“He’s in the ICU, but it looks like he’s going to pull through okay.” She paused. “He might be sorry he made it after the department’s through with him.”
“He’s in a lot of trouble,” I said.
“He came with Sommer to the Mortons’. He may face accessory charges and God knows what else.”
“What else do you know? Anything about my wife? Or Darren’s wife?”
“There’s still a lot we don’t know, Mr. Garber. Sommer’s dead, so we’re not going to learn anything from him. But we’re talking about one very nasty son of a bitch here. We can’t assume anything, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn he somehow arranged the deaths of both your wife and Mrs. Slocum. And early indications are he killed a private investigator named Arthur Twain, as well, at the Just Inn Time hotel.”
I sat up in the bed and threw off the covers. “Arthur Twain?”
“That’s right.”
I felt numbed by the news.
“I don’t know how, exactly, Sommer might have done it,” I said, “but given the kind of person he was, it’s possible he killed Sheila. Somehow got her drunk, set her up in that car, knowing someone would run into it sooner or later.”
Wedmore was quiet.
“Detective?”
“I’m here.”
“You don’t buy that?”
“Sommer shot people,” Wedmore said. “That’s what he did with anyone who got in his way. He’d never have gone to the kind of trouble you’re talking about to kill someone.” She paused. “Maybe, Mr. Garber, and I mean no disrespect when I say this to you, you’re going to have to accept that, in your wife’s case, things are exactly as they appear. I know that can’t be easy, but sometimes the truth is a very difficult thing to accept.”
Now it was my turn to be quiet.
I stared out the window, at the large elm tree in our front yard. Only a handful of leaves still clung to it. In another few weeks there’d be snow out there.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you,” Rona Wedmore said, and ended the call.
I sat there on the edge of the bed, my head in my hands. Maybe this was how it ended. People died, and their secrets died with them. I’d get the answers to some of my questions, but not all.
Maybe this was as far as I could go. Maybe it was over.
FIFTY-FIVE
I phoned Kelly.
“I’m going to come get you today.”
“When? When are you coming?”
“This evening. I’ve got a few things to get out of the way first.”
“So it’s all safe to come home?”
I paused. Sommer was dead. Slocum was in the hospital. And I knew who was responsible for the shot window. If there was anyone else out there to be worried about, I couldn’t think who it was.
“Yeah, sweetheart. It’s safe to come home. But there’s something I have to tell you about.”
“What?”
I could hear the worry in her voice. So much had already happened to her, she must have been getting to the point where she was expecting bad things to happen.
“It’s about Emily’s dad. He got hurt.”
“What happened?”
“A very bad man shot him. I think he’s going to be okay, but he’s going to be in the hospital for a while.”
“Did somebody get the bad man who shot him?”
Kelly would probably hear the whole story at some point, if not from me, then someone else. But I didn’t see the need to get into the details now. So I said, “Yes.”
“Did he die?”
“Yes.”
“A lot of people are dying lately,” Kelly said.
“I think things are going to calm down now,” I said.
“I know why Emily’s dad didn’t die.”
That caught me off guard. “Why’s that, sweetheart?”
“Because God wouldn’t let a girl lose her mom and her dad. Because then there wouldn’t be anybody to look after her.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“Nothing will happen to you, right? That couldn’t happen, could it?”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” I said. “It can’t, because you’re my number one priority.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
I stumbled around the house for a little while. Made some coffee, poured some cereal into a bowl. Brought in the newspaper that had been on the stoop for hours. There was nothing in it about what had happened last night. It was probably too late to get into a morning newspaper. The story was probably online, but I didn’t have the energy to check it.
I made a couple of calls. One to Ken Wang, to tell him he was still in charge. Another to Sally, but she wasn’t answering her cell or home phone. I left a message. “Sally, we should talk. Please.”
When the phone rang shortly after, I thought it might be her, but it was Wedmore again. “A quick heads-up,” she said. “They’re putting out a detailed press release on what happened. Your name’s in it. You’re a hero.”
“Super,” I said.
“I’m just saying, there’s a good chance the media’s about to descend on you like a plague of locusts. If you’re okay with that, enjoy.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
It made sense to get out of the house as soon as possible. I went upstairs and had a shower. As I was stepping out of the stall, the phone rang. I tiptoed across the tiled floor, careful not to slip with wet feet, and into the bedroom. The ID was blocked. Not a good sign.
“Hello?”
“Is this Glen Garber?” A woman.
“Can I take a message?”
“It’s Cecilia Harmer, at the Register. Do you know when he’ll be in, or where I might be able to reach him?”
“He’s not here and I’m afraid I don’t have any way to reach him.”
I dried off and put on some fresh clothes. The phone rang again and this time I didn’t even bother. I thought of something I should have told Ken, but didn’t have the energy to talk to him. If I sent him an email, he’d get it right away on his BlackBerry.
I went down to my basement office, checked to see that the piece of paneling hiding my money was still in place. It was. I turned on the computer and, when it was ready to go, opened up my mail program.
There wasn’t all that much there, aside from a few spam messages. One thing caught my eye, however.
It was from Kelly.
I’d forgotten that I’d asked her to email me the video she’d shot from her phone when she was hiding in the closet in the Slocums’ bedroom. I’d never gotten around to taking a closer look at it, and while there didn’t seem to be much point now, I was curious.
After all, it was that sleepover that had kick-started the nightmare of these last few days. Of course, the real nightmare had begun the night Sheila died, but just when I’d hoped we might be able to get our lives back to normal, there’d been that incident with Ann Slocum.
