Parting Shot

by Linwood Barclay

  He’d have sat up and assessed his situation, but there were some problems there. He couldn’t see, for one thing. He had some kind of woolen hood on, like a ski mask, except there were no holes for eyes or nose or mouth. The damn thing was on backward.

  But the more serious problem was that he could not move. His arms and legs were splayed out, like he was a starfish, and secured somehow to the ground. He could feel bindings around his wrists and ankles. He was able to brush the fingers of both hands against sticks of some kind.

  No, not sticks. Stakes.

  Craig Pierce was staked to the ground. Minus pants.

  “Hello?” His voice was raspy and panicked. “Is there someone there?”

  There was no light filtering through the threads of the hood. It was nighttime, no doubt about that.

  “Hello?” he said again. “What’s going on?”

  Craig tried to control his breathing, which was becoming very rapid. He needed to concentrate on what was going on around him.

  He sensed he was not alone.

  Even with the background noise of the rushing water, he thought he heard people breathing. Someone—maybe more than one person—shifting weight from one foot to the other. Very, very close to him.

  Whispering.

  “I know you’re there,” he said. “What the hell is going on? What the hell is this?”

  The last thing Craig could recall, before waking up staked to the snowy ground, was finishing his shift at Maria’s, a pizza takeout joint. It was midnight, and he’d come out the back door. He’d walked to his Camaro, where he found a van parked so close alongside it he wasn’t sure he could get the door open.

  He heard someone say, “Craig Pierce?”

  Then someone from behind put something over his face. A cloth. A very smelly cloth.

  Nothing after that, until he heard the rushing of water.

  “I can hear you!” he shouted. “I hear you talking! What the hell is this about?”

  Pierce sensed movement on the ground. He believed someone was standing over him. Then he heard a voice, maybe the same one that had called out his name.

  “Like you don’t know.”

  That was when Craig Pierce had an inkling about what might be going on.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “Really, really sorry. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  At this point, Pierce heard other breathing, of a kind that did not sound human. More like panting, or snorting. It was the sort of sound a dog might make.

  What happened next made him jump, at least as much as a man could jump while staked to the ground. Something thick and cold and wet was being poured over his body. Particularly over those parts of him that were most exposed, most vulnerable.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “What are you doing? What is that?”

  As if to answer his question, a few seconds later more of the substance was poured over his face. It seeped through the fabric of the hood and reached his lips and tongue, where he could not help but taste it.

  It was a mixture of something. A strange combination of ingredients. Like honey, and beef. Bloody and sweet at the same time.

  Then, a flash.

  His picture had been taken.

  Craig had the sense that whoever had done this to him—one or more, he was not sure—was walking away.

  Then he heard the voice say, “Go get him, boy. Dinner is served.”

  The sound of something running. Something getting closer. Something panting hungrily.

  Not long after that, Pierce passed out.

  When the sun came up, and Craig Pierce was spotted, staked out in the middle of the park by Promise Falls, he was nearly dead.

  Considering what had happened to him, Duckworth thought, he’d have been better off that way. He’d conducted interviews with Pierce in the hospital in the days following the attack.

  Now he decided, three months later, that it was time for another chat with the man. He was not looking forward to it.

  SIXTEEN

  CAL

  I put the phone back to my ear and said to Bob, “Too late. We’re here.”

  I brought my Honda to a stop behind the red Porsche. Jeremy threw open the passenger door and ran up the driveway toward the house, careful not to look at the other car or even get near it, as though the vehicle were radioactive.

  Slowly, I started toward the house. There were no police cars in the driveway, so I guessed Madeline Plimpton had decided against reporting the broken window. As Jeremy reached the front door, Gloria emerged with open arms.

  “There you are,” she said. “You’re okay.”

  He avoided her welcoming hug, blasted past her and walked into the house, but not before shouting, “Not with that asshole around!”

  Bob appeared, cell phone in hand. He saw me and glowered. “I told you to stall. You got here too soon!”

