BooksBarbecue
Back Whistle
Chapters (73)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Part IAnnie
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Part IIHarry
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Part IIIAnnie
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Part IVHarry
  40. Thirty-Three
  41. Thirty-Four
  42. Thirty-Five
  43. Thirty-Six
  44. Thirty-Seven
  45. Thirty-Eight
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. Forty
  48. Forty-One
  49. Forty-Two
  50. Forty-Three
  51. Forty-Four
  52. Forty-Five
  53. Forty-Six
  54. Forty-Seven
  55. Forty-Eight
  56. Part VAnnie
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. Fifty-Two
  61. Fifty-Three
  62. Fifty-Four
  63. Fifty-Five
  64. Fifty-Six
  65. Fifty-Seven
  66. Fifty-Eight
  67. Fifty-Nine
  68. Sixty
  69. Sixty-One
  70. Acknowledgments
  71. About the Author
  72. Also by Linwood Barclay
  73. About the Publisher

This mountain was going to go over an existing track. There would be a tunnel, and portals at each end. But the mountain had to be strong. He didn’t want the whole thing crashing down when a gleaming passenger train was running through it. And it had to support everything that would go on it. The rocks and trees and weeds and grass.

Edwin looked into the bin he kept on a worktable a couple of steps away from the layout. It contained various odds and ends that would be incorporated into the structure.

“Yes, let’s start with this,” he said, reaching in and pulling out an off-white stick with rounded ends, like a longer, thicker turkey bone.

Close at hand were an electric drill, a set of bits, and a box of screws. Edwin found everything he needed.

“Nothing beats a good, solid femur,” Edwin said under his breath.

This time, instead of whistling, he sang. “Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to work we go . . .”

But he drowned himself out as he began to drill holes through bone.

Thirteen

It was never news Harry wanted to deliver, but he couldn’t recall dreading it more than today.

Gloria Tanner, wife of the late Angus, was out the front door of her house before he was out of his car. Maybe she’d been sitting by the window night and day, waiting for the authorities to arrive with news about her missing husband. Or maybe something Bill Tracy had said at the Lucknow Diner had made it all the way to the Tanner household. Harry hoped it wasn’t the latter. He didn’t want the bad news to come from somebody else. Gloria Tanner deserved to hear it from him.

She must have known from the expression on his face that he didn’t have anything good to report. As he opened his door wide, she began to crumple in slow motion, her legs weakening, and then her knees were on the lawn, her calves tucked under them, her right arm out to keep her from completely going down.

Harry got out of the car fast and was on his knees next to her, a hand around her shoulder, keeping her upright.

“Mrs. Tanner, why don’t we get you inside.”

“You’ve found him, haven’t you?”

“Are your children home?” he asked. The Tanners had two grown kids. A son named Ivan, twenty-five, who worked the counter at a self-serve Sunoco station, and a daughter, Patrice, thirty-one, who worked for the town’s tax department.

“No,” Gloria whispered. “They both came by this morning.”

“Let’s go inside and call them. Get them back here.”

Harry knew he couldn’t wait for the children to arrive to break the news, but he wanted to know they were on the way. He didn’t want Gloria Tanner to be alone when he departed.