No Time for Goodbye - Linwood Barclay [111]
Maybe some other time.
I ripped the meat off a couple of wings and drank half a beer, but my stomach was full of butterflies. “I can’t take this any longer,” I said to Vince. “Let’s go.” He threw some bills on the counter and we were out the door.
The truck’s headlights caught the street signs, and it wasn’t any time at all before we spotted Niagara View.
Vince hung a left, trolled slowly down the street while I hunted for numbers. “Twenty-one, twenty-three,” I said. “There,” I said. “Twenty-five.”
Instead of pulling into the drive, Vince drove a hundred yards farther down the street before turning off the truck and killing the lights.
There was a car in the driveway at number 25. A silver Honda Accord, maybe five years old. No brown car.
If Jeremy Sloan was headed home, it looked as though we’d gotten here before him. Unless his car was tucked into the separate, two-car garage.
The house was a sprawling one-story, white siding, built in the sixties most likely. Well tended. A porch, two wood recliners. The place didn’t scream rich, but it said comfortable.
There was also a ramp. A wheelchair ramp, with a very slight grade, from the walkway to the porch. We walked up it, and stood at the door together.
“How you wanna play this?” Vince said.
“What do you think?”
“Close to the vest,” Vince suggested.
There were still lights on in the house, and I thought I could detect the muted sounds of a television somewhere inside, so it didn’t look as though I was going to wake anyone up. I raised my index finger to the doorbell, held it a moment.
“Showtime,” Vince said.
I rang the bell.
40
When no one came to answer the door after half a minute or so, I looked at Vince. “Try it again,” he said. He indicated the ramp. “Might take a while.”
So I rang the bell again. And then we could hear some muffled movement in the house, and a moment later the door was opening, but not wide, not right away, but haltingly. Once it was open a foot or so, I could see why. It was a woman in a wheelchair, moving back, then leaning forward to open the door a few more inches, then moving back some more, then leaning forward again to open the door wider yet.
“Yes?” she said.
“Mrs. Sloan?” I said.
I put her age at late sixties, early seventies. She was thin, but the way she moved her upper body did not suggest frailty. She gripped the wheels of her chair firmly, moved herself deftly around the open door and forward, effectively blocking our way into the house. She had a blanket folded over her lap that came down over her knees, and wore a brown sweater over a flowered blouse. Her silver hair was pinned back aggressively, not a stray hair out of place. Her strong cheekbones had a touch of rouge on them, and her piercing brown eyes were darting back and forth between her two unexpected visitors. Her features suggested that she might possibly have been, at one time, a striking woman, but there exuded from her now, perhaps from the strong set of her jaw, the way her lips pursed out, a sense of irritability, maybe even meanness.
I searched her for any hints of Cynthia, but found none.
“Yes, I’m Mrs. Sloan,” she said.
“I’m sorry to disturb you so late,” I said. “Mrs. Clayton Sloan?”
“Yes. I’m Enid Sloan,” she said. “You’re right. It’s very late. What do you want?” There was an edge in her voice suggesting whatever it was, we could not count on her to be obliging.
She held her head up, thrust her chin forward, not just because we towered over her, but as a show of strength. She was trying to tell us she was a tough old broad, not to be messed with. I was surprised she wasn’t more fearful of two men showing up at her door late at night. The fact was, she was still an old lady in a wheelchair, and we were two able-bodied men.
I did a quick visual sweep of the living room. Knockoff colonial furniture, Ethan Allen Lite, lots of space between the pieces to allow for the wheelchair. Faded drapes and sheers, a few vases with fake flowers. The carpet, a thick broadloom that must have cost a bundle when it was installed, looked worn and