Parting Shot

by Linwood Barclay

  “I remember him from years ago. When he first started practicing. It was here in Promise Falls, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” her aunt said.

  “Was that when the affair started? Or was it before you took me in?”

  Madeline glowered at her niece. “Before.”

  “But then at some point it ended,” Gloria said.

  “Grant was married. He wasn’t going to leave his wife and I wasn’t going to leave my husband. I was a widow a year later, but Grant had already moved on by then.”

  “So all those years went by and you had nothing going on?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But then you reconnected. We ended up hiring Grant to defend Jeremy.”

  Madeline sighed. “His wife passed away six years ago. We . . . rekindled something.”

  “Is it still going on?’”

  “What business would it be of yours one way or another?” Madeline asked.

  Gloria shrugged. “You like to know my business. I like to know yours.”

  “You’ve had too much to drink, Gloria. I’m turning in.”

  Bob walked into the kitchen, sport jacket on, face flushed with what looked like anger. He looked directly at Gloria.

  “What?” she said, setting down her glass.

  “Where is it?”

  “Where is what?” she said.

  “It’s my own damn fault,” Bob said, shaking his head. “I should have known better. I’m a goddamn idiot.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Gloria said.

  Madeline, who had put her departure on hold, looked at Bob. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “The phone,” he said. “Her phone.”

  Madeline put eyes on her niece. “What did you do?”

  “I have done nothing,” Gloria said, raising her chin.

  “The phone was in my jacket,” he said. “I took it off and left it on the back of that chair this afternoon. I put it back on later, and I didn’t even think about it until just now.” He patted the left side of his chest. “It was in this pocket, and now it’s gone.”

  “Maybe it slipped out when you were fixing the window,” Gloria said.

  “You grabbed it back,” he said. “Weaver made a lot of sense when he said we should take it out of your hands. You can’t be trusted not to go on there and say something stupid.”

  Gloria took another gulp of wine, then set the glass back down so hard the stem snapped. The glass toppled and spilled red wine across the island.

  “For God’s sake,” Madeline said.

  “You want to search me?” Gloria said, taking a step into the middle of the room, arms outstretched. “You want to frisk me? Is that what you’d like to do?”

  He stood and gawked at her. “Seriously?”

  “A strip search? Is that what you want? Why not? Let me oblige.”

  She crossed her arms, grabbed hold of the bottom of her pullover sweater with both hands, and pulled up.

  “This is ridiculous,” Madeline said.

  Gloria’s head was briefly obscured by the sweater, then it was off her body completely, leaving her standing there in a white bra and slacks.

  “Gloria, stop it,” Bob said.

  She spun around once. “See anything? No? Okay, then.” She kicked off her shoes, unzipped her slacks, and dropped them to the floor.

  “It’s probably in her purse,” Madeline said.

  Gloria pointed to the handbag sitting on the kitchen table. “Be my guest. Search all you want. Tear my room apart. I do not have that phone.” Her face flushed with anger. “I will not be treated like a child.”

  She kicked the pants off and stood there in her underwear. “Would you like to do a body-cavity search, Bob? I bet you’d like that.” She made her hands into fists and positioned them defiantly on her hips.

  Bob turned and walked out of the room.

  “Go on!” Gloria shouted. “I’ve got an idea! Why don’t you phone me! See if you hear a ringing coming out of my ass!”

  Madeline, evidently thinking that was a bluff that deserved to be called, went over to the landline and entered a number.

  The room briefly went silent as the two women listened.

  There was nothing.

  “You probably have it on mute,” Madeline said. “I swear, this family needs a team of therapists.”

  This time, she didn’t stop on her way upstairs.

  Gloria stood there in the kitchen, alone, in her underwear. After a minute, she found herself a new, unbroken glass, and poured herself another drink.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “ISN’T this a lovely place,” Maureen said as she and Duckworth walked into Knight’s.

  “I know that tone,” he said.

  “What tone? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Would you like that booth by the arm wrestlers, or maybe next to that couple there who are trying to build a house with the sugar packets?”

  “How about over here?” he suggested, locating an empty booth that wasn’t close to anyone who appeared immediately objectionable.

  “That looks perfect,” she said. “Only three steps to the bathroom should I need it.”

  Within seconds of sitting down across the table from each other, a young woman came over with menus.

  “Can I get you folks some drinks?” she asked.

  Maureen asked for a glass of Pinot Grigio and Duckworth said some sparkling water with lime would suit him just fine.

  “Is Axel here?” he asked.

  The girl nodded.

  “Could you ask him to drop by when he has a second?”

  The girl nodded a second time and disappeared.

  Maureen looked at the menu. “You’re going to love this place. I don’t think there’s a single thing here you should be allowed to eat. Oh, wait, celery sticks come with the double-breaded jumbo wings.”

  “I know this isn’t exactly the fanciest place in town, but what’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing,” Maureen said.

  “You’re mad at me for the Trevor thing.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Look, that thing with me and him, he’ll get over it.” His eyes darted around the bar. “It’s because of this place I wanted to talk to our son.”

