Parting Shot

by Linwood Barclay

  “Quick thinking,” I said, with just a hint of admiration.

  “I got my arms under him, but he was hard to move. He’s . . . heavy, and I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  “Then . . .”

  “I guess when the car hit the tree, it was loud enough to be heard. I mean, at least by one person,” Broadhurst said. “I looked, saw someone running. I thought . . . I thought, I can’t do it. I can’t pull it off. But then . . .”

  “But then you saw who it was,” I said. I had a pretty good idea who it would turn out to be.

  Broadhurst nodded. “I kind of blackmailed Bob into helping me. Said if I went to jail, our multimillion-dollar deal would fall through. He’d lose a fortune. On top of that, the McFadden girl, her father was one of the major investors. You think he’d buy into the project of a guy who ran down his daughter? Bad enough it was my car. Anyway, Bob didn’t take a lot of convincing, He helped me get Jeremy into the Porsche.” He took in a long breath. “Bob was the one who slammed Jeremy’s head into the steering wheel, so there’d be blood for a DNA match, if it came to that.”

  “And then, when other partygoers showed up, you and Bob acted like you’d just got there.” I thought a moment. “Did Finch know?”

  Broadhurst shook his head. “No. After you called him, he called me, said he was going to have to talk to Gloria, see if maybe there really were grounds for an appeal. I told him no, Jeremy had to have done it. And I think I convinced him. We’ve been friends a long time and he trusts me. And come on, let’s give Grant some credit. He got that kid off. That Big Baby defense was a stroke of genius. A long shot, but it worked. Everybody wins.”

  Yeah, I thought. Everybody wins. I thought about Jeremy in my car, pounding his fists into his thighs.

  “It was Bob who told you we were in Cape Cod,” I speculated. “You knew where to send Kiln because Bob was there when Madeline told Detective Duckworth.”

  “It was his idea,” Broadhurst said.

  That threw me.

  “But I thought it was your idea, to put Jeremy behind the wheel.”

  “Not that,” he said. “To have you and Jeremy killed. Bob said that was the only way out of this. But I know people, or people who know people, who can get that sort of thing done.”

  And now, for the first time, he smiled.

  “Which is why, if you think you’re going to shake me down, you’re mistaken.”

  “Hey, come on,” I said.

  “If I could find one Kiln, I can find another,” he said.

  “Well . . .” I let uncertainty creep into my voice, “maybe I’ll go to the cops.”

  Broadhurst’s smile turned into a grin. “And tell them what you did to Kiln? Killing a man in self-defense, that might fly, but burying him at sea? That kinda suggests something else, don’t you think?”

  I licked my lips nervously. “Look, I wasn’t going to ask for that much. Fifty grand. That’s peanuts for a guy like you.”

  He shook his head. “You’re an amateur, Weaver. A fool. You stuck your nose in where it didn’t—”

  His eye caught something that made him stop. He was looking at the door. I turned, pushed myself up an inch to see over the top of the booth.

  Barry Duckworth and two uniformed officers were approaching.

  I settled back down in my seat, reached over to the small chrome rack from which I’d grabbed the sugar, and turned it around to reveal the wireless transmitter.

  I said to Broadhurst, “Next time, strip-search the condiments.”

  SIXTY-FOUR

  BRIAN Gaffney was cutting the lawn at his parents’ house when Jessica Frommer’s car stopped at the curb.

  Albert had gone back to work today, but he had taken Constance’s car. He’d said something about his car being overdue for a service, that he didn’t want to run up any more miles on it until he’d taken it in to his mechanic.

  Constance was at the grocery store picking up a few things, but she had borrowed Monica’s Volkswagen Beetle. Monica said she didn’t need her car today. Before Constance had left, Brian had told her at breakfast that he wanted to cut the grass. He needed something to do, he’d told her, but she had objected strenuously. He had to rest after all he’d been through, she said. He shouldn’t be doing anything physical.

