Linwood Barclay - A Tap on the Window

A heavyset man with brown hair and a moustache had come in. Not in a suit, but nicely dressed in black slacks, a white collared shirt with the cuffs rolled up.

“Pause that,” I said.

Sal clicked. “You know that guy?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I only met him recently,” I said.

Just this evening, in fact. It was Adam Skilling, Sean’s father.

When I came out of Iggy’s there was a Griffon police cruiser parked behind my Honda, blocking it in. Officer Ricky Haines, along with his partner in crime prevention, Officer Hank Brindle, were leaning against their car, presumably waiting for me to show up.

“Mr. Weaver,” Brindle said, pushing himself upright. Haines followed suit.

“Evening, Officers,” I said.

“You kind of slipped away from the scene in a hurry.”

The chief had sent me home, but I didn’t see why I had to explain myself to these two, so I said nothing.

“Thing is, we still had some questions for you,” Brindle said, tipping his hat up half an inch as if to get the full measure of me. So far, Haines was letting his senior partner take the lead here.

“Ask away,” I said.

“I suppose,” Brindle said, “you may think you enjoy some kind of special status, being married to the chief’s sister and all, but Officer Haines and I have to follow our investigation where it leads us, even if that might make our boss unhappy. But ultimately, I believe Chief Perry will understand.”

“I’m waiting.”

“What exactly did you and Miss Rodomski talk about before you kicked her out of your car in the middle of nowhere?” Brindle asked.

“I didn’t kick her out,” I said. “She demanded to get out of the car.”

Brindle smiled. “All right, then. What did you and the girl talk about before she demanded to get out of the car?”

“I figured out right away she wasn’t Claire, and called her on it. Asked her what was going on.”

“And what’d she tell you?”

“Not much. She said it was nothing for me to worry about. I told you this before, and I’ve told Augie.”

“Augie,” Brindle said, smiling and nodding. “We don’t call him that. We call him Chief . Or Sir . And sometimes, behind his back, a few other choice words, but I’m sure I can count on you not to pass that along.” That grin. “As you say, Mr. Weaver, you told me and Ricky this before, but that was before we knew the girl was dead. So that makes whatever you two had to say to each other more relevant.”

“But it hasn’t changed what we said,” I told him.

“I guess what I’m wondering is why you really picked up the mayor’s kid in the first place. I mean, a man your age, giving a ride late at night to a teenage girl, that’s not the smartest thing a fella can do. And I’d think, given your line of work, you’d be smarter than that.”

I took in a long breath through my nose and let it out slowly. I’d met cops before who tried to rattle you, make you do something stupid. It’s just possible I might have done it myself a time or two back when I wore a uniform. I knew the drill, and the importance of keeping my cool.

“Claire said she knew my son. I couldn’t say no at that point.”

“Were you hoping maybe she wouldn’t say no, too?” The grin morphed into a schoolboy sneer.

“You got something to say, say it.”

Brindle took a step closer. “You know what my take is on this?”

“I’m sure whatever it is, it’ll be brilliant.”

“Looks to me like you picked up one girl, thinking you could have a little fun, and then when a different girl got into the car, you thought ‘Hey, what the hell’s this? These girls trying to mess with me? Play some kind of trick on me?’ Did that piss you off? You were thinking of getting it on with the first girl, that she was just your type, and then the Rodomski girl gets in the car and you’re all, ‘Shit, that’s not what I wanted. I wanted some of that other stuff.’”

Brindle stopped, waiting for a response. Maybe he wanted me to hit him. The satisfaction would have been too short-lived. When I had no reply, he said, “You want to hear the rest of this?”

“Knock yourself out.”

“You got angry with this Hanna girl, and she wanted to get out of the car, like you said, but when she ran, you went after her. Ripped the wig off her head. I can see it right there in your car.”

“Yeah,” I said. “All my training and years working as a cop, and then a detective, have taught me the best place to hide incriminating evidence is on the backseat of your own car.”

I sighed. This very long night was catching up with me, and I still had, as the wise poet once said, miles to go before I slept.

“You’re going to have to find another way home, Mr. Weaver,” Brindle said. “Officer Haines has informed me that we’re to seize your car and search it and I think that’s a pretty good idea.”

“For Christ’s sake,” I said under my breath. I said to Haines, “You telling me Augie actually asked that my car be taken in?”

So, no more Mr. Nice Guy. My brother-in-law was through cutting me some slack.

Haines turned his hands palms up in a what-can-I-tell-you gesture. “I didn’t actually hear it from him directly.”

“Who then?”

“I got the message through Marv. Uh, Officer Quinn.”

So Augie told Quinn, and Quinn told Haines, and Haines told Brindle, who was clearly enjoying himself.

He said, “The way it looks to me, you’re the last one who saw that girl alive. You’re the one who had the opportunity. The other thing I figure, given the personal tragedy you’ve had lately, things are probably pretty bad on the home front, and chances are you’re not getting any. So—”

“Come on, man,” Haines said to Brindle.

Brindle shot him a look and kept going. “So, a nice ripe thing like that, it’d be hard to pass up.”

It took everything I had.

“But then,” Brindle continued, “you had to shut her up, right? She couldn’t go around telling people what you’d done to her.”

I got out my phone.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Calling a cab,” I said. “You said I needed to find another way home, so I take it you’re not arresting me.”

Not yet, anyway.

Neither of them said anything. I could see the disappointment in Brindle’s eyes, that I hadn’t taken the bait, that he’d missed out on a chance to slap some cuffs on me for assaulting an officer. He would never know how close he’d come.

I put the phone to my ear. “Yeah, hi, I’m at Iggy’s out on Danbury and need a lift home. Five minutes? No problem. Name’s Weaver.” I ended the call and slipped the phone back into my jacket. “On their way,” I said, digging out my keys. “Don’t want you having to smash the windshield or anything.” I got my house key off the ring, then tossed the car keys at Brindle. He didn’t react in time, fumbled them comically, and they landed at his feet.

His face turned red with fury and embarrassment. He glared at me, then at the keys on the pavement, then at me again.

He’d have to shoot me before I picked them up.

“I got it,” Haines said, leaning over, snatching them up, and dropping them in Brindle’s open palm.

It would have been, I had to admit, a stupid thing to die over.

As promised, a cab was there in five minutes. Haines and Brindle were still standing by their cruiser, babysitting my car until a truck came to tow it away. I gave them a friendly wave as we pulled out of the parking lot.

“Wonder what the cops are up to,” the woman behind the wheel said as I got buckled into the backseat.