It was like Times Square at rush hour. Word had spread.
Cars jammed the road bordering the park. People were stopping in the middle of the street, running over to the trucks for free flats of water, then scurrying back to their cars with them.
“Son of a bitch,” Finley said to himself, followed by, “Cheap bastards.”
There was a Promise Falls police car off to the side of the road, lights flashing, a female uniformed officer trying to direct traffic. Letting people grab their water, then making a hole for them to drive away.
Finley pulled his Lincoln half up onto the sidewalk, got out, and started walking toward all the commotion. Was that a TV crew? With a CBS logo on the side of the camera resting on one man’s shoulder?
Maybe it didn’t matter that David couldn’t make it. There was a fucking national network here.
“Hello, hello, hello!” Finley said, reaching the first truck. Trevor Duckworth was handing out cases of water from the back of it as quickly as he could. “Let me help you out there!” the former mayor said, nudging Trevor out of the way, grabbing a case, and handing it to a young, unshaven man standing there with a girl of about six.
“Here you go, sir!” Finley said, then looked down at the girl and patted her head. “This your daughter?”
“Yup. Say hi, Martina,” the man said.
“Hi,” said Martina, extending a hand. Finley grinned and shook it.
“That’s the man who owns the water company,” the girl’s father said.
“Thank you,” the girl said. “All the regular water is poisoned.”
“I know!” Finley said. “Awful thing, just awful. Let’s hope they get it back to normal real quick.”
“Thank you for all you’re doing,” the man said, holding the water with two outstretched arms.
“No problem,” Finley said. “How about you, ma’am? Can I help you?”
Trevor leapt into the back of the truck and shoved cases toward the door so his boss could grab one after another. A few people took shots with their phones. The CBS crew had figured out what was happening, and was shooting footage.
Finley offered everyone a smile, but not too big a smile. This was, after all, a solemn occasion.
People had died.
The CBS crew had grabbed a few shots but now was moving farther up the line of trucks. Finley got his phone out and said to Trevor, “David’s a bit held up, so I need you to take some video.” He handed the phone over to him. “You know how to use this?”
“Yeah,” Trevor said.
“Just saw your dad up at the water plant.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Heck of a guy,” Finley said. “Doin’ a bang-up job. He’s gonna get to the bottom of what’s happened. You can take that to the bank.”
Trevor held the phone up in front of him, Finley filling up the screen. “Rolling,” he said.
Finley continued to sling cases into the arms of Promise Falls residents. He wasn’t registering faces. He figured he could go for a few minutes until he started to feel it in his back.
A plump woman with short hair, dressed in jeans and a dark blue athletic shirt that read “Thackeray,” had come to the front of the line. “Here ya go,” Finley said, but the woman didn’t have her arms out to receive the flat of water bottles, and Finley had to hang on to it.
The woman said, “You opportunistic bastard.”
Finley’s eyes met the woman’s. His face broke into a grin and he said, “Why, Amanda Croydon. I thought you must be dead.”
The mayor of Promise Falls rested her hands on her hips and said, “I’d gone to Buffalo for the weekend to see my sister. When I heard this morning, I drove straight back.”
“Well,” Finley said, handing the water to the next person in line, “while you were cruising along the New York Thruway, I was rolling up my sleeves.”
“What the hell is all this?”
Finley glanced Trevor’s way, wanting to be sure this was all being recorded.
“This,” Finley said, waving his hand before him, “is what’s called being there for the people.”
Croydon shook her head. “No, this is called grandstanding. There are emergency systems in place. Thousands of cases of bottled water are on the way from the state as we speak. The governor’s declaring a state of emergency.”
“Well, Amanda, as we speak, these people already have water. Sometimes, the private sector does a much better job serving the people than the public, and this turns out to be one of those times. Surely you’re not opposed to a private citizen pitching in where he can.”
The mayor’s face reddened. She pointed a short, thick finger at Finley.
“It’s a cheap stunt, that’s what it is. These people are in true crisis and you turn it into a PR opportunity.”
Finley shook his head with disappointment as people began to gather and watch.
“If the good folks of Promise Falls should decide next time around to choose me to represent them in the mayor’s office, and I certainly wouldn’t presume that they will, but if they do, I can promise them one thing for certain. If and when another tragedy hits this town, I will welcome help from anyone, anyone at all, if it means the people in this town will be helped, even if that help ends up exposing my shortcomings on the job. Because these people”-and his voice began to rise-“these people you see here today, mean more to me than any job or elected position.”
Finley resisted all temptations to look at Trevor and the phone.
“That’s what I’m about,” he continued. “I’m about the people, and I’ve been doing my best for them since this nightmare began early this morning. Nice of you to finally join us.”
“I’ll have you know,” Amanda Croydon said, looking as though she might blow a fuse, “I’ve already been up to the hospital and conferred with Chief Finderman and-”
“Oh, you’ve conferred,” Finley said. “And here I almost accused you of doing nothing.”
“-and the governor, and the Atlanta Centers for-”
“And yet,” Finley said, cutting her off, “you still have time to justify to me everything you’ve been doing. Listen, I’d love to chat longer, but I have water to distribute.” He grabbed another case, moved past the mayor to hand it to an elderly couple.
“You tell her!” the man said.
Amanda Croydon turned around and walked off into the crowd. Over his shoulder, Finley looked to make sure Trevor was still recording.
He wasn’t. He was holding the phone down near his waist, looking at the screen, hitting a button.
“Trevor!” Finley said. “This is no time to play Scrabble. Wait. Are you tweeting this? You putting it on Facebook?”
“You have a call,” he said. Trevor put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“For God’s sake,” Finley said, throwing a case of water back into the truck and extending his hand. He snapped his fingers.
Trevor handed him the phone.
Finley glanced at the screen long enough to see that it was a call from his home. “Hello?”
“Mr. Finley?”
“Yes, Lindsay, it’s me.”
“I think there’s something wrong with Bipsie.”
“Lindsay, I’ve kind of got my hands full here. What’s wrong with the dog?”
“She’s sick. She was throwing up and acting weird and… and I think… Mr. Finley, I think she might be dead.”
Finley kneaded his forehead with the fingers of his free hand. Then it hit him. “Tell me you didn’t let the dog drink out of the toilet.”
“She does that,” Lindsay said. “She might have.”
“For Christ’s sake, why didn’t you put the lids down so the dog couldn’t get into them? It’s not just water coming out of the taps that’s poison. It’s any water that comes into the house!”
“The water is poison?”
For a second, he stopped breathing. “Lindsay, what did you say?”