No Time for Goodbye - Linwood Barclay [134]
“Suppose I told you none of it matters,” he said. “Suppose I acknowledge that yes, your questions are interesting, that there are some things you still do not know, but that in the larger scheme of things, it’s not really that important.”
“An innocent woman gets killed, then her body’s hit by a car, she’s left in the ditch, you think that’s unimportant? You think that’s how her family felt? I spoke to her brother on the phone the other day.”
Clayton’s bushy eyebrows rose a notch.
“Both their parents died within a couple of years after Connie. It’s like they gave up on life. It was the only way to end the grieving.”
Clayton shook his head.
“And you say that it’s not important? Clayton, did you kill that woman?”
“No,” he said.
“Did you know who did?”
Clayton would only shake his head.
“Enid?” I said. “She came to Connecticut a year later to kill Patricia and Todd. Did she come down earlier, did she kill Connie Gormley, too?”
Clayton kept shaking his head, then finally spoke. “Enough lives have been destroyed already. There’s no sense in ruining any more. I don’t have anything else to say about this.” He folded his arms across his chest and waited for the sun to come up.
I didn’t want to lose time stopping for breakfast, but I was also very much aware of Clayton’s weakened condition. Once morning hit, and the car was filled with light, I saw how much worse he looked than when we’d fled the hospital. He’d been hours without his IV, without sleep.
“You look like you need something,” I said. We were going through Winsted, where Route 8 went from a winding, two-lane affair to four lanes. We’d make even better time from here, the last leg of the journey to Milford. There were some fast-food joints in Winsted, and I suggested we hit a drive-through window, get a McMuffin, something like that.
Clayton nodded wearily. “I could eat the egg. I don’t think I could chew the English muffin.”
As we sat in the drive-through line, Clayton said, “Tell me about her.”
“What?”
“Tell me about Cynthia. I haven’t seen her since that night. I haven’t seen her in twenty-five years.”
I didn’t entirely know how to react to Clayton. There were times when I felt sympathy for him, the horrible life he’d led, the misery he’d had to endure living with Enid, the tragedy of losing loved ones.
But who was to blame, really? Clayton had made the point himself. He’d made his choices. And not just the decision to help Enid cover up a monstrous crime, and to leave Cynthia behind, to wonder her whole adult life what had become of her family. There were choices he could have made earlier. He could have stood up to Enid, somehow. Insisted on a divorce. Called the police when she became violent. Had her committed. Something.
He could have walked out on her. Left her a note. “Dear Enid: I’m out of here. Clayton.”
At least it would have been more honest.
It wasn’t as if he was looking to me for sympathy, asking about his daughter, my wife. But there was something in his voice, a bit of “poor me.” Haven’t seen my daughter for two and a half decades. How terribly sad for me. There’s the rearview mirror, pal, I thought to myself. Twist it around, take a look. There’s the guy who has to carry a lot of the load for all the fucked-up shit that’s been going on since 1983.
But instead, I said, “She’s wonderful.”
Clayton waited for more.
“Cyn is the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me,” I said. “I love her more than you could ever know. And as long as I’ve known her, she’s been dealing with what you and Enid did to her. Think about it. You wake up one morning and your family is gone. The cars are gone. Everyone fucking gone.” I felt my blood starting to boil, and I gripped the wheel more tightly in anger. “Do you have any fucking idea? Do you? What was she supposed to think? Were you all dead? Had some crazy serial killer gone through town and killed all of you? Or had the three of you decided, that night, to go off and have a new life somewhere else, a new life that didn’t include