  Maureen lowered her menu. “What are you talking about?”

  “Him and his new girlfriend. They were in that booth over there, checking out each other’s tonsils.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “How’d you even know that?”

  He explained how he had, by chance, come to see Trevor and Carol Beakman on the surveillance video.

  “I wasn’t looking for them. I was looking for something else and there they were.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. She was about to ask him something when Axel suddenly appeared at the table.

  “Hey, Detective, how’s it going?”

  Duckworth introduced the man to Maureen.

  “Dinner’s on the house,” Axel said.

  Duckworth smiled. “I’m afraid I can’t accept. Goes against the rules. But I do have a favor.”

  “Shoot.”

  Duckworth told him what it was. Axel said it would take him a few minutes, and would return when he had things ready.

  “And I’ll get some of those double-breaded jumbo wings,” Duckworth said.

  Axel looked at Maureen. “Garden salad,” she said. “Oil and vinegar dressing.” She paused. “And an order of potato skins with extra sour cream.”

  Axel nodded and slipped away.

  “You had me worried for a second there,” Duckworth said.

  “I’m having one of your wings, too.”

  “I’ll have one of your potato skins.”

  “I thought I’d share my salad with you instead.”

  He rested his back against the seat and sighed. “Like I said, I’m sorry about earlier.”

  She took in a long breath through her nose.

 
“What? I know that look. There’s something on your mind.”

  Maureen sighed. “I don’t know how good things are between him and this Carol girl, anyway.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I heard him talking to her. On the phone. When I went upstairs to get ready.”

  “Okay.”

  “He sounded angry with her. I think it may have had something to do with you, but there was something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Something she wanted to do, but he wasn’t that keen on her doing it.”

  “You don’t know what it was?”

  She shook her head.

  “So, you’re an eavesdropper.”

  Maureen nodded.

  Duckworth grinned. “Nothing wrong with that. But you know what? Whatever it is that’s going on between them, it’s their problem, not ours.”

  “I know.”

  “Things’ll work out. I mean, I didn’t even know about her until today, so if they’re on the skids, it’s not like it was some long-term relationship.”

  “I just want him to be happy.”

  Axel brought their drinks. “I got it all set up for you. Your food’s going to be a few more minutes, if you want to take a quick look now.”

  Duckworth said to Maureen, “I’ll be right back.”

  He followed Axel to the office he’d been in earlier in the day. The bartender had brought up the security video from two nights ago on the computer screen.

  “What was it you wanted to see?” Axel asked.

  “The man who was already at the bar when Brian Gaffney came in. The one I thought was him.”

  “Oh yeah, this guy,” Axel said, pointing to the screen. “The one I asked for ID.”

  “At a glance,” Duckworth said, “you could almost mistake one for the other. I mean, they’re not twins, but they’re wearing much the same clothing. Same build, hair color, et cetera.”

  “Yup.”

  “Speed it up again?”

  Axel advanced the video. When it reached the point where Brian Gaffney got up to leave, Duckworth had Axel slow it down.

  “So there he goes.” Soon after that, Trevor and Carol slid out of their booth and left too.

  The man with a passing resemblance to Brian was still at the bar, looking most of the time at his phone, as though playing a game.

  “Speed it up again.”

  The video advanced. Duckworth asked Axel to slow it down when the man got off the bar stool and started heading for the door.

  He noted that the time was 9:43. Eleven minutes after Gaffney had left.

  The man was passing by a table of four men sharing a pitcher when one of them suddenly grabbed his arm, pointed and said something.

  “What’s going on there?” Duckworth asked.

  “Yeah, I remember that. They were giving him a hard time for a few seconds on his way out.”

  “He do something to piss them off?”

  “Not that I saw. But one of these guys, he yells at him, ‘Hey, you, big baby.’ Or something like that.”

  Duckworth nodded slowly, getting as good a look as he could at the man. “I’ll be damned.”

  “You recognize him?” Axel asked.

  Duckworth just smiled. “Thanks for your help. This is better than a hundred free drinks.”

  He returned to the table, where Maureen was taking a sip of her wine.

  “Some guy tried to pick me up while you were gone,” she said as he settled back into the seat.

  “You’re kidding,” he said.

  “That’s the wrong answer,” she told him.

  “Who was it?”

  “That one over there, at the pool table, about to take a shot. Not bad looking for someone who’s seeing seventy in the rear-view mirror.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to shoot him,” Duckworth said. The waitress arrived with their food. “But I’ll eat first.”

  “Good God,” Maureen said, looking at the pile of wings on her husband’s plate. “I might as well just call the ambulance now.”

  He picked up a wing, bit into it. “I think they got the wrong guy.”

  “What?”

  “They didn’t want Brian. They wanted the Big Baby.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Maureen said.

  TWENTY-SIX

  CAL

  I couldn’t see us making Manhattan that night. But I didn’t want Jeremy to spend the night at my apartment, in case there were people who already knew we were here. The black van I’d seen out front had rattled me. It might or might not have anything to do with the brick that got thrown through the front window of Madeline Plimpton’s house. It had not been a black van I’d seen speeding away from her place.

