No Time for Goodbye (31 page)

46

Finally, I said
, “I know you didn’t mail the money to Tess. It didn’t show up in her mailbox with a stamp on it. And you didn’t FedEx it. There’d be an envelope stuffed with cash in her car, another time she found it tucked into her morning newspaper.”

Clayton acted as though he couldn’t hear me.

“So if you didn’t mail it, and you didn’t deliver it yourself,” I said, “then you must have had someone do it for you.”

Clayton remained impassive. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back on the headrest, as though sleeping. But I wasn’t buying it.

“I know you’re hearing me,” I said.

“I’m very tired,” he said. “I normally sleep through the night, you know. Leave me alone for a while, let me catch a few winks.”

“I’ve one other question,” I said. He kept his eyes shut, but I saw his mouth twitch nervously. “Tell me about Connie Gormley.”

His eyes opened suddenly, as though I’d jabbed him with a cattle prod. Clayton tried to recover.

“I don’t know that name,” he said.

“Let me see if I can help,” I said. “She was from Sharon, she was twenty-seven years old, she worked at a Dunkin’ Donuts, and one night, twenty-six years ago, a Friday night, she was walking along the shoulder of the road near the Cornwall Bridge, this would be on Route 7, when she was hit by a car. Except it wasn’t exactly a hit-and-run. She was most likely dead beforehand, and the accident was staged. Like someone wanted it to look like it was just an accident, nothing more sinister, you know?”

Clayton looked out his window so I couldn’t see his face.

“It was one of your other slips, like the shopping list and the phone bill,” I said. “You’d clipped this larger story about fly-fishing, but there was this story down in the corner about the hit-and-run. Would have been easy to snip it out, but you didn’t, and I can’t figure out why.”

We were nearing the New York–Massachusetts border, heading east, waiting for the sun to rise.

“Did you know her?” I asked. “Was she someone else you met touring the country for work?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Clayton said.

“A relative? On Enid’s side? When I mentioned the name to Cynthia, it didn’t mean anything to her.”

“There’s no reason why it should,” Clayton said quietly.

“Was it you?” I asked. “Did you kill her, then hit her with your car, drag her into the ditch, and leave her there?”

“No,” he said.

“Because if that’s what happened, maybe this is the time to set the record straight. You’ve admitted to a great many things tonight. A double life. Helping to cover up the murder of your wife and son. Protecting a woman who, by your account, is certifiable. But you don’t want to tell me what your interest is in the death of a woman named Connie Gormley, and you don’t want to tell me how you got money to Tess Berman to help pay for Cynthia’s education.”

Clayton said nothing.

“Are those things related?” I asked. “Are they linked somehow? This woman, you couldn’t have used her as a courier for the money. She was dead years before you started making those payments.”

Clayton drank some water, put the bottle back into the cup holder between the seats, ran his hands across the tops of his legs.

“Suppose I told you none of it matters,” he said. “Suppose I acknowledge that yes, your questions are interesting, that there are some things you still do not know, but that in the larger scheme of things, it’s not really that important.”

“An innocent woman gets killed, then her body’s hit by a car, she’s left in the ditch, you think that’s unimportant? You think that’s how her family felt? I spoke to her brother on the phone the other day.”

Clayton’s bushy eyebrows rose a notch.

“Both their parents died within a couple of years after Connie. It’s like they gave up on life. It was the only way to end the grieving.”

Clayton shook his head.

“And you say that it’s not important? Clayton, did you kill that woman?”

“No,” he said.

“Did you know who did?”

Clayton would only shake his head.

“Enid?” I said. “She came to Connecticut a year later to kill Patricia and Todd. Did she come down earlier, did she kill Connie Gormley, too?”

Clayton kept shaking his head, then finally spoke. “Enough lives have been destroyed already. There’s no sense in ruining any more. I don’t have anything else to say about this.” He folded his arms across his chest and waited for the sun to come up.

I didn’t want to lose time stopping for breakfast, but I was also very much aware of Clayton’s weakened condition. Once morning hit, and the car was filled with light, I saw how much worse he looked than when we’d fled the hospital. He’d been hours without his IV, without sleep.

“You look like you need something,” I said. We were going through Winsted, where Route 8 went from a winding, two-lane affair to four lanes. We’d make even better time from here, the last leg of the journey to Milford. There were some fast-food joints in Winsted, and I suggested we hit a drive-through window, get a McMuffin, something like that.

