The Accident (22 page)

“Yes, well, she’s upset, too. Emily’s her friend.”

“Was that your daughter, was that Kelly that was just …”

“Yes.”

“Your girl, she seemed to be taking her friend’s mother’s death pretty hard,” the detective said.

“She lost her own mother—my wife, Sheila—a few weeks ago.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss. Your wife, she …” Wedmore seemed to be processing information, trying to retrieve data buried in her head.

“An accident.”

“Yes. Yes, I know the one.”

“It wasn’t in Milford.”

She nodded. “But I’m aware of it.”

“First Sheila, then Ann,” I said. “I think it’s hardest on the girls. Speaking of which, I’m going to find mine now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Wedmore smiled as I moved away. Carrying my coffee, I worked my way through the crowd and over to the door. I thought maybe I’d find the two girls out in the hall, but they weren’t there. The funeral home had several other reception rooms, and as far as I could tell the only one in use was the one for the Slocums.

I moved down the hall, poking my head into one room, then the next. I heard someone scurrying behind me, and saw Emily. She was alone.

“Emily!” I called softly.

She whirled around. “Hi, Mr. Garber.”

“Where’s Kelly? Isn’t she with you?”

The girl shook her head and pointed to a closed door. “She’s in there.” And then she darted off.

The door was marked
KITCHEN
and instead of a knob had a brass plate. I pushed and the door gave way on its swing hinges. It was bigger than a standard kitchen, no doubt used to prepare foods for events that demanded more than just coffee.

“Kelly?” I called.

I stepped into the room and saw Kelly sitting on one of the counters, her legs dangling over the side. Standing before her was Darren Slocum. He would have had to pick Kelly up for her to be sitting there, almost eye to eye with him.

“Glen,” he said.

“Daddy,” Kelly said, her eyes wide.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, closing the distance between Slocum and me.

“We were just talking,” he said. “I was just asking Kelly here a couple of questions about—”

My fist caught him squarely on the chin. Kelly screamed as Slocum stumbled back into a shelving unit loaded with oversized pots. Two of them went crashing to the floor. Orchestra cymbals would have made less noise.

It wasn’t long before the screams and the pots brought us an audience. One of the funeral home directors, a woman I didn’t know, and a couple of big guys I suspected were cops burst through the door. They saw Slocum rubbing his chin, feeling the trickle of blood that was coming down from the corner of his mouth. And then they saw me, my hand still shaped into a fist.

The cops started to move on me.

“No, no!” Slocum said, holding up his hand. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

I pointed a finger at him and said, “Don’t you ever, ever talk to my daughter again. Go near her again and I’ll take a fucking two-by-four to your goddamn head.”

I scooped Kelly up in my arms and headed for the parking lot.

I could just imagine what Sheila would have said.
“Punching out a guy at his own wife’s visitation. Smooth.”

TWENTY-TWO

“What was he asking you?” I asked Kelly as we drove home.

“Why did you hit Emily’s dad?” she whimpered. “Why did you
do
that?”

“I asked you a question. What was he talking to you about?”

“He wanted to know about the phone call.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said I wasn’t supposed to talk about it anymore.”

“And then what did he say?”

“He said he wanted me to think really hard about everything I’d heard and then you came in and then you hit him and now everyone’s going to hate me. I can’t believe you did that!”

I was gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles were white. “You know you were supposed to stay with me.”

Tears running down her face, Kelly said, “You let me go with Emily’s aunt.”

“I know, I know, but I
told
you I didn’t want you to talk to Mr. Slocum. Didn’t I tell you that?”

“But he came into the kitchen and he told Emily to go and I didn’t know what I was supposed to
do
!”

I realized, at that moment, how astonishingly unreasonable I was being. She was eight years old, for God’s sake. What did I expect her to do? Tell Darren Slocum to piss off and walk out? I had no business being furious with her. I could be furious with him, and I could certainly be
furious with myself for letting her out of my sight. But I had no reason to take it out on Kelly.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. I’m not—”

“I hate you. I just hate you.”

“Kelly, please.”

