Duckworth said, “Excuse me, Mr. Grayson. I’ll be right back.”
Finley walked quickly to the SUV, then slowed his approach when he was nearly there.
“How are you folks doing?” he asked.
The woman glanced around. “Hello?”
“I just wanted to see if you were okay,” he said kindly. “Are these your daughters?”
The woman indicated the girl who was crying. “This is Kaylie. She’s my niece, and this is her friend Alicia. Are you with the police?”
“No, my name’s Randall Finley. What’s your name?”
The woman blinked. “Patricia. Patricia Henderson.”
“Hello, Patricia. And hi, Kaylie, Alicia. I need to know, are any of you hurt? Do you need any medical attention?”
“We’re . . . okay,” Patricia said. “Just shook-up. Some of that . . . stuff . . . fell onto the car. The girls—not just the girls, me too—were pretty scared when it happened.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Are you with the police?” Patricia asked again.
Finley shook his head. “No, like I said, my name is Randall Finley, and I’m just a concerned citizen, seeing if there’s anything I can do.”
“Didn’t you used to be mayor?” Patricia asked.
“That was some time ago,” he said, shrugging.
“Why is that man taking pictures?”
Finley glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t know. Could be the press, or someone who has to document the accident scene. Just someone doing his job. I wouldn’t worry about him. Is there anything I can get for you? Do you need some water? I have some bottled water in the trunk of my car. From my own company. Or maybe there’s someone you’d like me to call for you?”
“I’m not married,” the woman said. “I’m waiting around, in case I have to talk to the police or anyone about insurance matters. But I really want to get the girls home. This is all so horrible.”
Finley nodded sympathetically, moved in closer, bent over to smile at the girls, making sure he positioned himself so David could get a good shot. “Maybe Kaylie’s or Alicia’s parents could come get the girls, and then only you’d have to stay here. Would you like me to call them for—”
“Randy!”
Finley whirled around. “Why, Barry, hello. What a terrible thing that’s happened here. What do you know so far?”
Duckworth approached. “What are you doing here?”
“Lending support,” he said. “Pitching in where I can.”
“And what about him?” Duckworth asked, pointing to David Harwood. “What support is he lending?”
“Him?”
“Why’s he taking pictures?”
“Perhaps he’s back working for the press. Out of Albany.”
“He’s working for you.”
“Well, I suppose that’s true, but I certainly wouldn’t stand in Mr. Harwood’s way if he wanted to sell some photos to the media.”
“What’s going on?” Patricia asked.
Finley turned around and flashed her his most sincere smile. “Just working out with the detective here how best to help you folks deal with this tragic situation. If you’ll give me just a moment.”
“I don’t really need your help anyway,” the woman said.
“Well, then, why are you wasting my valuable time?” Finley asked her, turning back to face Duckworth before he had a chance to see the woman’s jaw drop.
“Let’s go talk over here,” Finley said, attempting to lead Duckworth away. But the detective wouldn’t move.
“You’re in the way,” Duckworth said. “I’ve got dead people up there. Injured people. I want you out of here now.”
“Barry, come on,” Finley said. “I’m just doing my job, same as you.”
“If I have to ask you again, you’ll be leaving here in handcuffs.”
Finley met the man’s gaze. “I’m someone you’d rather have as a friend than an enemy.”
“I’d rather have you on the side of a milk carton,” Duckworth said, not breaking eye contact.
It was Finley who finally looked away. “David!” he called out, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear him. “The last thing we want to do is get underfoot. Detective Duckworth, thank you for your continued support. God bless you and all the wonderful emergency workers we have here in Promise Falls. I don’t know where we would be without you!”
And with that, he headed back to the Lincoln, taking David with him. Duckworth watched until they were both in the car and heading out of the lot.
“You goddamn son of a bitch!”
Duckworth turned. Lionel Grayson had tackled a man, brought him down to the ground, and was now pummeling him in the face.
Evidently the demolitions guy had arrived while Duckworth was dealing with Finley. Duckworth ran, grabbed Grayson around the shoulders, and pulled him off the other man.
“Mr. Grayson!” he shouted. “Mr. Grayson, please!”
But Grayson continued to struggle, pointing at the man on the ground. “You son of a bitch! You stupid bastard! You fucking—”
“I didn’t do it!” the man shouted back, struggling to his feet. “Listen to me! I’m telling you—”
“Over there!” Duckworth barked at Grayson. He made him stand alongside the ambulance and got himself between the two men. He asked the man who’d been taking the beating, “You Marsden?”
The man stood, brushed himself off. “I am.”
“You’re the one Mr. Grayson here hired to bring that screen down?”
Marsden nodded, caught his breath. “The screen, and everything else.”
“You think maybe you got a little ahead of yourself here?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him,” he said, pointing a finger at Grayson.
“What?” Duckworth asked.
“We haven’t done a damn thing here yet. Only thing we’ve done is signed the contract. My guys weren’t coming out for another few days. We haven’t planted so much as a firecracker out here.”