Clayton nodded wearily. “I could eat the egg. I don’t think I could chew the English muffin.”

As we sat in the drive-through line, Clayton said, “Tell me about her.”

“What?”

“Tell me about Cynthia. I haven’t seen her since that night. I haven’t seen her in twenty-five years.”

I didn’t entirely know how to react to Clayton. There were times when I felt sympathy for him, the horrible life he’d led, the misery he’d had to endure living with Enid, the tragedy of losing loved ones.

But who was to blame, really? Clayton had made the point himself. He’d made his choices. And not just the decision to help Enid cover up a monstrous crime, and to leave Cynthia behind, to wonder her whole adult life what had become of her family. There were choices he could have made earlier. He could have stood up to Enid, somehow. Insisted on a divorce. Called the police when she became violent. Had her committed. Something.

He could have walked out on her. Left her a note. “Dear Enid: I’m out of here. Clayton.”

At least it would have been more honest.

It wasn’t as if he was looking to me for sympathy, asking about his daughter, my wife. But there was something in his voice, a bit of “poor me.”
Haven’t seen my daughter for two and a half decades. How terribly sad for me.
There’s the rearview mirror, pal, I thought to myself. Twist it around, take a look. There’s the guy who has to carry a lot of the load for all the fucked-up shit that’s been going on since 1983.

But instead, I said, “She’s wonderful.”

Clayton waited for more.

“Cyn is the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me,” I said. “I love her more than you could ever know. And as long as I’ve known her, she’s been dealing with what you and Enid did to her. Think about it. You wake up one morning and your family is gone. The cars are gone. Everyone fucking gone.” I felt my blood starting to boil, and I gripped the wheel more tightly in anger. “Do you have any fucking idea? Do you? What was she supposed to think? Were you all dead? Had some crazy serial killer gone through town and killed all of you? Or had the three of you decided, that night, to go off and have a new life somewhere else, a new life that didn’t include her?”

Clayton was stunned. “She thought that?”

“She thought a million things! She was fucking abandoned! Don’t you get it? You couldn’t have gotten word to her somehow? A letter? Explained that her family met with a horrible fate, but at least they loved her? That they hadn’t just up and fucking walked out on her one night?”

Clayton looked down into his lap. His hands were shaking.

“Sure, you cut a deal with Enid to keep Cynthia alive by agreeing to never see her again, to never get in touch. So maybe she’s alive today because you agreed to live out the rest of your life with a monster. But do you think that makes you some kind of fucking hero? You know what? You’re no fucking hero. If you’d been a man, from the get-go, maybe none of this shit would ever have happened.”

Clayton put his face into his hands, leaned against the door.

“Let me ask you this,” I said, a kind of calm coming over me. “What kind of man stays with a woman who’s murdered his own son? Can someone like that even be called a man? If it’d been me, I think I’d have killed her myself.”

We were at the window. I handed the guy some cash, took a bag with a couple of Egg McMuffins and hash browns, plus two coffees. I pulled ahead into a parking slot, reached into the bag, and tossed a breakfast sandwich into Clayton’s lap.

“Here,” I said. “Gum this.”

I needed some air and to stretch my legs for two seconds. Plus, I wanted to call home again, just in case. I took my cell out of my jacket, opened it up and glanced at the screen.

“Fuck,” I said.

I had a message. I had a goddamn voicemail message. How was that possible? Why had I not heard the phone ring?

It had to be after we got off the Mass Pike, when we were driving south of Lee, down that long, winding stretch of road. Cell reception was terrible through there. Someone must have called me then, couldn’t get through, left a message.

This was the message:

“Terry, hi, it’s me.” Cynthia. “I tried to call you at home, then I tried your cell, and God, where are you? Look, I’ve been thinking of coming home, I think we should talk. But something’s happened. Something totally unbelievable. We were staying at this motel, and I asked if I could use the computer in the office? To see if I could find any old news stories, anything, and I checked my mail, and there was another message, from that address, with the date? You know. And this time, there was a phone number to call, so I decided, what the hell. So I called, and Terry, you’re not going to believe what’s happened. It’s the most amazing thing. It’s my brother. My brother Todd. Terry, I can’t believe it. I’ve talked to him! I called him and I spoke to him! I know, I know, you’re thinking it’s some crank caller, some kind of nut. But he told me he was the man at the mall, the man I thought was my brother. I was right! It was Todd! Terry, I knew it!”

