Linwood Barclay: Parting Shot

A bullet between the eyes would be too good for you.

Think you can hide from us? Wherever you go in America people will know. Everyone is watching you and your asshole kid.

The vitriol didn’t surprise me. What amazed me was the fact that people left their real names attached to such venom.

I put the phone down on the counter and said to Gloria, “Have you thought about shutting down your Facebook page? You’re just giving these people a way to get in touch with you.”

“I have to defend myself,” Gloria said. “I can’t let people get away with saying those things about me.”

“You’re giving them an outlet to say it,” I pointed out.

She closed her eyes briefly and sighed. Clearly she’d had to explain her position on this before.

“They’d be saying it anyway. This way, I know who it is and can respond.” A tear formed in the corner of her right eye. “They don’t understand. They have no idea.”

“How did these people become your friends in the first place?” I asked. “Don’t people have to ask, and then you accept?”

Grant Finch gave me a tired look. “We’ve talked about this.”

“I like to know who my enemies are,” Gloria said defiantly.

“It’s like you’ve opened the front door for them,” I said. “What about actual phone calls? Have you been threatened that way?”

She shook her head. “Bob insisted we change our numbers, unlist them. We were getting calls every hour of the day.”

Bob said, “There’s more than just the Facebook stuff. Madeline, have you got your laptop handy?”

Ms. Plimpton disappeared from the kitchen and seconds later reappeared carrying one of those super-thin Macs. Bob lifted up the lid, opened a browser, and made a few lightning-quick keystrokes.

“I can’t bear to look at this anymore,” Ms. Plimpton said. She went to the fridge, grabbed a can of Coke. “I’ll take this out to Jeremy.” She exited the kitchen.

Bob turned the Mac towards me, and I read the headline across the top of the page: “Teach the Big Baby a Lesson.” There was a graphic, what they called a GIF or something, of a whining infant that repeated every three or four seconds. Below that, people had commented about what they would like to do to Jeremy Pilford. Some recommended he be run over with a car, just as he’d done with his victim. Someone else called for beheading, ISIS style. Someone else liked the idea of hitting him with a car, but with a difference. They wanted him to live, as a cripple, so he could be reminded every day of what he’d done.

“This isn’t the only site like this,” Bob pointed out. “There’s one sort of like Anonymous. You know? The network who’ve exposed government secrets online, who’ve hacked websites? Except this site, they promote a more hands-on approach. None of this social-network shaming. They advocate actual violence. There’s a contest, did you know that? A ‘Spot the Big Baby’ contest on the site. People are invited to send in tips where Jeremy might be. The whole world’s looking for him. If he goes anywhere, someone tweets about it with a hashtag of #sawthebaby or #babyspot. Some yahoos are even offering cash rewards for whoever finds him, even more money for who finds him and does something to him. For all we know, there are hacker types out there trying to figure out how to track his every move.”

Something else on the page caught my eye. It was a reference to Promise Falls, but it had nothing to do with Jeremy. It was a photo of the man found responsible for the poisoned water catastrophe of a year ago. Incredibly, he’d become something of a folk hero in certain communities once it became known that his monstrous crime was intended as a lesson.

The people of Promise Falls had gained a reputation for not caring when no one came to the aid of a woman being murdered in the downtown park.

Now we had a new reputation. We were the national capital for retribution.

In fact, there’d been an incident in town three months ago involving someone named Pierce. Craig, or maybe it was Greg. Something like that. Anyway, he’d been acquitted of molesting a handicapped girl, but as much as admitted later that he’d done it. The courts could no longer touch him, so someone else gave it a try.

He became a meal for a pit bull.

But what had happened to him wasn’t my problem then, nor was it my problem now.

“I’ve seen enough,” I said. Bob shut the laptop.

“Will you help us?” Gloria asked, pointing to the closed computer. “You can see that the threats are for real. My boy’s a target. He’s not safe.” Her eyes were starting to well up.

“I can’t help you find out who’s making the threats,” I said. “I mean, they’re coming from all over the place, hundreds of them. Most of these people aren’t even worried about identifying themselves. But my understanding from what your aunt said is that’s not what you want, anyway.”

“We just want you to protect him.”

“I’m not a bodyguard. I made that clear.”

“Maybe give us some tips, then,” Grant Finch said. “Assess the security needs. Maybe, even just for a day or two, hang around.”

He gave Gloria a look that suggested she should stay put. Then he took me aside and said quietly, “It would give Gloria and Bob some comfort, some peace of mind. You’d be well compensated for your time. I came along today because I wanted to meet you, and I like what I see. You seem like a good man, and they could really use your help.”

Ms. Plimpton returned and took a seat. She looked tired. “I gave him his Coke,” she reported.

Finch broke free of me and said to everyone, “I must go. I’ve got a meeting back at the office in Albany in forty-five minutes and I think I can just make it.”

Bob shook his hand aggressively while Gloria leaned up against the kitchen counter and drank her wine. She nodded a farewell. Madeline Plimpton, with some effort, got back to her feet to say goodbye to the lawyer.

“Goodbye, Madeline,” Grant said. He took her hand in his and squeezed it as she allowed him to lean in and give her an air kiss on the side of her neck.

“Goodbye, Grant,” she said. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

Grant held onto her hand another second before letting go. There was some kind of history there.

As he departed, I caught Ms. Plimpton’s eye and said, “Could you direct me to the facilities?”

She pointed.

I already knew where the bathroom was. I’d seen it on our way to the porch. Visiting it wasn’t my true mission.

I stopped at the open doorway to the porch. Jeremy Pilford had put aside his phone. The can of Coke sat on a table in front of him.

He was staring out through the screen to the backyard.

Just staring.

Moments earlier, I’d thought he could pass for twenty or older, but now he looked no more than fourteen or fifteen.

Maybe that was what he really was. Emotionally.

He must have sensed I was standing there. He turned his head slowly and took me in. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought what I saw in his eyes was hopelessness. Maybe even fear.

I nodded, stepped back, and returned to the kitchen. The three of them had been talking quietly, but went silent and focused on me.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll help you.”

“What do you mean, she’s lost her marbles?” Barry Duckworth asked Monica Gaffney.

Looking at the house across the street, Brian Gaffney’s sister said, “Mrs. Beecham is really old and I don’t think she always knows what’s going on. Like, one time she left her sprinkler going for five days, most of the water hitting the driveway. We’ve had our ups and downs with her over the years, but it got a little better after her husband died, like, ten years ago, because he was a miserable bastard, pardon my French, although she’s no barrel of laughs. Why are you asking about Sean, anyway?”