A Tap on the Window

by Linwood Barclay

  “Did we ask you to step back, number four?”

  I stepped ahead again. This was pretty outrageous, putting me in a lineup before I’d even been allowed to call for legal representation. Surprise, surprise.

  “All right, step back.”

  I did as I was told. We stood there another minute or two before the door opened and we were told to get our asses off the stage, although not exactly in those words.

  The four other men were permitted to continue beyond the door, but Brindle was there to stop me from following them.

  “Guess what,” he said. “You got the part.”

  He steered me down another hall and into an interrogation room. Four pale green walls, a table and three chairs. Two on one side, a single chair on the other. He put me in the single and pulled out one of the others across from me.

  “I got a few questions for ya,” Brindle said.

  “I’ve got nothing to say. Not until I have representation. You haven’t even told me why I’m here.”

  “You don’t know why you’re here? You really don’t?”

  “I really don’t. But I can guess. You found something in my car. Something that wasn’t there when you towed it.”

  He frowned. “Why don’t you come with me. Maybe I can help bring it all back to you.”

  I thought of that old James Thurber cartoon, where the prosecution produces a kangaroo and says to the witness, “Perhaps this will refresh your memory!” I doubted Brindle was going to show me any creatures from the Australian outback.

  He took me out of the room and down another hall. I knew, from the many times I’d been in this building—trips that had never included visits to a holding cell or the lineup room—that we were heading toward the main entrance.

  We passed through two more doors and came out behind the reception counter. On the far side of the room were a man and a woman, with, I presumed, their son. He was eighteen years old, slightly built, about five three with a short, bristly haircut, wearing jeans and a sport jacket, white shirt and tie. Looked very respectable.

  I knew his age, but that wasn’t all I knew about him. I knew he used to go to my son’s school last year, but over the summer had moved to Lockport. I knew his name was Russell Tapscott, and that he had his own Audi convertible. Blue, with black interior.

  I knew that it hadn’t been forty-eight hours since I’d last seen him.

  Russell was sitting in one of the chairs, next to his mother. His father was pacing back and forth in front of them.

  Russell saw me first.

  “That’s him!” he shouted, standing and pointing. “That’s the fucker who tried to throw me over the falls.”

  Okay. Now I knew why I was here. It had nothing to do with the car at all.

  THIRTY-SIX

  There was a time, not that far in the past, although it felt like a lifetime ago, when I’d been standing in the Griffon police department reception area with my own son. Scott had been fourteen, and he’d been picked up for being under the influence—of what, it was not immediately clear—in a public place.

  The place had been a Griffon residential neighborhood, the time shortly after midnight. Scott had been running up and down the street, flapping his arms like he was trying to achieve liftoff. When he failed to get out of the way of a Griffon cruiser, he was tossed into the back and brought downtown.

  Augie, as it turned out, was at headquarters at the time, and recognized his nephew as they brought him in. He waved the cops over, asked what was going on, then sent them on their way, leaving Scott in his custody.

  Not wanting to upset his sister, he placed a call to my cell. I had muted the ringer, but heard it buzz on the bedside table and managed to answer it without waking Donna.

  I told him I’d be right down.

  Augie turned Scott over to me without a word of lecture. The boy seemed to be floating. I waited until we were in the parking lot before I tore into him.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  He pointed into the night sky. “You see that thing moving. A little light is going by. It might be a satellite, or a plane.”

  “I’m taking you home.”

  “Wait. I have to see where it goes. What if it’s coming for me?”

  “For Christ’s sake.” I grabbed hold of his arm and dragged him to the car, put him into the front seat.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I don’t think it’s coming for me. It’s going too far thataway.”

  “Why did the police pick you up? What goddamn stupid stunt did you pull?”

  “They were in my way.”

  “In your way?”

  “They were blocking the runway.”

  “Jesus, you’re totally out of it, aren’t you? When are you going to stop this kind of crap? You’re killing us, you know that? You’re killing me and you’re killing your mother.”

  He turned slowly and looked at me, like he was seeing me for the first time. “I don’t want to kill you guys.” He smiled. “I love you guys.”

  “This is a hell of a way to show it.”

  “I won’t do this again,” he said, and made a definitive, karate-chop motion to emphasize his point, but he ended up hitting the side of his hand on the dash. “Ouch. Shit.”

  “You’ve said that before, Scott. Don’t even bother telling me that.”

  He gazed through the windshield at the sky again. “I’d like to go into space. Or maybe not. It’s probably freezing. Where’s Mom?”

  I wondered if she was awake. I had left her a note that said I’d gone out to give our son a lift home. Nothing about the police picking him up. “At home, probably worried sick about you.”

  Scott wrinkled his brow. “Why?”

  I sighed. I wondered, at the time, how much longer this would go on, whether we would ever come out the other end of the tunnel. “We just want you to stop hurting yourself. We want you to stop doing this.”

  He nodded, and for a moment there, I thought I was getting through.

  Finally, he said, “Okeydoke.” A pause, and then, “Home, James.”

