Linwood Barclay: A Tap on the Window

“Can you swim?”

“Man, you’re crazy! Let me go!”

“Because even if you can, I don’t like your chances. We’re so close to the falls, the current’s unbelievably fierce. Before you know it, you’re swept over. And it’s a long way down.”

“Let me go!”

“You might grab onto one of the rocks just before the top, but the thing is, if you hit one, it’ll probably kill you. Like driving into a wall at a hundred miles per hour. If you were in a barrel, like some of those daredevils who’ve tried going over in one, you might have one chance in a hundred, which is pretty good odds, when you think about it.”

“I’m tellin’ you, mister, swear to God, it wasn’t me.”

“I don’t believe you. But if you’re honest with me, if you admit what you did, I won’t throw you over.”

“It wasn’t me! I swear!”

“If it wasn’t you, who was it?”

“I don’t know! If I had a name I’d give it to you. Please, please, I’m begging you, man.”

“You know what I think? I think when you go over, it’ll feel like flying.”

A middle-aged guy would have to be a total fool to pick up a teenage girl standing outside a bar with her thumb sticking out. Not that bright on her part, either, when you think about it. But right now, we’re talking about my stupidity, not hers.

She was standing there at the curb, her stringy blond, rain-soaked hair hanging in her face, the neon glow from the COORS sign in the window of Patchett’s Bar bathing her in an eerie light. Her shoulders were hunched up against the drizzle, as if that would somehow keep her warm and dry.

It was hard to tell her age, exactly. Old enough to drive legally and maybe even vote, but not likely old enough to drink. Certainly not here in Griffon, in New York State. The other side of the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, maybe, in Canada, where the drinking age is nineteen and not twenty-one. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t have had a few beers at Patchett’s. It was generally known your ID was not put through a rigorous examination here. If yours had a picture of Nicole Kidman on it and you looked more like Penelope Cruz, well, that was good enough for them. Their policy was “Park your butt. What can we getcha?”

The girl, the strap of an oversized red purse slung over her shoulder, had her thumb sticking out, and she was looking at my car as I rolled up to the stop sign at the corner.

Not a chance , I thought. Picking up a male hitchhiker was a bad enough idea, but picking up a teenage girl was monumentally dumb. Guy in his early forties gives a lift to a girl less than half his age on a dark, rainy night. There were more ways for that to go wrong than I could count. So I kept my eyes straight ahead as I put my foot on the brake. I was about to give the Accord some gas when I heard a tapping on the passenger window.

I glanced over, saw her there, bending over, looking at me. I shook my head but she kept on rapping.

I powered down the window far enough to see her eyes and the top half of her nose. “Sorry,” I said, “I can’t—”

“I just need a lift home, mister,” she said. “It’s not that far. There’s some sketchy guy in that pickup over there. He’s been giving me the eye and—” Her eyes popped. “Shit, aren’t you Scott Weaver’s dad?”

And then everything changed.

“Yeah,” I said. I had been.

“Thought I recognized you. You probably wouldn’t even know me, but, like, I’ve seen you pick up Scott at school and stuff. Look, I’m sorry. I’m letting rain get into your car. I’ll see if I can get a—”

I didn’t see how I could leave one of Scott’s friends standing there in the rain.

“Get in,” I said.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.” I paused, allowed myself one more second to get out of this. Then: “It’s okay.”

“God, thanks!” she said, opened the door and slid into the seat, moving a cell phone from one hand to the other, slipping the purse off her shoulder and tucking it down by her feet. The dome light was a lightning flash, on and off in a second. “Jeez, I’m soaked. Sorry about your seat.”

She was wet. I didn’t know how long she’d been there, but it had been long enough for rivulets of water to be running down her hair and onto her jacket and jeans. The tops of her thighs looked wet, making me wonder whether someone driving by had splashed her.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said as she buckled her seat belt. I was still stopped, waiting for directions. “I go straight, or turn, or what?”

“Oh yeah.” She laughed nervously, then shook her head from side to side, flinging droplets of water like a spaniel coming out of a lake. “Like, you’re supposed to know where I live. Duh. Just keep going straight.”

I glanced left and right, then proceeded through the intersection.

“So you were a friend of Scott’s?” I asked.

She nodded, smiled, then grimaced. “Yeah, he was a good guy.”

“What’s your name?”

“Claire.”

“Claire?” I stretched the name out, inviting her to provide a last name. I was wondering if she was someone I’d already checked out online. I really hadn’t had a good look at her face yet.

“Yep,” she said. “Like Chocolate E. Claire.” She laughed nervously. She moved the cell phone from her left to right hand, then rested the empty hand on her left knee. There was a bad scratch on the back, just below the knuckles, about an inch long, the skin freshly grazed and raw, just this side of bleeding.

“You hurt yourself, Claire?” I asked, nodding downward.

The girl looked at her hand. “Oh shit, I hadn’t even noticed that. Some idiot staggering around Patchett’s bumped into me and I caught my hand on the corner of a table. Kinda smarts.” She brought her hand up to her face and blew on the wound. “Guess I’ll live,” she said.

“You don’t quite look old enough to be a customer,” I said, giving her a reproachful look mixed with a smirk.

She caught the look and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well.”

Neither of us said anything for half a mile or so. The cell phone, as best I could see in the light from my dash, was trapped screen down beneath her hand on her right thigh. She leaned forward to look into the mirror mounted on the passenger door.

“That guy’s really riding your bumper,” she said.

Headlight glare reflected off my rearview mirror. The vehicle behind us was an SUV or truck, with lights mounted high enough to shine in through my back window. I tapped the brakes just enough to make my taillights pop red, and the driver backed off. Claire kept glancing in the mirror. She seemed to be taking a lot of interest in a tailgater.

“You okay, Claire?” I asked.

“Hmm? Yeah, I’m cool, yeah.”

“You seem kind of on edge.”

She shook her head a little too aggressively.

“You’re sure?” I asked, and as I turned to look at her she caught my eye.

“Positive,” she said.

She wasn’t a very good liar.

We were on Danbury, a four-lane road, with a fifth down the center for left turns, that was lined with fast-food joints and a Home Depot and a Walmart and a Target and half a dozen other ubiquitous outlets that make it hard to know whether you’re in Tucson or Tallahassee.

“So,” I said, “how’d you know Scott?”

Claire shrugged. “Just, you know, school. We didn’t really hang out that much or anything, but I knew him. I was real sad about what happened to him.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I mean, like, all kids do dumb shit, right? But most of us, nothing really bad ever happens.”