Free Far From True by Linwood Barclay Page A

Italian salami and shoved it into his mouth.
    “You think we’re ready,” he said. “Your biological clock is ticking. If we’re ever going to do it, now is the time. Why should we wait? A child will make us a family.” He cocked his head at her. “How’m I doing?”
    Her eyes were starting to swim.
    “Thought so,” Carlson said.
    “You’d be a wonderful father,” Gale said. “I know you would.”
    “That’s not what I’m worried about,” he said, shoving another handful of meat into his mouth.
    “You’re worried about me? That’s it? You’re saying I won’t be a good mother?”
    “That’s not what I mean,” he said, although it came out much less clear than that with his mouth full of salami.
    “That’s what you think.”
    “No one has a kid thinking they’re going to be anything less than a great mother. A great parent. It’s after they have the kid they find out they’re no good at it.”
    “I know we’d be good.”
    Angus Carlson studied her. “No one knows anything for sure.”
    “It doesn’t have to be the way it was for you,” she said, reaching out, touching his arm. “Just because your mother—”
    He pulled away. “I’ve got to get some sleep. I have to be in early.”
    •   •   •
    He set his phone to wake him in two hours. Thirty minutes after that, he was at the station, expecting to head back out to the drive-in, but Duckworth had other ideas.
    “Some bomb experts from the state are helping us at the site today. We’ve got plenty of uniformed officers interviewing witnesses, people who were there, who’d gone to see the movie. I want you out at Thackeray.”
    Thackeray College?
    “What do you want me out there for?” Carlson asked.
    “The Mason Helt business,” Duckworth said.
    Mason Helt, the Thackeray student who’d been shot dead by the college’s head of security. Helt had been killed after attacking Thackeray security guard Joyce Pilgrim, who’d been acting as a decoy, hoping to get the attention of whoever had grabbed and molested three female Thackeray students.
    “What’s left to do?” Carlson said. “They got the guy.”
    Duckworth said, “According to Ms. Pilgrim, before Helt died, he said something about being put up to this, like it was a gig, a hired performance. I want to know what the others have to say. If there was someone else involved, we need to know.”
    “You think I’m not good enough to work the drive-in,” Carlson said.
    Duckworth shot him a look, but sidestepped the accusation. “If that screen hadn’t fallen over last night, I’d be at Thackeray myself this morning asking questions.”
    Carlson said, “Fine.”
    Duckworth started to walk away, paused, turned back. “About Duncomb.”
    “Duncomb?”
    “Clive Duncomb. Their chief of security, who put the bullet into Helt. Former Boston PD. Thinks he’s John Wayne. Should have brought us in on this from the very beginning but chose to handle it himself. So far, he seems to have admin behind him, even thoughHelt’s parents have filed a multimillion-dollar suit against the college. He wrote the book on how to be an asshole.”
    “Okay,” Carlson said. A pause, then, “Thanks for the heads-up.”
    The three students who’d been attacked—presumably all by Helt—were Denise Lambton, Erin Stotter, and Lorraine Plummer. None of them had seen the man’s face, but their descriptions of what he’d been wearing—a hoodie with the number 23 on the front—matched.
    He had contact information for all three, but only one of them,Lorraine Plummer, was available for a face-to-face. This, it turned out, was the end of the semester, and most students had returned home. Erin Stotter had gone back to Danbury, Connecticut, and Denise Lambton had gone to Hawaii—a graduation present from her parents.
    Lorraine, however, was staying, having signed up to take courses from May to August so she could obtain her degree more quickly. She agreed to meet with Carlson in the