I held up one of the envelopes. “What are these?”
“Warnings about paying a speeding ticket.” His face went red with anger. “How can one part of the police department be trying to figure out who killed her, and another department is busy nagging her about a ticket?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. It shouldn’t happen, but it does.” There were three such envelopes, unopened. “I’ll take these, if you like, and make sure they stop.”
“I’d be grateful,” he said. “Last time you were here, you sounded like you were going to talk to Victor.”
“I popped by,” I said.
“He’s not in a good frame of mind. I think he’s taking the anniversary harder than I am.”
I knew that in two days it would be three years since Olivia’s murder.
“He’s just so angry,” Walden said.
“Of course he is,” I said. “It’s a natural reaction to an act of senseless violence.”
“It’s not the killer he’s angry with,” Walden Fisher said.
I had a feeling where this was going. “The others,” I said.
“The ones that heard her screams and couldn’t be bothered to do a thing. That’s what really eats at Victor. You know all about that.”
“I do.”
“He nearly started a fight with complete strangers in a bar the other night, accusing them of being cowards.”
“Were they some of the people? Who did nothing?”
“Hell, no. No one even knows who those people were. But the way Victor sees it, the whole town’s guilty. If those random citizens of Promise Falls would turn their backs on Olivia, maybe anyone in this town would have. Sometimes I think the anger’s just going to consume Victor. He’s drinking a lot. I worry about him.”
“You said he drove you home?” I asked.
“That’s right. He came by the hospital, to see what was going on. Saw me there. The doctor said if I wanted someone to look at me, maybe I should go to Albany. I figured, I wasn’t dead yet, so I might as well come home.”
“Was Victor sick?”
“No,” Walden said. “He got lucky. He hadn’t had any of the water to drink. But he was telling me his landlady died. Spotted her dead in the backyard.”
“That must have been rough.”
Walden nodded. “Yeah. Like we haven’t all been through enough.”
I scanned Olivia’s room one more time, getting a small sense of who she was and what she cared about, but I wasn’t coming away with anything useful.
We made our way back down the stairs. Walden stepped with me out onto the porch.
“There were twenty-two of them, you know,” Walden said.
“Yes.”
“Those are the ones Victor really blames. Well, those twenty-two and himself. I don’t know that there’s anyone he blames more than himself, for not showing up on time to meet Olivia.”
I thought about that.
Twenty-two, plus himself.
I could do the math.
THIRTY-THREE
ONCE he had left the water plant, Randall Finley decided to head back to the park, where his people were still handing out free flats of water from the backs of the Finley Springs trucks. Many of the trucks had already run out and been sent back to the plant for more.
Along the way, he put in a call to David. There might be some more photo opportunities, and he wanted David to be there.
David picked up on the first ring.
“My man,” Finley said. “I’m going back to the park. Should be there in five. Meet me.”
“I can’t,” David said.
“Come on, the good people of Promise Falls are counting on us.”
“I know, it’s all about helping the people.”
“Am I hearing a tone?”
“Forget it,” David said. “I’ve got something else I have to deal with.”
“What could be more important than helping people get good, clean water?”
“That Sam person you were asking me about before? I’m worried she and her son may be in trouble.”
Finley sighed. “David, I gotta say, you need to get your head in the game.”
“Excuse me?”
“This town is in the midst of the biggest crisis it’s ever seen, and you’ve got your shorts in a knot because some woman doesn’t want to see you anymore?”
“That’s not what it’s about. It’s more serious than that.”
“Is it more serious than people dropping dead all over town?”
“I can’t talk about this, Randy.”
“You’re not going make employee of the month this way,” Finley said. His tone darkened. “Let me ask you something.”
“What?”
“Have you been talking to Duckworth today?”
“Duckworth? Why would you ask that?”
“That’s an easy yes-or-no question.”
“Okay, yeah, I was talking to him. I thought he might be able to help me with my situation.”
“Your Sam situation,” Randy said.
“That’s right.”
“Is that all you talked about?” When David didn’t answer immediately, Finley pressed on. “Was it?”
“I don’t remember. Mostly we talked about Sam.”
“Did my name come up?”
“I think it might have. I called him when he was at the water plant. He said he was going to arrest you or something, for getting in the way.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Tell him about what?”
“About me.”
“Randy, I have to go. I didn’t say anything to him about-”
“Did you say something about how I’d increased production at the plant?”
Another pause. “I think, just kind of in passing,” David confessed.
“Goddamn it, so it was you. What the fuck were you thinking, saying something like that?”
“When Duckworth said you were being arrested, I thought it had to do with the water.”
“That I’d somehow poisoned it?”
“I never said that. I never said I thought you’d poisoned the water. He was the one who said you’d been arrested. And then it kind of came together for me, at the time, that if you had done it, it made sense that you’d upped production.”
“And that would make sense why?”
“Because then you could be the big hero, coming to the town’s rescue with fresh, clean water.”
“Is that what you think?” Finley asked.
“No,” David said. “I don’t… I don’t think that.”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Fuck!” Finley said. “Maybe we should put that on a campaign button. ‘I’m voting Finley because I’m pretty sure he’s not a mass murderer.’”
“I’d go with a T-shirt,” David said. “That’d never fit on a button.”
“You think it’s funny.”
“I don’t think any of this is funny. Look, I’ve already told you what I think of you. You’re a pompous gasbag, but do I think you’d kill hundreds of people just to look good? No. The bar’s not set that high with you, Randy, but I think you’re above that. If I’ve offended you, fire me. Or I can quit. I’ve offered before, and I can offer again.”
Now it was Finley’s turn to go quiet. Finally, he said, “I don’t want you to quit. Thing is, as little respect as you have for me, I don’t know that I could find anyone with more.” A long sigh. “I’m not a bad guy, David. I swear.”
David’s tone turned more conciliatory. “There’re still weeks to go before the election. I’ll have time to do what you need me to do. But you decided to run just when a lot of shit’s been going on in my life. That stuff with my cousin Marla, and then-”
“Yeah, yeah, fine, I don’t need a recap. Do what you have to do and then check in.”
Finley took the phone from his ear and tucked it away as Promise Falls Park came into view. The convoy of Finley Springs trucks was there, but he wasn’t going to be able to get a parking spot near them.