Parting Shot

by Linwood Barclay

  He pulled on the door to Knight’s and went inside. It wouldn’t be fair to call this place a dive. Although a little rough around the edges, it was a decent neighborhood bar. It had the usual trappings. The neon signs for Bud Lite and Jack Daniels and Michelob. There were tables scattered about the room, booths down the right side, and the bar itself over on the left, half a dozen people perched on stools, watching a ball game playing on the TV hanging off the wall above a set of shelves stocked with liquor bottles.

  The place was about half full, and Duckworth guessed it would be close to packed as more people got off work. Knight’s didn’t just serve booze. Four guys sitting in a booth were feasting on a plate of chicken wings. The smells of fried food and grease wafted up Duckworth’s nostrils and he found himself instantly starving.

  Chicken wings, he told himself, were usually served with celery and carrot sticks. That made them a balanced meal, yes? But he knew that when he got home in another couple of hours, Maureen would have pulled something together for them for dinner. Something that was not battered or deep-fried or dripping in sauce.

  Be strong.

  He glanced around the room and saw something that pleased him. Unlike the alley, there were security cameras in here.

  A slim man about thirty years old, dressed in jeans and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled back to his elbows, was working behind the bar, drying some mugs with a white cloth. Duckworth hauled himself up onto a stool.

  “What can I get you?” the bartender asked.

  Duckworth dug out his ID and displayed it for the man. “Like to ask you some questions. What’s your name?”

  “Axel. Axel Thurston.” He squinted at the ID for a final second before Duckworth put it away. “Jesus, you’re the guy.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I know the name. You caught that guy. Jesus, you caught that guy.”

  Duckworth nodded.

  “What are ya drinkin’?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  “No, come on. What’s your pleasure? On the house. Your money’s no good here. Whaddya want? Want some Scotch? Best stuff. I got Speyburn, I got Macallan, I got Glenmorangie, I got—”

  Duckworth raised a palm. “No, really. That’s very kind of you. But I’m on duty, you know?”

  Axel grinned. “Yeah, of course. I get that. So maybe something else?”

  “Glass of water’d be nice.”

  Axel laughed. “Glass of water! The irony, huh?”

  Duckworth didn’t get it at first. Then he realized it was a reference to what had happened a year ago, when the town’s water supply had been poisoned.

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  “Let me give you bottled,” Axel said. He reached under the counter and came up with a bottle of Finley Springs. “How’s this?”

  “Wow,” Duckworth said. “My favorite.”

  Axel got a glass, put some ice in it, cracked open the water and poured. “So what’s up? What can I do for you?”

  Duckworth brought out his phone and showed him the picture of Brian Gaffney that he had taken at the hospital.

  “You recognize him?”

  Axel nodded. “Sure. That’s Brian.”

  “You know him?”

  “Sure. He comes in here all the time. Brian Gaffney. Works at the car cleaning place.” He grew concerned. “Shit, is he okay? Somethin’ happen to him?”

  Duckworth put away his phone. “Looks like somebody got the drop on him when he left here a couple of nights ago.”

  Axel looked puzzled. “I haven’t heard anything about that? We didn’t have any cops here. Nothing happened as far as I know.”

  Duckworth nodded understandingly. “It’s complicated. Brian didn’t come to our attention until today.”

  “Is he okay? He’s a sweet guy, you know? Not the kind to ever hurt anybody. You almost feel kind of protective of him, you know?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Axel shrugged. “He’s a bit too trusting. He could get taken in pretty easy. So’s he okay?”

  “Yeah. But I’d like to trace his movements over the last forty-eight hours. Were you on that night?”

  Axel nodded. “Yeah. I was. Brian was sitting right where you are.”

  “When did he come in?”

  He shrugged. “About eight? Stayed an hour or two. He comes in every couple of nights when he’s done work.”

  “Been coming here long?”

  Another nod. “He likes to talk, you know. He’s interested in all sorts of weird shit. Like, conspiracy theories? Who was really behind 9/11, were the moon landings fake, did aliens build the pyramids, shit like that.”

