A Tap on the Window

by Linwood Barclay

  Her face fell and her lip trembled before she spoke. “Are you seeing someone?”

  “What?” The comment caught me off guard.

  “Things like that happen. After a crisis. People end up doing any number of things they wouldn’t normally do.”

  “No,” I said. “Not that.” I looked her straight in the eye. “Never that.”

  I got the check.

  * * *

  I think we both knew it was going to happen.

  We went into the house, neither of us saying a word, perhaps worried that if we said anything, it wouldn’t. We got ready for bed, the way we used to. Sharing the bathroom, taking turns to brush our teeth at the sink. Crawling under the covers at the same time, turning out the lights on the bedside tables.

  “’Night,” I said.

  “’Night,” Donna said.

  Neither of us pretending the other wasn’t there.

  I hesitated a moment, then laid a hand on her side. She turned so that her face was resting on the edge of my pillow. I pulled her body into mine, and it happened. It was slow, and undoubtedly sad in the way lovemaking can be at times, but there was something else. There was hope.

  Things seemed better. Maybe we’d turned a corner.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The phone on our bedside table rang at six forty-five a.m.

  I was already awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about gas stations, but Donna was sound asleep next to me. She woke with a start.

  “What?” she said. “What is it?”

  “Hang on,” I said, rolling over and grabbing the receiver. I glanced at the display, but the ID name was blocked. “Hello?”

  “I’ve called all around and no one knows where she is.”

  “Who is— Is this Bert?” I said.

  “Yeah,” the mayor said. “I called everyone I could think of, at least those I had numbers for, and sent e-mails to people whose addresses I had. No one’s seen Claire, no one has any idea where she might have gone. I was on the phone with Caroline for an hour after you left, and she tried to help me make a list of names. And the police showed up and had a lot of questions, too, because, you know, they had your version of events and knew Claire and Hanna had been together last night.”

  “Was it Augie?”

  “No, no. It was a man and woman. I can’t even remember their names.” It would have been Ramsey and Quinn. “I’m not tracking a hundred percent. I’m rattled and haven’t had any sleep. I’ve been calling people all night, waking them up, pissing them off, but I don’t care.”

  “Are there some you’re still waiting to hear back from?” I asked.

  “A few. So far, nothing. Roman, Annette’s son, called me around one in the morning. She asked him to.”

  I couldn’t help but ask. “He didn’t wonder why his mom was getting in so late? With his dad out of town?”

  “I don’t know what she told him. But he was out late, too, doing whatever he does.”

  Making booze deliveries to underage drinkers, I bet. Two of his employees, Sean and Hanna, weren’t available.

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said, and I quote, he didn’t fuckin’ know, and he didn’t fuckin’ care. Said I should put in a call to Dennis Mullavey. But I don’t know where to find him.”

  The young man I’d seen in pictures on Claire’s iPad.

  “Tell me about him,” I said as Donna threw off her covers, sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her eyes.

  “Like I said, a summer romance. They were crazy about each other. A nice kid, you know? I liked him okay.”

  “Where’d they meet?”

  “Where does anyone meet in this town? Probably Patchett’s.”

  “But Dennis isn’t from Griffon?”

  “No. He got a job here for the summer. Working for a lawn service. Cutting grass, that kind of thing.”

  “What’s the name of the company?”

  “I don’t think I ever knew. Whenever he came by here, he’d be driving one of their trucks. It was orange.”

  I could recall seeing those trucks around town, but I couldn’t think of the name painted on the side. Griffon probably had three or four landscaping companies.

  “I can find that out,” I said. “So what happened between Claire and Dennis?”

  “I guess it was more than just a summer job for Dennis, because he stayed on with this company into September. Most of these firms, they look after you right into the fall, raking leaves and all that. Wherever he was from, he didn’t have to go back to school. He was done with high school, I know that much.”

  Donna was still sitting on the edge of the bed, listening. Sanders was talking loud enough that she was probably able to hear most of what he was saying.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “So one day, out of the blue, he just quits his job, breaks up with Claire, and goes back home. Broke off with her with a text or an e-mail or something. Said it wasn’t working out for him, he was sorry, but he wasn’t interested in having some long, drawn-out discussion about it. She was heartbroken. Cried for a couple of days. I told her, ‘Look, you’re young, you’ll have a hundred more boyfriends before you find the right one.’”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “In case you’re wondering, I didn’t try to break them up,” Sanders said defensively.

  “I didn’t suggest you did.”

  “You’d be surprised, this day and age, how many people took me aside, said I should talk Claire into breaking it off with him because he’s black. Said I should scare him off. Unbelievable.”

  Sounded like the kind of thing Augie might say, but I knew Augie wasn’t exactly giving advice to the mayor, except maybe to take a long walk on a short pier.

  “Even Caroline,” he said. “You know, my ex. I swear she’s not a racist, but she was uncomfortable with it.”

  “Did she tell Claire how she felt?”

  “No, she was putting it all on me, since Claire spends most of her time in Griffon. I told her I wasn’t going to do any such thing.”