EIGHT
Cal
I saw it first on CNN the next morning. Flipped over to the Today show, found they were covering it, too. All the morning shows were focused on Promise Falls. We were famous. I’d noticed the emergency vehicles the night before, as I stood on the porch next to my brother-in-law, but figured it was probably just a multicar accident.
Turned out to be much bigger.
I’d said my good-byes to Celeste and Dwayne and, having no interest in chasing ambulances, headed home.
I woke around six, but lay in bed for nearly two more hours. There was nothing to get up for, so it didn’t make much sense to me to greet the day with any enthusiasm. But a logy head finally forced me to throw back the covers. I padded, barefoot, into the kitchen nook—the apartment wasn’t big enough to have an actual kitchen, but a fridge, a stove, and a sink were tucked off into the corner of the living area. I put on some coffee, turned on the small TV beyond the couch—I like having some noise going on in the background—and intended to have a shower while the coffeemaker did its thing, but the first two words I heard were “Promise Falls.”
So I stopped. Stood by the couch and watched. When the coffeemaker beeped, I poured myself a cup and continued to watch.
Jesus.
Four dead. A couple in their sixties tentatively identified as Adam and Miriam Chalmers, whose vintage Jag had been turned into a sandwich board by the plummeting screen. And a teenage girl and her boyfriend, seventeen, who’d borrowed his parents’ Mustang convertible so he could take her out. Their names hadn’t been officially released yet.
There was my old friend Barry Duckworth talking to TV crews that had swarmed in from Albany and beyond.
“Is this an act of terror?” someone shouted at him.
Barry looked at the reporter stone
-faced. “We have a long investigation ahead of us. There’s nothing at this time to suggest anything remotely connected to terrorism.”
“But it was a bomb, wasn’t it? The screen didn’t just fall down. People say there was a huge explosion.”
“Like I said, we’re just at the beginning of our investigation.”
A number of people who’d gone to enjoy the Constellation Drive-in’s last night of business had shot video with their cells and sent it to various media outlets. At least one person was actually recording what was on the screen—something about trucks turning into robots—when all hell broke loose.
So now I knew where all those ambulances had been heading last night when I stood on the porch with Dwayne. I’d figured they were headed to a major car accident on the bypass. Never would have guessed it was something like this.
I gave it about half an hour, left the set on, and had my shower. When I got out, they were still covering it. Matt Lauer was talking to a mother who’d taken her daughter and her daughter’s friend. When he was done with them, he brought someone else on camera.
“This is Randall Finley, the former mayor of Promise Falls. You were one of the first to the scene, Mr. Finley. Can you tell us what you saw?”
“Bedlam, Matt. Pure bedlam. It was like a war zone.”
Finally someone said it. Every disaster was always “like a war zone.” That’s how these things were always described by people who’d never seen a war zone.
“I got there as fast as I could to lend help in any way possible. This is a terrible tragedy for the people of Promise Falls and I’m in the process of setting up a relief fund to help the families affected by this disaster. There’ll be more later today at ‘Randall Finley dot com’ for those who want to contribute.”
It was laundry day.
I returned to the bedroom and gathered up some stray socks and boxers and tucked them into my laundry bag. Shirts I kept separate in a second bag, which I’d drop off at the dry cleaner’s on the way. There were no laundry facilities in my apartment, or anywhere in the building, so I trekked over to a Laundromat several blocks away once a week.
I shaved, got dressed. Made myself a piece of toast with strawberry jam, ate it standing in front of the sink. Washed off the plate and left it there. My mini-palace was also minus a dishwasher, except for me.
I slung the bag over my shoulder and headed out, pockets stuffed with quarters.
My place was right downtown, and being above a bookstore had its advantages. I could have done worse, like renting over a bar. I didn’t have to suffer through late-night parties, drunken fights, fried-food smells, people throwing up and taking a piss out back.
Occasionally, when home through the day, which was often, I could hear opera music coming up through the vents. Naman Safar, who ran the place, was an opera buff. I was not, so I never knew whether I was being subjected to Offenbach or Bellini. I’d broken the music down into two categories. Some of it was annoying, and some of it was less annoying. But none of it was annoying enough that I ever complained to Naman. He was, after all, my landlord, and it was smart to stay on his good side in case the toilet plugged up or I started hearing mice in the walls.
The door to my place—it was the one with the very small plaque that read CAL WEAVER INVESTIGATIONS—opened from the sidewalk right onto a flight of stairs and was directly beside the entrance to Naman’s Books. As I was coming out, he was going in. The sign in Naman’s window said he opened at ten, but that was only an approximation. Some days he was there early, but most days he didn’t open up until at least half past. Today was one of those days. It didn’t matter to his customers, who knew better than to come before eleven. They also knew there was a good chance Naman might be there hours after closing time.
“There’s nothing to do at home,” he told me once. He’d never married, had no kids. “I get bored.”
Born in Egypt, Naman and his family moved to America when he was nine. He’d majored in English literature and taught high school for a couple of decades, but trying to manage a classroom full of kids eventually became too much for him. He didn’t know whether he’d become less tolerant or the students had gotten worse. Either way, he opted for running a shop that was devoted to his love of books.
