Parting Shot

by Linwood Barclay

  “That’s no excuse,” Albert said. “But maybe . . .”

  “Maybe what?” Brian asked.

  “Nothing,” his father said, thinking. After a few seconds, he asked, “Just where does this Ron guy live?”

  NINETEEN

  BARRY Duckworth rapped lightly on the door to Craig Pierce’s room. It was already open an inch.

  “Craig, it’s Detective Duckworth.”

  No response.

  He knocked a second time, but no harder. Maybe Craig was asleep. Duckworth wasn’t sure he wanted to wake him.

  But this time, a voice. “Yeah, come in.”

  Duckworth pushed the door open. Craig, dressed in a dark blue bathrobe, was sitting in an overstuffed pink easy chair with his back to the detective. His mother was right. He’d positioned himself in front of the window with a good view of the street. The chair was a step away from the bed, which was neatly made. The walls were decorated with movie posters. Star Wars, Star Trek. There was a small flat-screen TV on top of the dresser, turned off. Next to it, a cardboard shipping parcel, opened, bubble wrap spilling out of it. There was a collection of superhero action figures on a nearby shelf, and Duckworth wondered if Craig had ordered some new ones.

  Duckworth could see, even though Craig had his back to him, that the man had a laptop in front of him.

  “Hey, Craig,” he said.

  As Craig started to turn to face Duckworth, it became clear he was in a swivel chair. He turned a full one hundred and eighty degrees.

  Duckworth hoped the shock he felt didn’t show on his face.

  Craig Pierce was missing a significant part of his own.

  His nose was gone. The cheeks were missing large chunks of flesh. Least damaged was his mouth, but his upper and lower lips were ragged.

  He looked at Duckworth with only one eye. The left was mostly unscathed, but the right was closed and covered over with rough skin.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “If you have to throw up or something, I’ll understand. Bathroom’s right across the hall.”

  “I’m fine,” Duckworth said. He pointed to the bed. “Can I perch myself there?”

  “Sure. Be my guest.”

  Look him in the face, Duckworth thought. Don’t look away.

  “I just had a chat with your mother,” he said. “I didn’t know your father had passed away. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Like I said, some people just want to barf. Dad went the full Monty and had a heart attack.”

  Duckworth thought it looked as though Craig was trying to grin.

  “He’s the lucky one,” Craig said. “You carry a gun?”

  “I do.”

  “I’d ask you to shoot me, but that’s probably against some kind of regulation, right?”

  “Kinda,” Duckworth said.

  “Arrest someone?”

  “No.”

  “Could have guessed. At least they put the dog down.”

  “I want to go over a couple of things again.”

  “Super!” Craig said. His buoyant response was jarring. “I can’t imagine anything I’d like more! Which part do you want me to relive? When the pit bull was ripping my face off, or when he was making a meal out of my—”

  Duckworth raised a hand. “Two days ago, someone—”

  “You just don’t want to hear it, do you? No one does. But I think it’s even harder for guys. It all got chewed off. They didn’t find anything to reattach. Maybe someone should have thought of opening up the dog and getting my bits back. How about that, huh?”

  Duckworth cleared his throat. “Two days ago, someone was coming out Knight’s. You know Knight’s?”

  “Sure. A fine drinking establishment.”

  “He got lured into an alley. Then he blacks out. Wakes up two days later.”

  “What ate him?” Craig asked. “A polar bear? A wolverine?”

  “Neither. Someone did some artwork on him.”

  Duckworth got out his phone and showed Craig the photo he had taken of Brian Gaffney’s back.

  “Hmm,” Craig said, nodding. “That’s it? A little inspirational message?”

  “It’s a tattoo,” Duckworth said.

  “So he got off easy. What I’d give for someone to scribble shit all over my back. Throw on a shirt and off you go. No biggie.”

  “I take your point,” Duckworth said. “But just the same, I want to find out who did this. Although what was done to him was different than what was done to you, the setup strikes me as similar.”

