Linwood Barclay - Never Look Away

Duckworth swallowed. Instead of looking at Dad, he spoke to me. “Mr. Harwood, there are developments in your wife’s disappearance that we need to go over.”

“What developments?”

“We can talk about that at the station.”

There was no way I was going to that station. I had a feeling if Duckworth managed to get me there, I wouldn’t be leaving. Not any time soon.

“Hey!” someone across the street shouted.

We all looked. It was the guy with the tractor hat, the one I’d punched in the mouth. There was still blood on his chin.

“Hey!” he shouted a second time, looking at Duckworth. “You a cop?”

“Yes,” the detective said.

“That asshole assaulted me,” he said, pointing a finger my way.

Duckworth tilted his head at me.

“It’s true,” I said. “We were asking all the neighbors to help us look for Ethan, and he… he accused me of killing my son. And my wife. I lost it.”

Duckworth turned back and said to the man, “I’m sure an officer will be along shortly and he can take your statement.”

“Fuck that,” the man said, walking across the street toward us. “You need to put the cuffs on him right now. I got witnesses!”

Even with Duckworth standing there, the guy was ready to get into it with me all over again, striding right up, pointing that finger. He got close enough to poke me in the shoulder. I hadn’t noticed it when I’d tackled him, but this time I was getting a strong whiff of booze off him.

Duckworth quickly pulled the man’s arm down and off me and said, forcefully, “Sir, if you’ll just go stand over there and wait for the officers to arrive, they’ll be more than happy to take your statement.”

“I seen this guy on the news,” he said. “He’s the one killed his wife. Why isn’t he in jail already? Huh? If you guys were doing your fucking job, he wouldn’t be out walking around attacking people like me.”

Duckworth had no choice now but to turn away from me and deal with the guy. “What’s your name?”

“Axel. Axel Smight.”

“How much have you had to drink tonight, Mr. Smight?”

“Huh?” He looked offended.

“How much have you had to drink?”

“Not very much. What the fuck is that supposed to mean anyway? If I’ve had a bit to drink, I’m not entitled to police protection?”

“Mr. Smight, I’m only going to tell you this one more time. Go stand over there and wait for the officers to arrive.”

“You’re not going to arrest him? What else do you need? I’m telling you, the guy attacked me.” He touched his hand to his bloody chin. “What the fuck do you think this is?” He was shouting now. “Strawberry milk shake? The fucker hit me right in the mouth!”

Duckworth pulled back his jacket, revealing a set of handcuffs clipped to his belt.

“There you go!” Axel Smight said. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Cuff the fucker!”

Duckworth, with more skill and speed than his bulk might have suggested, took hold of Smight, spun him around, and forced him down onto the hood of his unmarked cruiser. He twisted Smight’s left arm behind him, slapped one cuff on the wrist, and then grabbed the right arm to do the same.

I didn’t stay to watch the whole procedure. I ran for Dad’s car, slipped the key into the ignition and turned over the engine. There looked to be just enough room to squeeze past Duckworth’s car if I ran over onto the grass.

“Mr. Harwood!” Duckworth shouted, trying to hold a squirming Axel Smight onto the hood. “Stop!”

I put it in reverse and hit the gas, clipping the corner of the front bumper of Duckworth’s car on the way out. I heard it scrape along the entire side of Dad’s car.

“You dumb bastard!” Duckworth shouted.

I didn’t know what the hell he meant by that, but I wasn’t hanging around to find out. I got the car onto the street, stopped with a screech, threw it into drive and sped off.

A person might normally be inclined to keep speeding away from a scene like that, but the moment I turned the corner I slowed down, scanning both sides of the street, looking for any signs of Ethan.

“Come on,” I said under my breath. “Where the hell are you?”

It was tricky, watching both sidewalks and the traffic in front of me all at the same time, and I had to hit the brakes hard and fast a couple of times to keep from rear-ending someone. I was turning in to my street when my cell went off. I was nosing the car in to the curb and getting out as I put the phone to my ear.

“Yeah?”

“Dave, it’s Sam.”

“Hey,” I said.

“Where are you? You sound kind of out of breath.”

“I’m kind of busy, Sam,” I said.

“I need you to come by the paper,” she said.

“I can’t,” I said. I was walking down the side of the house. Ethan didn’t have a key to the house, at least not that I knew of. I supposed it was possible he’d taken the one my parents keep on a nail at their place.

“It’s really important,” Samantha Henry pleaded.

I stood in the backyard and shouted, “Ethan!”

“Shit,” Sam said. “You just blew out my eardrum.”

I used my key to open the back door, and while I didn’t expect my son to be in the house, I called out his name anyway.

There was no answer.

“Dave?” Sam asked. “Dave, are you listening?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I need you to come by the paper.”

“This is not a good time, Sam. What’s this about?”

“Elmont Sebastian,” she said. “He’s here. He wants a word with you.”

I felt a chill run the length of my spine. I remembered the story about the Aryan Brotherhood prisoner whose genitals he’d Tasered. The one nicknamed Buddy. The one Sebastian had made cry when it was suggested to him something might happen to his six-year-old son on the outside if he didn’t play by Sebastian’s rules.

It was getting dark when I wheeled into the Promise Falls Standard parking lot. I spotted Elmont Sebastian’s limo parked at the far end, near the doors to the production end of the newspaper building, where the presses were housed. There was no one standing around.

I parked a couple of car lengths away from the limo and got out. As I did, Welland appeared from behind the driver’s seat and motioned for me to get in the back.

“No thanks,” I said. He opened the door anyway. I was expecting to see Sebastian, and he was there, but sitting next to him was Samantha Henry. She appeared to have been crying.

She shifted over to get out of the car and said to me, “I’m really sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“I just, I was doing it for my kid.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do I have to tell you times are tough? I’ve got bills. I’m raising a child. I know it was wrong, David, but what the fuck am I supposed to do? Tell me that? End up on the street? And newspapers are screwed, anyway. There’s no future here. It’s only a matter of time before we all lose our jobs. I’m looking out for myself and my kid while I can. Mr. Elmont’s offered me a job with Star Spangled Corrections.”

“Writing press releases or midnight guard duty?” I asked. From what I’d gathered from my source, women didn’t fare too well in Sebastian’s empire.

“Deputy assistant media relations officer,” she said, trying to hold her head high without success.

“It was you,” I said. “You saw the email before I deleted it.” She’d have had time. When the anonymous email landed, I went for a coffee before making the decision to delete it. “You went on my computer and told Sebastian about it.”

“I said I was sorry,” she said. “And I told him you’re trying to find someone named Constance Tattinger, that she’s probably the one who just sent you that list. That’s what he wants to talk to you about.” She turned and walked away, got into her car and drove out of the lot.