Dan Sharp Mysteries 6-Book Bundle. Jeffrey Round

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СКАЧАТЬ again. “Anyway, I convinced him that leaving was for the best. I told him there was no telling what else she might do. Better to get away and deal with it from a distance. We’d talked about it a million times already. I was just repeating myself.”

      “When did you last see him?”

      “Around noon. I went over and helped him get ready. I remember we had a little fight over it, because I was in a hurry and he was terribly fussy about packing his clothes, so I did it for him. He was always a very smart dresser, and it was the only thing I’ve known him to get cranky about.”

      “How were you going to leave?”

      “By car. I was supposed to do all the driving, take our time to get here. He still couldn’t drive after his accident.”

      And thus the bicycle, Dan thought. “Then what?”

      “I called him again in the afternoon, maybe five o’clock. I just had a feeling he might change his mind. But he didn’t answer.”

      Because by then he’d been spotted on the ferry to Adolphustown, Dan thought. Maybe he was already scouting out a place to throw himself under the ice. Only he couldn’t do it in the light of day with everyone watching. He’d have waited till it was dark, when no one would see. “What then?”

      “I went and waited for him up at Lake on the Mountain as we’d planned. He was supposed to be there by eight. I got there an hour early, I was so nervous. I sat in the parking lot and waited for nearly five hours, but he never showed. It was cold that night. I kept running the engine then turning it off again to save gas to make sure we had enough to leave.”

      “Did you see anything while you were waiting?”

      Magnus shook his head. “The place was deserted. It was eerie and dark. It was past season and there were no lights on at the resort. A couple of cars drove past. One pulled into the parking lot and stopped for a second, then drove away again when they saw me. Probably lovers looking for a make-out place. Then nothing for almost an hour. I was ready to give up. Then a kid came by on a bike and I split. It was nearly midnight by then and I figured Craig had changed his mind. I was crying and pretty confused. I couldn’t believe he’d decided not to come with me. There was a couple walking up the hill. I passed them on the way down. I didn’t recognize them. I don’t think they were townies. Not sure who they were. It was odd to see people out walking at that time of year.”

      And by then Craig Killingworth had succeeded in killing himself, Dan calculated. “And after that?”

      “After that I drove by his place in Bloomfield, but all the lights were off and I just kept heading west. Didn’t stop till I hit the Sault thirteen hours later. I pulled into a motel, cried for an hour and then slept. I made it out here a little over two weeks later. I didn’t even know he was missing till I got here and found his letter. Then I knew what he’d done.”

      Twilight had come and gone. The sky was black outside the trailer, as dark as Dan remembered from his time on Mayne Island. Magnus lit a lamp — the power hadn’t been reconnected. Their faces were orange moons in the dark. Moths batted themselves senseless against the screen outside.

      “You see what I’m saying. No one looked for him. No one cared. No one wanted him found but me. And who was I? Just some faggot gardener who got involved with a man and tried to help him understand himself. I wouldn’t do it today, let me tell you.”

      Craig Killingworth’s suicide note lay on the table before them. Dan fingered it. “This diary he mentions. Do you know where it is now?”

      Magnus pondered this. “Probably still in a locked box in the Bloomfield bank where he left it. I opened the account for him in my name, but only Craig used it. He was documenting evidence of Lucille’s campaign against him. I think he put the tapes in there too. He didn’t want anything to be associated with him. He thought they might come looking for it and he was still pretty scared of her. But they didn’t know him in Bloomfield, so he’d go in with his key and forge my signature whenever he wanted access to the box. He sent me the key in the letter.”

      “You never opened the box?”

      Magnus sat back and sighed heavily. “Even now, after all these years, I still haven’t the heart.”

      “Do you think it might still be there?”

      Magnus squinted at Dan in the false light. “Hard to say. I paid the account up until about five years ago, then I got sick and moved and the bank lost track of where I was. I’ve thought of it many’s a time, but never did a thing about it.”

      “Would you agree to help me get it out? For Craig? Maybe to help his sons understand what happened to their father?”

      Magnus regarded him for a second. “I’ll do anything I can to help him, and if it hurts her, even better. I could write a letter for you telling them to release it. The key’s long gone, though. I haven’t seen it in years.”

      Twenty-Five

      Deplorable, Nasty, Unsettling, Sick

      Bloomfield was even more nondescript and reserved than Picton or Glenora. Dan found the town’s only bank, still located on the main drag, and held his breath. He went in and offered the letter from Magnus granting him permission to access the box’s contents. The clerk gave him a suspicious look, impatiently adjusting her glasses as Dan explained that he’d been given the letter from his uncle, who had spent the past half-decade fighting a serious illness.

      “Sir — this account hasn’t been paid in more than five years,” she said, as though he were personally accountable for its dereliction. “We cannot be held responsible for the contents of a safety deposit box that has not been paid for any length of time exceeding two years.”

      “I understand that,” Dan said. “I just wondered if you could check to see what happened to the box’s contents.”

      “I can tell you what would have happened.” Her face wore the look of a teacher speaking to a particularly dull three-year-old. “The bank would have sent out several letters requesting payment, and then, receiving no answer from you, we would have extended a courtesy time of two years’ wait. After that, the box would have been drilled open and the contents removed.” She stared him down, the better to make her point. “You understand, of course, that we do not keep spare copies of the keys. Once you have opened the account with us, no one can access the box but you.”

      “Or in this case, my aged and infirm uncle.”

      “Be that as it may,” another teacher-child look passed over her face, this one more wrathful in its proportions, “we cannot access the box without the key your uncle was given when he opened the account with us. Even if we needed to, we could not see what was inside the box without it.”

      The reasoning went on like this for some time until the clerk seemed satisfied that Dan had been apprised of official banking procedures and was thoroughly taken to task over his shameful neglect-by-proxy on behalf of his uncle’s account.

      “But if the box has already been drilled, might I not have access to the contents without the key?”

      She peered at him closely, her face a reminder of the ignominy of all that was implicit about irresponsibility in regard to past due accounts. “I will speak with my manager.”

      The СКАЧАТЬ