Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

“If he knew you’d been seeing his wife,” Albert said, “he’d have plenty of reason to be mad at you.”

Brian blinked away some tears. “What are you saying?”

Albert hesitated. “Maybe he’s the one. Maybe he’s the one that did that to your back.”

Brian contemplated the possibility. “I don’t know. But what’s the part about Sean mean?”

Albert thought about that. “I don’t know. Maybe this Jessica was cheating on him with another guy with that name. And he thought you were that guy.”

Brian nodded his head slowly. “I guess that’s possible. I could tell that guy from the police.”

“You could,” Albert said. “That’s a good idea. That’s what we’ll have to do.”

“Except,” Brian said, “what if it isn’t?’

“What do you mean?”

“You should have seen her face.”

“Whose face?”

“Jessica. After Ron kicked me, and went back in the house, she looked terrified, you know? Really scared. If the cops come by and see him, he might go crazy. He might hurt her. I mean, she really messed me up, she lied to me, but I don’t want her husband to kill her or anything.”

“The man attacked you,” Albert reminded him. “Even if he didn’t put that tattoo on you, he attacked you.”

“I know, but... I mean, I did sleep with his wife. Like, if I was in his shoes, I might have lost it and done the same thing.”

“That’s no excuse,” Albert said. “But maybe...”

“Maybe what?” Brian asked.

“Nothing,” his father said, thinking. After a few seconds, he asked, “Just where does this Ron guy live?”

Barry Duckworth rapped lightly on the door to Craig Pierce’s room. It was already open an inch.

“Craig, it’s Detective Duckworth.”

No response.

He knocked a second time, but no harder. Maybe Craig was asleep. Duckworth wasn’t sure he wanted to wake him.

But this time, a voice. “Yeah, come in.”

Duckworth pushed the door open. Craig, dressed in a dark blue bathrobe, was sitting in an overstuffed pink easy chair with his back to the detective. His mother was right. He’d positioned himself in front of the window with a good view of the street. The chair was a step away from the bed, which was neatly made. The walls were decorated with movie posters. Star Wars, Star Trek . There was a small flat-screen TV on top of the dresser, turned off. Next to it, a cardboard shipping parcel, opened, bubble wrap spilling out of it. There was a collection of superhero action figures on a nearby shelf, and Duckworth wondered if Craig had ordered some new ones.

Duckworth could see, even though Craig had his back to him, that the man had a laptop in front of him.

“Hey, Craig,” he said.

As Craig started to turn to face Duckworth, it became clear he was in a swivel chair. He turned a full one hundred and eighty degrees.

Duckworth hoped the shock he felt didn’t show on his face.

Craig Pierce was missing a significant part of his own.

His nose was gone. The cheeks were missing large chunks of flesh. Least damaged was his mouth, but his upper and lower lips were ragged.

He looked at Duckworth with only one eye. The left was mostly unscathed, but the right was closed and covered over with rough skin.

“It’s okay,” he said. “If you have to throw up or something, I’ll understand. Bathroom’s right across the hall.”

“I’m fine,” Duckworth said. He pointed to the bed. “Can I perch myself there?”

“Sure. Be my guest.”

Look him in the face , Duckworth thought. Don’t look away.

“I just had a chat with your mother,” he said. “I didn’t know your father had passed away. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Like I said, some people just want to barf. Dad went the full Monty and had a heart attack.”

Duckworth thought it looked as though Craig was trying to grin.

“He’s the lucky one,” Craig said. “You carry a gun?”

“I do.”

“I’d ask you to shoot me, but that’s probably against some kind of regulation, right?”

“Kinda,” Duckworth said.

“Arrest someone?”

“No.”

“Could have guessed. At least they put the dog down.”

“I want to go over a couple of things again.”

“Super!” Craig said. His buoyant response was jarring. “I can’t imagine anything I’d like more! Which part do you want me to relive? When the pit bull was ripping my face off, or when he was making a meal out of my—”

Duckworth raised a hand. “Two days ago, someone—”

“You just don’t want to hear it, do you? No one does. But I think it’s even harder for guys. It all got chewed off. They didn’t find anything to reattach. Maybe someone should have thought of opening up the dog and getting my bits back. How about that, huh?”

Duckworth cleared his throat. “Two days ago, someone was coming out Knight’s. You know Knight’s?”

“Sure. A fine drinking establishment.”

“He got lured into an alley. Then he blacks out. Wakes up two days later.”

“What ate him?” Craig asked. “A polar bear? A wolverine?”

“Neither. Someone did some artwork on him.”

Duckworth got out his phone and showed Craig the photo he had taken of Brian Gaffney’s back.

“Hmm,” Craig said, nodding. “That’s it? A little inspirational message?”

“It’s a tattoo,” Duckworth said.

“So he got off easy. What I’d give for someone to scribble shit all over my back. Throw on a shirt and off you go. No biggie.”

“I take your point,” Duckworth said. “But just the same, I want to find out who did this. Although what was done to him was different than what was done to you, the setup strikes me as similar.”

“Who’s Sean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Surely your victim does, though.”

“He says he doesn’t.”

Craig’s damaged mouth grinned again. “Yeah, right, and I didn’t feel up that little girl, either.”

Duckworth felt any sympathy he’d had for this man slowly slipping away.

“Yes, he could be lying,” he conceded.

Craig pointed to the laptop still resting on his knees. “Well, if it was the same person — or persons , as they say — who did it, they must be bragging about it online. Are they?”

Duckworth felt caught off guard. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? And what are you again? A detective ?”

“I hadn’t gotten to that point.”

Craig shook his head and made a “tsk, tsk” sound. He started tapping away on the keyboard. “If it was the same people, then they might be doing something like this.”

He spun the computer around so Duckworth could view the screen. It was a website called Just Deserts. The name was plastered, newspaper-banner-style, across the top of the page. Below that, a headline that read: KID DIDDLER GETS HIS.

And a photo.

It was a picture of Craig Pierce staked to the ground, minus pants. His midsection was obscured by a dog, which was, as everyone knew by now, feasting on him.

“I’ve seen all this,” Duckworth said. “I know about Just Deserts.”

“You know they encourage this kind of thing. You know there are nutjobs out there who can’t wait to be honored on their website.”

“No one even knows who’s behind it,” Duckworth said.

“Yeah. It’s like Anonymous, but with a big difference,” Craig said, adopting an almost professorial tone. “Anonymous is all about exposing government hypocrisy and making public the shit that’s been kept secret. They’ll even go so far as to sabotage websites and disrupt commerce and that kind of thing. And when they say they’re going to expose people who belong to ISIS and fuck up their Twitter accounts or whatever, a lot of people think, hey, what the hell. We don’t know who they are, but if that’s what they want to do, it’s okay by us. And there was that other case, the one where the hackers said they’d release all the private info on that website for people who want to have affairs. And the fuckers did it! Bam . Marriages broke up, man, it was something. But still, it’s all about exposing data and secrets. Just Deserts, well, they’re different. They push the envelope.”