  I stopped and waited for him to come to me.

  “This is not helpful,” he said, stopping six feet short of me, waving the phone in his hand.

  “Like I said, we were already here.”

  “Where the hell was he, anyway?”

  “Arranged a date with a girlfriend from Albany.”

  “Son of a bitch. Who?”

  “Charlene Wilson.”

  He shook his head. “Jesus. Her.”

  I nodded in the direction of the sports car. “What’s this? Is this really the car Jeremy was driving when he killed that girl?”

  “I didn’t know he was going to bring it. I swear, I don’t know what the hell he was thinking.”

  “Galen Broadhurst?”

  Bob nodded. “Yes. He needed to see me.”

  “And he decided to drive this? What did he want to do? Rub the kid’s nose in it?”

  Bob shook his head with frustration. “I know, I know. It was stupid. It’s the first time he’s even driven it since—”

  “Bob!”

  A man was charging out of the house. Late fifties, gray hair, about two hundred pounds, leather jacket, jeans, black lace-up boots.

  “That’s him,” Bob said. “God, I hope he didn’t run into Jeremy. This never should have happened.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me the boy was here?” Galen Broadhurst said angrily.

  “I tried,” Bob said as Galen closed the distance. When the man reached us, he looked at me and said to Bob, “Who’s this?”

  Manners. I liked that.

  “This is Cal Weaver,” Bob explained. “We’ve brought him in to assess the risks Jeremy faces.”

  He eyed me up and down. “You don’t look like a bodyguard to me.”

  I said, “Nice move, parking that car where Jeremy couldn’t miss it.”

  “Damn it, I already explained, I didn’t know the kid was here,” he said. “First, the cops had the car for months, then I finally get it back and have to send it out to get it fixed. The front end was—well, hell, how do you think it was? You run someone down and that leaves some damage.”

  “To the car, you mean,” I said. “Yeah, that’s a shame.”

  Broadhurst pointed to the Porsche. “That’s a classic vehicle that I’ve sunk a fortune into over the years. It’s a terrible thing what happened, no doubt about it. But now that justice has been served and the trial has run its course, surely I’m entitled to get it fixed up again and move on.”

  “Of course,” I said. “You want to get on with your life.”

  Galen Broadhurst gave me a long look. “You’re kind of a wise guy, aren’t you?”

  Bob Butler made a tamping-down gesture with both hands. “Enough! Enough, for crying out loud! We’re all getting off on the wrong foot here. Jesus, Galen, Mr. Weaver’s already proved his value to us. Jeremy took off and Mr. Weaver here tracked him down and brought him home. Put yourself in Jeremy’s shoes. Coming up the street and seeing this goddamn car. He hasn’t seen it since the night everything happened.”

  “Fine,” Galen said. “But I’m telling you, I didn’t know. I got the car out of the shop this
morning, wanted to give it a good run. I had papers for you to sign and your office said you were up here. So shoot me.”

  I was tempted. But I hadn’t brought my gun with me today.

  “And Mr. Weaver is not a bodyguard,” Bob said. “He’s a private investigator.”

  “Oh, are you now?” Broadhurst said. “What are you investigating? You gonna find out who’s making all these threats against Jeremy?”

  “No,” I said. “You’d need every police department in the country to deal with those.”

  “Mr. Weaver’s going to keep an eye on Jeremy till things settle down,” Bob said. “Just an hour ago someone went by and threw a rock through the window.”

  Instead of looking back at the house—Broadhurst had probably already seen the broken glass—he glanced at the Porsche, then up and down the street, probably worried about whether his recently repaired car would get caught in the crossfire of the next act of vandalism.

  “That’s terrible,” he said. “It’s terrible, and my heart goes out to you.” His tone softened. “God, all the things that get triggered from one incident.”

  “Hardly a minor event,” I said.

  “True, true,” Broadhurst said. “A great many lives impacted, especially the family of that poor young girl.”

