“Did you ever see this image on any computer other than Thomas’s?”
That stopped me. “No.” I shook my head. “But the landlord did confirm that there used to be a couple of women living there, and that one of them was reported missing.”
“What else did the landlord tell you?”
“He didn’t tell me anything. It was Thomas who talked to him.”
Harry Peyton didn’t say anything.
“Oh, come on, Harry. Are you saying Thomas made up all that stuff from the landlord?”
“I didn’t say that, Ray,” he said. “But…”
“The name Thomas got from the landlord checked out, same as the one in the Times story.”
“Thomas doesn’t have access to the Times Web site? He couldn’t have already read it, before he gave you that name? Ray, I’m only asking you the questions the police are going to.”
I slumped in the chair. “No, no, that’s not possible. The thing is, I believe Thomas. Maybe that makes me a fool, but I don’t think he doctored any images. I believe he talked to the landlord. And, Harry, Julie did not make up what she found out from the Whirl360 people. Two people were murdered. People who are linked to this image on the Web site.”
“I hear you, Ray.”
“Yeah, but I get what you’re saying, too. Even if I tell the cops our suspicions, I’m probably not going to have much more luck than last time.”
Harry shrugged and eyed me with sympathy. “Look, I’m not saying you are, but what if you’re wrong about Thomas? What if-and please forgive me for this-but what if this thing he saw was something that was pointed out to him during one of his conversations with President Clinton?”
I ran my palm over my forehead. A major storm front of a headache was moving in. A migraine monsoon. “I appreciate your caution, Harry. But there’s something going on. There has to be a way to get this information to the cops. They need to hear the whole story before they dismiss it.”
Harry mulled that one over. “I have a friend. Barry Duckworth, a detective with the Promise Falls police. Maybe if I were to approach him, act as an intermediary. Barry knows and trusts me, so if, after I explain everything to him, he thinks there’s anything worth checking out, he can follow it up with you. Or he can call the NYPD. He’ll be able to get someone to listen to him.”
I liked it. Harry had credibility. He was a trusted member of the community. I might not get far trying to tell this tale to Duckworth, but Harry’d be able to get the whole thing out before Duckworth hung up on him, or threw him out the door. And Duckworth, in turn, would have credibility with another police department.
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.” I suddenly nodded with enthusiasm. A heavy weight began to lift from my shoulders. “I appreciate this, Harry. I do.”
“No problem.”
I stood, but something was holding me there.
“Something else on your mind?” Harry asked.
“I don’t even know whether to mention it,” I said. “But maybe Dad said something to you about this sometime.”
“Go ahead.”
“Thomas said to me-I’m trying to remember his exact words-but he said something like ‘things happen in windows.’ And then, when he was pissed with me, when he didn’t think I’d done a very thorough investigation in New York, he said I was acting the same way I had before when someone in a window was in trouble.”
Harry pressed his lips together. “Sounds like he was talking about himself,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “And there’s another thing. Something Len Prentice said.”
“Yes?”
“Len came by the house when I was in the city. He got Thomas riled up. Tried to get him to leave the house for lunch and Thomas refused to go, and he kind of hit Len. Struck him.”
Harry’s eyes widened. “Oh my.”
“Nothing really happened, and Len isn’t pressing the point. But he said Dad told him Thomas had pushed him down the stairs, and when I talked to Thomas about it, he more or less admitted it.”
“Your father never mentioned anything about that to me,” Harry said.
“Thomas said Dad was trying to tell him he was sorry, about something that had happened to Thomas when he was thirteen, but Thomas said he didn’t want to talk about it, and that’s when he pushed Dad. He landed on his back.”
“Dear God,” Harry said.
“But Dad wasn’t angry. Or so Thomas says. Dad supposedly said he’d understand if Thomas couldn’t forgive him.”
“Did you ask Thomas what it was?”
“I tried, but he’s not saying,” I said. “I’ll try again, when the time seems right. What could Dad have done to Thomas that he’d feel the need to apologize for, after all these years?”
I caught Harry looking at the clock.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m like an episode of As the World Turns. Thanks for everything, Harry.”
I was walking to the car when my cell rang.
“Me,” Julie said.
“You still at the house.”
“Yeah.”
“Thomas okay?”
“Yeah. I went upstairs, asked him to go on Whirl360 and show me my sister Candace’s place. All I had to do was tell him the name of it and that it was in New York and he found it.”
“What place?”
“She runs a bakery, specializing in cupcakes, in Greenwich Village. Lives over her shop.”
“ That cupcake place? The famous one everyone’s always lined up for? The one that was in Sex and the City?”
“You watched Sex and the City?”
“Uh, maybe a couple of times.”
“It’s not that cupcake place. It’s another one. Anyway, he found it on West Eighth just like that. It’s called Candy’s, in case you ever want to go there. So, how’d it go at the lawyer’s?”
I told her how Harry Peyton was going to act as an intermediary between the police and myself.
“Sounds good,” Julie said. “I know Duckworth. I’ve gotten quotes from him a few times. Listen, Ray,” and her voice went very serious, “I found out something else. I did a news search on Allison Fitch this morning and came up with nothing, and decided to try it again this afternoon, on your dad’s laptop, and I got a hit.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Just a short story, out of Tampa. A woman with that name was found dead at a hotel there.”
Not again. Every time Julie started looking for people attached to this mess…
“You there, Ray?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”
“Can I tell you something, Ray?”
“Sure.”
“I think this whole thing is getting really fucking weird.”
FORTY-EIGHT
“Hello?”
“Thomas, it’s Bill Clinton.”
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
“I’m very good, sir.”
