Constance was at the grocery store picking up a few things, but she had borrowed Monica’s Volkswagen Beetle. Monica said she didn’t need her car today. Before Constance had left, Brian had told her at breakfast that he wanted to cut the grass. He needed something to do, he’d told her, but she had objected strenuously. He had to rest after all he’d been through, she said. He shouldn’t be doing anything physical.
Okay, Brian said. But as soon as his mother left in the Bug, he decided he was going to cut the grass anyway.
It would get his mind off things. It would get his mind off all the terrible things that had happened to him. It would also get his mind off whatever was going on between his parents. His mother hadn’t been taking her usual shots at his father. They were both very, very quiet.
Something was going on.
Brian wasn’t even sure he wanted to know what it was.
So he went out to the garage and swung open the door on the left.
There was his father’s car, looking, Brian thought, cleaner than he had ever seen it.
That was strange.
Considering that Brian worked at a place that cleaned cars, and also considering that he was able to give members of his family a discount — like, free — and considering even further the fact that he had seen this car go through the wash a couple of days before he went missing, why had his father gone to the trouble to wash it himself in the last day or so? Brian remembered that when his father found him, after Brian had walked out of the hospital, this was the car he’d been driving.
And it wasn’t this clean then.
Not only that, but even the floor of the garage was cleaner than Brian could ever remember seeing it. It was actually damp in a few places.
Weird.
He found the lawnmower at the back of the garage, checked that it had gas in it, and wheeled it out to the front yard. He did feel it in his ribs when he pulled the cord to start the machine up, but pushing it back and forth across the yard didn’t hurt at all.
He had about half of it done when Jessica’s car pulled up to the curb.
Brian killed the mower.
“Hey,” she said, getting out of the car. She’d left all the windows down, and Brian noticed that her kid was in the back seat.
“Hey,” Brian said.
“I went to the hospital to see you and they said you’d been discharged. When I didn’t find you at your apartment, I figured you might be here. I looked in the book and this was the only other Gaffney in Promise Falls.”
“Yeah, they let me out.”
“I’m sorry about everything,” she said. “I should have told you. I was going to tell you eventually, you know, that I was married. There just never seemed a good time.”
“Yeah, well.”
“Anyway, I wanted to say that.”
“Okay, then.” Brian shrugged. “I guess I should get back to it. I’m moving back in with my parents, so I want to help out and stuff.”
“There’s something else,” she said.
Brian waited. Jessica took a few steps closer, and when she was six feet away from him he could see that she had been crying. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s about Ron,” she said.
“What about him?”
“He’s missing.”
Brian took several seconds before saying, “Oh.”
“He was doing this job? This house outside of town. His truck’s there but he’s not around. He’s been gone over twenty-four hours.”
“Jesus,” Brian said.
“At first I thought, maybe he left me. Which, you know, might not be such a bad thing. But if he left me, he sure as hell would have taken his truck. He loves that truck more than he loves me. He’s not answering his cell phone or anything.”
“I don’t know what to say. Have you called the police?”
Jessica Frommer nodded. “Yeah. They’re looking into it.”
“What do they think happened?”
Jessica shook her head. “They don’t know. They said they found blood.”
“Blood?”
“Like, on the ground.”
“That,” Brian said slowly, “sounds bad.”
“That’d mean maybe someone hurt him,” she said. “At first I thought, and don’t be mad when I say this, but at first I wondered, maybe you had something to do with it.”
“Me?”
“Because of Ron beating you up and all. You’d have plenty of reason to want to get back at him.”
“Jess, I’ve been in the hospital.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I know. That’s what I wanted to check first, before I told the police anything about you.”
“What?”
“The police asked if there might be anyone who’s got it in for Ron. And I thought of you, but I didn’t give them your name because I didn’t want to get you in trouble. I wanted to find out if you were in the hospital, and you were, so now I’m not going to give them your name.”
“Jeez, Jess, thanks for that.”
“But then I thought, did you tell anyone?”
Brian wondered if it was getting hotter out. He could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
“Did I what?” he asked.
“Did you tell anyone about Ron beating you up?”
Brian thought about what his father had said to him. “You never, ever told me his name. You never, ever told me where he lived. And no matter how many times someone might ask you the question, it’s always no. You never told me.”
Brian said, “I never told anyone his name. I never told anyone where you live. Not ever.”
Jessica sniffed.
“Mommy!” the little girl in the car cried out.
“Just a second, sweetheart!” Jessica shouted over her shoulder.
“Never,” Brian added.
Jessica nodded. “Okay. The thing is, Ron wasn’t all that nice a guy. He probably pissed off a lot of other people. Could be anybody, when you think about it.” Another sniff. Brian dug into his pocket, pulled out a shredded tissue and offered it to her.
“That’s okay,” she said, wiping her cheeks on her sleeve. “Anyway, I should go.”
“Okay.”
She gave him an awkward half-second hug, then got back into her car. Brian stood there and watched as she put on her seat belt. The little girl in the backseat looked at him and pointed. “You’re the man my daddy beat up!” she said.
As the car drove off, Brian wondered if there was any chance the police would be questioning her.
Sixty-five
Cal
Once Galen Broadhurst had been put into the back of a Promise Falls cruiser, Duckworth came over to me and said, “Well done. Now we just have to pick up Bob Butler.”
“Broadhurst and Butler sacrificed that poor kid to save their own asses and line their pockets.” I shook my head. “The bastards.”
Duckworth gave me a look that said he’d seen enough things in life not to be surprised any more.
“I’m going to pick up Jeremy,” I said, “then head out to Madeline Plimpton’s house. He wants to talk to his mother, let her know he’s okay.”
“We should go together.”
I looked at my watch. “Thirty minutes?”
He nodded. As he turned to leave, I said, “What was it you wanted to ask me? On the phone last night.”
Barry poked his tongue around the inside of his cheek. “You know what? Don’t worry about it. Whatever I was going to ask, I think I’ve changed my mind.”
I pointed my Honda back in the direction of my sister and brother-in-law’s house. I found Jeremy sitting on the front step talking to Celeste. He was on his feet when he saw my car, and ran to the street to meet me.