The Twenty-Three 3 (Promise Falls) (8 page)

TEN

CAL
knew something was up as he was driving into Promise Falls.

He saw two ambulances, each coming from a different part of the town, heading in the direction of the hospital. Driving down one street, he saw uniformed police officers running from house to house, banging on doors.

Two blocks from Lucy Brighton’s house, he eased off the accelerator when he saw a red Promise Falls Fire Department pumper working its way down the street, lights flashing. But the truck wasn’t racing to a scene. Cal thought he heard something being broadcast, so he powered down the window, pulled over to the curb, and listened as the truck rolled past.

“Do not drink the tap water!” blared from a speaker mounted behind the front grille. The firefighter behind the wheel had a mike in his hand.

“This is an emergency! Do not drink water from the tap!”

Cal turned on the car radio, tuned it in to the Albany news station.

“—reports coming in of hundreds of people becoming ill in Promise Falls this morning. The town has issued an emergency
statement urging citizens not to drink town water. Information is sketchy at this time, but people are already reporting on social media that—and we have to point out that this information has not been confirmed by us—that there have been multiple fatalities. If you live in or near Promise Falls, you are being warned not to drink the water, although there has been no statement so far regarding what kind of possible contamination there may be. We’re going to be staying with this story all morning and will be updating with any details the moment we have them.”

Cal got out his phone and called his sister, Celeste. The phone had barely finished one ring when he heard, “Cal?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You know about the water?”

“Yeah.”

“You and Dwayne okay?”

“We’re okay. We haven’t had any to drink yet. Dwayne heard about it from a neighbor. What about you?”

“I have to go,” Cal said. “I’ll check in with you later.”

When he arrived at the Brighton house, eleven-year-old Crystal was sitting on the front step, dressed in pink pajamas. She had a clipboard with some paper on it resting on top of her knees, a pencil in one hand. She was busily drawing when Cal pulled into the driveway, and the sound of his car prompted her to raise her head. But she didn’t get up.

Cal walked briskly to the front door and said, “Crystal, what’s happening?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Has the ambulance been here?”

“No. I kept calling, like you said, but it didn’t come.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“She’s in the bathroom.”

“Upstairs?” he asked.

The girl nodded, returned to working on her drawing. Cal glanced down, saw that she was drawing what looked like thunderclouds.

He walked into the house, called out, “Lucy?” He went up the stairs, two at a time, to the second floor, past the guest bedroom, where he and Lucy had spent the night together so recently, and stopped at the bathroom door.

It was closed. He wondered if Lucy had done that for privacy, or if Crystal had, because she didn’t want to have to see what had happened in there. He turned the knob, eased the door open.

Lucy Brighton was seated, more or less, on the floor, dressed in pajamas and a housecoat, her arms hanging limp at her sides, palms turned up, hands resting on the tile floor, her head lolled over onto her right shoulder. Her back was leaned up against the tub, her legs splayed open toward the toilet.

The room was high with the smell of vomit and other bodily fluids.

Cal was certain Lucy was dead, but he needed to be sure. He turned his head back toward the hall, took a deep breath, then entered the room and knelt next to her body. He put two fingers to her neck, just below the jaw, feeling for any sign of a pulse. There was none.

“Goddamn it,” he said.

He stood, looked into the toilet, which had not been flushed and was awash with what he guessed had been the contents of Lucy’s stomach. He glanced at the items on the countertop. Toothbrush, tube of Crest squeezed in the middle, an empty water glass with droplets still clinging to the inside.

Cal backed out of the bathroom and closed the door. Propped himself up against the wall for ten seconds to draw some fresher air into his lungs.

He thought immediately of Crystal. If the town’s water supply was deadly, had she had any? But she had sounded fine on the phone, and seemed fine—at least physically—for the moment. So he decided to take a couple of minutes and do a walkabout of the house.

His real focus was the kitchen. The coffeemaker light was still on, and there looked to be maybe half a cup still in it. There was a
mug on the table, maybe half an inch of coffee remaining in it. On a plate, a half-eaten piece of toast.

More vomit on the floor.

Cal went back outside, sat down on the step next to Crystal.

“Do you feel sick?” he asked her.

“I feel sad.”

“I know. But do you feel sick in your stomach, like you’re going to throw up?”

“You think I caught what Mom got?”

“I just want to make sure you’re feeling okay.”

“I guess. My hands are a little itchy.”

“What have you had to eat or drink today?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at all? Not even a glass of water?”

“Nope.”

Cal felt he could relax, a little, where the girl’s health was concerned. “Tell me what happened,” he said.

Crystal was shading the underside of a cloud. Without stopping, or looking at Cal, she said, “I heard Mom making funny noises, so I got out of bed. She was in the kitchen, saying she felt sick, but I should go back to bed. So I did, but then it was worse, so I came down again, and she was on the floor and she wasn’t saying anything and that was when I called 911.”

“Okay. Then what?”

“Nobody answered. So then I found Mom’s cell phone and I called you and then you came.”

“What happened between the time you called me and when I got here?”