  “Who’s Sean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Surely your victim does, though.”

  “He says he doesn’t.”

  Craig’s damaged mouth grinned again. “Yeah, right, and I didn’t feel up that little girl, either.”

  Duckworth felt any sympathy he’d had for this man slowly slipping away.

  “Yes, he could be lying,” he conceded.

  Craig pointed to the laptop still resting on his knees. “Well, if it was the same person—or persons, as they say—who did it, they must be bragging about it online. Are they?”

  Duckworth felt caught off guard. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? And what are you again? A detective?”

  “I hadn’t gotten to that point.”

  Craig shook his head and made a “tsk, tsk” sound. He started tapping away on the keyboard. “If it was the same people, then they might be doing something like this.”

  He spun the computer around so Duckworth could view the screen. It was a website called Just Deserts. The name was plastered, newspaper-banner-style, across the top of the page. Below that, a headline that read: KID DIDDLER GETS HIS.

  And a photo.

  It was a picture of Craig Pierce staked to the ground, minus pants. His midsection was obscured by a dog, which was, as everyone knew by now, feasting on him.

  “I’ve seen all this,” Duckworth said. “I know about Just Deserts.”

  “You know they encourage this kind of thing. You know there are nutjobs out there who can’t wait to be honored on their website.”

  “No one even knows who’s behind it,” Duckworth said.

  “Yeah. It’s like Anonymous, but with a big difference,” Craig said, adopting an almost professorial tone. “Anonymous is all about exposing government hypocrisy and making public the shit that’s been kept secret. They’ll even go so far as to sabotage websites and disrupt commerce and that kind of thing. And when they say they’re going to expose people who belong to ISIS and fuck up their Twitter accounts or whatever, a lot of people think, hey, what the hell. We don’t know who they are, but if that’s what they want to do, it’s okay by us. And there was that other case, the one where the hackers said they’d release all the private info on that website for people who want to have affairs. And the fuckers did it! Bam. Marriages broke up, man, it was something. But still, it’s all about exposing data and secrets. Just Deserts, well, they’re different. They push the envelope.”

  He gave Duckworth a grisly smile.

  “Just Deserts likes to say that Anonymous doesn’t leave any marks. When Anonymous goes after you, sure, maybe your lies have been exposed, your website hacked, but you can still get up in the morning and take a pee without blood coming out of your dick. Just Deserts likes to see bad people get physically hurt.”

  He leaned in close to Duckworth as if he were letting him in on a secret. “I was a bad person.”

  Duckworth said, “Yeah.”

  “So this site’s inspiring vigilante nutbars all over the country.” He swung the laptop back around so he could see the screen. “Like, listen to this. Sacramento, California, there was that white guy who went to a black protest rally, about all the black folk getting shot by cops? And he starts scratching under his arms and making like he’s a monkey, and he gets caught on cell phone video and within a day it’s being watched all over the world?”

  “I remember. It was last year some time.”

  “Yeah, right.
So the asshole gets identified, and his employer, which just happens to be the city, fires him. But that’s not enough retribution for Just Deserts. So one night, the guy gets picked up right out front of his house, and he literally gets tarred and feathered.”

  Duckworth nodded. “I don’t remember anyone getting arrested for that.”

  Craig shook his head in affirmation. “Nope. But they took snaps and got them to Just Deserts and up it went for all to see. Here, I can show you.” He tapped out a few keystrokes, spun the laptop around again. “Check it out.”

  Duckworth had a look. “Yikes.”

  “Yeah, no shit.” Craig spun the laptop back toward him. “Now we go—”

  “I don’t need to hear all of these,” the detective said.