  Okay, Brian said. But as soon as his mother left in the Bug, he decided he was going to cut the grass anyway.

  It would get his mind off things. It would get his mind off all the terrible things that had happened to him. It would also get his mind off whatever was going on between his parents. His mother hadn’t been taking her usual shots at his father. They were both very, very quiet.

  Something was going on.

  Brian wasn’t even sure he wanted to know what it was.

  So he went out to the garage and swung open the door on the left.

  There was his father’s car, looking, Brian thought, cleaner than he had ever seen it.

  That was strange.

  Considering that Brian worked at a place that cleaned cars, and also considering that he was able to give members of his family a discount—like, free—and considering even further the fact that he had seen this car go through the wash a couple of days before he went missing, why had his father gone to the trouble to wash it himself in the last day or so? Brian remembered that when his father found him, after Brian had walked out of the hospital, this was the car he’d been driving.

  And it wasn’t this clean then.

  Not only that, but even the floor of the garage was cleaner than Brian could ever remember seeing it. It was actually damp in a few places.

  Weird.

  He found the lawnmower at the back of the garage, checked that it had gas in it, and wheeled it out to the front yard. He did feel it in his ribs when he pulled the cord to start the machine up, but pushing it back and forth across the yard didn’t hurt at all.

  He had about half of it done when Jessica’s car pulled up to the curb.

  Brian killed the mower.

  “Hey,” she said, getting out of the car. She’d left all the windows down, and Brian noticed that her kid was in the back seat.

  “Hey,” Brian said.

  “I went to the hospital to see you and they said you’d been discharged. When I didn’t find you at your apartment, I figured you might be here. I looked in the book and this was the only other Gaffney in Promise Falls.”

  “Yeah, they let me out.”

  “I’m sorry about everything,” she said. “I should have told you. I was going to tell you eventually, you know, that I was married. There just never seemed a good time.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  “Anyway, I wanted to say that.”

  “Okay, then.” Brian shrugged. “I guess I should get back to it. I’m moving back in with my parents, so I want to help out and stuff.”

  “There’s something else,” she said.

  Brian waited. Jessica took a few steps closer, and when she was six feet away from him he could see that she had been crying. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s about Ron,” she said.

  “What about him?”

  “He’s missing.”

  Brian took several seconds before saying, “Oh.”

  “He was doing this job? This house outside of town. His truck’s there but he’s not around. He’s been gone over twenty-four hours.”

  “Jesus,” Brian said.

  “At first I thought, maybe he left me. Which, you know, might not be such a bad thing. But if he left me, he sure as hell would have taken his truck. He loves that truck more than he loves me. He’s not answering his cell phone or anything.”

  “I don’t know what to say. Have you called the police?”

  Jessica Frommer nodded. “Yeah. They’re looking into it.”

  “What do they think happened?”

  Jessica shook her head. “They don’t know. They said they found blood.”

  “Blood?”

  “Like, on the ground.”
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  “That,” Brian said slowly, “sounds bad.”

  “That’d mean maybe someone hurt him,” she said. “At first I thought, and don’t be mad when I say this, but at first I wondered, maybe you had something to do with it.”

  “Me?”

  “Because of Ron beating you up and all. You’d have plenty of reason to want to get back at him.”

  “Jess, I’ve been in the hospital.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I know. That’s what I wanted to check first, before I told the police anything about you.”

  “What?”

  “The police asked if there might be anyone who’s got it in for Ron. And I thought of you, but I didn’t give them your name because I didn’t want to get you in trouble. I wanted to find out if you were in the hospital, and you were, so now I’m not going to give them your name.”

  “Jeez, Jess, thanks for that.”

  “But then I thought, did you tell anyone?”

  Brian wondered if it was getting hotter out. He could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

  “Did I what?” he asked.

  “Did you tell anyone about Ron beating you up?”