“Don’t talk to me,” she said, and turned her back to me.

We didn’t say anything else to each other the whole way home. When we got there, she ran straight to her room and slammed the door.

I went into the kitchen and put a tumbler and the bottle of scotch on the table. I poured myself a drink. By the time I reached for the phone some twenty minutes later, I’d refilled my glass twice. I punched in a number.

The phone picked up after two rings. “Hello? Glen?”

Belinda had been looking at the caller ID. “Yes.”

“My God, Glen, what happened? Everyone’s talking about it. You
hit
Darren? Is that what you did? With his wife dead in the next room? Did you really do that? You couldn’t possibly have done that.”

“What the hell did you tell them, Belinda?”

“What?”

“The lawyers.”

“Glen, I don’t know what—”

“You make Sheila having a drink at lunch sound like she’s an alcoholic, and then you tell them about the time the two of you smoked some marijuana?”

“Glen, please, I never meant—”

“Where’s your head at?”

“What was I supposed to do, lie?” she asked. “I get called into a law office and I’m supposed to lie?”

“You didn’t have to
lie
,” I said. “You just could have kept a few things to yourself. She wants fifteen million, Belinda. Bonnie Wilkinson is suing me for fifteen million dollars.”

“I’m so sorry, Glen. I didn’t know what to do. George said—you know what George is like, he’s all by-the-book—he said if I didn’t tell the truth they could charge me or hold me in contempt or something like that. I don’t know, it was all so confusing. I certainly never meant to—”

“And they might just get it because of you. I just wanted to call and say thanks.”

“Glen,
please
. I know I screwed up, but you don’t have any idea of the kind of stress I’ve been under lately.” Her voice was starting to break. “I’ve made some stupid decisions, everything’s starting to unravel, I—”

“Anyone suing you for fifteen mil, Belinda?”

“What? No, no one—”

“Well then, consider yourself blessed.” I hung up.

Not long after that, the doorbell rang. Kelly had still not emerged from her room.

I opened the door and found a man in a dark blue suit standing on the porch, holding some sort of identification in his hand. I put him in his late forties, about five-ten, with thinning silver hair.

“Mr. Garber?”

“That’s right.”

“Arthur Twain. I’m a detective.”

Oh shit
, I thought. Darren Slocum was filing charges.

Maybe I had police detectives stereotyped in my mind but Twain seemed well turned out for one. The suit—at least to my untrained eye—looked expensive, and his black leather shoes were polished to a high gleam. His silk tie probably cost more than everything I had on, and that included my shockproof watch. Despite his fashion sense, he had a small paunch and bags under his eyes. Well turned out, but weary.

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Come in.”

“Sorry to drop in unannounced.”

“No, that’s okay. I mean, I suppose I should have been expecting you.”

He blinked. “Oh?”

Kelly, evidently curious about who’d come to the door, had ended her self-imposed exile and come downstairs. She poked her head into the foyer.

“Honey, this is a detective, Arthur …” I’d already forgotten his last name.

“Twain,” he said.

“Hi,” Kelly said, pointedly not even looking at me.

“What’s your name?”

“Kelly.”

“Nice to meet you, Kelly.”

I said, “Did you want to talk to Kelly first, or me, or both of us? I
mean, she was there. Or should I be calling my lawyer?” That, I suddenly realized, would be the smartest course of action.

Arthur Twain said, cautiously, “I think I’ll talk to you, Mr. Garber.”

“Okay, honey,” I said to Kelly, “we’ll call you if we need you.” Still managing not to look at me, she went back to her room.

I showed Twain into the living room. I wasn’t sure whether I was to call him Mister, Officer, or Detective.

“Have a seat, uh … Is it Officer?”

“Arthur’s fine,” he said, sitting down. That struck me as pretty informal for a police detective.

“You want some coffee or something?” I was naïve enough to think that being a good host might get me out of an assault charge.

“No, thanks. First of all, I’d just like to say, I’m very sorry about Mrs. Garber.”

“Oh,” I said, taken aback. I wasn’t expecting the detective to know, or ask, about Sheila. “Thank you.”

“When did she pass away?”

