Parting Shot Page 9

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “The guy who had the party. Where it happened.”

  “Where the accident happened?”

  “Yeah, there.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Galen Broadhurst. He’s like this mega-deal guy. But seriously, what kind of name is that? Galen Broadhurst?”

  The name had come up in conversation earlier in the day, but I realized it wasn’t the very first time I’d heard it. From what I’d seen on the news, it had been Broadhurst’s car Jeremy had been driving when he ran down that girl. Maybe I’d know even more about him if I read the Wall Street Journal or the business section of the New York Times. So, he was a big-deal businessman. If you were born with a name like Galen Broadhurst, I suspected you were destined to be rich and powerful. You didn’t meet a lot of guys at the Wendy’s drive-through window with names like that.

  “I watched the news about the trial,” I said, “but I don’t know all the details. You want to fill me in, or is it something you’d rather not talk about?”

  “I sat in court for weeks listening to all of it over and over again. You really think I want to shoot the shit with you about it?”

  “What I figured,” I said. I couldn’t blame him.

  “Anyway,” Jeremy said, “Mom likes Bob because he can give her all the things my dad never could.”

  “What’s his story?”

  “Who? Bob? Or my real dad?”

  “Your real dad.”

  “He’s . . . he’s kind of got his own life. He’s okay. He wanted to help. You know, when I got in trouble, but my mom said no. Not that he’s got lots of money or anything.”

  “What’s he do?”

  “He’s a high-school teacher.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So an expensive lawyer may be a little beyond his budget.”

  “Yeah, but he wanted to help other ways, like, just being supportive, you know? But Mom told him no.”

  “Why?”

  Jeremy looked out the window. “She just did, that’s all.”

  I decided not to push.

  “And Bob?”

  “He’s got money. I mean, he’s not super-loaded, not yet, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s done a deal with Mr. Broadhurst. Bob’s gonna be a multi-millionaire when it’s over.”

  “Well,” I said. “Good for him.”

  Jeremy shrugged. “He still seems like kind of a douche to me,” he said.

  “Does anyone not seem like a douche to you?”

  Jeremy slowly turned his head my way. “It’s just that I think he paid for the lawyer only because he was doing it for my mom, you know? It wasn’t like he did it because he thinks I could be the world’s greatest future stepson. Because, let’s face it, I’ll never be that.”

  “The fact is, he paid for your defense, regardless of his motivation.”

  “I guess.” He watched the traffic going the other way. “So what are you going to do? Lock me up someplace to keep me safe? Because I might as well be in jail if you do.”

  I gave him a smile. “Tempting, but I think we’ll have to come up with something else.”

  “Because I have rights, you know.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That girl you ran down had rights, too.”

  I regretted saying the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. As hard as this kid was to like, he’d already been judged by millions on the Internet for what he’d done. He didn’t need me to chime in.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  He looked at me, surprised.

  “It’s not my place to judge you. That’s been done.”

  He was quiet for several seconds. “Thanks.” After another minute, he said, “I liked her.” Adding, in case I wasn’t following, “The girl that, you know, got run over.”

  Not: The girl I killed.

  “What was her name?” I asked.

  “McFadden.”

  “She have a first name?”

  “It’s a weird name. Sounds like Sharn. Like, if you said Sharon real fast.”

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “What is it?”

  “I mean, is it Irish? Actually, I think it’s Welsh,” I said. “So you knew her?”

  “Not that much. Our parents were at the party, and we ended up hanging out. I knew her a little. She lived in the neighborhood. She was sort of a friend the way Charlene is a friend, only she was kind of more of a friend that night.” A pause. “The more drinks we snuck out, the drunker we got, and we started making out.”

  “That must have been a bit awkward.”

  “Why?”

  “Charlene said she was at the party that night, too.”

  “Yeah. Her and her parents. But we were kind of avoiding her. And at that time, Charlene was mostly just a friend, not more of a friend.” He glanced my way. “You get what I’m saying.”

  “I think so.”

  Jeremy was quiet for a moment. Then, “My mom and Bob and the lawyer, they said it wasn’t my fault really. Not for the reason Charlene said. The others say they’re to blame, too. And Mr. Broadhurst.”

  “Go on.”

  “I mean, first of all, Mr. Broadhurst left the keys in the car. That was a really stupid thing to do. Especially a car like that.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “And like I said, there was all kinds of booze around, and it was easy to get. Mom and Bob should have done more to keep me from getting into it. I wasn’t old enough to drink responsibly.”

  “I see. So you drank too much, then got in Mr. Broadhurst’s car, drove off in it and ran down that girl, and they’ve all got to take the heat for that.”

  He glared at me. “I thought you said it wasn’t your place to judge.”

  “You’re making me want to reassess my position.”

  “God, you’re just like all of them,” he said sulkily.

  My cell rang. I grabbed it from my pocket and put it to my ear.

  “Hello.”

  “Bob Butler here.”

  “Hey, Bob.”

  Jeremy glanced my way.

  “Is Jeremy with you?” Bob asked.

  “Yeah, we’re almost back to the house.”

  “Shit. I was thinking, if you could go the long way, that might help. You know I mentioned Galen Broadhurst might drop by?”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, he did. But there’s a bit of a wrinkle, and it might be better all round if Jeremy didn’t get here until Galen’s gone.”

  The problem was, we were already back. I’d just made the turn onto Madeline Plimpton’s street. The house wasn’t half a block away. There was a car parked at the curb that hadn’t been there when I’d left to find Jeremy, which must have been Broadhurst’s. Nice set of wheels, too.

  “Oh, Jesus, I don’t believe it!” Jeremy said, sitting up in his seat. “What the hell is that doing there? Why would he do that? Why would someone do that to me?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, taking the phone away from my ear.

