Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

From inside the car, he heard, “Uhhh.”

Albert allowed himself three more deep breaths, then stood and opened the back door of the car. The backseat and floor were drenched in blood. Ron Frommer was on his stomach, his torso on the seat, left arm and leg dangling over the side. Although he was making some soft, guttural noises, he was not moving.

“What’s going on?”

Albert whirled around. The side door to the garage had been opened and Constance was standing there.

“You drove in here like a madman,” she said. “I was watching from the window. What the hell has gotten—”

“Shut up!” he screamed at her. “Shut the fuck up!”

Constance Gaffney shut up. In thirty-two years of marriage, she had never been spoken to that way by her husband. The words nearly knocked her off her feet.

“Close the goddamn door!” he bellowed.

“What... what have—”

“The door!” He was pointing.

She turned and shut the door. Then she took in the scene before her. The car with blood down the side. Her husband, covered in more of it.

And then the man in the backseat of Albert’s car.

She opened her mouth as if to scream, but Albert closed the distance between them and clamped a hand over her mouth. He put an arm around her, allowing him enough leverage to hold his hand there and keep her quiet.

“Listen to me,” he whispered. “You are not going to scream. You are not going to make a sound. Do you understand?”

Constance Gaffney’s eyes looked as though they might pop out of her head and shoot across the room.

“Do you?” Albert asked again.

She managed to move her head up and down. Albert took his hand from her mouth and released his grip on her.

“Albert,” she said softly, her lip quivering. “Albert, what’s going on here?”

“He’s the one!” he said, pointing at Frommer. “He’s the one who beat up Brian. The son-of-a-bitch motherfucking bastard. Him!” Starting to shake himself, he added, “And I bet he’s the one who kidnapped Brian. He’s the one who marked him up.”

Albert put a shaky hand to his mouth, ran it over his chin.

“Has to be,” he said. “He just... has to be.”

Constance took a hesitant step forward, but she remained a good six feet from the car. She leaned her head to one side, trying to sneak a better look at the injured man.

“Uhhh,” Frommer said.

“Who is he?” she asked.

“Frommer,” Albert said. “Ron Frommer. He... he came at me. I think, I think he would have killed me. I did what I had to.”

“For God’s sake, he needs to get to the hospital,” Constance said. “He looks like he might... Albert, he looks like he might—”

He turned on her, his eyes fierce. “I thought he was dead. I thought I’d killed him. But then... he made a noise...” He looked around the garage, first at the floor, which had a drain in the center of it, then over to the wall, at a coiled garden hose. He walked to the rear of the building, to a small workbench that sat next to a plastic utility sink. Below the bench were drawers and cupboards. Above, on a pegboard, various tools hung.

He began looking through the drawers.

“I might need bags,” he said. “Thick ones.”

Then he looked up at the pegboard. His eyes settled on a hacksaw. He grabbed it.

Constance said, “You’re scaring me.”

He shot her a look. “Really. Isn’t that something.” He changed his focus from the workbench back to the car. “I’ll have to clean it down. The inside... that’s going to be hard. The outside, that’ll be easy. Your steam cleaner.”

“What?”

“Listen to me, you fucking cow. Listen to me . I’m going to need your steam cleaner.”

Constance took a step backward, toward the side door.

“And get me some clothes,” Albert said.

“Clothes?”

He gestured to himself. “Look at me. I have to get out of these. I can’t be seen like this. Shoes, too.”

Constance stood there, dumbstruck.

“Now!” he shouted.

She fled the garage. In her haste, she did not close the side door. Albert went over and shut it, then turned back to look at the car.

He stood there for the better part of a minute, steeling himself. Finally, he walked over to the trunk and opened it. Picked up the crowbar he’d taken from Ron Frommer’s truck. Felt its heft in his hand. Then he went around to the other side of the car and opened the back door.

Ron Frommer’s head was directly in front of him.

Albert raised the crowbar over his head and brought it down.

Whack.

Again.

Whack.

Ron Frommer made no further sounds.

Albert staggered two steps back and rested his back against the garage wall.

“You hurt my boy,” he said. “You did it. I know you did it. I know it was you.”

He dropped the crowbar. It hit the cement floor with a loud, dead clang. Slowly, he regained control of his breathing, felt his heart rate getting back to something approaching normal. He felt oddly calm.

For the first time in perhaps his entire life, Albert Gaffney felt empowered.

He looked at the dead body of Ron Frommer and thought, I did that. I actually did that.

The door opened again. Constance entered carrying a bundle of clothing and a pair of running shoes. Slowly, he turned his head to look at her.

“Albert,” she said softly. “Albert, you’re smiling.”

He said, “It’s done.”

She said nothing. She set the clothes and shoes on the workbench. “I got you some fresh boxers, too. I didn’t... I didn’t know if it had sunk through your pants.”

Albert went back to the other side of the car, grabbed Frommer by the legs and dragged him out of the vehicle. Frommer’s body slithered out, his arms stretched above him. When Albert let him fall to the concrete floor, Constance let out a small gasp.

Her husband took another moment to catch his breath. He looked down at the body for the better part of a minute, pondering how he was going to go about this.

“I heard something,” Constance said.

Albert, who seemed to have drifted into some sort of trance, looked up. “What?”

Constance had walked to the garage door. There were two small, grime-covered windows at shoulder height in each of the two doors.

“Someone’s here,” she said. “There’s a car stopped on the street.”

Albert tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. “Who? Is it Monica? Tell her to go somewhere, anywhere, just—”

“Not Monica,” she said. “It’s the policeman. The one with the funny name. Duckworth.”

About half an hour earlier, Barry Duckworth had put the jar containing what he presumed were Craig Pierce’s body parts into an evidence container, then gone out to his car and placed it gingerly into the trunk. Then he went back into the house.

Alastair Calder had been standing inside the front door. When Duckworth returned, Alastair said, “My boy is some kind of monster, isn’t he?”

“I need a picture of him,” Duckworth said.

“How could he have something like that under this bed? How could he be doing whatever it is he’s been doing and I didn’t know anything about it? Maybe... maybe what’s in that jar isn’t what it looks like. It might be from an animal or something.”

“I need to find Cory as soon as possible,” Duckworth said. “Not just before he hurts anyone else, but before anything happens to him. I think he’s playing a very dangerous game right now.”

“Dear God, this is beyond imagining.”

“I know.”

“I... I think maybe he needs help.”

“That might be true. But right now, I need a picture of your son.”