“Mom kind of woke up, and crawled up the stairs. I watched her the whole time and told her that you were coming. And she went into the bathroom. Where she was sick again, but this time she tried to get it into the toilet.” Crystal stopped moving her pencil and became very still. “And then she just kind of sat back, and then she didn’t get sick anymore.”

Cal slipped his arm around the girl and held her tight. She allowed him to pull her into him.

“Did you close the bathroom door?” Cal asked her.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Did you see her?”

“I did.”

“Is she totally dead?”

“Yes,” Cal said. “I’m sorry.”

Crystal said nothing for several seconds. Finally, she turned her head toward Cal and said, “I don’t know how to pay the bills.”

“You what?”

“I don’t know how to do those things. Mom paid the bills, like for electricity and her Visa and stuff, online. I could probably figure it out, but I don’t know if she had passwords.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he said, tightening his grip on her.

“If I don’t pay the bills, I won’t be able to live here. Isn’t that right?”

“All that will get sorted out, Crystal. Your dad will help do that.”

“He’s in San Francisco. I think, anyway.”

“We’ll get him up here to help you.”

“Mom said he was hard to find.”

“Still, it can be done. Do you have other family, a little closer? Aunts or uncles or grandparents?”

Cal felt her head moving side to side. “Nope.”

“What about on your father’s side? What about his mother and father? Are they still alive?”

“I don’t think so. I never met them.” She paused. “I have an idea.”

Cal closed his eyes.

“Did you get to move back into your apartment again after that fire?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then you could live here and you could figure out how to pay the bills and then I wouldn’t have to move out of my house.”

Cal rubbed his hand on her arm. “Let’s just take everything one step at a time, okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

“But in the meantime, until your dad gets here from San Francisco, I’ll make sure you’re okay.”

“I don’t want to live here now,” she said. “I don’t want to go inside.”

“Of course not,” he said.

“What happens to my mom? Do you take her away?”

“No. But people will come.”

“Are you sleeping in your car?”

“What? No.”

“I thought you were sleeping in your car because of the fire.”

“No, sweetheart. I’m in a hotel.”

“Can I stay with you?”

Crystal would have to stay with someone until her father showed up,
if
he showed up. But Cal wasn’t sure of the appropriateness of her living with him at the BestBet. He thought of Celeste and her husband, Dwayne. He could be a bit of an asshole, but Celeste would take good care of the girl, and be tolerant of her eccentricities.

“I’ll make sure you have a place to stay.” Cal wondered if she’d ever set foot in her own home again.

“I guess there’s one good thing,” Crystal said.

“What’s that?”

“My mom won’t ever have to go to jail.”

Cal felt his heart skip a beat. “What’s that again?”

“I heard her talking to someone on the phone. That she might be in trouble. I was really scared she’d go to jail.”

A lawyer, Cal figured. Lucy had been talking to someone, just in case Cal finally decided to go to the police with what he knew.

A fire engine, blaring a warning from behind its grille, had rounded the corner and was slowly making its way up the street.

“Are you okay sitting here while I go talk to them?” Cal asked Crystal.

“I’ll draw.”

“That’s good.”

“When you come back, could you go into the house and get some things for me?”

“Yes,” he said, giving her a kiss on the top of her head before he went to talk to the guy behind the wheel of the fire truck.

ELEVEN

VICTOR
Rooney dialed 911 twice after finding his landlady, Emily Townsend, dead in the backyard of her house. But when no one answered the second time, he figured, what the hell, it wasn’t like they were going to be able to do anything for her anyway.

He turned on the radio in her kitchen and found the local news. Plenty of talk about what was happening in Promise Falls.

“That is some serious shit,” he said to no one in particular, reaching into the fridge for a carton of Minute Maid orange juice. He unscrewed the cap and drank straight from the container. That was the sort of thing Ms. Townsend frowned upon, but it was hardly going to upset her now.

Victor took the carton of juice with him as he stepped out the front door and dropped into one of the wicker chairs on the porch. Lots of activity for a Saturday morning, that was for sure. Neighbors helping sick family members into cars, racing off down the street. Others going house to house, banging on doors. People milling in groups, talking.

Judging by what Victor had heard on the radio, the hospital was the center of excitement.

He went back inside, leaving the half-empty carton of orange juice on the table just inside the door where Ms. Townsend left her keys, and went back up to his room. He was glad to have skipped his usual shower this morning. He wouldn’t have wanted any water to have accidentally dribbled into his mouth. He sat on the edge of the bed, pulled on a pair of sneakers, and grabbed the keys to his van.

He parked two blocks from the hospital and hoofed it over.

Even before he wandered into the emergency ward waiting room, he could see the mayhem playing out before him. Paramedics and nurses and doctors all being run off their feet. People puking their guts out. People collapsing.

He’d never seen anything like it. Promise Falls, he bet, had never seen anything like it. Upstate New York had never seen anything like it.

Ever.

“Out of the way!” someone shouted, and Victor Rooney spun around to find himself in the path of two paramedics wheeling a gurney toward the sliding ER doors. There was a teenage girl strapped to it, hands clutched to her stomach. Trailing the gurney were a man and a woman, presumably the girl’s parents.

