Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

Once he’d finished wandering the inside of the building, he exited it. He wanted to walk the perimeter of the barn, explore the grounds around it. In one direction was a large expanse of field, and in the other, near the barn, a forested area.

First, however, he wanted that picture on the desk in the upstairs room that showed Dolores with two people Duckworth figured were her parents, now in the Davidson House nursing home. He went back inside, up the stairs, grabbed the picture, and came back down.

As he came out of the house, a car was turning in off the main road and coming up the gravel driveway, a dust stream trailing behind it. It stopped and Trevor got out.

Duckworth walked over to greet him.

“Drove by once and missed it,” Trevor said. “Turned around, saw your car.”

“Great.”

“What did you want to talk to me about in person?”

“I guess I just want to get ahead of things,” Duckworth said.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t want any surprises.”

“I’m still not getting you.”

“I think it’s possible you knew, or might have met, the woman in that trunk.”

Trevor’s eyes went wide. “I knew her? This Dolores person?”

“That’s right.”

“I told you, I never heard that name before.”

“Okay,” said Duckworth. “But I’m wondering if you’ve met her. Let me show you something.”

He held up the framed picture he’d taken from the house.

“Who’s this?”

“This is Dolores Guntner. And I think these are her parents.”

“Okay.”

“Take a good look at her.”

Trevor studied the picture. “Actually, maybe.”

“Where do you think you might have seen her?”

He shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure.”

“Maybe a tattoo parlor?”

Trevor’s head rose sharply. He looked into his father’s face. “What?”

“You might have met her at Mike’s. When you were getting your tattoo.”

Trevor’s expression of confusion transformed into contempt. “What the hell is going on here? Have you got cameras on me everywhere? In bars, in tattoo parlors, places of business all over Promise Falls? If I go into a McDonald’s to take a piss, have you got pictures of me with my dick in my hand?”

“Whether you like it or not, what’s going on today involves you. I’m not saying it involves you in a bad way, but you’re a common thread. Your girlfriend is missing, possibly after talking to this Dolores woman, and she’s someone you’ve come into contact with.”

“This is unbelievable.”

“Do you remember this woman or not?”

“Yes! I remember her!”

“What do you remember about her?”

“She took my money, okay? I paid her. I gave her my Visa card and she put it into a machine, then she gave it back. Is this about me getting a tattoo, or is it about me spending money on one when I don’t even have a job?”

“I don’t give a damn about that. You’re old enough to make your own decisions.”

“But you don’t like it.”

“I’m telling you I don’t care about that.”

“How do you even know I went to Mike’s?”

Duckworth sighed. He realized he was doing it again. Maybe, when you were a cop, there was no good way to ask your son questions.

“I’d been there before, asking about tattoos. Because of that guy with the message on his back. I met Dolores. When I saw her in the trunk of Carol’s car, I recognized her, went back to talk to Mike. He asked if I was related to a Trevor Duckworth.” He tried to smile. “Should I have said no?”

“Jesus,” was all Trevor could say.

“So I figured maybe you’d met that woman in the trunk, even if you didn’t realize it. And now that you know who it is, maybe you noticed something, heard something, anything about her when you were at Mike’s.”

“Good story,” Trevor said.

“It’s the truth,” Duckworth said. “I just don’t want to get blindsided. Any connection you have to any of this, I have to know.”

“You think I had something to do with this?”

“I’m not saying that. Of course I don’t.”

“You should be trying to find Carol instead of wasting time talking to me.” Trevor shook his head angrily. “I never should have got it.”

“What?”

“The tattoo. It was a mistake.”

“Yeah, well, that’s how people feel sometimes, after they get one.”

“Let me show it to you,” Trevor said.

“It’s okay, you—”

“No, really, I want to.”

Trevor unbuttoned the cuff on his left arm and started rolling up his sleeve. When he couldn’t get it past his elbow, he said, “Shit.”

He unbuttoned the front of his shirt halfway, far enough that he could slip it off his left shoulder.

“There, have a look,” he said.

Duckworth looked. It was pretty simple, as tattoos went. Four numbers. 6201. He felt sorrow and shame pressing down on him like a weighty cloud.

“Want me to explain what it means?” Trevor asked.

There was no need. Duckworth knew his own badge number when he saw it.

When we got back to the beach house, we unpacked the groceries. I’d wanted to buy some beer, but I didn’t want to have to tell Jeremy he couldn’t have one, and I didn’t want to drink in front of him. At eighteen, he was certainly old enough to have one, despite what the laws of New York state might say, but given his troubles, it didn’t seem particularly appropriate.

But I did buy some soft drinks and a bag of ice. I took enough cubes to fill two glasses before putting the rest of it into the freezer, and poured us a couple of Cokes.

“Let’s sit on the deck,” Jeremy said.

“Sure.”

We took our drinks, and a bag of Doritos, outside and sat on some plastic garden chairs.

“I didn’t even know Madeline had this place,” he said. “I guess she didn’t tell my mom because then she’d have wanted to use it.”

“They have a complicated relationship?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. I mean, Madeline’s like my mom’s mom, but not really. Because Madeline mostly raised her, but I think my mom always kind of felt that she didn’t have to do what her aunt told her because she wasn’t her real mom.”

“Okay.”

“My mom had it pretty bad, though, before she went to live with Madeline. Her dad treated her like a slave. I know she seems kind of over-the-top at times, but there’s reasons why she is the way she is.”

“I get that. We’re all products of our upbringing.”

“So who’s Scott?” Jeremy asked.

The question caught me off guard. “He was my son.”

“So, like, he’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry, man.”

“Thanks.”

“What happened to him?”

I didn’t want to get into all of it, but I said, “He was goofing around on the roof of a building, getting high, and then someone pitched him off the side.”

“Oh, man, that’s brutal. And your wife?”

“She’s dead, too.” I looked out at the bay, tracked a passing seagull with my eye. “She was shot.”

Jeremy clearly didn’t know what to say to that. He took a sip of his Coke, stuffed a couple of Doritos into his mouth.

Finally he said, “Everybody’s got shit to deal with, don’t they?”

“Yeah.”

“You think you’ve got it bad, and then you find out other people got it worse.”

“Yup.”

“How long ago did all this happen?” he asked.

“About five years.”

“So, are you kind of getting over it by now?”

“No.”

“At some point, don’t you have to?”

I smiled at him. “I don’t know that I want to. And even if I did, they come to me. Every night.”