  * * *

  Hank Brindle, bringing me back to the present, said, “Things clearer now?”

  “Lawyer,” I said.

  “God, you’re a goddamn broken record,” he said.

  He hustled me back through a door and out of the reception area. “So, that kid sure seems to know who you are.”

  “He does seem to have some kind of problem with me.”

  “Yeah, he does. He does have a small problem with you. He says you tried to kill him.”

  I said nothing.

  “What he tells us is, you arranged to meet him, and that when you did, you threatened to throw him into the Niagara River, in a park not too far up from the falls, if he didn’t admit to you that he was the one who sold your boy drugs before he went flying off the top of Ravelson Furniture.”

  I said nothing.

  “He says you wouldn’t believe him when he said he wasn’t the guy who did it, and that you said if he hadn’t done it, he probably had a pretty good idea who did. All the time, you’re getting ready to push him over the railing into the water. Is any of this sounding familiar?”

  I stared at Brindle blankly. We went into an interrogation room and he pushed me into a chair. He went around to the other side of the table and sat down.

  “You scared that kid to death, I gotta tell ya. He says you said something to him, like, that if he told anybody about what happened, about your little encounter, that not only would you deny everything, but you’d tell the cops everything you knew about him being a dealer, so if he had half a brain in his head, he’d keep his mouth shut.”

  Brindle leaned back in his chair and smiled. “But guess what? You couldn’t intimidate the little fucker. You know why? Because his father is a lawyer—not the one y
ou want to get in touch with—but he’s a lawyer, and the kid knows you can’t get away with shit like that, even if this Russell twerp was the head of the entire Mexican drug cartel. Which, by the way, he is not. He hasn’t got so much as a charge for having a joint in his pocket.”

  I looked at the door, then back at Brindle.

  “You’ve still got nothing to say?” Brindle said. “Maybe if I just asked you a few simple questions. Where were you night before last, around eight?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You don’t recall?” he said. “Didn’t you say earlier you’d been working on a job down in Tonawanda?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what time did you finish up down there?”

  “I’m not sure, off the top of my head.”

  “You seem to have some serious memory problems,” Brindle said. “But Russell doesn’t. He’s able to describe what you were wearing, your make of car, lots of pertinent details. You know what I find interesting?”

  I shook my head.

  “You seem, from what I can tell, to be a reasonably intelligent guy. But this, threatening to pitch that kid in the river, that comes across to me as a very, very stupid thing to do. I’m guessing that you’re so bent out of shape over what happened to your kid—and who could blame you there, right?—that you’re going off the deep end. Does that sound about right?”

  When I failed to respond, he continued. “I know earlier, in the car, I said you were going to be going away for a while, and I’m willing to admit I might be wrong about that. A judge, a jury, they might take some sympathy on you. Understand what motivated you, even though it was the wrong thing to do. If you come clean, admit what you did, but explain why you did it, well, I could see you doing a little time, but not all that much.”

  I slouched in my chair and put my hands in my pockets. My mouth was dry, but damned if I was going to ask this guy for a glass of water.

  “But now that this kid’s come forward, I’m wondering whether others will,” Brindle said. “Because I’m guessing this isn’t the only one you’ve scared the shit out of. If that happens, if we get a few more complainants—in fact, this kid said he knew of at least one other person, by the name of Len Edgerton or Eggleton or something—well, that might play out very differently. I think the smartest thing you could do is—”

  There was a hard rapping on the door. Two distinct knocks. Brindle’s head whipped around in time to see the door open.

  It was Augustus Perry.

  “Chief,” Brindle said.

  “Officer.” Perry came into the room and took the seat next to Brindle. He looked at me with a mixture of contempt and amusement. “I was passing by the lineup room and couldn’t help but notice a familiar face.”

  “I’m in the middle of an interrogation here, sir,” Brindle said, evidently not intimidated by his boss’ presence in the slightest. “I’m not unaware of your connection to Mr. Weaver, but just the same—”

  Augie held up his hand to shush him. “I understand. You’re doing your job. That’s fine. I wouldn’t ever want it said that anyone was getting special treatment because of me.”

  There was a “but” hanging in the air. I felt it—at least I hoped I was feeling it—and so did Brindle.

  “Officer,” Augie said, “this complaint against Mr. Weaver was just brought to my attention. This is a very serious charge.”

  “Yes, sir. It is. The complainant is very specific in his allegations.”

  “What times does he say this incident took place?”

  “Two nights ago. Between eight and nine. Mr. Weaver called him earlier in the day to set up a meeting on the pretext of buying some drugs.”

  “You have a record of that call?”

  “We do. On Russell Tapscott’s cell phone. The call came in from a pay phone.”

  “A pay phone,” Augie said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what was that time again, of the alleged occurrence?”

  “Between eight and nine.”

  The police chief nodded thoughtfully. “Well, Officer Brindle, I’m afraid you’re going to have to cut Mr. Weaver loose.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “A witness has come forward who can place Mr. Weaver elsewhere at that time.”