The woman said, “You’re going to be okay, Cassie! You’re going to be okay!”

Victor stepped out of their way, then followed them, as though slipping into their jet stream, and entered the ER.

He stood to one side, cast his eye about the room. There had to be seventy to a hundred people in here. And that was just the ones he could see. Those beds in the examining area, behind the sliding curtains, were likely all full, too.

It took only a few seconds for him to spot someone he knew.

Walden Fisher, the man who’d nearly become his father-in-law.

“Christ on a candlestick,” Victor said.

Walden was seated in one of the waiting room chairs, doubled over, elbows on knees.

“Walden,” Victor said under his breath.

The man looked up suddenly and when he saw who it was, his mouth opened in surprise.

“Victor,” he said, putting his hands on his knees and starting to make the effort to push himself up.

“No, stay there,” Victor said. He’d have taken a seat next to him, but they were all filled with people waiting to see a doctor.

“Whoa,” said Walden, settling back into his chair. “Even trying to get up, things start spinning. I’m pretty light-headed. How sick are you?”

“I’m fine,” Victor said.

Walden appeared puzzled. “What are you doing here? Did you bring someone in?”

The younger man shook his head. “No. But my landlady’s dead. Found her in the backyard. I just wanted to come up, see what was going on.” He paused, added, “It’s all over the news.”

“What are they saying?”

“Might be something in the water,” Victor told him.

“Jesus. You didn’t drink any?”

Victor shook his head. “Guess I was lucky. What about you?”

“I . . . I had coffee. I made a pot. Never used to do it. Beth always did it, but now I make it. I got real sick, and my heart started doing weird things.” He gazed about the room. “Some of these people, they’re real bad.”

“Maybe you didn’t drink enough,” Victor said.

Walden gave him a look. “Whaddya mean by that?”

“Nothing. I’m just saying, maybe you didn’t drink enough to get as sick as these other people. What did you think I meant?”

Walden waved a weak hand at him. “Nothing, nothing.”

“There anything I can do for you?”

Walden found enough strength to nod. “Get someone to see
me. I’m just sitting here, like I’m invisible or something. I’m gonna be dead before they know I’m here.”

Victor said, “Okay. Hang on.”

Victor interrupted three nurses and two doctors who were in the middle of treating other patients before he found someone who’d give him some attention. “Are you a nurse or a doctor?” he asked a woman whose arm he’d grabbed hold of.

“I’m Dr. Moorehouse,” she said.

“No one’s looked at that man,” Victor said, pointing at Walden. Moorehouse took a breath, headed for Walden, knelt in front of him. “Sir? How are you doing?”

“Not so hot,” he said. She asked his name, and he told her. She asked him several other questions. How long he’d been here, what he’d had to eat and drink this morning, how he was feeling now compared with when he’d gotten to the hospital.

The doctor listened to his heart, shone a tiny beam of light into his eyes. “I can’t admit you,” she said. “You’re sick, but we’ve got way worse.” She tipped her head toward Victor. “This your son?”

“No,” Walden said.

“I’m a friend,” Victor said.

“He should be looked at, but we’re swamped here. I’d suggest you take him to Albany, get him checked out there.”

“Albany?” Walden said.

“Hospitals there are taking people,” Dr. Moorehouse said. “We’re not equipped to handle something this big.”

“I can do that,” Victor said. “Can you handle that, Walden? Can you make it to Albany?”

Walden patted his chest, as though diagnosing his ability to travel. “I guess.”

“Take care, Mr. Fisher,” the doctor said, and went off to look at someone else.

Victor helped Walden Fisher to a standing position. “I’m parked a few blocks away. Can you walk it?”

Walden let go of Victor’s hand to test his balance. “I think so.” But he took the younger man’s elbow as they left the ER.

Halfway to the van, Walden asked to stop. He leaned forward, rested his hands on his kneecaps.

“You gonna be sick?” Victor asked.

“Just a wave of something,” he said, then stood, tentatively. “I think it’s over.”

When they reached the van, Victor opened the passenger door for Walden and helped him into the seat. Victor ran around, got in, and said, “I’m telling ya, what a clusterfuck. You know?”

Walden said nothing.

“Kind of takes your mind off it, though,” Victor said.

Walden turned his head. “Kind of takes your mind off what?”

“All this shit that’s happening. Kind of takes your mind off the fact that it’s been three years.”

Walden stared at him.

“You know. Three years since Olivia—”

“Of course I know,” Walden said, his voice stronger than it had been up to now. “Nothing ever takes my mind off that. Ever.”

“Okay, well,” Victor said, and turned the key. The van sputtered to life. He put the vehicle into drive, checked his mirrors, and pulled out into the street. “You have to wonder, though.”

“Wonder what?”

“Whether any of them died today. The ones that did nothing.” Walden turned away, looked out his window, chewed on the middle fingernail of his right hand.

“Forget Albany,” he said. “Take me home. If I die, I die.”