When I was a kid, we always thought of the Thackeray students as “them.” We were “us.” They were a bunch of stuck-up, elitist know-it-alls, but we were the street-smart locals. Until, of course, many of us locals attended the school. And even before that, we weren’t above heading out to campus pubs to try to pick up Thackeray girls.
I found one by the name of Donna who was willing to share her life with me. Until that life ended.
So I had mixed feelings driving out to the campus. I was in no mood for reminiscing. I wondered if my sister, Celeste, was right, that I wasn’t dealing with what had happened to Donna and Scott. I’d felt that I was. By burying it.
You couldn’t change the past.
I paid to park in the lot close to the admin building and found my way to the security offices. A young man on the desk took one of my business cards with him as he went into the office of Clive Duncomb.
I’d done more background reading on him before coming out here. His killing of a student predator, and the fact that he had not, at least so far, been charged with anything.
Seconds later, a man whose picture I recognized from the Internet came out of the office, hand extended.
“Mr. Weaver?” he said, holding my card by the edges between thumb and forefinger.
“Mr. Duncomb?”
“What can I do for you?”
“Mind if we talk in your office?”
He hesitated. “You want to tell me what this is about?”
“Could we talk in your office?” I said again.
With some reluctance, he led me in and pointed to a chair. “I don’t think we’ve met before,” Duncomb said.
“No,” I said. “I only recently came back to Promise Falls.”
“But you’re from here originally.”
“Yes. I grew up here.”
“Where’ve you been?”
“Griffon. North of Buffalo.”
“No more jealous wives in Griffon wanting their husbands spied on?”
I forced a smile. “How about yourself? I’m picking up a bit of an accent.”
“When you’re from Boston, there’s no hiding it,” he said. “Let me guess why you’re here. It’s about the shooting.”
“Mason Helt?”
“Yeah. You working for the kid’s family? Insurance company? Which is it? Doesn’t matter — my answer’s the same. It was justified. That son of a bitch had one of my people on the ground, with a gun, and if I hadn’t done what I did, God knows what would have happened to Joyce.”
“Joyce?”
“Pilgrim. Joyce Pilgrim. I’ll tell you this. I’ve taken some heat for putting her out there in the first place to lure this guy out, but if I hadn’t done it, he’d still be out there, and who the hell knows what he might have done by now? Killed some poor girl, maybe.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” I said.
“Oh,” Duncomb said, almost looking disappointed. “What’s this about, then?”
“Adam Chalmers,” I said.
“Chalmers? The writer?”
“That’s right.”
“What do you want to know about him?”
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but Mr. Chalmers and his wife were killed last night when that screen came down at the drive-in.”
His mouth dropped. “Jesus Christ, you’re kidding.”
“No.”
Duncomb’s head went side to side. “I can’t believe that. Son of a bitch. When I heard about that, first thing I wondered was whether any Thackeray students were hurt or killed. Far as I know, none were. I heard a couple of kids were, but they weren’t students here. Not that that makes it any less tragic. But Christ Almighty, I never realized Adam... and Miriam... Good people. Nice people.” Another incredulous head shake. “Do you know anything about a service? Which funeral home they went to, anything like that?”
“I don’t. His daughter’s looking after that today. At least where Mr. Chalmers is concerned. I think Miriam Chalmers has a brother driving in from Rhode Island.”
“Goddamn,” Duncomb said. Then, recovering from the shock, he asked, “What’s your involvement? Why are you here talking to me?”
“I gather you and Adam — Mr. Chalmers — were friends.”
Duncomb didn’t speak right away. I sensed that he was sizing me up.
“On occasion,” he said.
“You were friends, then?”
“We knew each other a little, yeah.”
“Well enough that you know his wife’s name,” I said.
Another hesitation. “I knew the two of them. That’s right. Like I said, they were good people.”
“Did you and your wife socialize with Adam and Miriam?” I asked.
“Did I say I was married?”
“I just assumed,” I said. “Saw the band on your finger there.”
Duncomb glanced down at his own left hand. “Yeah, Liz and I were friends with them. Let me ask you something, Mr. Weaver.”
“Go ahead.”
“You a cop once?”
“Yeah.”
“I used to be with the Boston PD.”
“Well.”
“So I’ve been around long enough to know you’re working up to something, so why not just get the fuck to it?”
“I’m looking into circumstances possibly related to the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Chalmers.”
“Oh, well, circumstances. That’s clear enough. Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”
I moved my tongue around my teeth for a second or two. I’d allowed this to get away from me. “I thought you might be able to help because Mr. Chalmers was in contact with you quite often.” I paused. “That’s what his cell phone records show.”
Duncomb leaned back in his chair, his head up, like he was sniffing the air.
“Like I said, we were friends.” Another shake of the head. “God, I still can’t believe what’s happened.”
“How’d you know him?”
Duncomb cleared his throat. “He came out here to talk to some creative writing students. We got talking, and when he found out I had a law enforcement background, he asked if he could call me when he had questions about police work. And we got to be friends. Simple as that.”
“What was it he wanted help with lately?”
“Hmm?”
“When he last called you. What was he writing that he needed your expertise for?”
“Fingerprints,” Duncomb said without hesitation. “Whether you can get fingerprints off fabric. Different surfaces. That’s what we were talking about.”
“So he was working on a book.”
“Sure.”
“Because he had an e-mail from his — I guess it was his literary agent — saying that if he could get a publisher interested, he’d try to write another book, but it didn’t sound like he was currently working on anything.”
Duncomb moved his lips in and out. “Maybe he hadn’t told his agent he was running something around in his head.”
“Doesn’t that seem odd? That he’d be telling you before he’d tell his own agent?”
He forced a laugh. “How the hell would I know? The thing is, the fingerprints call might have been a while ago. Sometimes Adam just called to shoot the shit. We were friends. Did I mention that part?”
“When’s the last time you were out to see Adam and Miriam?”
A big shrug. “I don’t know. There was a dinner a while ago.”
“It’s quite a house,” I said.
“I guess,” he said.
“Did you ever look after the place when the Chalmerses were away? You being in security and all, if I were going away, I’d be glad to know someone like you. Who could check the house, make sure everything was okay.”
Duncomb eyed me curiously.
“What are you asking?”
“It’s a simple question.”