  Donna.

  It made sense. Quinn must have told Kate, and she’d told Donna, who in turn had gone to her brother and told him I was with her for the evening. At least until close to ten, when I’d admitted to everyone and his dog that I’d picked up Claire Sanders outside of Patchett’s.

  Although it was so common that a wife might lie to protect her spouse, I wasn’t sure her testimony would be enough to save my ass.

  Brindle shook his head vigorously. “I doubt that, sir. I think Mr. Weaver here would have mentioned an alibi if he had one. At the moment, he seems to be suffering a severe memory lapse.” He made a small snorting sound.

  “Maybe Mr. Weaver thought it would be pulling rank to mention who his alibi is?”

  “Chief?”

  Brindle was perplexed, and he wasn’t the only one.

  “Mr. Weaver was with me,” Augie said, giving me as cold a smile as I’d ever seen. “Certainly during that time you mentioned. He was at my place, in my basement, playing pool. Isn’t that right, Cal?”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “Slipped my mind,” I said. “I was thinking we’d gotten together the night before.”

  “Nope,” said Augie. “Night before last.” He grinned. “And you are, for the record, the worst goddamn pool player I have ever seen.” He turned to Officer Brindle. “So, you’re going to have to go out and explain to that boy and his parents that a mistake has been made.”

  “Chief, this is bull—”

  “I’m sorry. What’s that?” Augie said. “Are you saying what I’ve just told you is bullshit?”

  Brindle opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. “No, of course not, Chief.” He put a spin on that last word, the disrespect coming through loud and clear.

  “Terrific. You want to attend to that while I spend a moment here with Mr. Weaver to extend our apologies over this unfortunate mistake? I believe the Tapscotts are still in reception.”

  Brindle kicked back his chair and stood, his face red with anger. He wasn’t buying a word of it. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

  “You might also want to mention the boy could be looking at charges of mischief if I weren’t in such a forgiving mood today.”

  Brindle looked like he’d just been slapped with a wet fish, but I was too dumbstruck to enjoy it. I didn’t know what Augie’s game was here.

  “Yeah,” Brindle said. “I’ll get right on that.”

  He caught his foot on the leg of his chair as he turned to leave, and gave it another kick. The chair skittered across the floor and banged into the wall. Brindle didn’t look back as he left the room, letting the door close just a little too hard on the way out, enough to make us both blink.

  Neither of us said anything for several seconds. We sat there and looked at one another.

  “I’m going to need my phone back,” I said.

  “You’re welcome,” Augie said. “You and I should have a chat.”

  * * *

  There was a time when I labored under the delusion that I was an honorable man.

  I believed I had ideals, that my behavior was governed by a set of high-minded principles. But as you get older you start to realize every day is made up of compromises. Bending the rules doesn’t seem worth losing sleep over.

  I knew when it was I’d crossed the line, just over six years ago. But just because I’d done it then didn’t mean I couldn’t have stepped back over that line. I could have promised myself to do better. Maybe, for a while, I actually had, but I hadn’t just stepped over the line in the last couple of months. I had pole-v
aulted over it. I’d run at that line flat out and jumped. I’d threatened to throw one young man into a fast-moving river, locked another in a trunk, spilled some unleaded onto a third man’s pants and threatened to throw a lit match at him. I’d convinced a fourth—I think he was only sixteen—that I was going to add his right pinky to a finger collection.

  One part mourning, one part rage. Mix them together, watch out.

  That first time I’d crossed the line was before I got to Griffon. It was why I was a private detective now, and no longer a member of the Promise Falls police force.

  There was one night, one hot July night, when I found myself unable to treat a suspect with the kind of kid gloves the Constitution expects. It all happened in an instant. Even now, I keep playing it in my head, thinking that if I concentrate hard enough, I can make things go a different way, rearrange the past.

  I put a man in hospital for a week. I cuffed him, bent him over the hood of his car, and then, God help me, placed my hand on the back of his head like I was gripping a basketball, and drove it forward into the hood of his black Mercedes.

  Hard.

  He slipped into unconsciousness, and he hadn’t had that far to go. He was drunk. Blitzed. Twice the legal limit. Which explained why he hadn’t noticed the young mother pushing the stroller across the street with her two-year-old daughter sitting inside it. He killed the two of them instantly, hit the brakes for half a second to see what he’d done, then floored it.

  I saw everything from across the street, where I’d been slipping a ticket under the wiper of a Range Rover that was parked in front of a hydrant. I got on the radio for an ambulance and took off after the driver, but not before I got a look at what he’d done. When you see a young child dead on the pavement, sometimes something snaps.

  I pulled him over three miles south of town. For more than a mile he ignored my siren and flashing lights, but when he drifted over to the shoulder and his right wheels caught gravel, he lost control. The Mercedes fishtailed and he hit the brakes. The car went into a skid, nearly turned sideways, then went straight into the ditch, where it came to a sudden, jolting stop.