Linwood Barclay - A Tap on the Window

“So this is 9:54 p.m. yesterday,” Sal said. “This is about where the cops had me start it from.” He froze the image. There were two vehicles visible in the lot from this vantage point. A light-colored or white Subaru Impreza and, partially hidden behind it, what looked like a silver or gray Volvo station wagon, although I couldn’t be sure.

“The Soob is mine,” he said.

“Can you fast-forward that until we see some activity?” I asked.

“Sure.” He fiddled with the mouse. At 10:07:43 a black Dodge Challenger, the new model designed to look like one from the seventies, pulled up close to the door. A heavyset man got out, went inside. Three minutes later he was seen leaving, a brown Iggy’s bag in hand. He got into this car, the lights came on, and he was gone.

At 10:14:33 a man appeared from the right side of the screen, limping. He looked like he was in his twenties, but he moved like a much older person. Rail thin, about five five, wearing a jeans jacket.

“That’s Timmy,” Sal said.

“Timmy?”

“I don’t know his last name. He lives just up the street a bit, in that four-story square apartment building? I think, anyway. Works a shift somewhere, gets home about this time, comes by here every night on his way home for a double-patty cheeseburger, large fries, and a chocolate shake.”

“Every night?” I said.

“Yeah,” Sal said.

“He’s, like, a hundred and thirty pounds. Tops.”

Sal shrugged. “Some people handle fast food really well.”

“Every single night?” I asked again.

Sal glanced at me. “You got any idea how many people eat here daily? Look, you’re not gonna catch me knocking our food, but I couldn’t eat this stuff every day of the month.”

“Hang on there for a second,” I said. I raised a finger to the monitor. “Isn’t that exhaust?”

It was coming from the Volvo station wagon parked behind Sal’s Subaru. “That car’s been running the whole time,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” Sal said. “I was waiting to see if you noticed. I didn’t want to ruin it for you.”

“It’s not a movie, Sal. I’m okay with spoilers.”

“Okay. The cops — well, one of them — noticed the exhaust, too.”

“So you’ve already seen all of this? You know what’s coming?”

“Sure,” he said.

At 10:16:13 the door of the ladies’ room opens. It’s Hanna. She darts out the side door. This would have been just before she got into my car. I was probably coming into the restaurant about this time. Seconds later, there I am, holding the bathroom door open, calling inside, then going in.

“Isn’t that you?” Sal asks.

“That’s me.”

“You’re not supposed to go into the women’s restroom, you know.”

“Just keep it running.”

I watched myself come back out of the restroom and head for the front of the restaurant.

The next person to appear is Timmy with the limp, at 10:23:51. He pushes his way out the door, presumably on his way home.

Sal did some more fiddling with the mouse. “Okay. I think this is the part you’re looking for.”

It happens at 10:24:03. Claire Sanders, looking exactly as she had in my car, emerges from the bathroom — she had to have been perched on a toilet seat, since I’d had a look at the stalls and they’d appeared empty — then stands at the exterior glass door, scanning the parking lot. The driver of the Volvo sees her before she spots the car. The lights come on and the car moves forward, just beyond the Subaru.

Claire waves and runs toward the vehicle, veers around the far side and opens the passenger door. The car’s interior dome light comes on for two seconds and goes off.

“Go back,” I said.

Sal backed up the video a few seconds, hit PLAY again.

“Stop it when the inside light comes on,” I said.

It took him two tries to freeze the frame at just the right spot. As best I could tell, the only other person in the car was the driver, but it was impossible to determine anything about him, or her. Nothing more than a grainy smudge.

“It’s hard to see anything real clear,” Sal said apologetically. “The cops were pissed, too.”

“I’m not pissed,” I said. “I appreciate it. Is there any way you can blow up that image, get any kind of look at that license plate?”

“Nope,” he said. “Hopeless.”

“Let it go ahead. I want to see where the car goes.”

Once Claire’s in the car, the Volvo turns hard right, does almost a three sixty, and vanishes from the right side of the monitor.

“You have any other angles that would show it leaving?”

“Nope,” he said again.

“What about arriving? If we go back before where you started.”

He took us back to 9:45:00. There is no car behind his Subaru at that point. He kept moving ahead until 9:49:17, when the car appears from the right side of the monitor, sidles up next to Sal’s car, and stops. The lights go off.

I had him keep running it right up until ten p.m., just in case whoever was in that car decided to come in for a coffee or a burger. No such luck. Whoever was behind the wheel stayed there.

“Sal,” I said, drawing his name out slowly.

“Yes?”

“Can I have a coffee?”

“Sure thing.”

When I went into my pocket for some change, he said, “On the house. Whaddya take?”

“Two creams,” I said.

While he was gone, I dropped into his computer chair and stared at the screen. Thinking it through.

Claire thinks she’s being followed. Gets Hanna to switch places. Now someone’s following Hanna, who’s with me. Hanna gets out and runs. Pitches the wig. Whoever’s been on our tail now knows it’s a trick. Figures out the switch happened at Iggy’s.

Thinks: Maybe Claire’s still there.

Sal returned with a take-out cup of coffee for me. “It’s really hot,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to spill it on yourself and then sue us for millions of dollars.”

I forced a chuckle.

“I want you to take me through the rest of the evening,” I said. “Right up to closing time.”

“Yeah, sure, I guess,” he said. “Same view?”

I thought about that. “No. At least, not to start. Let’s go to the front counter. Yeah, that view, that shows everyone coming in, looking up at the menu.”

“If we get held up, we can get a good look at them from here,” he said. “Where do you want me to start from?”

“Start at ten thirty.” I took the lid off the coffee and blew on it. “Fast-forward through.”

He did. People shuffled in and out comically. Before long, I spotted someone I recognized.

“Stop,” I said.

It was Sean Skilling. He’d said that he’d dropped by here, and Patchett’s, after everything had gone wrong, after the brief, troubling call from Hanna.

In the video, he bypassed the counter, disappeared into another part of the restaurant.

“Can you find him on the other cameras?” I asked, taking a sip of coffee. Still hot, but good.

Sal tapped away. “There he is.”

Sean had poked his head into the ladies’ restroom, just as I had done, but he hadn’t gone right inside. Finding no one there, he returned to the front of the restaurant. Sal found him on the other camera again, and we both watched him leave. The video continued to roll.

“Well,” I said.

“Was that what you wanted?”

“I don’t really know what I want,” I said. “Mostly I just want to go home and go to bed.”

“I should have got you a decaf,” Sal said.

“I don’t think it’ll matter,” I said. “I could be injecting it straight into my veins. When my head hits the pillow tonight I’m— Hello, what’s this?”

The monitor was still displaying the front counter. The time was 10:58:02 and counting.