Linwood Barclay: Parting Shot

I said to Ms. Plimpton, “Where’s Bob?”

“He’s in the kitchen,” she said, and as she turned herself in that direction, Bob appeared.

Briefly.

It took him half a second to see who’d arrived, and another half a second to realize he was in deep shit.

He turned and ran.

I bolted after him.

Ms. Plimpton said, “What on earth?”

“He did it!” I heard Jeremy say. “He sent that guy to kill us!”

“What?” Gloria said.

Bob was on the far side of the kitchen, attempting to open the sliding glass door. But a wooden stick down in the track, designed to keep out burglars, had thwarted him. I caught up, grabbed him by the back of his jacket, and flung him across the room. He stumbled over two kitchen chairs, scattering them, and landed on his side. There was the look of a trapped animal in his eyes.

“Don’t get up,” I told him. “If you try, I’ll fucking kill you.”

He seemed convinced.

“You look as surprised to see me as Galen did. They just arrested him. They’re coming for you next.”

Jeremy, Gloria and Ms. Plimpton had joined us in the kitchen. The two women were open-mouthed at the scene.

“Is it true?” Gloria asked Bob. “You sent someone to kill them?”

“It’s bullshit!” Bob said. “Whatever they’re saying, it’s bullshit.”

“You haven’t heard half of what he did!” Jeremy shouted. He was trembling again. I was feeling immensely worried for him. He was totally on the edge.

Pointing at Bob, he said, “He helped that shitbag Broadhurst! The two of them put me in the car!”

Ms. Plimpton looked like she’d just seen a pig fly through the kitchen. “What?”

Jeremy said, “They framed me! They made me think I’d done it! They made the world think I’d done it!”

Ms. Plimpton glared at Bob. “My God, is this true?”

What struck me, at that moment, was that Gloria didn’t ask that question, or anything close to it. My eyes were darting back and forth between her aunt and Bob. Maybe she was just in shock.

“I told you, don’t listen to them,” Bob said. “This is crazy.”

“No, it’s not crazy,” I said. “I got it all from Galen. We know what happened.”

Jeremy turned to his mother. “You hear what I’m saying? You hear what this son of a bitch did?”

Gloria, her voice softer than I was used to, said, “I’m sure there’s some explanation.”

“What’s that mean?” Jeremy asked. “Don’t you believe us?”

I said, “I think she does, Jeremy.”

Gloria turned my way.

“You don’t look like this part is new to you,” I said to her.

“Gloria?” Ms. Plimpton said. “What’s he talking about?”

“The part about Bob sending a hit man after us, you looked surprised at that,” I said. “But not the other part.”

The room suddenly fell very silent, all eyes, even Bob’s, on Gloria.

“Mom?” Jeremy said. He was full-out shaking now.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I didn’t know... at first.”

“When did you know?” I asked.

She looked at her son, reached a hand up and touched his cheek. Jeremy was too stunned to pull back.

“I heard them talking,” she said. “Bob and Galen. Soon after the accident. I... I confronted them. I... I was going to do something, but... everything was too far along.”

Jeremy whispered, “How... how could...”

“I think I know how,” I said. “What did they tell you, Gloria? That if you came forward at that point, they’d go to jail. Galen and Bob. That deal worth millions would die. You’d be worthless. They told you they had a strategy to get Jeremy off, or at least make it so he served very little time in prison. Was it something like that?”

Tears were running down her cheeks. There was a nod. “If it hadn’t worked,” she said weakly, “I told them, that if they sent Jeremy to jail, then I’d have to say... I’d have to say something...”

“You let them do this to me,” Jeremy said.

“But I let them humiliate me ,” she told him. “I let them make a laughing stock of me, because I love you. I was willing to do anything to save you. I didn’t care. I did it for you. ”

“You were willing to do anything but tell the truth,” he said, his voice weak, crumbling.

“Jeremy,” I said. “We should get you out of here.”

“Bob was your ticket,” Jeremy whispered. “A ticket to a better life. More money, all the things you wanted.”

“I... I just need to explain it to you better,” Gloria said. “I told you, things were so far along. It was... it was a case of the lesser evil.”

We seemed to have an abundant supply of that at the moment.

A shout from the front of the house. “Weaver!”

It was Duckworth.

“Back here!” I called.

He was in the kitchen in three seconds, one uniformed officer trailing him. He saw Bob on the floor and looked angrily at me. “You were supposed to wait.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Duckworth pushed me aside, straddled Bob and told him to lie face down and put his hands behind his back. “I’m placing you under arrest, Mr. Butler,” he said. He cinched some plastic cuffs onto the man’s wrists and told him to get up. Awkwardly, Bob got to his knees first, then stood.

He allowed himself to be walked out of the kitchen. He kept his head bowed, avoiding eye contact with any of us on the way out.

The kitchen was very silent again.

“You have to understand,” Gloria said pleadingly. She reached out to touch Jeremy’s arm, and he recoiled as though she were a poisonous snake.

“I don’t believe it,” he said, more to himself than any of us.

“Oh Gloria,” Ms. Plimpton said. “How could you?”

From the front door, Duckworth shouted my name again.

I approached Jeremy. “I’ll be back in a minute, okay? We’re going to work this out. You can stay with me. We’ll get you out of this house.”

He seemed close to catatonic.

“Just give me a minute,” I repeated.

I walked briskly out of the kitchen. Ms. Plimpton followed me.

“Tell me this isn’t true,” she said.

Duckworth was standing just outside the door, pointing a finger at me as the officer put Bob into the back seat of what looked like the same cruiser that had taken Galen Broadhurst away.

“You screwed this up,” he said. “You should have waited.”

“Things happened quickly,” I said. It was a weak defense, I knew. “But we’ve got them. We’ve got the lot of them.”

“Someone please tell me exactly what’s going on,” Ms. Plimpton said.

Duckworth was shaking his head angrily.

That was when I remembered something Jeremy had told me the day before. About what was in one of the kitchen drawers.

I said to Duckworth, “I don’t want to leave Jeremy. He needs to see somebody. The kid’s falling—”

And then we heard the shot.

Ms. Plimpton screamed.

Duckworth bolted into the house. We both started heading for the kitchen, but stopped short of it. We didn’t know what we would be running into.

“Ms. Pilford!” Duckworth shouted. “Are you okay?”

“Jeremy!” I said. “What’s happened?”

There was nothing for several seconds. Then Jeremy’s voice.

“I’m going to come out,” he said. “I’ve put the gun down.”

Duckworth and I exchanged fearful looks.

Jeremy walked calmly out of the kitchen, stopped, looked at me, and managed to make his quivering lips smile ever so slightly.

“I did it,” he said. “I take full responsibility.” He paused. “I own this.”

I took him into my arms, while Duckworth ran into the kitchen to see how bad it was.