  Brian thought about what his father had said to him. “You never, ever told me his name. You never, ever told me where he lived. And no matter how many times someone might ask you the question, it’s always no. You never told me.”

  Brian said, “I never told anyone his name. I never told anyone where you live. Not ever.”

  Jessica sniffed.

  “Mommy!” the little girl in the car cried out.

  “Just a second, sweetheart!” Jessica shouted over her shoulder.

  “Never,” Brian added.

  Jessica nodded. “Okay. The thing is, Ron wasn’t all that nice a guy. He probably pissed off a lot of other people. Could be anybody, when you think about it.” Another sniff. Brian dug into his pocket, pulled out a shredded tissue and offered it to her.

  “That’s okay,” she said, wiping her cheeks on her sleeve. “Anyway, I should go.”

  “Okay.”

  She gave him an awkward half-second hug, then got back into her car. Brian stood there and watched as she put on her seat belt. The little girl in the backseat looked at him and pointed. “You’re the man my daddy beat up!” she said.

  As the car drove off, Brian wondered if there was any chance the police would be questioning her.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  CAL

  ONCE Galen Broadhurst had been put into the back of a Promise Falls cruiser, Duckworth came over to me and said, “Well done. Now we just have to pick up Bob Butler.”

  “Broadhurst and Butler sacrificed that poor kid to save their own asses and line their pockets.” I shook my head. “The bastards.”

  Duckworth gave me a look that said he’d seen enough things in life not to be surprised any more.

  “I’m going to pick up Jeremy,” I said, “then head out to Madeline Plimpton’s house. He wants to talk to his mother, let her know he’s okay.”

  “We should go together.”

  I looked at my watch. “Thirty minutes?”

  He nodded. As he turned to leave, I said, “What was it you wanted to ask me? On the phone last night.”

  Barry poked his tongue around the inside of his cheek. “You know what? Don’t worry about it. Whatever I was going to ask, I think I’ve changed my mind.”

  I pointed my Honda back in the direction of my sister and brother-in-law’s house. I found Jeremy sitting on the front step talking to Celeste. He was on his feet when he saw my car, and ran to the street to meet me.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as I powered down the window.

  I gave Celeste a wave. “Thanks!”

  “Nice kid!” she shouted, getting up and going back into the house.

  Jeremy craned his neck around to respond, a slightly stunned look on his face. “Thank you,” he said.

  I was willing to bet it was the nicest thing anyone had said to him in months.

  He got in the car next to me. “Well?”

  “Taking you home,” I said.

  “What happened?”

  I was going to tell him on the way, but thought better of it. This was something I had to tell him eye to eye. I shifted in my seat to look at him.

  “You didn’t do it. You didn’t drive the car. You didn’t run down Sian.”

  His chin began to tremble. “What . . .”

  “Galen Broadhurst was driving the car.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me.”

  Now his hands were shaking. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  “There’s more,” I said gently. “Bob Butler helped him.”

  I gave him the details, briefly and slowly, including the news that it had been Bob’s idea to have us killed. I couldn’t imagine how much it was to take in. Elation matched by betrayal.

  He burst into tears. He started sobbing. I reached out with both arms and pulled him close to me, patted his back.

  “The nightmare’s over,” I said, although I knew it was going to take a while for all of this to sink in. And there was going to be fallout. A lot of it.

  The boy could not stop shaking. “Bob—he paid my legal bills.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess he was feeling pretty guilty. It was the least he could do. Getting you off, so long as the blame didn’t shift elsewhere, was a pretty safe game for him to play.”

  “My mom,” he said. “I have to tell my mom. I have to tell her what a bastard he is.”

  “We’re gonna do that,” I assured him. “We’re gonna go over there now.”

  Jeremy struggled to pull himself together. I found tissues in the glove box and dug out a handful for him.

  “Thank you so much,” he said.

  “They’re just tissues.”

  “I mean, for everything. For figuring out that this whole thing was fucked up. For giving me my life back.”