  “UFOs?” Duckworth asked.

  “Yeah, them. Sometimes he talked about his family, his old man.”

  “Albert Gaffney?”

  “I don’t know his name, but yeah. Brian was saying he moved out, got his own place because his dad said it was time for him to make it on his own. Thing is, I think Brian would have lived at home forever. He felt safer there, I reckon. But he seemed to be doing okay on his own, far as I could tell.”

  “What I wondered is, did you notice anyone talking to him, taking an interest in him that night? Checking him out somehow?”

  Axel shook his head slowly. “Not really. Brian usually just sits there and drinks his beer and watches the game.”

  Duckworth nodded in the direction of the security camera mounted on the wall close to the ceiling. “What about that?”

  Axel followed his eye. “Oh, yeah.”

  “You got security video from that night?”

  “We should. System banks it for a week or so. It’s kind of good to have in case something goes down, you know. Fight breaks out, or someone thinks they got their pocket picked, stuff like that. The owner says it protects us, too, in case somebody tries to sue us for something that didn’t happen.”

  “I’d like to see two nights ago. That be okay?”

  “Sure,” Axel said. “Need to go to the computer in the back. I’d check with the owner, but when I tell him it’s you, fuck, he’s gonna tell me to do everything I can to be accommodating. You know why?”

  Duckworth waited.

  Axel leaned over the bar and said softly, “His sister was one of the ones who died from the water.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “If he was here, he’d be offering you free drinks till the end of time.”

  Duckworth smiled sadly. “Let’s go to the instant replay.”

  Axel called over a waitress to watch the bar while he was gone, then led Duckworth through a back door, past the kitchen, where the smell of fries and wings made the detective light-headed, and into a wood-paneled office. The cluttered room featured a desk with a laptop.

  Axel dropped into a chair and tapped away. “So two nights ago . . . and Brian came in around eight. Okay, here we are at quarter to eight.”

  Duckworth came around and stood at Axel’s shoulder.

  “Let’s trade places,” Axel said, offering the detective his chair. Duckworth settled in and Axel gave him instructions. “Just put the cursor there, yeah, like that, and you can go forward or backward and faster and slower, whatever you want.”

  Duckworth got comfortable with the controls. “Okay, I’ve got it.” He looked at the timer in the corner that said it was 7:48 p.m. The camera captured most of the room, including the booths on the far side. Two couples were having something to eat in one, four guys were sharing a pitcher in another, and in the one next to that, a man and woman were seated side by side, the opposite bench empty. They had their heads close together, engaged in close conversation and the occasional kiss.

  Axel pointed.

  “Get a room, right?” he grinned.

  A young man entered the scene from the right at 7:51.

  “Here we go,” Duckworth said. The man wandered down toward the end of the bar and perched himself on a stool, although it wasn’t the same one Duckworth had just been sitting on.

  “No,” Axel sa
id.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s not Brian.”

  Duckworth put his face closer to the screen. The image wasn’t crisp, but he could tell now that this man was not Brian Gaffney. But they were about the same height, had similar hair, and were both dressed in jeans and a dark shirt.

  “At a glance, yeah, they look kinda the same, dressed pretty much the same,” Axel commented. “Sorry about the camera. It’s not exactly high-def. Look, there’s Brian.”

  Axel was right. Brian Gaffney had come in, and he did place himself at the bar on the stool Duckworth had sat on minutes earlier. Gaffney raised a hand, Axel came over, chatted with him briefly, then got him a beer.

  “Do you remember what you were talking about just then?”

  “Just the usual shit. How was your day, how ya doin’. Nothing special.”

  “How’d he seem?”

  “Seem?”

  “Same as always? Did he seem worried about anything? Anxious at all?”

  “Nope. Same old Brian.”

  Duckworth started fast-forwarding, but not so fast that he couldn’t spot anyone paying any kind of attention to Brian. At 8:39, a short, balding man walked past and gave Brian a friendly punch to the shoulder. Brian looked up from his drink and gave the man a thumbs-up.

