Linwood Barclay - A Tap on the Window

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said.

“Start from the beginning.”

“Mickey Farnsworth threw a rock at a car and I told the teacher. She told me she was busy and I guess she forgot to do anything about it and at recess Mickey said I was a tattletale and started beating me up and we got into a fight and now we’re both in trouble.”

“Where’s Mickey?” I asked.

“His mom came and got him. She called me a tattletale, too.”

That really pissed me off, but I had to let it go. The thing was, Scott had some history here. Of tattling. He didn’t like to see others getting away with things, but seeing that justice was done often had a way of backfiring for him.

Welcome to the world.

“It’s wrong to throw rocks at cars, right?” he asked.

“It is.”

“And you and Mom say it’s wrong to do nothing when people break the law. Isn’t it against the law to throw rocks at cars?”

“It is.”

“So why am I being suspended?”

I put my arm around him and patted his shoulder. I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make me a hypocrite. I gave it my best shot.

“Sometimes doing the right thing hurts.” I paused. “Sometimes, doing the right thing is not always worth doing. It’s hard to be right all the time. It’s not an easy way to live your life.”

“Don’t you always do what’s right?” Scott asked, turning his head to look at me.

“I’ll always try to where you’re concerned,” I said.

He rested his head against my chest. “The principal wants to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“And you have to take me home.”

“Okay.”

“Am I going to be punished?”

“You have been already,” I said. “For the wrong things, for the wrong reasons.”

“I don’t understand, Dad.”

“Me, neither,” I said. “Me, neither.”

As I went in search of the Skilling residence, I gave more thought to what I was doing, and why I was doing it. I needed to know Claire Sanders was okay. I needed to know, having been dragged unwittingly into this mess, whether my actions had put her at risk. If they had, I’d have to see what I could do about it. I didn’t like to see kids in trouble.

Yeah, but you don’t mind scaring the shit out of them when it suits you .

I was confident I’d find her. I couldn’t recall, offhand, how many times I’d been hired to track down missing kids — easily twenty — and only once had I failed. And that was because the kid — a twelve-year-old boy — came home on his own before I could find him.

When I finally did find Claire — at a boyfriend’s place, a kids’ hostel in L.A., some beach down in Florida — what would the plan be then? Drag her back to Griffon?

Hardly.

But I’d tell her that people back home were worried about her. I’d recommend that she call her folks. I’d give her shit for getting me involved.

That’d be it for me.

Sean Skilling would lead me to Hanna, and Hanna would lead me to Claire. One way or another.

I found the Skilling residence about half a mile away, on Dancey. It had been dusk when I’d arrived at the Rodomskis’, but by the time I got to the Skillings’ night had descended completely. I drove slowly down the street, looking for numbers, marveling at how many people don’t make them easy to spot. If they didn’t want to do it for the fire department, you’d think they’d at least do it for the pizza delivery guy.

The house was even numbered, so it had to be on the left, and I figured I was only a couple of doors away when I saw a car’s headlights come on in a driveway just ahead. It had been backed in, so the lights intercepted my path. I glanced over as I passed by, blinded briefly. Brass numbers were affixed to a large decorative stone set by the curb. This was the place.

It wasn’t a car after all, but a pickup. A black Ford Ranger. Once I had the headlight glare out of my eyes, I was able to spot a young man in a ball cap behind the wheel.

I pulled over to the opposite curb as the truck roared onto the street, accelerating so quickly it fishtailed, and tore off in the direction I’d come from. I executed a fast three-point turn and hit the gas. The pickup had disappeared beyond the bend, so I thought it was unlikely he’d noticed me turning around to come after him.

A left turn, then a right, and we were on Danbury. I had a hunch where he might be going.

Four minutes later, it proved right. The Ranger crossed the street and wheeled into the parking lot behind Patchett’s. I pulled over to the shoulder so I could get a look at him as he got out of the truck and walked briskly into the bar. While he wasn’t running, there was a sense of urgency in his stride, and he moved like an athlete. He was six feet, hundred and eighty pounds, with dirty blond hair falling out from beneath a cap branded with two broad horizontal stripes across the front. A Bills cap. He wouldn’t be the only one in Patchett’s wearing one of those.

Once he’d disappeared inside, I put the Honda in park, leaving it behind a couple of Harley-Davidsons with raised handlebars, crossed the street and entered the bar. Patchett’s was like a thousand other bars. Dim lighting, loud music, railings and chairs and tables made of heavy oak, the smell of beer and sweat and human longing hanging in the air. There were about a hundred people in here, some standing at the bar, others at the tables working on ribs and wings and potato skins along with their pitchers of beer, about a dozen hanging out around the pool table.

I wasn’t the oldest guy in the room, but the crowd was mostly made up of men and women in their twenties. And, knowing Patchett’s as I did, probably several in their late teens. They were easy to spot, and not just because they looked younger. They were the ones trying the hardest to look cool while drinking. Holding the necks of their beer bottles between their index and middle fingers, like they’d been drinking this way their whole lives.

I scanned the room for Skilling, spotted him talking to a man at the bar. With the speakers blaring the 1969 hit “Proud Mary” by Creedence Clearwater Revival — there couldn’t have been a person here who was alive when that came out, and even I’d only just made it — I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I’m no lip reader, so I sidled up to the bar, behind him, caught the bartender’s attention and ordered a Corona, all the while trying to hear what the kid was saying.

It wasn’t that hard, once I got close, considering everyone had to shout to be heard over the music. The man Sean was talking to yelled, “Haven’t seen her, man. When’d you last talk to her?”

“Saw her last night!” he shouted.

“She not answering her cell?”

He shook his head. “Look, if you see her, tell her to call me, okay?”

“Yeah, no problem!”

Sean Skilling moved away from the bar and crossed the room to talk to someone standing in a group of three by the pool table, where a couple of overweight bearded men in black leather jackets, who didn’t look like they were from around here, were thoroughly engrossed. I kept my position for about thirty seconds, then took my beer and ambled in that direction.

There was a pillar about two feet away from him. Taking the side that would put my back to him, I leaned against it, but there was too much noise to pick up anything he had to say, even though his voice was raised. So I pushed myself off and wandered close to the group, pretending to watch the two bikers play pool. I thought they were wannabes, guys who didn’t make the cut for Hell’s Angels but wanted to look the part.

“Sorry, man!” I heard a girl say. “I saw her here, like, yesterday? I think it was yesterday, or it might have been the night before!”