Parting Shot Page 4

  “He certainly didn’t,” Gloria said evenly.

  “What about Jeremy’s father?” I asked. “Jack, you said?”

  Gloria sipped—maybe gulped would be a better word—her first mouthful from the glass. “We split up three years ago.” She shook her head. “He’s not a tenth the businessman Bob is.” A pause. “Not that that had anything to do with our breaking up.”

  “It’s all very complicated,” Bob said. He forced a grin. “Isn’t everything?”

  “No kidding,” Gloria said.

  “What about during the trial?” I asked. “Was Jack involved?”

  “Involved how?” Gloria asked.

  I shrugged. “Financially? Moral support?”

  “Yeah, right,” Gloria said with another eye roll.

  “Maybe if you hadn’t shut him out, he’d have tried harder to be there for Jeremy,” Bob Butler said. He looked at me. “I paid most of Jeremy’s legal costs. Grant Finch doesn’t come cheap.”

  Finch tried to look embarrassed, but he couldn’t pull it off.

  Bob continued. “Galen helped with Grant’s bill too. He felt something of an obligation. I mean, no offense, Gloria, but there was no way you could have afforded it.”

  “No,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without you.” It was hard to hear the gratitude in the comment.

  Bob threw up his hands. “Well, anyway, I’m sure you’re not interested in all this background, Mr. Weaver. I’m guessing you’d like to know more about the matter at hand.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  “Gloria,” he said, “show him your phone.”

  She went for her purse, which was hanging on one of the chairs. She rooted around, brought out an iPhone, and started tapping away.

  “Okay,” she said, handing the phone to me. “That’s my Facebook page. Look at some of the things people have posted on my timeline. There were a whole bunch more but I deleted them. These have come in since breakfast.”

  I looked at the screen. A sampling:

  You’re the big baby not your son.

  Worst mother in the United States of Amerika.

  Kids have to know there is consequences. I feel sorry for your stupid kid having a mother like you. Your own mother must have screwed up big time to make you such an asshole.

  And a simple, straightforward expression of opinion: Eat shit.

  Gloria, who was standing close enough that she was reading them along with me, pointed to that last one and said quietly, “Let me delete that right now. I don’t want Madeline to see it.”

  “Don’t want me to see what?” Ms. Plimpton said, returning from the dining room with a tray of cups and milk and sugar.

  “Nothing,” Gloria said. She deleted the comment. “Okay, keep going.”

  I read a few more.

  Youre kid should dye and so should you.

  How do you sleep at night when your son is free but the girl he killed will be dead forever?

  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 n
eeds. 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.”

  SIX

  “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?”

  “It’s a name that came up,” he told her.

  The front door of the house opened and Brian Gaffney’s parents emerged.

  “Monica, Brian’s in the hospital,” Constance said.

  She tipped her head at Duckworth. “He told me.”

  “Come on,” Albert said, his head down as he headed for the car.

  Monica broke off from Duckworth without another word and got into the back seat as Albert took up position behind the wheel and Constance settled in beside him. Duckworth watched them drive away up the street.

  There was an old blue minivan parked in the driveway of the Beecham house. It was a small one-story building nearly swallowed up by untended shrubs reaching toward the eaves. The roof shingles were curling up, and a couple of cracked windows were held together with duct tape. Duckworth crossed the street, walked past the van, and rang the bell.

  It was not an old woman who answered, but a thin, bald man in his forties dressed in cutoff jeans and a dark green T-shirt. He eyed Duckworth through glasses held together with a piece of tape in the middle.

  “Yeah?” he said. “You here about the bedroom set?”

  Duckworth shook his head. “I’m looking for Mrs. Beecham.”

  “What do you want?”

  Duckworth dug out his ID again and held it long enough for the man to grasp what it was but not long enough to study it.

  The man said, “Uh, there’s no trouble here. Everything is fine.”

  “Are you Mrs. Beecham’s son?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Harvey.”

  “Harvey what?”

  The man hesitated. “Don’t I have the right not to tell you my name?”

  “I suppose you do. You’d also be exercising your right to get on my bad side from the get-go.”

  “Harvey Spratt,” he said.

  Duckworth smiled. “That your van, Harvey?”

  “It’s my girlfriend’s. Norma’s.”

  “Well, Mr. Spratt, is Mrs. Beecham home?”

  “Did she call you?”

  “Mr. Spratt, this is the last time I ask before I start to get annoyed. Is Mrs. Beecham home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d like to speak with her.”