  “Who’s that?”

  Axel said, “That’s Ernie. Can’t think of his last name. Just a regular. Sometimes they sit and have a beer together, shoot the shit.”

  Twice Duckworth saw Axel get Brian another beer. Axel was always on the move, tending the bar while the waitresses looked after the booths and the tables.

  Axel pointed to the couple sitting together in the booth, lips now locked. “Ain’t love grand?” he said.

  Duckworth’s eye was drawn again to the man further down the bar who bore a passing resemblance to Brian. “What was this one’s name again?”

  “Beats me. I only checked his ID to make sure he was old enough. But he paid in cash. Why?”

  “No reason, just—Hello.”

  Brian was throwing some bills on the bar. Axel came over, shook the man’s hand as he slid off the stool. Brian disappeared to the left.

  “Where’s he going?” Duckworth asked. “Is he going out a back way?”

  “He’s hittin’ the can before he goes.”

  Sure enough, Brian reappeared about ninety seconds later, crossed the path of the security camera and exited to the right.

  Duckworth noted the time. Brian Gaffney had left Knight’s at 9:32 p.m. By then, it would have been dark outside. If someone called to him from the alley, he wouldn’t have been able to see who it was.

  “Well, that’s it,” Axel said.

  Duckworth decided to watch the next few minutes of the surveillance video. Maybe Brian popped backed in briefly. Or maybe—

  The two who’d been fooling around as much as talking and drinking were sliding out of the booth. The man slapped down some bills onto the check and then the two of them headed for the door, the woman first.

  The camera hadn’t been able to provide a very sharp image of them when they were in the booth, but as they moved out into the middle of the room, it became easier to make them out.

  Duckworth clicked the pause button. He leaned in closer and squinted, trying to get as good a look at the couple as possible.

  “Something?” Axel said.

  “No.”

  “If you’re wondering who that is, I can tell you. Well, the guy anyway. The girl, I don’t recognize her. But the guy, he’s in here once in a while.”

  “Not important,” Duckworth said, pushing back the chair and standing. “Thanks for all your help.”

  “Any time you’re off duty, come on in. Drinks on the house. You like wings? We’ve got the best wings in town.”

  “They sure smell good.”

  “You want some to go?”

  “No, that’s okay, but thanks.”

  Duckworth left the office, walked past the kitchen and through the bar, and landed back on the sidewalk.

  He wondered whether to tell Maureen that he now knew where Trevor had spent at least one of his evenings. That he seemed to have found a girlfriend.

  He wondered about how much fun it was going to be sitting down with Trevor to interview him about who or what he might have seen when he walked out of that bar.

  NINE

  CAL

  “CALL Jeremy,” I said, not addressing anyone in particular.

  “I would do it,” Gloria said, “but someone took my phone.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake,” Bob said, and dug into his pocket for her cell and handed it to her.

  Gloria called up her son’s number and tapped the screen. She put the phone to her ear and waited.

  “He’s not answering,” she said.

  “Have you got that app that shows where his phone is?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  She went to put the phone back in her pocket, but Bob held out his hand. “Gloria.”

  She gave him a look of exasperation and slapped the phone into his palm. Then she looked my way and said, “I wouldn’t be too worried. Jeremy does this sometimes.”

  “Takes off?” I said.

  She nodded. “He needs to get a little air, decompress, deal with the stress. When you consider what he’s been through, can you blame him?”

  I said, “Isn’t it part of Jeremy’s probation deal that he be supervised at all times? Wasn’t he spared prison because you committed to always knowing his whereabouts?”

  “He’s been given some leeway in that regard,” Bob offered. “Because of the threats. We cleared it before we came up from Albany.”

  “But even if you were allowed to bring Jeremy to Promise Falls, aren’t you supposed to keep close tabs on him?”

  “For God’s sake,” Gloria said. “He’s a teenager. You do the best you can, but sometimes he slips away. But he always comes back.”