I was feeling dizzy. The message continued:

“There was something in his voice, I could tell it was him. I could hear my father in his voice. So Wedmore was wrong. That must be some other woman and her son in the quarry. I mean, I know we don’t have my test in yet, but this tells me something else happened that night, maybe some kind of mix-up. Todd said he was so sorry, that he couldn’t admit who he was at the mall, that he was sorry about the phone call, and the e-mail message, that there was nothing I had to be forgiven for, but that he can explain everything. He was working up his nerve to meet with me, tell me where he’s been all these years. It’s like a dream, Terry. I feel like I’m in some sort of dream, that this can’t be happening, that I’m finally going to see Todd again. I asked him about my mom, about Dad, but he said he’d tell me all about it when I see him. I just wish you were here, I always wanted you to be there if something like this ever happened. But I hope you understand, I just can’t wait, I have to go now. Call me when you get this. Grace and I are heading up to Winsted to see him now. My God, Terry, it’s like a miracle has happened.”

47

Winsted?

We were
in
Winsted. And Cynthia and Grace were
coming
to Winsted? I checked to see how long ago she’d left the message. Nearly three hours. So she’d made the call even before we’d got off the Mass Pike, probably when we were in one of those valleys between Albany and the Massachusetts border.

I started doing the math. There was a very good chance Cynthia and Grace were already in Winsted. They could have been here as long as an hour, I guessed. Cynthia probably broke every speed limit on the way up, and who wouldn’t do the same, anticipating a reunion of this nature?

It made some sense. Jeremy sends the e-mail, maybe before he even left Milford, or maybe he’s got a laptop or something, waits for Cynthia to call his cell. She reaches him while he’s en route, and he suggests Cynthia head north for a rendezvous. Gets her away from Milford, saves him having to drive all the way back.

But why here? Why lure her up to this part of the state, other than to save Jeremy a bit of driving?

I punched in the numbers for Cynthia’s cell phone. I had to stop her. She was meeting with her brother, of course. But not Todd. It was the half brother she never knew she had: Jeremy. She wasn’t on her way to a reunion. She was walking into a trap.

With Grace along for the ride.

I put the phone to my ear and waited for the call to go through. Nothing. I was about to redial when I realized what the problem was.

My phone was dead.

“Shit!” I looked around for a pay phone, spotted one down the street and started running. From the car, Clayton called out wheezily, “What?”

I ignored him, reaching for my wallet as I ran, digging out a phone card I rarely used. At the phone, I swiped the card, followed the instructions, dialed Cynthia’s cell. Not in service. It went immediately to voicemail. “Cynthia,” I said, “don’t meet with your brother. It’s not Todd. It’s a trap. Call me—no, wait, my phone’s dead. Call Wedmore. Hang on, I’ve got her number.” I fumbled around in my pocket for her business card, found it, recited the number. “I’ll check in with her. But you have to trust me on this. Don’t go to this meeting! Don’t go!”

I replaced the receiver, leaned my head against the phone, exhausted, frustrated.

If she’d come to Winsted, she might still be around.

Where would be an easy place to rendezvous? The McDonald’s, where we were parked, certainly. There were a couple of other fast-food joints. Simple, modern, iconic landmarks. Hard to miss.

I ran back to the car, got in. Clayton hadn’t tried to eat anything. “What’s happening?” he asked.

I backed the Honda out of the spot, whipped through the McDonald’s lot, looking for Cynthia’s car. When I couldn’t find it there, I got back on the main road and sped down the street to the other fast-food outlets.

“Terry, tell me what’s going on,” Clayton said.

“There was a message from Cynthia. Jeremy called her, said he was Todd, asked her to meet him. Right here, in Winsted. She probably would have gotten here an hour ago, maybe not even that long.”

“Why up here?” Clayton asked.

I pulled into another lot, scanned it for Cynthia’s car. No luck. “The McDonald’s,” I said. “It’s the first big thing you see when you come off the highway coming north. If Jeremy was going to arrange to meet anyplace, that would have to be it. It’s the most obvious choice.”

I spun the Honda around, sped back down the street to the McDonald’s, jumped out of the car with the engine running, ran over to the drive-through window, cutting in front of someone trying to pay.

“Hey, pal, you can’t be there,” the man at the window said.