  “You sure she couldn’t have said something to Dennis? Did he and Claire ever go visit her mother in Toronto?”

  “They might have, once, but no, I don’t think so.”

  I wondered why Claire lived mostly with her father. So I asked.

  “When Caroline got remarried and moved to Toronto, Claire put up a huge fuss. She wasn’t going to move there, she wasn’t going to leave her school and her friends. And honestly, I think Caroline was happy to lose that battle. She wanted to start off this new marriage without the complications of a teenage daughter at home.”

  “You were okay with that?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Look, Cal—may I call you Cal?”

  “Of course.”

  “Cal, I owe you an apology. I misjudged you, misjudged your motives. I know now that your concern for Claire is genuine, and I understand how, given the way you were dragged into this, you felt an obligation to become involved. And I appreciate your discretion where Annette is concerned.” I was waiting for a “but.”

  “But up to now, you’ve kind of been working for yourself. I’d like to make that right, and hire you, pay you for your time.”

  It wasn’t the “but” I was expecting. I thought he was going to politely tell me to cease and desist, that he’d handle things from here on.

  “I want you to find Claire. I mean, look, maybe she’ll call me in the next hour. Maybe she’ll be in touch before the day is out. But what if she isn’t? Then I’ll have lost a day trying to find out what’s happened to her.”

  “I guess you don’t want to go to the police and report her missing,” I said.

  Sanders almost chuckled. “No, I don’t think so. But I have to ask, is it going to be difficult for you to help me with this, given the animosity be
tween you and your brother-in-law?”

  “Probably,” I said. “But that’s okay. Look, I have a couple of things I was going to follow up on this morning, anyway. There are a couple of gas stations close to Iggy’s. Someone who’d been waiting around to pick Claire up might have filled up before or after. And I’ll make some calls to local landscapers, see if I can get a lead on this Dennis Mullavey character.”

  For a moment I thought I’d been cut off. Sanders wasn’t saying anything.

  “Bert?” I said.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was shaky. He’d broken down. He’d been crying. “Tell me you don’t think she’s ended up like Hanna.”

  “I’m gonna do my best to find her.”

  “I just want to know she’s okay. I have to know she’s okay.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I hung up.

  Donna said, “I’ll get breakfast going.”

  A few minutes later, in the kitchen, things felt slightly different. Not unlike the feeling after a tornado whips through. You’ve been through this horrendous storm, wondering whether the roof will fly off, the walls will come crashing in, the car will get flipped over onto its roof.

  But then the storm’s roar fades away and you think it’s safe to venture outside. The sun is coming out. You’ve lost a few trees, the power’s out, half the shingles on the roof have been blown off.

  But you’re still standing.

  We brushed against each other as we went about our morning routine without the recent awkwardness. I placed a gentle hand on her hip in a way I hadn’t in some time. She made enough coffee for two. Most mornings, lately, she had been grabbing coffee on her way to work and I’d stopped by a drive-through en route to whatever job I had at the time.

  While we sat at the kitchen table eating some English muffins with jam, I opened up the laptop and looked up Griffon-area landscapers. There were four listed, but when I went to their respective Web sites, one—Hooper Gardening—had photos of orange pickup trucks. I made a note of the number. It wasn’t even eight a.m., so I’d give them a call in another hour or so.

  There were other things I could get started on first.

  There were two self-serve gas stations within sight of the restaurant. If I checked their security footage from two nights ago, I might be able to get a better look at that Volvo. Maybe I’d be able to pick up a license plate, or see the driver.

  It wasn’t much, but it was something. I was also thinking about Patchett’s, and whether there might be more leads worth following from there. Owner Phyllis Pearce seemed to know everybody’s business. Maybe she knew something about Claire Sanders and Dennis Mullavey. I’d gone back to Claire’s Facebook page to see if he was among her friends, but his name didn’t come up.

  Donna was ready for work ahead of schedule so she could get a ride with me in her Corolla. She didn’t lean over for a kiss as she got out the passenger side, but she reached over and squeezed my hand.

  Neither of us said a word.

  From there, I drove to the first of the two service stations on Danbury within walking distance of Iggy’s. I pulled up to the pump, got out, and put a quarter of a tank of unleaded into the car, casting my eyes around as I did so, taking in the cameras. Most self-serve places now required you to put your credit card in first and have it approved, so you couldn’t take off without paying. If you wanted to pay cash, you usually had to go in and put down a deposit before they’d activate the pump.

  Those cameras had been more important back in the day when people filled their tanks before they paid. Station owners no longer had that kind of trust in their customers, but the cameras remained.

  Even though I’d paid at the pump, I went inside on the pretext of buying a treat. As I was getting out a five to pay the woman standing behind the counter for a Mars bar, I brought out my detective license as well.

  “What’s this?” the woman asked tensely. She was in her mid-twenties, and thin enough to make one wonder whether she was anorexic. “You a cop? Because if you are, I’ve got the petition right here. I don’t always remember to get everyone to sign it, but most of the time I do. And I get the people to write down their addresses, too.”