  “Tell me you don’t give him the keys to the car.”

  “I’m not an idiot,” she said.

  “Gloria,” Bob said, “if the boy gets caught out on his own, they’re going to throw him in jail.”

  “The more immediate concern,” I said, “is his safety. Someone just tossed a rock through the window, and Jeremy’s not here. We need to find him.”

  Gloria suddenly put her hand to her mouth. “Oh God,” she said. “Please just make it all stop.”

  I pushed open the screen and walked out into Madeline Plimpton’s perfectly groomed backyard. “Jeremy!” I shouted. “Jeremy!”

  Gloria followed me out and shouted his name as well.

  The property backed onto forest. Jeremy could easily have vanished into it. Or he might be hoofing it into downtown Promise Falls. Suddenly I wondered if he’d played us, and was actually back inside the house.

  “Ms. Plimpton,” I said, “check around upstairs, in case he’s still here.”

  She vanished. We could hear her shouting the boy’s name throughout her home.

  I walked down to the edge of the property and scanned the woods. Somehow, I didn’t see Jeremy wanting to commune with nature. Gloria was ten feet behind me, calling for her son.

  “Jeremy! This isn’t funny!”

  “Where might he go?” I asked her, not wanting to raise the possibility that he might have left the property against his will.

  She raised her hands helplessly. “I swear, I don’t know. Probably someplace where there was something to do. A mall or a McDonald’s or something like that. Do you think something’s happened to him?” A look of panic was creeping into her face.

  “There’s no reason to think that,” I said. “It’s probably like you said. He just needed to get away from the rest of us for a while.” I lightly put a hand on each shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll find him.”

  I turned and started walking back to the house as Ms. Plimpton emerged, shaking her head. The boy was not in the house.

  “Stay here,” I told all of them. �
��I’ll drive around, see if I can find him.” I already had Ms. Plimpton’s home number in my phone, and could call if I had any news.

  I walked through the house and out the front. Ms. Plimpton, looking at the damage, said, “I’m going to call the police.”

  “Up to you,” I said. “But it’ll be a circus around here in no time if you do.”

  I left her considering that as I got behind the wheel of my Accord. When I got to the end of the street I had the option of going left or right. Left took me into more suburbs, but right would lead me to the downtown district. It would take someone the better part of twenty minutes to get there on foot, but this was also a bus route.

  I went right.

  It hadn’t been ten minutes since I’d seen Jeremy on the porch, so he couldn’t have gotten that far. I drove slowly, casting my eyes from one side of the road to the other. He might be staying off the sidewalk to lessen the chance of being spotted.

  When I got to a cross street, I went right again. Soon I’d be reaching some strip malls and fast-food joints. I got stopped at a light and was strumming my fingers on top of the steering wheel when a faded red Miata convertible screamed through the intersection, top down.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said.

  In the driver’s seat was a young woman with long blonde hair. Next to her, waving his arms in the air above the windshield, was Jeremy Pilford.

  As soon as the light changed, I made an immediate left, cutting off a pickup coming my way and earning myself a horn honk and an upraised middle finger. I could see the Miata about a hundred yards ahead. There were two cars between us, and that was fine. I didn’t want to be spotted. I didn’t want to initiate a chase. If the girl tried to lose me, someone could end up dead.

  At least she was showing enough good sense not to drive like a maniac. She was sticking to the limit, and she needed both hands to drive. One was on the wheel, the other working the gearshift. When she changed lanes, she signalled. It was her passenger who was displaying some recklessness, continuing to wave his hands in the air, pushing himself up, his butt nearly to the headrest, poking his head above the glass.

  The car moved back into the curb lane, hit the blinker, and turned in to a hamburger place. Not one of the major chains, but an independent joint called Green & Farb Burgers and Fries, named, so went the tale, after the two men who founded the place in the fifties. The locals called it Grease & Fat, which might have sounded like a negative, but sometimes that was exactly what you wanted.