“Did you hear?” he asked when he saw me.
“I heard,” I said.
“A shock. A terrible shock. They are saying it could be terrorism.”
“A bit early to say.”
“Yes, yes, I agree. That’s the first thing everybody thinks these days. This country is totally paranoid. Everyone is out to get America.”
I wasn’t up for a discussion of America’s temperament.
“Laundry day?” Naman asked.
“Heading over now. Catch you later.”
The Laundromat was five blocks from home, the dry cleaner en route. I dropped off the shirts, continued on. The place wasn’t that busy. I’d found midmorning was a good time to be sure of getting a couple of machines.
The woman who ran the joint—Samantha Worthington was her name, but she went by Sam—was taking a rag to a washer, wiping away spilled soap.
“Hey, Sam,” I said.
She gave me a nod. She didn’t talk a lot.
I didn’t know much about her, except that she had a nine-year-old kid named Carl. He hung out here after school many days. She was an attractive woman, but there was a hardness about her. She’d been through things. She looked thirty-five, but I was betting she was late twenties.
“Hey,” I said.
She glanced my way. “Hey,” she said back. “Hear about the drive-in?”
“Terrible,” I said.
That seemed to cover it. She went into the office at the back, returned with a small leather bag. Using a key, she unlocked the coin boxes on each of the machines and dumped quarters into the bag. She drew the drawstring tight at the top and went back into the office, where I was betting she had a machine that would collect those quarters into neat stacks for taking to the bank.
I dumped my stuff into two machines, dug to the bottom of the bag for the box of soap powder and the plastic bottle of fabric softener I’d brought along, poured them into both washers, and closed the lids. I brought out all the quarters from my pocket, fed them into the appropriate slots, and drove them home.
As always, I’d brought a book, one I’d picked up at Naman’s. A Philip Roth novel. I’d only gotten around to him recently, starting with The Plot Against America, but today I was into Nemesis, about a polio epidemic in 1940s Newark. I guess I’d been thinking that reading about people whose problems were as bad as my own or worse might have the effect of putting things into perspective.
No, don’t think that way, I told myself. No self-pity. It was like I’d told Celeste. Had to look forward, not backward. No sense worrying about things that could not be undone.
I grabbed a spot on the bench from where I could keep an eye on my two washers, set the box of soap and the bottle of softener next to me, and opened the novel to where I’d last left my bookmark.
I’d read only a couple of pages when I heard, “What do you think?”
I looked up. It was Sam.
“It’s good,” I said.
“Some people say he’s a misogynist, but I don’t buy it,” Sam said. “Have you read The Human Stain?”
I shook my head.
“It’s about a college professor who has an affair with this woman who’s a janitor. He gets accused of racism by two black students, but what no one realizes is—whoa, I shouldn’t tell you if you haven’t read it.”
“Okay,” I said. “I might get to it at some point.” I managed a smile. “I’ve only read a couple of books by him. You?”
“Most of them,” she said. “The one on baseball did nothing for me. And there’s a satire about Watergate or something, which I couldn’t care less
about.” Sam leaned her head back, like she was sizing me up. “You’re thinking, a woman who runs a Laundromat reads?”
“I wasn’t thinking that,” I said.
“Or if she does read, it’s just Fifty Shades shit,” she said.
“I really wasn’t giving your reading habits much thought, one way or another,” I said. “But thanks for the recommendation. The Human Stain, you said?”
“Yeah.” Sam smiled. “Sorry, didn’t mean to give you a hard time there.”
“It’s okay.”
The opening of the Laundromat door caught her eye. It was a man, six feet, pushing two fifty, dark, greasy black hair, stubble on his neck and cheeks, jeans and jean jacket.
I noticed he didn’t have any laundry with him. Just a swagger.
“Excuse me,” Sam said, and walked toward the door. “Get out of here, Ed,” she told the man.
Ed opened his arms wide in innocence. “Hey, just dropping by to say hello.”
“I told you, get out.”
“I thought I might do my laundry?”
“Where is it?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“Your fucking laundry. You forget that?”
Ed grinned. “Guessin’ I did.” The grin broadened. “Brandon’s folks say hi.”
“You can tell Brandon’s psycho parents, and Brandon, too, that they can kiss my ass.”
“Not me, too? Because I wouldn’t mind.”
I put the book down.
“I know the lawyers have been in touch,” Ed said, “but I thought I’d drop by to reinforce what they had to say. Carl’s going home.”
“Carl is home. If he’s with me, he’s home.”
“Well, from what I understand, that home is not suitable, Samantha. It’s an unfit environment.”
“You think Carl’d be better off being raised by his dad? Getting some time every day in the exercise yard? Making license plates in the machine shop? Sounds like real father-son bonding time.”
“Now you’re just being silly. Brandon’s folks are ready to step up and do the right thing just as soon as you come to your senses. And right now, they’re playing nice, just using the lawyers. You don’t want it to go beyond that, do you?”