No Time for Goodbye - Linwood Barclay [113]
“I’m calling the police,” Enid said, turning her chair. Vince came around behind it, went to grab for the handles, until I waved for him to stop.
“No,” I said. “Maybe that would be a good idea. We could all wait here for Jeremy to return home, and ask him some questions with the police here.”
That stopped her wheeling the chair, but she said, “Why should I be afraid to have the police come?”
“That’s a good question. Why should you be? Could it have something to do with what happened twenty-five years ago? Or maybe with more recent events, in Connecticut? While Jeremy’s been away? The death of Tess Berman, my wife’s aunt? And a private detective named Denton Abagnall?”
“Get out,” she said.
“And about Jeremy,” I said. “He’s Cynthia’s brother, isn’t he?”
She glared at me, her eyes filled with hate. “Don’t you dare say that,” she said, her hands resting on the blanket.
“Why?” I asked. “Because it’s true? Because Jeremy’s actually Todd?”
“What?” she said. “Who told you that? That’s a filthy lie!”
I looked over her shoulder at Vince, whose hands were on the rubber grips of the wheelchair.
“I want to make a phone call,” she said. “I demand that you let me use the phone.”
“Who do you want to call?” Vince asked.
“That’s not one of your business.”
He looked at me. “She’s going to call Jeremy,” he said calmly. “She wants to warn him. That’s not such a good idea.”
“What about Clayton?” I asked her. “Is Clayton Sloan actually Clayton Bigge? Are they one and the same person?”
“Let me use the phone,” she repeated, almost hissing like a snake.
Vince held on to the chair. I said to him, “You can’t just hold her like that. It’s, like, kidnapping, or confinement, or something.”
“That’s right!” Enid Sloan said. “You can’t do this, you can’t barge into an old lady’s house and hold her like this!”
Vince let go of the chair. “Then use the phone, to call the police,” he said, repeating my bluff. “Forget about calling your son. Call the cops.”
The chair did not move.
“I need to go to the hospital,” I said to Vince. “I want to see Clayton Sloan.”
“He’s very sick,” Enid said. “He can’t be disturbed.”
“Maybe I can disturb him long enough to ask him a couple of questions.”
“You can’t go! Visiting hours are over! And besides, he’s in a coma! He won’t even know you’re there!”
If he were in a coma, I figured, she wouldn’t care whether I went to see him. “Let’s go to the hospital,” I said.
Vince said, “If we leave, she’s going to call Jeremy. Warn him that we’re waiting here to talk to him. I could tie her up.”
“Jesus, Vince,” I said. I couldn’t condone tying up an elderly disabled woman, no matter how unpleasant she seemed. Even if it meant never finding the answers to all my questions. “What if you just stayed here?”
He nodded. “That works. Enid and I can chat, gossip about the neighbors, that kind of thing.” He leaned over so she could see his face. “Won’t that be fun? Maybe we can even have some of that carrot cake. It smells delicious.” Then he reached into his jacket, took out the keys to the truck, and tossed them my way.
I grabbed them out of the air. “What room is he in?” I asked her.
She glared at me.
“Tell me what room he’s in, or I’ll call the cops myself.”
She gave that a moment’s thought, knew that once I got to the hospital I’d probably be able to find out anyway, then said, “Third floor. Room 309.”
Before I left the house, Vince and I exchanged cell phone numbers. I got in his truck, fiddled with getting the key into the ignition. A different vehicle always takes a minute or two to get used to. I turned on the engine, found the lights, then backed into a driveway and turned around. I needed a moment to get my bearings. I knew Lewiston was south of here, and that we’d gone south from the bar, but I didn’t know whether continuing in a southerly direction would get me where I had to go. So I backtracked up Main, cut east, and once I’d found my way back to the highway, headed south.
I took the first exit once I saw the blue “H” in the distance, found my way to the hospital parking lot,