Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

Axel called over a waitress to watch the bar while he was gone, then led Duckworth through a back door, past the kitchen, where the smell of fries and wings made the detective light-headed, and into a wood-paneled office. The cluttered room featured a desk with a laptop.

Axel dropped into a chair and tapped away. “So two nights ago... and Brian came in around eight. Okay, here we are at quarter to eight.”

Duckworth came around and stood at Axel’s shoulder.

“Let’s trade places,” Axel said, offering the detective his chair. Duckworth settled in and Axel gave him instructions. “Just put the cursor there, yeah, like that, and you can go forward or backward and faster and slower, whatever you want.”

Duckworth got comfortable with the controls. “Okay, I’ve got it.” He looked at the timer in the corner that said it was 7:48 p.m. The camera captured most of the room, including the booths on the far side. Two couples were having something to eat in one, four guys were sharing a pitcher in another, and in the one next to that, a man and woman were seated side by side, the opposite bench empty. They had their heads close together, engaged in close conversation and the occasional kiss.

Axel pointed.

“Get a room, right?” he grinned.

A young man entered the scene from the right at 7:51.

“Here we go,” Duckworth said. The man wandered down toward the end of the bar and perched himself on a stool, although it wasn’t the same one Duckworth had just been sitting on.

“No,” Axel said.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s not Brian.”

Duckworth put his face closer to the screen. The image wasn’t crisp, but he could tell now that this man was not Brian Gaffney. But they were about the same height, had similar hair, and were both dressed in jeans and a dark shirt.

“At a glance, yeah, they look kinda the same, dressed pretty much the same,” Axel commented. “Sorry about the camera. It’s not exactly high-def. Look , there’s Brian.”

Axel was right. Brian Gaffney had come in, and he did place himself at the bar on the stool Duckworth had sat on minutes earlier. Gaffney raised a hand, Axel came over, chatted with him briefly, then got him a beer.

“Do you remember what you were talking about just then?”

“Just the usual shit. How was your day, how ya doin’. Nothing special.”

“How’d he seem?”

“Seem?”

“Same as always? Did he seem worried about anything? Anxious at all?”

“Nope. Same old Brian.”

Duckworth started fast-forwarding, but not so fast that he couldn’t spot anyone paying any kind of attention to Brian. At 8:39, a short, balding man walked past and gave Brian a friendly punch to the shoulder. Brian looked up from his drink and gave the man a thumbs-up.

“Who’s that?”

Axel said, “That’s Ernie. Can’t think of his last name. Just a regular. Sometimes they sit and have a beer together, shoot the shit.”

Twice Duckworth saw Axel get Brian another beer. Axel was always on the move, tending the bar while the waitresses looked after the booths and the tables.

Axel pointed to the couple sitting together in the booth, lips now locked. “Ain’t love grand?” he said.

Duckworth’s eye was drawn again to the man further down the bar who bore a passing resemblance to Brian. “What was this one’s name again?”

“Beats me. I only checked his ID to make sure he was old enough. But he paid in cash. Why?”

“No reason, just — Hello.”

Brian was throwing some bills on the bar. Axel came over, shook the man’s hand as he slid off the stool. Brian disappeared to the left.

“Where’s he going?” Duckworth asked. “Is he going out a back way?”

“He’s hittin’ the can before he goes.”

Sure enough, Brian reappeared about ninety seconds later, crossed the path of the security camera and exited to the right.

Duckworth noted the time. Brian Gaffney had left Knight’s at 9:32 p.m. By then, it would have been dark outside. If someone called to him from the alley, he wouldn’t have been able to see who it was.

“Well, that’s it,” Axel said.

Duckworth decided to watch the next few minutes of the surveillance video. Maybe Brian popped backed in briefly. Or maybe—

The two who’d been fooling around as much as talking and drinking were sliding out of the booth. The man slapped down some bills onto the check and then the two of them headed for the door, the woman first.

The camera hadn’t been able to provide a very sharp image of them when they were in the booth, but as they moved out into the middle of the room, it became easier to make them out.

Duckworth clicked the pause button. He leaned in closer and squinted, trying to get as good a look at the couple as possible.

“Something?” Axel said.

“No.”

“If you’re wondering who that is, I can tell you. Well, the guy anyway. The girl, I don’t recognize her. But the guy, he’s in here once in a while.”

“Not important,” Duckworth said, pushing back the chair and standing. “Thanks for all your help.”

“Any time you’re off duty, come on in. Drinks on the house. You like wings? We’ve got the best wings in town.”

“They sure smell good.”

“You want some to go?”

“No, that’s okay, but thanks.”

Duckworth left the office, walked past the kitchen and through the bar, and landed back on the sidewalk.

He wondered whether to tell Maureen that he now knew where Trevor had spent at least one of his evenings. That he seemed to have found a girlfriend.

He wondered about how much fun it was going to be sitting down with Trevor to interview him about who or what he might have seen when he walked out of that bar.

“Call Jeremy,” I said, not addressing anyone in particular.

“ I would do it,” Gloria said, “but someone took my phone.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Bob said, and dug into his pocket for her cell and handed it to her.

Gloria called up her son’s number and tapped the screen. She put the phone to her ear and waited.

“He’s not answering,” she said.

“Have you got that app that shows where his phone is?” I asked.

She shook her head.

She went to put the phone back in her pocket, but Bob held out his hand. “Gloria.”

She gave him a look of exasperation and slapped the phone into his palm. Then she looked my way and said, “I wouldn’t be too worried. Jeremy does this sometimes.”

“Takes off?” I said.

She nodded. “He needs to get a little air, decompress, deal with the stress. When you consider what he’s been through, can you blame him?”

I said, “Isn’t it part of Jeremy’s probation deal that he be supervised at all times? Wasn’t he spared prison because you committed to always knowing his whereabouts?”

“He’s been given some leeway in that regard,” Bob offered. “Because of the threats. We cleared it before we came up from Albany.”

“But even if you were allowed to bring Jeremy to Promise Falls, aren’t you supposed to keep close tabs on him?”

“For God’s sake,” Gloria said. “He’s a teenager. You do the best you can, but sometimes he slips away. But he always comes back.”

“Tell me you don’t give him the keys to the car.”

“I’m not an idiot,” she said.

“Gloria,” Bob said, “if the boy gets caught out on his own, they’re going to throw him in jail.”

“The more immediate concern,” I said, “is his safety. Someone just tossed a rock through the window, and Jeremy’s not here. We need to find him.”

Gloria suddenly put her hand to her mouth. “Oh God,” she said. “Please just make it all stop.”