  I gave him a moment to get settled back into his seat, facing forward, before I keyed the ignition. “Let’s go,” I said.

  I’d told Duckworth thirty minutes, but only twenty-five had passed when we pulled into the driveway of Madeline Plimpton’s house. Tires crunching on gravel was not enough to bring anyone running outside to greet us, but I could hear movement in the house when I rang the bell.

  “Can’t we just walk in?” Jeremy asked.

  “Not our house,” I said. “Manners.”

  The door opened. Ms. Plimpton’s dour expression turned into one of joy when she saw us there.

  “I tried all night to reach you!” she said, throwing her arms around the boy. “You had us worried sick.”

  A second later, Gloria emerged from the kitchen area and shrieked. She had to pry Ms. Plimpton off Jeremy so she could hug him herself.

  “I’m so glad you’re home!” she said. “It was a huge mistake, sending you away!” He tried to move her away as she planted kisses on his cheeks, then gave up and let her continue.

  I said to Ms. Plimpton, “Where’s Bob?”

  “He’s in the kitchen,” she said, and as she turned herself in that direction, Bob appeared.

  Briefly.

  It took him half a second to see who’d arrived, and another half a second to realize he was in deep shit.

  He turned and ran.

  I bolted after him.

  Ms. Plimpton said, “What on earth?”

  “He did it!” I heard Jeremy say. “He sent that guy to kill us!”

  “What?” Gloria said.

  Bob was on the far side of the kitchen, attempting to open the sliding glass door. But a wooden stick down in the track, designed to keep out burglars, had thwarted him. I caught up, grabbed him by the back of his jacket, and flung him across the room. He stumbled over two kitchen chairs, scattering them, and landed on his side. There was the look of a trapped animal in his eyes.

  “Don’t get up,” I told him. “If you try, I’ll fucking kill you.”

  He seemed convinced
.

  “You look as surprised to see me as Galen did. They just arrested him. They’re coming for you next.”

  Jeremy, Gloria and Ms. Plimpton had joined us in the kitchen. The two women were open-mouthed at the scene.

  “Is it true?” Gloria asked Bob. “You sent someone to kill them?”

  “It’s bullshit!” Bob said. “Whatever they’re saying, it’s bullshit.”

  “You haven’t heard half of what he did!” Jeremy shouted. He was trembling again. I was feeling immensely worried for him. He was totally on the edge.

  Pointing at Bob, he said, “He helped that shitbag Broadhurst! The two of them put me in the car!”

  Ms. Plimpton looked like she’d just seen a pig fly through the kitchen. “What?”

  Jeremy said, “They framed me! They made me think I’d done it! They made the world think I’d done it!”

  Ms. Plimpton glared at Bob. “My God, is this true?”

  What struck me, at that moment, was that Gloria didn’t ask that question, or anything close to it. My eyes were darting back and forth between her aunt and Bob. Maybe she was just in shock.

  “I told you, don’t listen to them,” Bob said. “This is crazy.”

  “No, it’s not crazy,” I said. “I got it all from Galen. We know what happened.”

  Jeremy turned to his mother. “You hear what I’m saying? You hear what this son of a bitch did?”

  Gloria, her voice softer than I was used to, said, “I’m sure there’s some explanation.”

  “What’s that mean?” Jeremy asked. “Don’t you believe us?”

  I said, “I think she does, Jeremy.”

  Gloria turned my way.

  “You don’t look like this part is new to you,” I said to her.

  “Gloria?” Ms. Plimpton said. “What’s he talking about?”

  “The part about Bob sending a hit man after us, you looked surprised at that,” I said. “But not the other part.”

  The room suddenly fell very silent, all eyes, even Bob’s, on Gloria.

  “Mom?” Jeremy said. He was full-out shaking now.

  “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I didn’t know . . . at first.”

  “When did you know?” I asked.

  She looked at her son, reached a hand up and touched his cheek. Jeremy was too stunned to pull back.