  “—we go to Miami—that’s in Florida, you know—where we find that dipshit Wall Street investor who bought up the pharmaceutical company and raised the price of a life-saving drug from like fifteen bucks a pill to seven hundred and thirty dollars a pill, and he’s hanging out in some high-end nightclub dancing with these supermodels, and some guy comes through the crowd with a fucking syringe, right? And fucking injects the guy and says, ‘Hope you enjoy AIDS, asswipe!’ He slips away and they still don’t know who it was. But it hit Just Deserts in like twenty minutes.”

  “Was it AIDS?”

  Craig shrugged. “Who knows? I think the guy’s still undergoing tests. But think how that fucked with his head, right? Then, in France, because this is not an America-only thing, you know, that woman politician who compared those millions of refugees to cockroaches—and let’s face it, she was kind of onto something there—goes out to her fancy Beemer and turns the key and thousands of the little bastards start streaming out of the air vents and coming out from under the seats. And voilà!”

  He spun the laptop around again for a shot of the woman bailing out her car, her body covered in roaches.

  “Someone was waiting to take the picture, and minutes later, it was uploaded to Just Deserts. So you’ve got people all over the motherfucking planet inspired to exact vengeance on people who’ve got it coming, hoping like crazy that what they do is nasty enough to be honored on this website. And let me tell you, Promise Falls has made a name for itself in the whole getting-even department. That guy you killed last year, who poisoned half the fucking town, you know there are whole websites devoted to him?”

  Every day Duckworth tried not to think about that, and every day he did. Even without reminders. He said, “Go on.”

  “Well, some people think he was terrific, that he made a difference. That he didn’t just teach Promise Falls a lesson. The whole world took notice. They’re saying, what he did, it’s made people more concerned about their fellow man. Isn’t that wild?”

  “I sense some grudging admiration about these sites,” Duckworth said. “Even after what happened to you.”

  Craig shrugged. “What’s that phrase about an ox?”

  Duckworth had to think. “It all depends on whose ox is getting gored.”

  Craig snapped his fingers and pointed. “That’s the one. In other words, it’s pretty funny until it happens to you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, Just Deserts has some local disciples, not surprising, considering what went down here. More people who want to make a difference. So after they did me, they were itching for another target. Maybe that’s your friend there with the Hallmark greeting on his back.”

  “Maybe.”

  “But if that’s the case, they must be bragging about it, right? So what’s the dude’s name again?”

  “I didn’t say.”

  Craig sighed. “So say it.”

  “Brian Gaffney.”

  “Spell the last name.”

  Duckworth spelled it, and added that Brian was without a “y.”

  Craig did a few rapid keystrokes and hit Enter. He slowly shook his head. “Nothin’s comin’ up, Mr. Detective.”

  “Okay.”

  “I guess someone’s got it in for wee Bri-Bri, but it’s got nothin’ to with Just Deserts, which would suggest to me, not that I am a brilliant detective such as yourself, that you’re looking at someone else.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” Duckworth said. “To get back to why I came to see you, do you remember anything else about that night that you haven’t already told us? Even the smallest detail? Something that might not ever have seemed all that important, but looking back, you wonder if maybe it is? Something that might be helpful in our investigation?”

  “I can tell you one thing about him,” Craig said.

  Duckworth sat forward in his chair.

  “What’s that?”

  “He can’t spell.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He can’t spell,” Craig Pierce said. “Or at least he misspells to be clever.”

  “How can you know that?”

  He tapped away again on the laptop. “Let’s go back to the commentary he posted with the picture of me. Yeah, here we go. Have a look. And it’s not just that he got my name wrong. Lots of people do that.”

  He spun the computer around so Duckworth could read it:

  Craig Pearce gets it good. Revenj on the kiddy diddler. You can be sure he wont be mollesting anyone ever again!

  Duckworth looked up. “Okay. He got your last name wrong, an extra ‘l’ in molesting, and there’s revenj with a ‘j.’ That’s what you’re talking about.”

  “Right. The thing with the ‘j’ is deliberate, I think.”

  “Why?’

  “Even a moron knows how to spell revenge. The other things, he’s just not a good speller.”

