Linwood Barclay - A Tap on the Window

“I know,” I said.

“I even thought about turning him in,” Donna said. “Calling Augie. Have him arrested, put the cuffs on him, throw him in jail, the whole thing. Like that Scared Straight movie. Remember that? But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t think I’d be able to forgive myself. I thought about what might happen to him when he was in jail, even if it was only for a little while, about the other people he might meet in there, what they might do to him. But now that I didn’t do it, I can’t forgive myself for that, either.”

I put my fork down. I wanted to say something, but it was hard for me.

“What?” Donna said.

“I’m angry all the time,” I said. “I do my best to hide it. But it’s always there. It’s like I’ve got snakes slithering around under my skin. Millions of bugs, crawling inside me.”

“Are you angry with me?” Donna asked.

I didn’t answer right away. I was debating how honest to be, because I was angry with her. But it was nothing compared to the anger I felt toward myself. It was nothing compared to the anger I felt toward whoever sold Scott that final dose.

And it was nothing compared to the anger I felt toward Scott himself.

“I don’t know if there’s anyone I’m not mad at,” I said, and watched her face fall ever so slightly. “But you’re far from the top of the list.” I paused. “That’s where I am.” I made two fists, trying to work out my tension, and then relaxed my hands.

“You want to punish yourself, that’s one thing,” she said. “I get that. I want to do it to myself. But you have to stop punishing me.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I haven’t said a thing.”

“Exactly. You have to talk to me. I’ve never needed you more in my life than I do now, but you’re shutting me out. Withdrawing into yourself. When we lost him, what we had, part of that died, too. Are you willing to let it die completely?” Her eyes were red and moist.

I closed my own briefly.

“No,” I said.

I struggled to find words. “I’m afraid... I feel like it’s wrong to be happy. That if we’re ever good, if we’re ever happy again, it’s some kind of betrayal.”

A tear ran down Donna’s cheek. “Oh, babe, we’re never going to be happy. But we could be happier. Happier than we are now.”

As hungry as I’d been, I didn’t have enough appetite to finish what was on my plate. I pushed some eggs around with my fork, then set it down.

“I never should have let her out of the car,” I said.

“What else could you have done?”

“Something. At the very least, stayed with her until she got hold of someone else to give her a ride. She was calling the Skilling kid when she got interrupted.”

“You said she ran away. How would that have looked, you chasing a teenage girl down some empty street late at night?”

Donna wasn’t wrong. But I didn’t feel any better.

“It’s not my only regret,” I said. “I’ve done some things.”

Donna eyed me warily. “Go on.”

“Things I’m not proud of.”

Her face fell and her lip trembled before she spoke. “Are you seeing someone?”

“What?” The comment caught me off guard.

“Things like that happen. After a crisis. People end up doing any number of things they wouldn’t normally do.”

“No,” I said. “Not that.” I looked her straight in the eye. “Never that.”

I got the check.

I think we both knew it was going to happen.

We went into the house, neither of us saying a word, perhaps worried that if we said anything, it wouldn’t. We got ready for bed, the way we used to. Sharing the bathroom, taking turns to brush our teeth at the sink. Crawling under the covers at the same time, turning out the lights on the bedside tables.

“’Night,” I said.

“’Night,” Donna said.

Neither of us pretending the other wasn’t there.

I hesitated a moment, then laid a hand on her side. She turned so that her face was resting on the edge of my pillow. I pulled her body into mine, and it happened. It was slow, and undoubtedly sad in the way lovemaking can be at times, but there was something else. There was hope.

Things seemed better. Maybe we’d turned a corner.

The phone on our bedside table rang at six forty-five a.m.

I was already awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about gas stations, but Donna was sound asleep next to me. She woke with a start.

“What?” she said. “What is it?”

“Hang on,” I said, rolling over and grabbing the receiver. I glanced at the display, but the ID name was blocked. “Hello?”

“I’ve called all around and no one knows where she is.”

“Who is— Is this Bert?” I said.

“Yeah,” the mayor said. “I called everyone I could think of, at least those I had numbers for, and sent e-mails to people whose addresses I had. No one’s seen Claire, no one has any idea where she might have gone. I was on the phone with Caroline for an hour after you left, and she tried to help me make a list of names. And the police showed up and had a lot of questions, too, because, you know, they had your version of events and knew Claire and Hanna had been together last night.”

“Was it Augie?”

“No, no. It was a man and woman. I can’t even remember their names.” It would have been Ramsey and Quinn. “I’m not tracking a hundred percent. I’m rattled and haven’t had any sleep. I’ve been calling people all night, waking them up, pissing them off, but I don’t care.”

“Are there some you’re still waiting to hear back from?” I asked.

“A few. So far, nothing. Roman, Annette’s son, called me around one in the morning. She asked him to.”

I couldn’t help but ask. “He didn’t wonder why his mom was getting in so late? With his dad out of town?”

“I don’t know what she told him. But he was out late, too, doing whatever he does.”

Making booze deliveries to underage drinkers, I bet. Two of his employees, Sean and Hanna, weren’t available.

“What’d he say?”

“He said, and I quote, he didn’t fuckin’ know, and he didn’t fuckin’ care. Said I should put in a call to Dennis Mullavey. But I don’t know where to find him.”

The young man I’d seen in pictures on Claire’s iPad.

“Tell me about him,” I said as Donna threw off her covers, sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her eyes.

“Like I said, a summer romance. They were crazy about each other. A nice kid, you know? I liked him okay.”

“Where’d they meet?”

“Where does anyone meet in this town? Probably Patchett’s.”

“But Dennis isn’t from Griffon?”

“No. He got a job here for the summer. Working for a lawn service. Cutting grass, that kind of thing.”

“What’s the name of the company?”

“I don’t think I ever knew. Whenever he came by here, he’d be driving one of their trucks. It was orange.”

I could recall seeing those trucks around town, but I couldn’t think of the name painted on the side. Griffon probably had three or four landscaping companies.

“I can find that out,” I said. “So what happened between Claire and Dennis?”

“I guess it was more than just a summer job for Dennis, because he stayed on with this company into September. Most of these firms, they look after you right into the fall, raking leaves and all that. Wherever he was from, he didn’t have to go back to school. He was done with high school, I know that much.”

Donna was still sitting on the edge of the bed, listening. Sanders was talking loud enough that she was probably able to hear most of what he was saying.

“Go on,” I said.