . I don’t know what you’re asking, exactly.”

“Wasn’t it at the Chalmers house where it all took place? In that special room in the basement? If it was me, and I had a spare room downstairs that size, I think I’d put in a pool table. But then again, look at me. I need to lose eighty pounds. There aren’t a lot of women in our social circle who want to have a roll in the hay with a fat bastard like me. I’m not what they call a hunk. Although, I have to say, and don’t take this the wrong way, because you’re good-looking enough, but you’re not exactly Ryan Gosling, either. Clive, he’s got that air of authority, the chiseled jaw, so I can see the women going for him, and I’m guessing Adam Chalmers was quite the ladies’ man, too. Tell me how it worked. When you swapped partners, did you have sex with Clive’s wife one night, and then Adam’s wife another? Or both in the same night? Or did everyone just jump in and go at it together? Or, and forgive me if this is too personal, but would the wives also have sex with the wives and the husbands with the husbands? Are you okay, Professor Blackmore? You don’t look okay.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Maybe you should walk around to the back of the car here.” Duckworth put a hand gently on the man’s shoulder, moved him
back to the trunk. “Just in case you get sick, there’s a good spot. Now, I want to be clear. I’m not asking all these questions out of some prurient nature. It just struck me that if these were the kinds of activities you all were engaged in, there might be things on those tapes you made that you’d be worried might fall into the wrong hands. Well, not tapes, exactly. DVDs. Discs.”

Blackmore’s lower lip trembled. “How do you know—”

“It just seemed odd to me, last night, at a time when you might be expected to be looking for your wife, you and Mr. Duncomb appeared to be having a movie fest. I thought, what could be more important than looking for your wife? Why would those videos be your priority at such a time? Then, when I found that little playroom in the Chalmers house, it started to come together for me. Especially when I saw the video equipment under the bed. You were making movies. Filming your sessions. You were going through the discs and—”

Blackmore threw up.

He took a step toward the curb, leaned over, and vomited. “Oh God,” he said. “Oh God.”

Duckworth pressed on.

“Like I was saying, you were going through those discs, looking for something that worried you. Something that worried you so much, it was more important than looking for Georgina. And then, you found out Miriam was actually still alive. That changed things
somehow, didn’t it? That’s the part I’m having some trouble with, where I’m wondering if you can help me out.”

Blackmore wiped his mouth on the back of his sport jacket sleeve, came back to a standing position. “No . . . it wasn’t like that.”

“I figure there’s blackmail involved in here somewhere, but who was blackmailing who?”

“Not like that.”

“Was Miriam holding something over you and Duncomb?” Duckworth asked. He stepped in close to the professor, ignoring the disgusting smells coming off him. “Is that why you went over to her house last night and killed her?”

Blackmore put a hand out, braced himself against the trunk of his car. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Miriam is dead?”

“You act surprised. But look at you. You’re a mess. There’s blood on your hands. You were in a fight. Did Miriam do that to you before you pushed her down the stairs?”

“No, no! This—” He pointed to the wounds on his face. “This was Clive! Clive did this to me!”

“Why? Why would Duncomb do this, Professor?”

“Because . . . because he doesn’t want me to say anything.”

“Say anything about what? About killing Miriam?”

“No! I didn’t do that! I didn’t know she was dead! When did that happen? Clive was talking to her on the phone! Last night! When you were there!”

“The same time you realized your wife was the one who’d died in the car at the drive-in.”

“Yes!” He nodded furiously. “How could Miriam be dead?”

“Why did Clive Duncomb do this to you?”

Blackmore was trembling, his eyes darting, as though searching for an escape. “He thinks I’ll talk. But not about Miriam.”

“About what, then?”

The professor kept shaking his head.

“Tell me!” Duckworth shouted. “What’s he worried about? What’s on those videos?”

Blackmore mumbled something.

“What?”

“—via,” he said.

“What did you say?”

“Olivia,” the professor said.

Now it was Barry Duckworth’s turn to be stunned into silence. At least for a couple of seconds.

“Olivia?”

“That’s right.”

“Olivia who?”

“Olivia Fisher,” the professor said. “She was the one who—”

“I know who she was. What the hell does Olivia Fisher have to do with the rest of this?”

“Sometimes, Clive . . . Clive invited Thackeray girls out to Adam and Miriam’s. There’d be something in their wine—you know, what do you call them—”

“Roofies,” Duckworth said. “Rohypnol. The date rape drug.”

Peter Blackmore nodded. “That’s right. And then they’d join in . . . with the fun. Except Olivia. She got into it. She didn’t have to be drugged. But that also meant she’d remember everything that happened.”

“Everyone went along with this?”

Blackmore nodded ashamedly. “But it was Clive, and his wife, Liz, who wanted to bring in the girls. We went along.” He shook his head. “All of us.”

“Georgina, too.”

He nodded. “She was torn. She didn’t feel right about what we were doing, but at the same time, I think she was infatuated with Adam. I don’t know if the drive-in was the first time she’d been out alone with him. Maybe she thought something like that, that it was
innocent enough, especially considering she’d already had sex with him.”

Duckworth wasn’t interested in that part of the story, at least not right now. “When did you involve Olivia Fisher in your games?”

“It was a few years ago. I mean, obviously before she was murdered. Maybe a month or so before.”

“You were trying to find the discs featuring her?”

He nodded. “When we—when Clive—heard that Adam and Miriam had been killed at the drive-in, he knew someone would be through the house, find those discs. But it turned out we didn’t have to worry. When it turned out Miriam was alive, and Clive was talking to her, he told her we had the discs, that we were trying to find the one with Olivia, and she said it had already been destroyed. Adam got rid of it. He got rid of any of the videos with Thackeray girls. Olivia, Lorraine—”

“Lorraine?”

“I don’t remember her last name. It was a huge relief, because Clive was so worried that if someone else had found the discs, eventually, they’d see us, with Olivia, and they’d think . . .”

“You killed her.”

“We knew how bad it would look, her being in the videos. That it would link us to her, that someone might think we had something to do with her murder.”

“Did you?”

“I didn’t. I swear.”

“What about Clive?”

Blackmore met Duckworth’s look. “I don’t know.”

“You said he threatened you, if you started to talk. Did he kill Olivia because he was afraid she would?”

Blackmore put his hands on top of his head, as if trying to keep his skull from exploding. “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on in that man’s head. Maybe that’s what he’s doing. He’s getting rid of everyone who’s a possible threat. He blew that kid’s head off, you know.”

“Mason Helt,” Duckworth said.

“Yeah! Him! I get why he did it, but . . . I think he
enjoyed
it. You know what I’m saying? He
liked
shooting that kid. He
liked
that he was able to do that and get away with it.”

“Professor Blackmore, I’m gonna need you to come in with me and make a formal statement.”

“No, I can’t do that.”

“You need to. You need to do it for yourself. You need to make a clean breast of this. You’ll feel better. It’s the right thing to do.”

“Clive . . . he’ll go nuts.”

“We can take care of Mr. Duncomb. Don’t worry about that.”

“He’ll kill me.”

“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

The professor appeared unconvinced. “I have to deal with this,” he said.

“You are. By coming in and making a statement.”

“No,” he said. “Some other way.”

“And what way would that—”

Blackmore lunged at him. Hit Duckworth in the chest with both palms, hard, knocking the detective off his feet. Duckworth stumbled backward, landed on the road inches away from Blackmore’s vomit, and hit the back of his head on the edge of the curb.