Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

He knew he should have called an ambulance, but he was worried that it could take a long time to get to this location. And if they missed the driveway, it could take even longer. Albert was confident he could get Frommer to the hospital more quickly.

He eased himself off the car, turned, and was horrified to see bloody smears on the door. He rubbed at them with the sleeve of his jacket, but it only made things worse.

There was nothing he could do about it.

He got behind the wheel, switched on the engine, and turned the car around. He raced to the end of the driveway, glanced hurriedly in both directions to make sure no one was coming, then hit the pavement with a squeal.

“Not much longer,” he said, turning his head to speak to Frommer. “Ten minutes tops! Just hang in there.”

Soon he was back in town. Far off in the distance, he could make out the blue H atop Promise Falls General.

And then the car turned.

Turned off the route that would have taken them to the hospital.

It was as though the vehicle had a mind of its own.

It didn’t, of course.

It was Albert who had decided, at the last minute, that he was not going to take Ron Frommer to the hospital.

He was going to take him to his place.

Jeremy and I made some more sandwiches, this time with the stuff we’d bought in town. He was actually getting into it, laying out the bread, slapping a slice of cheese on each one, putting on mounds of deli meat, squirting a dollop of mustard on each.

“Maybe I should get a job in a restaurant,” he said.

“When I was a little younger than you, I had a job doing dishes in a diner.”

“Just dishes? You didn’t cook or anything?”

“Just dishes. My fingers would be all wrinkly at the end of my shift.”

We took our food up to the deck. Far out in the bay, Jeremy spotted a massive ship.

“I saw some binoculars on the shelf,” I told him.

He went back into the house and found them, then came out and stood at the deck railing, the binoculars up to his eyes. “It’s one of those ones that carries cargo containers,” he said. “They’re all different colors. They look kinda like kids’ building blocks.”

I reached out a hand from where I was sitting and he handed the binoculars to me. I took a look, scanned the horizon where water met sky. If it weren’t for the fact that we were here hiding from Internet nutbars who wanted to hurt Jeremy, this would be a pretty nice place to chill out.

When Jeremy had finished his second sandwich, I said, “Let’s take a walk.”

“Where?”

“The beach.”

“Okay.”

Once we’d descended the set of wooden steps that led us down to the beach, we took off our shoes and left them there where we could find them later. Jeremy ran toward the water, stood in the sand where the waves were coming in, let them wash around his ankles as they receded.

“It’s freezing,” he said, glancing back at me.

“Let’s walk this way,” I said, pointing east. We strolled just along the edge of the surf, our feet getting wet every few seconds.

“I like it here,” Jeremy said. “We’ve almost got the beach to ourselves.”

He was right, although we weren’t the only ones out here. Looking both ways, I saw maybe ten or twenty people wandering more than a mile of shore. Almost no one was in a bathing suit. Most, like us, were in long pants rolled up to the knees. Some were smart enough to wear light jackets, as the breeze coming in off the bay was cool. I wished I’d brought one. But if the cold bothered Jeremy — aside from the waves that touched his feet — he gave no indication.

“I want to talk to you about something,” I said.

“Yeah? What? Is this about how I should have told Charlene’s mom I was sorry?”

“No, but we can come back to that later.”

“I am sorry,” he said.

I nodded, placed a hand briefly on his shoulder. “Okay. But first, I want to ask you about earlier. When you were driving my car.”

He looked at me worriedly. “Shit, did I break it? I broke it, didn’t I? I’m sorry. It was your idea.”

I shook my head, “No, the car’s okay.” It occurred to me that he might actually have done some damage to the clutch, but if he had, I hadn’t noticed anything on our drive back from town. “What I’m asking is, was that for show?”

“Was what for show?”

“Your ineptitude.”

“My what?”

“You were totally shitty at it,” I said. “Was that an act?”

“An act? What are you talking about?”

Maybe I shouldn’t have come at this so directly, but there was a theory floating around in my brain. “What I’m wondering is, could you be taking the blame, willingly, for something you never did? To protect someone you care about, maybe? But now, you’re wondering if that was a mistake. You want me to think it couldn’t have been you so I’ll point everyone in the direction of who really did it.”

“I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about,” he said.

If Jeremy’s current confusion and his performance in the car yesterday were all part of an act, he deserved an Oscar. The theory floating around in my brain was now taking on water and sinking to the bottom.

“Really, what are you talking about?” he persisted.

I held up both hands, palms forward. “Okay, let’s rewind. Forget I brought any of that up. Let me start again. But I do want to talk about the night it happened. I know that may be hard for you, having to answer questions from me when you’ve already had to tell a hundred people the story. But bear with me, okay?”

He eyed me apprehensively. “Okay.”

“Tell me everything.”

“Everything?” he said.

“Just tell me about that night. No, hang on.”

An elderly couple was approaching. They each nodded and smiled. I said, “Beautiful day.”

The woman said, “If it would just warm up some!”

“Soon enough,” I said. “Come summer, we’ll be complaining about how hot it is.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” the man agreed. They continued walking, and seconds later had disappeared behind us.

“Okay, tell me,” I said to Jeremy.

“Like, everybody was screaming and shouting and someone hauled me out of the car and Mr. Broadhurst was there and Bob was there and lots of other people and then Mr. McFadden, he started pounding on me and they had to pull him off. It was really awful.”

“Go on.”

“And I saw Sian lying there, and I couldn’t believe I’d done that. You keep thinking, if only I could go back in time one hour and change things, you know?”

“Tell me about when you got into the car.”

“I just got in it, I guess.”

“Was Sian with you when you got in?”

“She couldn’t have been in the car with me, because how would I have run into her?”

“Sure. But I was thinking, maybe she got in, and you drove around some, and then she got out and you were still in the car. Maybe something like that.”

“I think what happened,” Jeremy said, “is she went running up the driveway and then I got in the car to catch up with her.”

“Why do you say you think that’s what happened?”

Jeremy shot me a look. “What does that mean?”

“It means just what I said. You say you think that’s what happened.”

“Yeah.”

“But you don’t know.”

“I was kind of pissed out of my mind. You remember that part, right?”

“Okay, let’s go back to earlier in the evening,” I said. “When Broadhurst found you in his car, and Sian was with you. Do you remember that?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Mostly.”

“So — Hang on again.”

A short, stocky woman was walking purposefully our way. This wasn’t a stroll. This was exercise. I was about to say hello when I noticed she had wires leading down from her ears. I gave her a friendly wave, which she ignored as she passed us.