The front door of the house opened. It was Mrs. Townsend.
“Oh, Victor?”
He turned around, said, “Yeah?”
“Sorry to interrupt. Before you go on your run, could you get me a garbage bag? I thought I had some in the kitchen, but they’re all gone, but I think there’s a package of them in the garage.”
“Sure,” he said, and the woman withdrew. He looked at Duckworth and said, “I help Mrs. Townsend around the place.”
“She was telling me. You do all the chores.”
“Most of them. Are we done here?”
“I guess,” Duckworth said.
“Okay, well, fine. See ya.” He started walking toward the garage, then stopped when he realized Duckworth hadn’t moved, that he was watching him.
“Is there a problem?”
“No problem,” Duckworth said.
Victor Rooney said, “Screw it. I’ll do my run first.”
He jogged past Duckworth and disappeared up the street.
Thirty-six
I had the radio back on and this time I found out more about Mr. Twenty-three. That was the instant nickname the media had given some nut who had killed forest creatures, fired up abandoned amusement park rides, and very likely blown up the drive-in. A reporter had stopped people on the street to get their reaction.
“I’m pretty freaked-out, to tell you the truth.”
“They better get this guy fast before he does something even bigger.”
“I knew it was terrorism. Isn’t that a verse or something in the Koran? Thou must kill everybody?”
I wondered sometimes why I even turned on the radio. I switched it off, choosing instead to occupy myself with my own thoughts.
I couldn’t, in good conscience, drag this case out much longer. Lucy Brighton had hired me for a day’s work, and I was prepared to run out the clock on this, but come tomorrow, we’d have to talk about how much more she wanted to spend. What I’d told her, that whoever took these discs probably wanted to bury them, was what I believed. This might be one of those problems that just went away.
I turned a corner and was about a block away from the Chalmers house when I noticed a car parked at the curb, taillights on, exhaust coming out of the tailpipe. A small black BMW coupe. I drove past slowly, and noticed there was enough light from the dash to make out Felicia Chalmers behind the wheel.
She was alone.
I stopped the car just ahead of her, put the car in reverse, and backed up until I was directly beside her. She glanced over, probably couldn’t make me out at first.
I powered down the passenger window, raised my hand, and did a downward motion with my index finger. She got the idea and did the same.
“Ms. Chalmers,” I said.
“Yes?”
I hit the interior light in my car for three seconds, long enough for her to get a look at me. “Cal Weaver. I came by your place.”
Her mouth made an O. “Right, yes, of course,” she said. And nothing else.
I didn’t take my eyes off her and allowed the silence to go on.
“You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here,” she said.
“Maybe.”
“But then again, I could ask what you’re doing here,” Felicia said. “Looks like you’re going to the house.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I’m still working for Adam Chalmers’s daughter.”
“Of course.”
“Your turn,” I said.
“I’m sorry?” she said. “I can’t hear you that well over the engine.”
“I said, your turn.”
“Oh. I was just... I guess I was sitting here thinking about Adam.”
“Sure,” I said, nodding understandingly.
“It’s still a shock.”
“I can imagine.”
“And... I was sort of driving around the neighborhood, looking at the houses. I’m... I probably shouldn’t tell you this.”
I waited.
“I’ve been talking to a lawyer. He says I might have... that as Adam’s only surviving former spouse, I might have some claim... you know what I’m saying. On the estate. Whatever there is of it.”
“I understand,” I said, tempted to add that everyone handles grief in their own way, but holding my tongue.
“So I was taking another look at the house, considering where it stands in the market. Nothing in this town’s worth as much as it was five or ten years ago.”
“I can imagine,” I said, the car still in drive, my foot on the brake.
“Anyway, nice to see you,” she said, and powered her window back up.
I took my foot off the brake and continued on up the street. In my rearview, I saw Felicia do a three-point turn and take her Beemer around the corner.
I parked out front of the Chalmers house. The light over the front door was on. Probably on a timer. But the rest of the house was dark. If Adam and Miriam had been leaving for a holiday, they might have left some lights to go on and off in the house, but that’s not the sort of thing you bother doing when you’re just going to the movies.
When I got to the front door, I reached into my pocket for the key Lucy had given me, and found two.
Right. Felicia had given me her old key to the house where she once lived. She said she was pretty sure Adam had changed the locks since their divorce.
Instead of using Lucy’s, I inserted the key I’d taken from Felicia, expecting some resistance. But it slid right in. I turned it, and opened the door. Immediately, the alarm system began to beep, warning me that if I didn’t enter the code in the next few seconds, it would start whooping loud enough to wake the neighborhood and connect to the monitoring service. I entered the four digits Lucy had told me, and the beeping stopped.
Flicked on some lights.
I was betting that if Chalmers never bothered to change the locks, he’d never gotten around to changing that code, either. Which meant Felicia could have gotten into this house anytime she wanted. Or sent someone here on an errand, with that key.
I didn’t think she’d looked very pleased that I’d caught her parked down the street from here.
There’s always a strange feeling, walking into a place where the owners are no longer alive. You half expect one of them to pop out of a closet and ask what the hell you’re doing in their house.
I wandered first through the living room and into the kitchen, noticed that the red light was flashing on the phone that rested on the countertop. A message. There hadn’t been one when I was here before with Lucy. Someone had called who, evidently, did not know the homeowners were no longer available.
It could easily be a nuisance call. It was one of the pleasures, for me, of no longer having a landline that I wasn’t pestered all night by duct cleaners, driveway resealers, window installers, and people wanting me to go on a cruise.
I looked through the recent callers, those that had come in since Lucy and I had been here. There was only one, but it was an unidentified number.
I wanted to hear the message. But a four-digit code had to be entered to retrieve it. Given that most people don’t want to have to remember half a dozen passwords, I figured there was a good chance it was the same code I’d used for the security panel.
I tried it.
“You have one new message,” the voice said. “To hear your message, press one-one.” I did so.
There was a pause, then, “Adam, it’s me.”
A woman. Speaking very softly.
“I tried your cell. Where are you? We... I’ve been thinking... I don’t think I can carry on this way... I just don’t... never mind. I have to go.”
End of message.
I wondered whether it could be Felicia. I just couldn’t tell. I checked the time of the call, saw that it had come in between the time Lucy and I had left the house this morning and my arrival at Felicia’s apartment. I looked at the list of incoming calls, and made note of the number of the caller when that message had been left. I didn’t recognize it.