“In the last hour or so, did you see a woman in a Toyota, she’d have had a small girl with her?”

“You kidding me?” the man said, handing a bag of food to a motorist. “You know how many people go through here?”

“You mind?” said the driver as he reached for the bag. The car sped out, the side mirror brushing against my back.

“What about a man with an elderly woman?” I said. “A brown car.”

“You have to get away from this window.”

“She’d have been in a wheelchair. No, there might have been a wheelchair in the backseat. Folded up.”

A light went on. “Oh yeah,” he said. “Actually, that does kind of ring a bell, but it was a long time ago, maybe an hour. Kind of tinted windows, but I remember seeing the chair. They got coffees, I think. Pulled over there.” He pointed in the general direction of the lot.

“An Impala?”

“Man, I don’t know. You’re in the way.”

I ran back to the Honda, got in next to Clayton. “I think Jeremy and Enid were here. Waiting.”

“Well, they’re not here now,” Clayton said.

I squeezed the steering wheel, let go, squeezed again, banged it with my fist. My head was ready to explode.

“You know where we are, right?” Clayton asked.

“What? Of course I know where we are.”

“You know what we passed on the way down. North of here, few miles. I recognized the road when we went past it.”

The road to the Fell’s Quarry. Clayton knew, from my expression, that I had figured out what he was talking about.

“Don’t you see?” Clayton said. “You’d have to know how Enid thinks, but it makes perfect sense. Cynthia, along with your daughter, she finally ends up in the place Enid believes she should have been all these years. And, this time, Enid wants the car and bodies inside to be found right away. Let the police find them. Maybe people’ll think Cynthia was distraught, that somehow she felt responsible, was in despair over what had happened, the death of her aunt. So she drives up there and goes right over the edge.”

“But that’s crazy,” I said. “That might have worked at one time, but not now. Not with other people knowing what’s going on. Us. Vince. It’s insane.”

“Exactly,” Clayton said. “That’s Enid.”

I nearly rammed the car into a Beetle as I drove out of the lot, heading back in the direction we’d come from.

I had the car going over ninety, and as we approached some of the hairpin turns heading north to Otis, I had to slam on the brakes to keep from losing control. Once I had us through the turns, I put my foot to the floor again. We nearly killed a deer that ran across our path, almost took off the front end of a tractor as a farmer came out the end of his driveway.

Clayton barely winced.

He had his right hand wrapped tight around the door handle, but he never once told me to slow down or take it easy. He understood that we might already be too late.

I’m not sure how long it took us to get to the road heading east out of Otis. Half an hour, an hour maybe. It felt like forever. All I could see in my mind’s eye were Cynthia and Grace. And I couldn’t stop picturing them in a car, plunging over the side of the cliff and into the lake below.

“The glove box,” I said to Clayton. “Open it up.”

He reached forward with some effort, opened the compartment, revealing the gun I’d taken from Vince’s truck. He took it out, inspected it briefly.

“Hang on to that till we get there,” I said. Clayton nodded silently, but then went into a coughing fit. It was a deep, raspy, echoing cough that seemed to come all the way up from his toes.

“I hope I make it,” he said.

“I hope we both make it,” I said.

“If she’s there,” he said, “if we’re in time, what do you think Cynthia will say to me?” He paused. “I have to tell her I’m sorry.”

I glanced over at him, and the look he gave me suggested he was sorry that there was nothing more he could do than offer an apology. But I could tell, from his expression, no matter how late it would be in coming, how inadequate it might be, his apology would be genuine.

He was a man who needed to apologize for his entire life.

“Maybe,” I said, “you’ll have a chance.”

Clayton, even in his condition, saw the road to the quarry before I did. It was unmarked and so narrow, it would have been easy to drive right past it. I had to hit the brakes, and our shoulder straps locked as we pitched forward.

“Give me the gun,” I said, holding the wheel with my left hand as we rolled down the lane.

The road started its steep climb up, the trees began to open up, and the windshield was filled with blue, cloudless sky. Then the road started leveling out into a small clearing, and at the far end of it, parked facing the cliff edge, were the brown Impala on the right and Cynthia’s old silver Corolla on the left.

Standing between them, looking back at us, was Jeremy Sloan. He had something in his right hand.

When he raised it, I could see that it was a gun, and when the windshield of our Honda shattered, I knew that it was loaded.