  “If it was me,” I said, “I don’t know that I could ever drive that car again, knowing what happened.”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” Galen Broadhurst said. “To be honest, now that it’s out of the shop and good as new, I’m thinking of selling it. It’s got a tragic history, and I suspect I’ll be reminded of that fact every time I get behind the wheel.” He gave me a smile for the first time. “Interested?”

  I shook my head, tipped my head at my aging Honda. “In my line of work, I’m better off with something that blends into the scenery.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, like, remember Magnum, driving around in that red Ferrari? Great car for detective work, that.”

  “What’s a vehicle like this worth?” I asked.

  “You’re looking at a 1978 911 Targa, excellent condition. It’d probably run around fifty, sixty grand, maybe a little less. All depends on the market. A car’s really only worth what someone will pay for it, regardless of what the book says. Am I right, Bob?”

  “That’s for sure, Galen,” Bob said.

  “I would have thought it’d be even more than sixty,” I said.

  “Plenty of classic Porsches out there that could run you a quarter-mill.” He smiled “And I’ve got a couple. But I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for this one.”

  “It was Galen’s wife’s car,” Bob said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Amanda. She passed away six years ago. Big C. This was her pride and joy, and it’d be hard for me to get rid of it. I’m a sentimentalist, but sometimes you have to accept that things are the way they are and move on. Am I right, Bob?”

  “You’re right, Galen.”

  Bob seemed to have the starring role here as Galen’s yes-man.

  “Anyway,” Broadhurst looked at me, “if you should change your mind and think you might want to buy it, or know anyone who might, here’s my card.”

  He handed it to me. I slipped it into my front pocket.

  “Well,” he said, “in spite of things going a bit sour here, the documents I needed to have signed are signed, we’ve done our business, and I can be on my way.”

  “The two of you work together a lot?” I asked.

  “We’ve done a few deals,” Broadhurst said, smiling. He laid a hand on Bob’s shoulder. “Just doing what I can to make Bob here a rich man. Isn’t that right, Bob?”

  Bob offered up a smile that looked as genuine as a spray-on tan. He said, “Last year Galen bought several blocks in downtown Albany. It’s part of a proposal for some new state government offices.”

  “Well,” I said. “I’m sure it’s all over my head.”

  “I would imagine so,” Broadhurst said. He reached out a hand to Bob for a farewell shake, but did not bother with me.

  He got in behind the wheel of the Porsche, fired it up, then eased it into first and pulled away from the curb. We listened to the car work its way through the gears until it reached the end of the street, turned, and disappeared.

  Bob said, “He’s kind of an asshole.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” I said.

  SEVENTEEN

  DUCKWORTH did not need to look up Craig Pierce’s address.

  He knew where he was living, and it wasn’t at his own apartment. He’d given that up after the incident, and now—like Trevor—was back living with his parents. Thank God that was the only thing about their situations that was similar.

  He didn’t see any point in calling ahead to ask whether this was a good time to drop by and talk to Pierce. There’d never be a good time.

  Pierce’s parents lived in the west end of Promise Falls on an older, tree-lined street. It was a two-story home that, while not run down, needed attention. The grass was overgrown, the shrubs crying out for a trim. The woodwork around the doors and windows could have used a coat of paint.

  Duckworth parked at the curb, walked up to the door and rang the bell. It took Pierce’s mother—Duckworth remembered her name was Ruth—nearly a minute to come to the door. She peered through the window first, then opened the door a crack.

  “Ms. Pierce, it’s Detective Duckworth.”

  “Oh, yes, hello,” said Ruth Pierce. She opened the door far enough to admit him, as though opening it wider would allow unseen forces to invade the house. “Forgive me. You wouldn’t believe the people that show up. Awful, awful people. Not quite as many as there used to be, but they still come.”

  “I’m sorry,” Duckworth said.

