Linwood Barclay - A Tap on the Window

“Have they got who did it?” she asked, twisting her neck and wiping her nose on the shoulder of her shirt.

“They’ve arrested Sean.”

Claire whirled around, her eyes red. But grief had turned to shock. “What? You’re kidding. That’s insane. There’s no way. He was trying to help us. He was helping me and Hanna. He was supposed to pick me up, but he got pulled over and that’s why I asked you for a ride and—”

“I know,” I said. “I don’t think he did it, either. But the police, they found evidence in his truck. From Hanna.”

“The police?” she shrieked. “The fucking Griffon police? Oh, well, I guess it’s all wrapped up, then, if the Griffon police arrested him. Fucking assholes, all of them.”

I nodded. “You and Dennis need to come back with me. We have to get all this sorted out.”

She shook her head violently. “There is no way he’s going to go back there. Not a chance.”

“What happened, Claire? What happened? What was Dennis running from? Why do the police want him? Do you know who killed Hanna?”

She sniffed. “I never should have asked her to help. Never, never, never.”

Tears were still running down her cheeks and her nose was dripping over her top lip. I found some fresh tissues in my pocket and handed them to her.

“We have to go back and sort this out,” I repeated. “For Hanna. And for Sean.”

Claire started to go into short, rapid breaths, and I was fearful she was going to pass out. She leaned my way, and I held on to her. She wrapped her arms around me and rested the side of her face on my chest.

“Everything is so awful,” she whispered. “It’s all so fucking awful.”

I patted her back lightly. Such an empty, pitiful gesture.

“We’ll go back,” I said. “Okay? We’ll go back. You and Dennis can explain everything to me on the way. And if he doesn’t want to come, so be it. But I’m not going back without you.”

Her face went up and down on my chest.

“Come on,” I said.

I held on to her as we walked back to shore, but I had to watch my step, as the dock was barely wide enough for both of us. We walked slowly across the grass and up a slight hill back to the cottage. Stepped up onto the deck. The sliding glass door was still open. I was expecting Dennis to be standing there, waiting for us, but he was not.

“Dennis?” Claire called.

There was no response.

We had another three steps to reach the door when I gripped Claire’s shoulders, made her stop in her tracks.

There was something on the floor of the cottage.

Something wet and dark and sinuous snaking across it.

Blood.

“You know,” I said, suddenly steering Claire hard left, away from the door, “I need to check one thing before we go anywhere.”

“What are you—”

I was pretty sure she hadn’t seen the blood. If she had, she’d have reacted. Rushed inside, screamed, something. But I could tell, judging by how her body had tensed, that she knew something was wrong.

“Shh,” I said. Then, in a more normal voice that was just slightly louder than necessary, “I don’t know whether we should take both cars back or whether we should all go back in mine.”

We were up against the cottage wall, between the glass doors and a set of windows. There was a second set of three steps here that led down from the deck. I had the Glock in my hand as I whispered to Claire, “Get under the deck.”

She started to ask why, but I put my finger to my lips and gave her a stern, urgent look, then pointed. She slipped down the steps, got on her knees, and crawled into the roughly two feet of space below the deck.

I went down the steps, too, but kept on walking along the edge of the cottage, maintaining a conversation. “We’re going to need you and Dennis to make a full statement, explain this whole thing from the beginning. I know it’s not going to be easy, having to talk about this, but there really isn’t any choice.”

Whoever it was had a silencer on his gun. I hadn’t heard a shot when I was out on the dock with Claire. Not that so-called silenced guns don’t make a sound. But down by the water, it might not have made much more noise than a snapped twig. I hadn’t heard a car pull up, either. Our shooter had probably parked a ways down the road, then hiked in.

I’d had my eyes on the rearview mirror the whole way here. There were long stretches on the interstate, and coming down from it to the Cayuga Lake area, when there had not been another car on the road at all.

But someone knew I was here. Someone had followed me. There had to be a second GPS device in my car. Not just the one under the backseat. I should have checked the rocker panels, or looked inside that damn spare tire.

As I crept along the edge of the cottage, I strained to hear anyone moving inside. A floorboard creak, a door opening or closing. Anything that would give me a sense of where he was. I looked forward, then back at the open sliding glass door, then forward again. The ground was layered with fallen leaves. If someone came out the back of the cottage and started walking around, there was a good chance I’d hear something.

The cottage sat on a high foundation, so when I reached a regular window, as opposed to those floor-to-ceiling glass doors, I had to duck only a few inches not to be seen. I wasn’t keen on getting shot in the head.

I glanced quickly at Claire Sanders, huddled under the deck, eyes wide with fear.

I continued with my monologue. “I know you may not think much of Chief Perry, but he’s a good man, and we can trust him.” Just because I was saying these things didn’t mean I had to believe them. “And the first thing we’re going to want to do is let your father know you’re okay. And your mother. This has been a very difficult time for both of them.”

I’d reached the corner of the cottage, my back glued to the wall. I peered around the edge, saw no one, slithered around to the other wall. From that vantage point, I could just barely see up to the road. Through the trees I could see a dark-colored pickup with tinted windows parked there.

“And I’m not saying that about the chief because he’s my brother-in-law. If anything, that kind of leads me to think of him as a total asshole. Sometimes he is, and I know he and your dad have been having a running battle, but the fact is, when it comes to being a lawman, I think he more or less knows what he’s doing.”

Sooner or later, someone was going to think it odd that Claire wasn’t contributing to this conversation.

“My wife, Donna, she’ll defend him till the cows come home, but she grew up with him and she knows what he’s—”

Leaves rustling. Around the next corner. Someone was creeping along the back wall of the cottage.

“—like, so she’ll only defend him for so long, you know, and—”

It happened fast.

The barrel of the gun appeared first, and as I’d figured, there was a silencer screwed onto the end of it. A millisecond later, the whole gun, and the hand that was holding it. A glimpse of a jacket cuff.

I fired.

The shot rang out in the cool morning air. Birds in nearby trees broke into frightened flight.

It was more reflex than anything. I should have waited another half second, for a body to appear. Would have given me a better chance of actually hitting something. But the truth was, I’d never fired my weapon in the line of duty before. Not as a cop, and not since I’d gone private.

So it was no surprise I failed to hit that hand. It withdrew instantly at the sound of the shot. There was the sound of more leaves rustling. Faster this time. Running.

And another noise, one I wished hadn’t been made. Claire shouting, “Mr. Weaver? What was that?”