No Time for Goodbye - Linwood Barclay [77]
It seemed unthinkable that Cynthia had done this. But what if…what if, under what could only be described as unimaginable stress, Cynthia had written this note, which was directing us to a remote location where supposedly we would learn the fate of the members of Cynthia’s family?
What if Cynthia had typed it up, and what happened if it turned out to be right?
“Terry!” Cynthia shouted. “Detective Wedmore is here!”
“In a minute!” I said.
What would that mean? What would it mean if Cynthia somehow actually knew, all these years, where her family could be found?
I was breaking into a sweat.
Maybe, I told myself, she’d repressed memories. Maybe she knew more than she was aware. Yes, that could be it. She saw what happened, but forgot it. Didn’t that happen? Didn’t the brain sometimes decide, Hey, what you’re seeing is so horrible, you have to forget it, otherwise you’ll never be able to get on with your life? Wasn’t there an actual syndrome they talked about that covered this sort of thing?
And then again, what if it wasn’t a repressed memory? What if she’d always known—
No.
No, it had to be another explanation altogether. Someone else had used our typewriter. Days ago. Planning ahead. That stranger who’d come into the house and left the hat.
If it was a stranger.
“Terry!”
“Right there!”
“Mr. Archer!” Detective Wedmore shouted. “Haul it down here, please.”
I acted on impulse. I opened the closet, picked up the typewriter—God, those old machines were heavy—and put it inside, on the floor. Then I draped some other things over it, an old pair of pants I’d used to paint in, a stack of old newspapers.
As I came down the stairs, I saw that Wedmore was now with Cynthia in the living room. The letter was on the coffee table, open, Wedmore leaning over it, reading it.
“You touched this,” she scolded me.
“Yes.”
“You’ve both touched it. Your wife, that I could understand—she didn’t know what it was when she took it out. What’s your excuse?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I ran my hand over my mouth and chin, tried to wipe away the sweat I was sure would betray my nervousness.
“You can get divers, right?” Cynthia said. “You can get divers to go into the quarry, see what’s there.”
“This could be a crank,” Wedmore said, taking a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her eye and tucking it behind her ear. “Could be nothing.”
“That’s true,” I offered.
“But then again,” the detective said, “we don’t know.”
“If you don’t send in divers, I’ll go in myself,” Cynthia said.
“Cyn,” I said. “don’t be ridiculous. You don’t even swim.”
“I don’t care.”
“Mrs. Archer,” Wedmore said, “calm down.” It was an order. Wedmore had a kind of football coach thing going on.
“Calm down?” said Cynthia, unintimidated. “You know what this person, who wrote this letter, is saying? They’re down there. Their bodies are down there.”
“I’m afraid,” Wedmore said, shaking her head skeptically, “that there might be a lot down there after all these years.”
“Maybe they’re in a car,” Cynthia said. “My mother’s car, my father’s car, they were never found.”
Wedmore took a corner of the letter between two brilliant red-polished fingernails and turned it over. She stared at the map.
“We’ll have to get the Mass. State Police in on this,” she said. “I’ll make a call.” She reached into her jacket for her cell phone, opened it up, prepared to put in a number.
“You’re going to get some divers?” Cynthia said.
“I’m making a call. And we’re going to have to get that letter to our lab, see if they can get anything off it, if it hasn’t already been made pretty useless.”
“I’m sorry,” Cynthia said.
“Interesting,” Wedmore said, “that it was done on a typewriter. Hardly anyone uses typewriters.”
I felt my heart in my mouth. And then Cynthia said something I couldn’t believe I was hearing.
“We have a typewriter,” she said.
“You do?” Wedmore said, holding off before entering the last number.
“Terry still likes to use one, right, honey? For short notes, that kind of thing. It’s a Royal,