  “I don’t immediately see how that’s helpful,” Duckworth said.

  “I’m sure you don’t,” Pierce said, shaking his head. “Just what are you people doing on the computer end of things? Going after this website to divulge the IP address that was used to post this, for starters?”

  “That’d be our legal department,” Duckworth said weakly. “I think they’re working on that.”

  “You think?”

  “I’d be happy to look into it for you, update you.”

  “Because,” Pierce said, tossing the laptop onto the bed, “right now I feel like I’m doing that kind of work on my own. There’s all kinds of signatures someone leaves when they’re online. You just have to take the time to find them, correlate them, look for patterns. And seeing how I don’t have much else to do . . .”

  “If you’ve learned anything that could help us in our invest—”

  “And do your work for you?” Craig settled back into his chair. His knees had been together to support the computer, and now he let them separate a good foot. The bathrobe began to part.

  “Okay, there is one thing I remember, from the actual incident,” he said, closing his eyes, seemingly concentrating. “Just before the dog bit down, it kind of tickled.” He opened his eyes and grinned.

  “It did something to you, didn’t it?” Duckworth said.

  “Is that a serious question?”

  “I mean, you seem traumatized in a way I wouldn’t have expected.”

  “Do you mean my cheerful demeanor?”

  “I’m not sure that’s what I’d call it.”

  Craig tipped his head. “Perhaps cheerful bordering on deranged? Did Mommy tell you my therapist is coming today? To talk to me? So I can share my feelings?”

  “Thanks for your help,” Duckworth said, and started to get up.

  “Wait!” Craig Pierce said. “Don’t go just yet.”

  Duckworth sat down again slowly.

  “I never liked my father,” Craig said. “I was never good enough for him. And then all this shit happened to me. The charges, the humiliation, the shame I brought down upon the family. But you know what was absolutely worst of all?”

  Duckworth waited.

  “It was losing my manhood. Havin’ all my equipment bit clean off. That was why he couldn’t come up here and look at me. You believe that? He coul
dn’t even look at me.”

  Duckworth could think of nothing to say.

  “I’ve never told my mother what actually happened when my father brought me my tomato soup.” Craig smiled. “She thinks good ol’ Dad came up here and just got very sad, then went downstairs and had his heart attack.”

  Duckworth heard himself asking, “So what did happen?”

  Another mischievous grin. “This.”

  Craig spread his legs further and flung back the robe to expose all that remained: ugly purple-blue bruising, jagged scars and mangled skin. Duckworth was put in mind of a blue cabbage that had been through a food processor.

  “I said to Dad, ‘How about them apples, or lack thereof?’”

  Duckworth got up and left the room.

  TWENTY

  CAL

  I went back into the Plimpton house with Bob Butler trailing after me. Gloria was in the kitchen, pouring herself yet another glass of wine while her aunt watched disapprovingly.

  “Where’s Jeremy?” I asked.

  “He went upstairs,” Gloria said. “He was very upset. Can you blame him? That asshole Galen comes by here in that car?” She shook her head. “Honest to God, I am surrounded by people who really don’t have a clue. Jesus, Bob, how could you let him come up here at all, let alone in that goddamn car?”

  Bob said, “I had no idea.”

  “Unbelievable,” Gloria said to him, but now she was turning her sights on me. “Did you really throw Jeremy’s phone into a fryer?”

  I nodded unapologetically.

  “It might keep him from making further dates with his girlfriend.”

  “The Wilson girl?” Gloria asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “Charlene.”

  “That little slut,” Gloria said.

  “For God’s sake,” Madeline Plimpton said. “Pot, meet kettle.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Gloria asked.

  Ms. Plimpton just shook her head and left the room. Gloria sighed and took another drink.

  “Aren’t you hitting that just a bit hard?” Bob asked her.

  “With what I’ve been through, you’re lucky I don’t drink straight out of the bottle.” She put down her glass and waved a finger at him. “I’ve had an idea.”