Read Online A Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Linwood Barclay
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paper the night before, about Mayor Bert Sanders’ fight with the Griffon police over allegations of brutality. Did it make sense that the mayor, who’d pissed off everyone in this town who wore a badge, could reasonably expect the cops to indulge him with a discreet search for his daughter?
Yet that seemed to be what Brindle and Haines were doing.
Maybe Augustus Perry was happy to do the mayor a favor. It could buy him leverage in the future. The chief was good at having people owe him one.
“You think the mayor would go to him directly?” I said. “Ask for help finding his daughter, without making a big official thing of it?”
“A lot of people are willing to swallow their pride when it comes to their kids’ safety,” Donna said. “You think maybe this is something you shouldn’t be sticking your nose into?”
“It’s already there,” I said. I told her, briefly, about the events of the previous evening. How I might be one of the last people to see Claire before she went missing.
“What do you know about Bertram Sanders?” I asked.
“Former professor at Canisius College. Political science. Wrote a couple of books that did okay, I think. One of them was a flattering profile of Clinton. He’s left of center. He could have stayed and taught there a few more years but opted to take early retirement.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Maybe he’d had enough. A woman I work with, she took a course with him ten, twelve years ago. He asked her out a few times.”
“He hit on his students?”
“So they say. Didn’t seem to trouble him that he had a wife, although I suspect it must have troubled her, given that she finally left him. And despite this failing, apparently he’s this big idealist. Believes in something called the Constitution. Doesn’t like Augie’s approach to streamlining the justice system.”
A nice way to put it. Taking a felon behind a building and breaking his nose instead of laying charges was one way to keep the court system from getting too clogged.
A ten-second silence followed as Donna stood there, staring at me.
“What?” I asked.
“This is how it used to be,” she said. “How we used to talk. I remember how, when you’d get home, you’d tell me all about the things you were working on.”
“Donna.”
“This is the most we’ve spoken in weeks.” Another pause. “You remember my friend Eileen Skyler?”
“Who?’
“She was married to Earl—he worked the border at Whirlpool Rapids before it went NEXUS only.”
“Vaguely,” I said.
“Things started to fall apart for them after their daughter, Sylvia, died in that crash at the top of the South Grand Island Bridge when she got cut off by the gas truck and there was a fire. She was thirty-two. Her husband had left her about a year earlier.”
“I remember.”
“It hit them pretty hard, which is no surprise. They were so sad, so heartbroken, that they didn’t know how to talk to each other anymore. The smallest pleasures made them feel guilty. And most of the pleasure they’d found in life had been being with each other. It got to the point where they lived on different floors of their house. Earl came in the back way, right by the stairs, and lived on the top floor, where he set up a hot plate and put in a small fridge. Eileen used the front door, and lived on the first floor. Set up a bedroom down there. They lived in the same house but could go weeks without ever having to see or talk to each other.”
I said nothing.
“So what I keep wondering is, are things going to get better around here, or should I put in a call to Gill?”
Gill Strothers was a carpenter and general handyman we’d used around the house for several small projects, although he had tackled larger ones for other people. Additions, new kitchens. All cash-under-the-table jobs. He did good work.
“Do you want me to call him and ask him if he could put in a set of stairs by the back door there? Is that what you’d like me to
Yet that seemed to be what Brindle and Haines were doing.
Maybe Augustus Perry was happy to do the mayor a favor. It could buy him leverage in the future. The chief was good at having people owe him one.
“You think the mayor would go to him directly?” I said. “Ask for help finding his daughter, without making a big official thing of it?”
“A lot of people are willing to swallow their pride when it comes to their kids’ safety,” Donna said. “You think maybe this is something you shouldn’t be sticking your nose into?”
“It’s already there,” I said. I told her, briefly, about the events of the previous evening. How I might be one of the last people to see Claire before she went missing.
“What do you know about Bertram Sanders?” I asked.
“Former professor at Canisius College. Political science. Wrote a couple of books that did okay, I think. One of them was a flattering profile of Clinton. He’s left of center. He could have stayed and taught there a few more years but opted to take early retirement.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Maybe he’d had enough. A woman I work with, she took a course with him ten, twelve years ago. He asked her out a few times.”
“He hit on his students?”
“So they say. Didn’t seem to trouble him that he had a wife, although I suspect it must have troubled her, given that she finally left him. And despite this failing, apparently he’s this big idealist. Believes in something called the Constitution. Doesn’t like Augie’s approach to streamlining the justice system.”
A nice way to put it. Taking a felon behind a building and breaking his nose instead of laying charges was one way to keep the court system from getting too clogged.
A ten-second silence followed as Donna stood there, staring at me.
“What?” I asked.
“This is how it used to be,” she said. “How we used to talk. I remember how, when you’d get home, you’d tell me all about the things you were working on.”
“Donna.”
“This is the most we’ve spoken in weeks.” Another pause. “You remember my friend Eileen Skyler?”
“Who?’
“She was married to Earl—he worked the border at Whirlpool Rapids before it went NEXUS only.”
“Vaguely,” I said.
“Things started to fall apart for them after their daughter, Sylvia, died in that crash at the top of the South Grand Island Bridge when she got cut off by the gas truck and there was a fire. She was thirty-two. Her husband had left her about a year earlier.”
“I remember.”
“It hit them pretty hard, which is no surprise. They were so sad, so heartbroken, that they didn’t know how to talk to each other anymore. The smallest pleasures made them feel guilty. And most of the pleasure they’d found in life had been being with each other. It got to the point where they lived on different floors of their house. Earl came in the back way, right by the stairs, and lived on the top floor, where he set up a hot plate and put in a small fridge. Eileen used the front door, and lived on the first floor. Set up a bedroom down there. They lived in the same house but could go weeks without ever having to see or talk to each other.”
I said nothing.
“So what I keep wondering is, are things going to get better around here, or should I put in a call to Gill?”
Gill Strothers was a carpenter and general handyman we’d used around the house for several small projects, although he had tackled larger ones for other people. Additions, new kitchens. All cash-under-the-table jobs. He did good work.
“Do you want me to call him and ask him if he could put in a set of stairs by the back door there? Is that what you’d like me to
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