  Harvey Spratt weighed his options, decided he had few, and opened the door wide enough to admit Duckworth. “She’s downstairs watching TV,” he said.

  Duckworth took in the disarray as he entered the house. Cardboard boxes, piles of clothing, newspapers, paperback novels, tools, a plastic bag filled with more plastic bags, a box of souvenirs including half a dozen snow globes and an Empire State Building bank, and odd bits of furniture cluttered the living room so completely it wasn’t possible to reach the sofa or easy chairs. Even if you could, they were piled with so much stuff you couldn’t sit on them.

  As Harvey headed for a door that led, presumably, to the basement, a woman came out of the kitchen. She was roughly the same age as Spratt, about twice his size, dirty blonde hair hanging in her eyes. Her T-shirt, done in the style of that early Barack Obama “HOPE” poster, featured an image of a man with the word TRUTH below it. It took Duckworth a moment to realize it was Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee turned whistleblower.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Man wants to talk to Eleanor,” Harvey said. “He’s with the police.”

  “Police?” The alarm was instantaneous.

  Duckworth gave her a wary smile. “Are you related to Mrs. Beecham?”

  “Eleanor? No. I come in three times a week to look after her.”

  “You’re a nurse?”

  The woman shook her head. “Personal care worker. I tend to her. Take care of her, clean the house, make meals, give her a bath, that kind of thing.”

  Duckworth cast his eye into the kitchen. The counter was littered with dirty dishes.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Norma.”

  “Last name?” What was it with these people? Duckworth wondered.

  “Lastman.”

  “Well, Norma, it’s nice to meet you. Is Mr. Spratt here helping you with your duties?”

  “Harvey’s my boyfriend,” she said. “And yeah, he’s just giving me a hand.”

  “With the bedroom suite that you’re selling?”

  She shot Harvey a look. “Actually, I’m not sure it’s for sale. I have to have another chat with Eleanor.”

  “Which is exactly what I would like to have,” Duckworth said. He tipped his head toward the door. “Down here?”

  Harvey nodded.

  Duckworth opened the door himself and descended the stairs into a dimly lit wood-paneled recreation room that smelled of mold and urine. Brown shag carpeting from the time of the Reagan administration covered much of the floor. The walls were adorned with cheaply framed nature scenes that looked like paint-by-number pieces. An old black-and-white movie was playing on the TV. John Wayne was riding a horse.

  Eleanor Beecham was sitting on a plaid recliner, legs extended under a pink chenille blanket. She looked to be in her late eighties. Her face was pale and wrinkled, and the few gray hairs still on her
head stuck out in all directions. Tucked between her thigh and the edge of the chair was a box of tissues, a remote, a checkbook, a hairbrush, and a bag of mini Mars candy bars like one would give to kids at Halloween.

  “Mrs. Beecham?” Duckworth said.

  The woman’s head turned slowly. She focused her eyes on him and said, “Well, look who’s here.” There was chocolate stuck to one of her teeth.

  “Have we met before?” he said.

  “Don’t think so.”

  “But you recognize me?”

  “Nope.”

  He smiled and showed her his ID. “I’m Detective Barry Duckworth, with the Promise Falls Police.” He sat down on a couch at right angles to the woman’s chair.

  “Nice to meet ya. You like John Wayne?”

  “Sure. He was one of the great movie stars of all time.”

  “Whaddya mean, was? He’s dead?”

  Duckworth hated to be the bearer of bad news. “I’m afraid so. For a long time, now.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame.” She shook her head sadly. “Gone too soon.”

  “It happens. I wonder if you’d mind turning down the TV so I could ask you a couple of questions.”

  She hunted for the remote, pointed it to the set and muted it. “Whatcha want?”

  “I wanted to ask you about your neighbors across the street.”

  Eleanor Beecham furrowed her brow. “What about ’em?”

  “Specifically, I wanted to ask you about Brian. Brian Gaffney?”

  She grimaced. “That simpleton? What’s he gone and done now?”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  She struggled to remember. “The other day, I saw his dad teaching him how to ride a bike. He caught onto it real fast.”

  Duckworth nodded slowly. “Right. That was probably quite a few years ago, though, when he was very young.”

  She studied him with glassy eyes, waiting for another question. At that moment Duckworth heard breathing behind him. He turned, spotted Norma Lastman huddling near the top of the stairs.

  “This is a private conversation,” he told her. He waited until the woman had retreated, and closed the door, before continuing.

  “What about when he started driving a car? Do you remember that? Was there an incident with your dog?”