  “I’m private,” I said. “I don’t care if anyone signs that thing or not.”

  That seemed to relax her. “That’s good, because I hate asking. Why the fuck should I have to do PR for the cops, right?”

  “Right.” I explained I was looking for a vehicle that might have filled up here a couple of nights ago.

  “What for?” she asked.

  “Some guy who may have picked up a girl out back of Iggy’s.” I implied menace.

  “Oh, okay. When was this?” When I told her the time period I was interested in, she shook her head. “Sorry. We erase everything after twenty-four hours if nothing happens so the hard drive or whatever doesn’t get all filled up.”

  I sighed. “Did you happen to be on night before last? Between nine thirty and ten thirty?”

  This time, a nod. “Yeah, I did a double, because Raul had the flu, although I think he was faking it.”

  “You remember a Volvo station wagon coming in around that time? Silver or gray, I think.”

  “You’re kidding, right? I couldn’t even tell you what kind of car you’re driving, and it’s sitting out there right now.”

  I thanked her, paid for the Mars bar, and left. I was doing up my seat belt when I thought I noticed an old silver Hyundai with tinted windows parked on the other side of Danbury. I was staring at it, wondering if it could be the car that had been following me the night before, when it started up, pulled onto the road, and drove off.

  The second gas station was just behind me and across the street. I wheeled out, spent ten seconds tops on the road, then pulled up at another set of pumps. I filled the tank another quarter, which pretty much topped up Donna’s car, and scanned the area for cameras at the same time. When I went inside, I didn’t bother buying another candy bar.

  “I am very sorry, sir, but our cameras are not even working,” said the East Indian man at the cash register when I asked him about seeing surveillance footage. “They are still up there to scare the customers, but we do not record anything.”

  I asked him if he had any memory of a silver or gray Volvo wagon from two nights ago.

  “I was not on,” he said.

  “Who was here that night?”

  “Samuel. He was here. But I can guarantee you he did not see a thing.”

  “Why’s that?”

  The man pointed to a stack of skin magazines on the counter behind him, next to a display of cigarettes. “Samuel looks at porn all night and only gets his nose out of the books when there is someone standing right in front of him.”

  “I thought everyone looked at porn online now,” I said.

  “Samuel is seventy years old. He has never got into the computer thing,” the man said. “I am sorry.”

  So was I. It had been a long shot, at best. Time to move on to something that might be more productive.

  I got out the number for Hooper Gardening and dialed. I asked the woman who answered for the owner/manager, and she said Bill Hooper was out of the office. I gave her my number and she said she would have him return my call.

  “How soon will he get back to me?” I asked.

  “Beats me,” she said.

  I couldn’t sit around doing nothing, so I drove to Patchett’s. It wasn’t even nine thirty, and the place was dead. They opened at eleven thirty for lunch. The front door was locked, but I found a service door open around back, and two men were in the kitchen, getting things ready for the day.

  “I was looking for Ms. Pearce,” I said.

  “She doesn’t come in until the afternoon,” one said. “Maybe two or three.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I supposed that when you ran an e
stablishment like Patchett’s, it was the evening hours when you most needed to be around. Once I was back in the car, I looked up her home address on my phone. There was only one Pearce listed for Griffon, on Windermere Drive, which was on the road heading north out of town.

  It was a house I’d driven past a hundred times, but had never known who lived there. What had always caught my eye about it was that it was an imposing structure. It sat up from the road on a gentle hill, surrounded by trees. The homes were well spaced, a good hundred feet between them. The place had something of a plantation feel to it. Two stories, a broad porch with thick, sturdy columns, white wood furniture with colorful cushions. The grass was overgrown, but other than that, the property was well tended. A tan Ford Crown Victoria sat in the drive.

  I parked behind it, got out, and walked up the porch steps. From this vantage point, you could see down into Griffon, rooftops, a church steeple. Sitting out here, I could imagine myself presiding over it. This would have been a better house for Bert Sanders.

  I knocked on the heavy wood door, heard footsteps approaching.

  The door opened about six inches, and Phyllis Pearce’s face was framed between it and the jamb.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Mrs. Pearce?” I said. “You remember me? We spoke the other—”

  “Oh yes, Mr. Weaver.” She opened the door wider. “How are you?”

  “Fine, thank you. Sorry to bother you so early. Patchett’s must keep you working most nights.”

  “It does. I’m often there till ten or eleven, even midnight, but I still wake up at six. Harder to sleep in when you’re older. What do you want, Mr. Weaver?”

  “I’m betting you’ve heard about Hanna Rodomski.”

  Her face darkened. “I have. Horrible. A horrible, horrible thing.”

  “I was the one who discovered her body under the bridge and—would you mind if I stepped in?”

  “Why don’t we sit outside?” she said. “It’s a nice day.” Phyllis stepped out onto the porch and we each settled into a white chair. “That must have been awful to come upon. Her body like that.”