“Nearly three weeks ago.”

“A car accident.” Not a question. I supposed that if Rona Wedmore could know about it, I shouldn’t be surprised that Twain was up to speed.

“Yes. I guess the different forces all share information.”

“No, I’ve just done some checking.”

That seemed odd to me, but I let it go. “You’re here about the incident this afternoon.”

Arthur cocked his head slightly. “What incident would that be, Mr. Garber?”

I laughed. “I’m sorry, what? I mean, if you don’t know about it, I’m hardly going to tell you.”

“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage here, Mr. Garber.”

“You did say you’re a detective, right?”

“That’s right.”

“With the Milford police.”

“No,” Arthur said. “I’m with Stapleton Investigations. I’m not a police detective, I’m a
private
detective.”

“What’s Stapleton? A private investigation company?”

“That’s right.”

“Why’s someone like that give a damn about my decking a Milford cop?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Twain said. “I’m here about your wife.”

“About Sheila? What do you want to know about Sheila?” Then I figured it out. “You’re with that law firm, the one that’s suing me, aren’t you? Well, you can get the hell out of here, you son of a bitch.”

“Mr. Garber, I’m not working for a law firm, and I’m not representing anyone who’s launched any sort of action against you.”

“Then, what are you here for?”

“I’m here to ask you about your wife’s possible connection to criminal activity. I’m here to ask about her involvement in selling counterfeit purses.”

TWENTY-THREE

“Get out,” I said, moving toward the door.

“Mr. Garber, please,” Arthur Twain said, rising reluctantly off the chair.

“I said get out. No one comes in here and says things like that about Sheila. I’ve listened to all the shit I want to about what my wife may or may not have done. I’m not listening to any more.” I opened the door.

When Twain didn’t move, I said, “I can pick you up and throw you out on your ass if that’s how you’d rather do it.”

Twain looked nervous, but he held his ground. “Mr. Garber, if you think you know everything there is to know about what your wife may have been involved in before she died, if you don’t have a single question left unanswered, then fine, I’ll go.”

I got ready to throw him out on his ass.

“But if you have any doubts, any questions at all, about your wife’s activities before she died, then maybe it would be worth your while to listen to what I have to say, maybe even answer a couple of my questions.”

I still had my hand on the door. I was aware of my own breathing, the coursing of blood through my temples.

I pushed the door closed. “Five minutes.”

We moved away from the door and went back to sitting in the living room.

“Let me start by telling you who, exactly, I work for,” Twain said. “I’m a licensed private detective with Stapleton Investigations. We’ve been
engaged by an alliance of major fashion conglomerates to track down operations trading in counterfeit goods. Fake purses chief among them. You’re aware of the trade in knockoff merchandise, I assume.”

“I’ve heard about it.”

“Then let me get right to it.” Arthur Twain pulled an envelope from inside his jacket and withdrew from it a folded sheet of paper. He opened it up and held it out for me. It was a printout of a photo. “Do you recognize this person?”

Reluctantly, I took the photo from him and glanced at it. A tall man with black hair, lean and fit looking, with a scar above his right eye. The picture appeared to have been taken on a New York City street, although it could have been any major city.

“No,” I said, handing the photo back. “I’ve never seen him.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. Is there anything else?”

“Don’t you want to know who he is?”

“Not really.”

“You should.”

“Why?”

“Your wife placed a call to him on the day of her accident.”

“Sheila phoned him?”

“That’s right.”

My mouth was dry. “Who is he?”

“We don’t know, exactly. He’s gone by Michael Sayer, Matthew Smith, Mark Salazar, and Madden Sommer. We think his name is Sommer. The people he works for refer to him as their solver.”

“Solver?”

“He solves problems.”

“My wife never knew anyone by any of those names.”

“She called Sommer’s cell in the early afternoon.” He reached into his jacket again. It was a small notebook, a Moleskine. He fingered through the pages until he found what he was looking for, then said, “That’s right, here we are. Just after one p.m. Let me read you a number here.”

He read off a series of digits that made my heart sink even if I hadn’t dialed them in several weeks.