Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

He gave Duckworth a grisly smile.

“Just Deserts likes to say that Anonymous doesn’t leave any marks. When Anonymous goes after you, sure, maybe your lies have been exposed, your website hacked, but you can still get up in the morning and take a pee without blood coming out of your dick. Just Deserts likes to see bad people get physically hurt.”

He leaned in close to Duckworth as if he were letting him in on a secret. “I was a bad person.”

Duckworth said, “Yeah.”

“So this site’s inspiring vigilante nutbars all over the country.” He swung the laptop back around so he could see the screen. “Like, listen to this. Sacramento, California, there was that white guy who went to a black protest rally, about all the black folk getting shot by cops? And he starts scratching under his arms and making like he’s a monkey, and he gets caught on cell phone video and within a day it’s being watched all over the world?”

“I remember. It was last year some time.”

“Yeah, right. So the asshole gets identified, and his employer, which just happens to be the city, fires him. But that’s not enough retribution for Just Deserts. So one night, the guy gets picked up right out front of his house, and he literally gets tarred and feathered.”

Duckworth nodded. “I don’t remember anyone getting arrested for that.”

Craig shook his head in affirmation. “Nope. But they took snaps and got them to Just Deserts and up it went for all to see. Here, I can show you.” He tapped out a few keystrokes, spun the laptop around again. “Check it out.”

Duckworth had a look. “Yikes.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Craig spun the laptop back toward him. “Now we go—”

“I don’t need to hear all of these,” the detective said.

“—we go to Miami — that’s in Florida, you know — where we find that dipshit Wall Street investor who bought up the pharmaceutical company and raised the price of a life-saving drug from like fifteen bucks a pill to seven hundred and thirty dollars a pill, and he’s hanging out in some high-end nightclub dancing with these supermodels, and some guy comes through the crowd with a fucking syringe, right? And fucking injects the guy and says, ‘Hope you enjoy AIDS, asswipe!’ He slips away and they still don’t know who it was. But it hit Just Deserts in like twenty minutes.”

“Was it AIDS?”

Craig shrugged. “Who knows? I think the guy’s still undergoing tests. But think how that fucked with his head, right? Then, in France, because this is not an America-only thing, you know, that woman politician who compared those millions of refugees to cockroaches — and let’s face it, she was kind of onto something there — goes out to her fancy Beemer and turns the key and thousands of the little bastards start streaming out of the air vents and coming out from under the seats. And voilà !”

He spun the laptop around again for a shot of the woman bailing out her car, her body covered in roaches.

“Someone was waiting to take the picture, and minutes later, it was uploaded to Just Deserts. So you’ve got people all over the motherfucking planet inspired to exact vengeance on people who’ve got it coming, hoping like crazy that what they do is nasty enough to be honored on this website. And let me tell you, Promise Falls has made a name for itself in the whole getting-even department. That guy you killed last year, who poisoned half the fucking town, you know there are whole websites devoted to him?”

Every day Duckworth tried not to think about that, and every day he did. Even without reminders. He said, “Go on.”

“Well, some people think he was terrific, that he made a difference. That he didn’t just teach Promise Falls a lesson. The whole world took notice. They’re saying, what he did, it’s made people more concerned about their fellow man. Isn’t that wild?”

“I sense some grudging admiration about these sites,” Duckworth said. “Even after what happened to you.”

Craig shrugged. “What’s that phrase about an ox?”

Duckworth had to think. “It all depends on whose ox is getting gored.”

Craig snapped his fingers and pointed. “That’s the one. In other words, it’s pretty funny until it happens to you.”

“Yeah.”

“So, Just Deserts has some local disciples, not surprising, considering what went down here. More people who want to make a difference. So after they did me, they were itching for another target. Maybe that’s your friend there with the Hallmark greeting on his back.”

“Maybe.”

“But if that’s the case, they must be bragging about it, right? So what’s the dude’s name again?”

“I didn’t say.”

Craig sighed. “So say it.”

“Brian Gaffney.”

“Spell the last name.”

Duckworth spelled it, and added that Brian was without a “y.”

Craig did a few rapid keystrokes and hit Enter . He slowly shook his head. “Nothin’s comin’ up, Mr. Detective.”

“Okay.”

“I guess someone’s got it in for wee Bri-Bri, but it’s got nothin’ to with Just Deserts, which would suggest to me , not that I am a brilliant detective such as yourself, that you’re looking at someone else.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Duckworth said. “To get back to why I came to see you, do you remember anything else about that night that you haven’t already told us? Even the smallest detail? Something that might not ever have seemed all that important, but looking back, you wonder if maybe it is? Something that might be helpful in our investigation?”

“I can tell you one thing about him,” Craig said.

Duckworth sat forward in his chair.

“What’s that?”

“He can’t spell.”

“Excuse me?”

“He can’t spell,” Craig Pierce said. “Or at least he misspells to be clever.”

“How can you know that?”

He tapped away again on the laptop. “Let’s go back to the commentary he posted with the picture of me. Yeah, here we go. Have a look. And it’s not just that he got my name wrong. Lots of people do that.”

He spun the computer around so Duckworth could read it:

Craig Pearce gets it good. Revenj on the kiddy diddler. You can be sure he wont be mollesting anyone ever again!

Duckworth looked up. “Okay. He got your last name wrong, an extra ‘l’ in molesting, and there’s revenj with a ‘j.’ That’s what you’re talking about.”

“Right. The thing with the ‘j’ is deliberate, I think.”

“Why?’

“Even a moron knows how to spell revenge. The other things, he’s just not a good speller.”

“I don’t immediately see how that’s helpful,” Duckworth said.

“I’m sure you don’t,” Pierce said, shaking his head. “Just what are you people doing on the computer end of things? Going after this website to divulge the IP address that was used to post this, for starters?”

“That’d be our legal department,” Duckworth said weakly. “I think they’re working on that.”

“You think ?”

“I’d be happy to look into it for you, update you.”

“Because,” Pierce said, tossing the laptop onto the bed, “right now I feel like I’m doing that kind of work on my own. There’s all kinds of signatures someone leaves when they’re online. You just have to take the time to find them, correlate them, look for patterns. And seeing how I don’t have much else to do...”

“If you’ve learned anything that could help us in our invest—”

“And do your work for you?” Craig settled back into his chair. His knees had been together to support the computer, and now he let them separate a good foot. The bathrobe began to part.