  I grabbed my bag, and the cooler, which we had packed with the sandwiches and a few other snacks, and headed down to the street. I locked up my place, dumped the stuff into the car, and told Jeremy to get in. There was something else I had to do first.

  I got down on my knees and, with a flashlight I took from the glove box, inspected the undercarriage of the car. Then I felt inside the wheel wells, patting my hand on the insides of the fenders. Finally, I gave the bumpers a good going-over.

  “What was that about?” Jeremy asked when I got in behind the wheel.

  “One time,” I said, “somebody attached a tracker to my car. In fact, not one, but two.”

  “Whoa,” Jeremy said. “Cool.”

  I glanced over at him. “No, it wasn’t. I got someone killed.”

  “Oh, shit. When was this?”

  “Four years ago.”

  “What happened?”

  I ignored the question.

  I got us out of Promise Falls and went south on 87 toward Albany. The plan was to get around the capital, then continue on in the same direction toward New York. We dug into the cooler and killed off all the sandwiches in the first hour. Jeremy didn’t have much to say, and I didn’t feel all that much like talking.

  We were about to pass the exit to the Mass Pike, around Selkirk, when Jeremy suddenly said, “Can we get off at the next exit?”

  “What for?”

  “It’s right here. Get off! Get off!”

  I hit the blinker and took the exit. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “When you get to the end of the ramp, take a right,” he said.

  “What I’m gonna do is pull over until you tell me why you made me get off the thruway.”

  He seemed to need a few seconds before he could work up the nerve to tell me.

  “You have to promise not to tell my mom,” he said.

  “Come on, Jeremy, don’t make me promise something I might not be able to do. You tell me, or we carry on south.”

  “My dad lives here,” he said. “Like, close. Yeah, turn here.”

  I made a right where the ramp ended. “Okay,” I said. “So we’re going to visit your dad. That would upset your mom?”

  He shrugged. “Kinda. Probably. She doesn’t like him.”

  “That happens a lot when people split up.”

  “Yeah, but this is different,” Jeremy said.

  “Different how?” I glanced over, tried to read his face, but came up with nothing. “Was your father abusive to your mother?”

  Gloria’s own father had been abusive, and sometimes people went with what they knew, even when it was bad for them, because it was all they knew.

  “He never hit her or anything,” Jeremy said. “Nothing like that. You make a left up here.”

  “Didn’t you say your dad’s a teacher?” I asked.

  “Yeah, high school.”

  “Why do you want to drop by?”

  Jeremy gave me a look that suggested any faith he might have had that I had half a brain had been misplaced. “Because he’s my dad,” he said.

  “Sure,” I said. “Point the way.”

  He directed me into an old neighborhood and told me to stop out front of a modest storey-and-a-half brick house with a couple of dor
mer windows poking out of the roof. While the house was small and unassuming, the yard was immaculately kept, with spring flowers that looked as though they had just been planted.

  “Don’t freak out or anything,” he said, getting out of the car before I had a chance to ask about what.

  I followed him to the door. He rang the bell, and ten seconds later it was answered by a balding man in his mid-fifties wearing glasses, a pullover sweater and jeans.

  “Oh my God, Jeremy,” the man said with what struck me as limited enthusiasm. They faced each other awkwardly for a moment, then the man put his arms around the boy and hugged him. “What are you doing here?”

  “We were just kind of in the neighborhood,” Jeremy said.

  The man was looking over Jeremy’s shoulder at me, and his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “And this is?”

  “This is my bodyguard,” Jeremy said. “Dad, this is Mr. Weaver, Mr. Weaver, this is my dad.”

  I extended a hand. “Cal,” I said.

  “Jack Pilford,” the man said, eyeing me suspiciously. “Bodyguard?”

  “Not really,” I said. I managed, in three sentences, to explain my presence.

  “Okay,” he said, dubiously. “Listen, Jeremy, you know I love to see you, and it’s great that you’ve dropped by. Without, you know, calling ahead. But this is not really the best—”

  The door opened wider and another man, slightly older than Jack, appeared. He looked at Jeremy, took a moment to register who he was, then said, “Oh, wow, look who’s here. America’s worst driver.”

  “Jesus, Malcolm,” Jack said. “Don’t be an asshole.”

  Malcolm set his eyes on me next. “And you must be Bob.”

  “No,” I said. I identified myself.

  “Mr. Weaver’s been hired to protect Jeremy,” Jack said.

  “I’m not going to hurt him,” Malcolm said defensively.

  “Not from you.” Jack shook his head. To Jeremy and me he said, “I’m sorry about this. I was trying to tell you, this isn’t a very good time.”

  “Lovers’ quarrel,” Malcolm said.

  “Maybe we should go,” I said to Jeremy, who had the look of a kid who’d been picked last for a team.

  “Why didn’t you come?” Jeremy asked.

  “Jeremy, we talked about this,” his father said. “You know—”

  “Because of your cunt mother, that’s why,” Malcolm said.