Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

Trevor shrugged. “Like I said, I didn’t get a look at her then, and I sure didn’t get a look at her just now.”

“Do you remember if Carol said her name was Dolores, or Dolly?”

Trevor blinked. “Maybe. Not Dolores, but she might have said Dolly. I never really picked up on it.”

Duckworth laid his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Okay. I have to go.”

There was an awkward hesitation between them, then Trevor reached out and grasped his father’s arm.

“I’m scared to death,” he said. “I’m scared to death about what’s happened to Carol.”

“Me too,” Duckworth said.

He parked out front of Mike’s tattoo business, but before he got out of the car he had other matters to deal with. The first was to start distributing that picture of Carol Beakman Trevor had sent him. He forwarded it to the station, then got on the phone to provide further details. He wanted every Promise Falls police officer to be on the lookout for her. Then he asked for Shirley in communications and ordered up an immediate news release on Carol Beakman. Tweet it, post it on the department’s Facebook page, get it to all the local TV news programs.

“And crop that picture,” Duckworth said, “so it only shows the woman’s face.”

“You don’t want this guy in the picture?” Shirley asked.

“No.”

“He might end up being a suspect or something,” she said.

“Just take him out of the shot.”

“Got it. Only trying to help. He actually looks a bit like you. Only, you know, a lot younger.”

“Thanks for that, Shirley.”

“Call ’em as I see ’em.”

“There’s something else I need.”

“Fire away, boss.”

“You know that Big Baby case?”

Shirley made a snorting noise. “Who doesn’t?”

“The kid’s name was Jeremy Pilford. Can you google him? See if there’s anything that connects him to Promise Falls? I think he might be in our neck of the woods.”

“Seriously?” Shirley said.

“Yeah. I think I saw him on some surveillance video at Knight’s. Is that so hard to believe?”

“You haven’t listened to the news this morning?”

“What are you talking about?”

“There was a protest last night. They had to send a couple of cars out.”

Duckworth pressed the phone closer to his ear. “A protest where?”

“You know Madeline Plimpton? Used to be publisher of the Standard ?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Her place.”

“Her place? Why her place?”

“The kid’s been staying there. Kind of hiding out, but not very well. About a dozen or more people wandering on the street out front, waving signs, the usual.”

“What’s the connection? Why here?”

“Plimpton’s the little bastard’s great-aunt or something. Her niece Gloria is the kid’s mother. What I hear is, the kid’s been getting all kinds of harassment in Albany, so they came up here. But there’s a contest or game on some website inviting people to report sightings. Remember the Craig Pierce thing?”

“I do.”

“Kind of like that.”

“It’s a strange world we live in now, Shirley.”

“Hey, tell me something I don’t know. You need anything else?”

“No. Catch ya later.”

Duckworth ended the call. The mention of Craig Pierce prompted him to make another call.

“Chief Finderman’s office,” a woman said.

“It’s Barry Duckworth. Chief in?”

“Hang on.”

A pause, then, “Barry?”

“Rhonda,” Duckworth said. The detective’s working relationship with Promise Falls police chief Rhonda Finderman had had its ups and downs over the last year or two, but things had been reasonably amicable lately. “The Craig Pierce thing.”

Duckworth could almost hear her wince on the other end of the line.

“Jesus, yeah,” she said. “What about it?”

“Where are we on legal challenges with that?”

“Still trying to get that site — Just Deserts, I think it is? — to reveal details of the video posting that could lead us to whoever took the picture and put it up there, but it’s with the lawyers. Could take forever, and we might never get the answer we want. Even though they’re not, by any standard, a legitimate news organization, they’re saying they have an obligation to protect their sources, that it’s a freedom-of-the-press thing. It’s total bullshit, is what it is.”

“There might be another approach.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, I’m not the expert. But I was talking to Pierce today, and—”

“God, how’s he doing?” Finderman asked. “I mean, he’s a loathsome character, but what happened to him, no one deserves that.”

“You might change your mind if you met him. Anyway, he suggested that if we were doing our job properly, we’d be going at this another way.”

Finderman hesitated, then said, “Victims often feel that way.”

“Thing is, I think he might be onto something. Have we got any computer experts in the department?”

“If we don’t, I’ll find somebody. What’s the idea?”

“You look at all the postings, look for I guess you’d call them signatures. Turns of phrase, misspellings. Search the Internet for those signatures. That kind of thing.”

“Sounds like it might be worth a try,” Rhonda said.

“Okay. Talk later.”

Duckworth slipped the phone back into his jacket and got out of the car. Mike’s Tattoos was open, and he went straight inside. Mike was sitting at the main desk.

“Hey, you again,” he said. “You catch who stole my tattoo gun?”

Duckworth shook his head. “Sorry.”

Mike smiled. “Just kidding. I knew the police wouldn’t give a shit about that. As you can see by the fact that I’m sitting here, I am a little short-handed today. Which is just as well, since I don’t have any appointments in the book until later this afternoon. Unless, of course, you’re here to get a tattoo of Columbo tattooed on your chest.”

“No.” Duckworth cocked his head to one side. “Anybody ever actually get one of those? A Columbo tattoo?”

“Nope, although one time I was in this really cool bookstore in Belfast that had a painting of him on the ceiling. Only crime fighter I’ve ever inked onto anybody is Batman. Done his face on a couple people, but the logo, you know, the bat with the circle around it, is more popular. Also, the big S from Superman. Had a few of those over the years. So if you haven’t found my stolen equipment, what brings you back?”

“I noticed Dolores isn’t here.”

Mike raised his arms in a hopeless gesture. “A no-show today. Didn’t even have the courtesy to phone in.”

“What’s Dolores’s last name?”

“Guntner.”

“Do you have an address for her?”

“There a problem?”

“An address would be helpful.”

Mike opened a drawer in the desk and rifled through some papers. “Here we go.” He grabbed a scrap of paper, scribbled on it, and handed it to Duckworth. “It’s actually a farmhouse that belonged to her parents. They’re in a nursing home now, I think, and she lives there by herself.”

“A nursing home? In Promise Falls?”

“Yeah. Davidson House, I think.”

“I know it.” Duckworth glanced at the piece of paper Mike had handed him. Dolores had lived at 27 Eastern Avenue. He pocketed the paper. “Thanks.”

“If you want to talk to her here, she might show up later. It’s not like it’s the first time she’s been late. She might have partied a little too hard last night. Try after lunch. She might be in then.”

“I don’t think so,” Duckworth said.

Mike’s face darkened. “What do you mean?”

“A woman tentatively identified as Dolores was found dead this morning.”