I couldn’t think of any good reason why I shouldn’t just find out myself.
I turned off the TV, grabbed the laptop, and looked up the Promise Falls Police Department. I found a nonemergency number and dialed.
“Promise Falls Police Service,” a woman said.
“I’m trying to reach Detective Duckworth,” I said.
“I think he’s gone home,” she said. “Who’s calling?”
“Ray Kilbride.”
“Let me check.” She put me on hold. While I was waiting, Thomas came down the stairs.
“What are you doing?” I asked, putting my hand over the receiver.
“I’m going downstairs to look for the photo album,” he said, and disappeared through the door to the basement.
“Hello?” the woman on the switchboard said. “Mr. Kilbride?”
“Yes?”
“I reached Detective Duckworth at home for you. Hold on and I’ll connect you.” There was a pause, and then, “Go ahead.”
“Hello?” I said. “Detective Duckworth?”
“Who is this? You told the switchboard you’re Mr. Kilbride?”
“That’s right.”
“This some sort of joke? Not Adam Kilbride.”
“No, sir. This is his son.”
“Which son?”
“I’m Ray Kilbride.”
“Okay, right,” Detective Duckworth said. “You’re the one from, where is it? Vermont somewhere?”
“Burlington.”
“And your brother, that’s Thomas?”
“Yes.” I was guessing Harry had filled him in pretty thoroughly.
“You’ll have to forgive me there a second ago,” he said. “It threw me, when the girl called, said it was Mr. Kilbride. I’m sorry about your dad.”
“Well, thanks. And thanks for talking to me. I don’t know where to turn. I’m in kind of a mess here, as you probably know.”
“Yeah, your dad and I had spoken,” Duckworth said.
I felt as though someone had put my head in a paint mixer for a second. “Excuse me?” I said. “When was this?”
“A couple of weeks back,” Duckworth said.
From the basement, Thomas shouted, “Ray!”
“My father spoke to you a couple of weeks ago?” I asked.
“That’s right. That isn’t why you’re calling?”
“No—I mean, yes. I was just following up,” I said.
“I told your father, if he wanted to proceed, it wasn’t going to be an easy thing to prove.”
“Ray!” Thomas shouted again.
“Hang on!” I shouted back. “Sorry about that. My brother’s trying to find something in the basement. You were saying, it wouldn’t be easy to prove.”
“Not considering all the time that has elapsed. And the fact that your brother’s testimony is going to be problematic, as I’m sure you can appreciate. Your father did. Also, he wasn’t sure he wanted to put your brother through all that. He was a good man, your father. Only spoke to him the once, but he seemed like a decent guy, a good father. With a lot on his plate.”
“Detective Duckworth, you won’t believe this, but only in the last minute have I gotten any kind of inkling what you’re talking about,” I said. “My brother was assaulted, wasn’t he?”
“Your father didn’t share this with you?”
“No. But since I’ve been back here, since Dad died, some things have come up that have made me wonder whether something was going on. Something my father was worried my brother would never forgive him for. And…” I hesitated about whether to get into it, but what the hell. “My father had looked up child prostitution on the computer, but I don’t know what sites he actually went to. My brother erased the history before I could find out.”
“Yes, well,” Duckworth said, “that does figure into it. I’m not sure how much to discuss this with you, Ray, and to tell you the truth, your father held back some pretty relevant information. Like exactly who—”
“Ray!”
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Detective, have you got a number where I can get back to you? In a couple of minutes? I really need to talk to you.”
“Sure.”
I grabbed a pencil from a kitchen drawer and scribbled the number down on a scratch pad. “I’ll get right back to you.”
“I’ll be here.”
I ended the call and left the phone on the counter. As I approached the basement door, I shouted, “For Christ’s sake, Thomas, I was on the phone.” I didn’t see him as I came down the stairs. The basement was L-shaped, and I figured he was around the corner, where Dad had kept the photo albums.
“Where the hell are you?”
“Over here,” he said.
I came around the corner, and there was Thomas. His eyes wide with fear. His arms were pulled back, like he was clasping his hands together behind himself.
And he wasn’t alone. There was a woman standing behind, and to his side. She was holding Thomas by the hair with her left hand. In her right, she had what appeared to be an ice pick, and she had the tip touching the soft part of my brother’s neck, just below the jaw.
FIFTY-FIVE
THE woman said, “So you’re Ray.”
“Yes,” I said, unable to take my eyes off the ice pick.
She tugged on Thomas’s hair. “And this one? Thomas? He’s your brother?”