No Time for Goodbye - Linwood Barclay [76]
But for the moment, I held my tongue, and read what it said:
Cynthia: It’s time you knew where they were. Where they still ARE, most likely. There’s an abandoned quarry a couple of hours north of where you live, just past the Connecticut border. It’s like a lake, but not a real lake because it’s where they took out gravel and stuff. It’s real deep. Probably too deep for any kids swimming there to have found all these years. You take 8 north, cross into Mass., keep going till you get to Otis, then go east. See the map on the other side. There’s a small lane behind a row of trees that leads to the top of the quarry. You have to be careful when you get up there, because it’s really steep. Down into the quarry there. Right down there, at the bottom of that lake, that’s where you’ll find your answer.
I flipped the sheet over again. The map showed all the details that were set out in the note.
“That’s where they are,” Cynthia whispered, pointing to the paper in my hand. “They’re in the water.” She took in a breath. “So…they’re dead.”
Things seemed almost blurry before my eyes. I blinked a couple of times, focused. I turned the sheet over again, reread the note, then looked at it not for what it said, but from a more technical point of view.
It had been composed on a standard typewriter. Not on a computer. Not printed off.
“Where did you get this?” I asked, trying very hard to keep my voice controlled.
“It was in the mail at Pamela’s,” Cynthia said. “In the mailbox. Someone left it there. The mailman didn’t bring it. It doesn’t have a stamp on it or anything.”
“No,” I said. “Someone put it there.”
“Who?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“We have to go up there,” she said. “Today, now, we have to find out what’s there, what’s under the water.”
“The detective, the woman who met us at the dock, Wedmore, she’s coming. We’ll talk to her about that. They’ll have police divers. But there’s something else I want to ask you about. It’s about this note. Look at it. Look at the typing—”
“They have to get up there immediately,” Cynthia said. It was as if she thought whoever was at the bottom of that quarry might still be alive, that they might still have a bit of air left.
I heard a car stop out front, looked out the window and saw Rona Wedmore striding up the driveway, her short, stocky frame looking capable of walking straight through the door.
I felt a sense of panic.
“Honey,” I said, “is there anything else you want to tell me about this note? Before the police get here? You have to be totally honest with me here.”
“What are you talking about?” she said.
“Don’t you see something odd about this?” I said, holding the letter in front of her. I pointed, very specifically, to one of the words in the letter. “Right here, at the beginning,” I said, pointing to “time.”
“What?”
The horizontal line in the “e” was faded, making it almost look like a “c.” The word almost appeared to be “timc.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cynthia said. “What do you mean, be honest with you? Of course I’m being honest with you.”
Wedmore was mounting the front step, fist ready to knock.
“I have to go upstairs for a moment,” I said. “Answer that, tell her I’ll be right down.”
Before Cynthia could say another thing, I bolted up the stairs. Behind me, I heard Wedmore knock, two sharp knocks, then Cynthia open the door, the two of them exchange greetings. By then I was in the small room I use to mark papers, prepare lessons.
My old Royal typewriter sat on the desk, beside the computer.
I had to decide what to do with it.
It was obvious to me that the note Cynthia was, at that moment, showing to Detective Wedmore had been written on this typewriter. The faded “e” was instantly recognizable.
I knew that I had not typed that letter.
I knew Grace could not have done it.
That left only two other possibilities. The stranger we had reason to believe had entered our home had used my typewriter to write that note, or Cynthia had typed it herself.
But we’d had the locks changed. I was as sure as I could be that