Linwood Barclay: Parting Shot

“I know what he did.”

“When he went out partying, got behind the wheel totally under the influence, and killed someone. With all respect, Ms. Plimpton, that’s not what I would characterize as a traffic mishap.”

“Maybe you’re not the right person for this job.”

“Maybe I’m not,” I said, setting down my cup and pushing back my chair. “Thank you for the tea.”

She reached out a hand. “Wait.”

I waited.

“Please,” she said.

I pulled my chair back in, rested my hands on the top of the dining room table.

“I suppose it’s reasonable to expect that your reaction is unlikely to be any different from that of anyone else I might approach. Jeremy has not been good at winning people over. But it was the judge’s decision not to send him to jail. It was the judge who decided to put the boy on probation. It was the judge who was persuaded by Mr. Finch that—”

“Mr. Finch?”

“Jeremy’s lawyer, whom you just referenced. Grant Finch. It was Mr. Finch who came up with the defense strategy, and to be honest, no one had high hopes that the judge would find it convincing. But we were ecstatic when he did. Sending Jeremy to jail would have been a terrible thing for the boy. After all, he is still a boy. He’d never have survived prison. And as horrible as the backlash to the sentence has been, it’s still better than Jeremy being behind bars.”

“Except now he’s living in fear,” I said.

Madeline Plimpton offered a small nod of acknowledgment. “That’s true, but these things pass. Jeremy could have gone to jail for several years. Social consternation over his sentencing will last a few months at most, I should think. The world is always waiting for the new thing to be outraged by. A hunter who kills a prize lion in Africa. A woman who tweets a joke about AIDS. A dimwitted politician who thinks a woman’s body knows how to shut down pregnancy following rape. That other judge, who gave the light sentence to the boy who raped that unconscious girl. We are so thrilled to be angered about something that we want a new target for our rage every week. Jeremy will be forgotten about, eventually, and he will be able to return to a normal life. But in the meantime, he needs to be safe.”

I wondered about when the family of the person Jeremy had killed would get back to a normal life, but decided not to pose the question out loud.

“So yes, to your earlier comment, he was branded the Big Baby. A teenager who was coddled as though he were an infant. The prosecuting attorney mentioned it once in passing, and the media loved it. CNN turned Jeremy into a flashy logo. The Big Baby Case, with lots of jazzy graphics.”

“As someone who once ran a newspaper, you must have some understanding of how those things happen.”

“Indeed,” she said. “But just because I owned a media outlet does not mean I approve of everything the media does.”

“I really don’t know that I can help you, Ms. Plimpton,” I said. “But I could probably recommend some agencies to you. Ones that don’t really do much in the way of investigations, as I do. They’re more like tough guys for hire.”

“I don’t want Jeremy surrounded by a bunch of thugs.”

I shrugged.

“Would you at least meet with them?” she asked. “With Jeremy and my niece? At least meet them and then make a decision about whether you want the job? I’m sure once you spoke with them, you’d realize they aren’t the caricatures they’ve been made out to be. They’re real people, Mr. Weaver. And they’re frightened.”

I got out my notepad and pen from the inside pocket of my sport jacket. I uncapped the pen.

“Why don’t you give me their address in Albany?” I said.

“Oh, there’s no need for that,” Ms. Plimpton said. “They’re here. They’ve been here for a few days now. They’re out back, on the porch, waiting to talk to you.”

Barry Duckworth wanted Brian Gaffney to get checked out at the hospital, so he offered to drive him to Promise Falls General. That would also give the detective an opportunity to ask the man more questions about what might have happened to him. Any thoughts Duckworth had that Gaffney’s two-day blackout was alcohol-induced vanished when he had a look at the words inked into his back.

I’M THE SICK FUCK WHO KILLED SEAN did not sound like the kind of tattoo any remotely rational person — or even a blind-drunk person — would choose to have permanently etched into his skin.

If Gaffney had any notion of what was on his back, he gave no indication. So Duckworth took a photo while he still had his shirt pulled up to his neck, and showed it to him.

“Jesus,” he said. “That... that doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“I think,” Duckworth said gently, “this rules out your theory of what happened to you.”

Gaffney had the look of a four-year-old trying to grasp a Stephen Hawking lecture. “I don’t... That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing the aliens would do.”

“Yeah,” Duckworth said. “We’re looking for someone more earthbound here.”

Gaffney, still stunned by the photo, nodded slowly. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“I must seem crazy. I’m not crazy, you know.”

“Sure,” Duckworth said.

“I mean, I’m a little off . That’s what my dad says. But not crazy. You know what I mean?”

“Sure.”

“I just couldn’t think of any other explanation. Maybe I’ve been reading too many books about UFOs.” He took another look at the photo on the detective’s phone. “Are you sure that’s a real tattoo? It’s not just marker or something that’ll come off?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s on there permanent ?”

“I’m no expert on tattoos,” Duckworth said. “Maybe there’s something you can do.” But he had his doubts. “Any idea who’d do that to you?”

Gaffney looked away from the image, allowing Duckworth to put the phone into his pocket. Tears welled up in his eyes. He bit his lip. “No. I mean, the alien thing would actually have made more sense. That they’d grab some random guy and do tests on him. But this, this is totally crazy.”

“Come on,” Duckworth said gently. “Let’s get you checked out.”

On the way out to Duckworth’s unmarked cruiser, the detective asked, “You got family, Brian? Parents? Brothers, sisters? A girlfriend?”

He spoke slowly and softly. “My folks live over on Montcalm. I got my own place about six months ago. They thought — my dad thought — it was time for me to try living on my own, you know? So I found a room in this two-story building downtown. I got one sister. Monica. She’s nineteen. She’d like to move out but she can’t afford to yet.”

“How long have you been in Promise Falls?”

“Like, fifteen years. Ever since my parents moved here from Connecticut.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Kinda. There’s this one girl. She came in for a car wash and we kind of hit it off.”

“What’s her name?”

“Jesse. Like, Jessica Frommer.”

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

Brian pondered the question. “Maybe a week? We’ve been out a few times, mostly out of town or my place. I think, actually, I was supposed to call her yesterday.” He looked overwhelmed. “Shit, she’ll be wondering what happened to me.”

“You can’t think of anyone — a friend, a friend of a friend, someone in your extended family — named Sean? A man or a woman?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Can I see the picture again?”

Duckworth took out his phone and brought up the photo. Gaffney stared at it and said, “I keep thinking it can’t really be there. That this isn’t really happening. That this isn’t a picture of my back. Who could Sean be?” He returned the phone. “I’ve been turned into some kind of freak.”