He’d lived in the basement so long that he never really registered it in its entirety, but maybe because of the visit from Henry Kimball and the feeling of being watched, he was now seeing it through an outsider’s eyes. There were his old LEGO creations alongside the shelf containing his mother’s romance novels he was somehow unable to throw away. It wasn’t just his mother’s books he kept down here, but he’d also brought down her old armoire, the one she’d gotten from her own mother, that was filled with her best dresses. That armoire was next to the single bed he’d slept in for most of his life, its headboard covered in Pokémon stickers. And while the basement didn’t smell as bad as the house, there was water damage on two of the walls and the smell of mold had been getting worse over the years. And something was wrong with the toilet in the makeshift bathroom he used; the water that flowed into it was rusty brown and smelled like death.
Of course, he’d burn it all down when he finally made his move. It was really the only reason he’d continued to live in the house after his mother drowned in the upstairs tub and Don moved to the condo in Florida. He’d stockpiled enough gasoline to make sure that there’d be nothing left of this place by the time police detectives and journalists arrived to take a look. No, by then he’d only be known by what he’d done, and not how he’d lived. And it wasn’t like he did anything creepy with his mother’s dresses or her old hairbrushes, but they were all he really had left of her. Most of the time he had fond memories of his mother from the time when it was just the two of them, when she looked out for him. The time before Don.
After microwaving and eating two burritos Richard got onto his computer and looked up Henry Kimball. Ever since the interview he’d gone over and over the questions he’d been asked, and now he was convinced not only that somehow Kimball had figured out there was a connection between Joan and him, but that he’d figured it all out. He knew about Duane, and about James Pursall, and how they’d arranged Joan’s husband’s death. The only question now was whether there was any way Henry Kimball could prove it. Richard doubted it, because he’d been careful, and Joan had been careful. They always had been. Still, this asshole somehow knew. Had he told anyone else? Or was he just sniffing around, hoping to get more evidence? He wasn’t a real cop, after all. He couldn’t go back into that house in Bingham and start snooping around for DNA. But he could tell someone else to do it, couldn’t he?
In bed that night he made a decision. There was a good chance that the detective was simply fishing, that he knew nothing. More importantly, he had probably not told anyone about his suspicions. Richard didn’t need Joan for this. He could take care of it himself. And after he took care of the detective it was time for him to put some of his other plans into action. He’d waited too long. The world needed to know his name.
Chapter 28
Kimball
After meeting with Richard Seddon at the store, I’d returned to my office in Cambridge. I’d already installed the tracking software onto my desktop computer and I booted it up; the magnetic device that I’d attached to Richard’s Altima was telling me he hadn’t left the parking lot of the store yet. I settled in. There was a way to set up alerts so I’d know when he started to move, or if he drove toward Dartford, but I hadn’t figured out how to do that yet. I was happy to sit and wait.
I had a copy of David Kintner’s worst-reviewed novel, a slim paperback called July and August. I’d never read it, even though I’d had the book for a while. But I was halfway through it, now, thoroughly enjoying the story even though I could see why the critics pounced. It was a thinly veiled account of his affair with the writer Margaret Cogswell, written in 1978. The first section, “July,” was narrated by Douglas MacLeod, an alcoholic journalist who meets the sculptress Angela Hardwick on an unnamed Greek island, the two of them guests of a dying patron of the arts with the overly symbolic name of Athena. It was a pretty simple tale of reversal, Douglas seducing and controlling Angela in the first section, then Angela destroying Douglas in the section called “August.” That was the section I was reading now, and even though it was told through the voice of Angela, it was blatantly obvious that it was David Kintner’s voice taking revenge on a woman who betrayed him. Angela is a manipulative monster with no redeeming characteristics.
Still, I was caught up in it, and almost missed the moment that Richard Seddon left the store in his car, but the movement of the map on my screen caught my attention. He drove across Fairview to his home address, and it was there that the car stopped. I was disappointed, hoping, of course, that he would drive straight to Joan’s house in Dartford, or to some meeting place. There was still time, though, so I kept watching the screen.
By eleven that night I’d finished my book, Richard’s car hadn’t gone anywhere, and I’d figured out a way to send myself an alert on my cell phone if there was any movement with the tracker. I went home, fed Pyewacket, then lay in bed and started Margaret Cogswell’s debut novel The Green Marriage, the book that had put her on the map. I’d had the original Penguin paperback forever, but it was very thick and had very small print and I’d always been intimidated by it. I read the first chapter while Pyewacket settled down in his spot by my feet, purring. I apologized to him for my absence lately, and he opened his mouth to answer back but only managed a feeble, sleepy meow.
When I got back to my office the following morning at just past nine Richard Seddon’s car had still not moved. I split the screen on my computer between the map of Fairview and an internet browser, then I read about what was happening in the baseball playoffs, googled Richard Seddon again to see if I’d missed anything, then read the Wikipedia entry on Margaret Cogswell. It didn’t mention her affair with David Kintner, who was probably the least famous of her many famous lovers. She had died just two years earlier, three months after winning the Booker Prize for her final novel, A Room by the Sea. I remember that the common joke at the time was that she’d been holding off death until she finally made it off the Booker short list （she’d been there seven times） and into the winner’s circle.
I was doing image searches of her when the dot on my map started to move, and I enlarged the tracking window to full screen. Richard had pulled out of the driveway of his house and was heading toward Fairview center, probably going to work. But when he hit the first major intersection he turned south instead, eventually getting onto Route 2 and heading west. He passed the exits for Littleton and Acton, then Dartford and Concord and Lincoln, getting closer to the city. It wasn’t until he got off Route 2 and onto the Alewife Brook Parkway that it even occurred to me that he might be coming to see me. I was sitting rigid in my chair, watching as the dot passed through the two rotaries near Fresh Pond then got onto Concord Avenue, taking it all the way down to Chauncy Street. I felt like a man on a beach watching the water recede and amass itself into a tsunami, unable to move. From Chauncy Street he pulled onto Oxford, the car stopping about two blocks from my office.
He was definitely coming to see me.
I unlocked my file cabinet, removing the case where I kept my snub-nosed Colt Cobra, checking to make sure it was loaded, then placed the gun in the front drawer of my desk. I was nervous, but also a little excited. It was possible he had come to hurt me, but it was more likely he’d come to tell me something. My intercom buzzed, and I walked across my office to answer it.