  “People can be so cruel. The ones that want to make fun of him, to laugh at his misfortune. They’re no better than whoever did this to him.”

  “They can be pretty awful, it’s true.”

  As he stepped into the house, he sniffed the air.

  “That’s scones,” Ruth Pierce said. “They just came out of the oven. Craig loves my scones and I try to do whatever I can to make him happy. Would you like one? With some jam?”

  Duckworth felt his resolve weakening, not unlike that time, on another investigation, when he arrived to question a woman just as she’d finished baking banana bread. There were some things one could not say no to.

  “That sounds wonderful,” he said.

  “It would give us a chance to chat before you go upstairs to talk to Craig,” she said. “That’s what you want to do, isn’t it? Talk to Craig.”

  “I do, yes.”

  “He probably knows you’re here. He sits and looks out the window a lot of the day.”

  Her eyes drifted northward. If Craig kept an eye on the street, his bedroom had to be right above their heads. It occurred to Duckworth that there wasn’t a sound coming from up there.

  As if reading his mind, his mother said, “I’ve got the TV hooked up in there but he almost never turns it on. Mostly he’s on his computer. Come to the kitchen.”

  Duckworth followed her, and the scent of scones. He took a seat at the kitchen table as Ruth transferred the scones from a cooking sheet to a plate. “I love them when they’re still warm,” she said.

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  “You look like you’ve lost some weight.”

  “A little.”

  “Isn’t your wife looking after you?”

  Duckworth chuckled. “It’s because she is looking after me that I’ve managed to lose it.”

  She shook her head. “That’s no way to live, denying yourself the pleasures of life.” She briefly froze, and then her chin began to quiver. “Oh my poor, poor boy.” Her body shook with one brief sob. “There are so many pleasures he’ll never know.”

  Duckworth contemplated whether to get up and comfort her, but she saved him the trouble, suddenly standing up straight and saying, “We have to move forward. That’s all we can do
.”

  She brought a plate with half a dozen scones to the table. “Coffee?”

  “Uh—”

  “You have to have some coffee. You can’t have a scone without coffee. I already have some going here.” She put a hand to her mouth, as though she’d just realized she’d made a terrible mistake. “I suppose what really goes with scones is tea. Would you prefer tea?”

  “Coffee’s perfect.”

  “That’s good. I don’t know if I even have any tea. If there are any tea bags in the back of that cupboard, they’re probably ten years old. Does tea go bad?”

  “I don’t know.” Duckworth cleared his throat, hoping to steer the conversation away from hot beverages. “How’s Mr. Pierce?” he asked, meaning her husband, not her son.

  Her face fell. “Oh, I guess you didn’t hear.”

  Duckworth felt the air going out of him. “What happened, Mrs. Pierce?”

  “I think it all just became too much for him. First, those horrible accusations against Craig. Brendan found that terribly difficult to deal with. Well, so did I, but he took it badly. Then the outrage that followed when the charges were dropped.”

  Duckworth was well aware.

  It was alleged that Craig Pierce had sexually molested an eleven-year-old girl he’d encountered in a Promise Falls park. That would have been serious enough, but it was worse than that. The girl was mentally disabled, and her intellectual handicap made it easy for Craig’s defense lawyer to challenge her ability to accurately identify the man who had dragged her into the bushes. The prosecutors had no DNA sample to tie Craig to the assault, and ultimately had to dismiss the charges.

  Some might actually have been inclined to give Pierce the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it had been someone else. Perhaps the girl’s confusion over identifying Pierce meant she had it wrong. But Pierce’s behavior after the incident suggested guilt. He’d had hair nearly down to his shoulders, but immediately after the incident had it all cut off. When the girl was asked to pick him out of a lineup, she was looking at someone with a buzz cut.

  But the clincher was what Pierce was heard to have said after the charges had been dropped. With news cameras rolling nearby, he’d been caught whispering to a buddy, “Let this be a lesson. Always pick the dumb ones.”