  Jeremy was looking at the car. It was a red seventies-vintage Porsche 911.

  “That,” he said.

  “What about it?”

  “That’s the car . . . that’s the car I was driving when it happened.”

  THIRTEEN

  TREVOR Duckworth glanced down at his phone.

  “Shit, my dad sent me a text like an hour ago,” he told the woman sitting across from him at the round table just out front of a Promise Falls Starbucks. She was mid-twenties, green eyes, dark hair to her shoulders. She wore a black sweater, black jeans, and tan leather boots that came up to her knees.

  “What’s he want?”

  “Says he needs to talk to me.”

  “What about?”

  Trevor shrugged. He tapped Im at Starbucks and hit Send. He saw the dots appear, and then his father’s reply: Stay there. See you in 5.

  Trevor typed K, then rested his phone on the small table. “I should h
ave told him something else.”

  “Why?”

  “He’ll be thinking, I’m out of work, and I can still afford to pay five bucks for a cup of coffee.”

  “Would he say that?”

  “No, but he’ll be thinking it. He’s coming here in a couple of minutes.”

  “Should I go?” the woman asked. She glanced down at her latte. She’d barely started it.

  Trevor hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? How about, ‘Please stay, I’d love him to meet you.’ How about that?”

  “You know it’s not a good idea.” Trevor thumbed his phone to check the time. “Fine, you might as well hang in and meet him.”

  “He is kind of a hero,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know, so everyone says,” Trevor said. “He’s the big star.”

  “You two don’t get along?”

  Trevor sighed. “Sometimes. Sometimes not. He can be a bit of a hardass at times. Whaddya expect? He’s a cop.” He glanced out at the parking lot. “Shit, he was even closer than he said.”

  The woman followed his gaze. A heavyset man was getting out of a black four-door sedan and walking toward them.

  Trevor got to his feet as his father approached. The woman smiled awkwardly. Barry Duckworth nodded briefly to his son before turning his attention to her.

  “Well, hello,” he said, extending a hand.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Dad, uh, this is Carol,” Trevor said uneasily. “Carol Beakman.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Duckworth grinned and tipped his head toward his son. “Whatever he told you, you should take it with a grain of salt.”

  “Is everything okay?” Trevor asked.

  “Yeah, everything is fine,” Duckworth said. “Just needed to talk to you.”

  “I’ll be on my way,” Carol said, reaching for her purse and putting the lid back onto her latte.

  “No, please,” Duckworth said quickly. “I’d like you to stay.”

  “I don’t want to intrude, and I do have some things I have—”

  “No, this may actually involve you.”

  Carol’s eyes flashed. “I’m sorry?”

  “Dad, what’s this about?”

  “Can we grab another chair?” Duckworth said. Trevor went to the closest table, where a woman was sitting alone. He stole the chair across from her and brought it over to their table. Duckworth took a seat.

  “You want something?” Carol asked. “A cappuccino maybe?”

  “No, no, that’s okay. And if I go up to the counter, I won’t be able to stop myself from getting a slice of that lemon cake, with the icing.” He felt his mouth starting to water. “The slices aren’t all that big, are they? How many calories could they be?”

  “Dad,” Trevor said. He said to Carol, “Dad’s been trying to lose some weight.”

  “What do you mean, trying? I have lost some weight.”

  Carol smiled. “Congrats. It’s never easy.”

  “Tell me about it,” Duckworth said. “Okay, so . . .” He extended his arms and placed his palms flat on the small table. “I have to admit, this is slightly awkward. This sort of thing hasn’t happened before.”

  “What sort of thing?” his son asked.

  “I’ll start at the beginning,” Duckworth said. He told them about the police picking up Brian Gaffney, bringing him into the station. How Gaffney couldn’t account for the last two days.

  “What’s that got to do with us?” Trevor asked.

  “Well, the last thing Mr. Gaffney remembers is being at a bar.”

  “What bar?” Carol asked.

  “Knight’s,” he said.

  Trevor and Carol exchanged a quick look.

  “When was this?” Trevor asked.

  “Two nights ago. After he left the bar, he says someone called to him from the alley, and he doesn’t remember anything after that.”

  “Wow,” said Trevor.

  Duckworth brought out his phone, tapped on the photo app. “Here’s a picture of him. He look familiar?”

  They both looked at the photo and shook their heads in unison.

  “What did they do to him exactly?” Carol asked.

  Duckworth hesitated. “I can show you, but it’s not an easy thing to look at, I’m warning you.” With that, he swiped the screen to bring up the previous photo.

  “Oh my God, what is that?” Carol asked. “Someone wrote all over his back?”

  “It’s a tattoo. It’s permanent.”

  “Wait, you mean, like, someone did that to him without his permission?” Carol asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “How could they do that?” she asked.

  “By keeping him knocked out or sedated, it would seem,” Duckworth said, and at that moment his head jerked, as though he’d just remembered something.

  “What?” Trevor said.

  “Craig Pierce,” the detective said.

  “I know that name,” Carol said. “The guy who was attacked? About three months ago.”

  Duckworth nodded slowly, and said, more to himself than to his son and Carol, “He was sedated too. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that until now.”

  “Dad,” Trevor said.

  Duckworth didn’t respond. He was recalling the earlier case.

  “Earth to Dad, come in, please.”

  “Sorry,” Duckworth said, as if being brought out of a trance. “There’s some things I have to check out. But anyway, this guy who had his back tattooed, he—”

  “That’s totally sick,” Trevor said.

  “Yeah, it sure is.” Duckworth went back to Gaffney’s head shot. “Are you sure he doesn’t look familiar?”

  “Uh, why would you think we’d recognize him?” Trevor asked.

  His father smiled sheepishly. “This is the awkward part. I went to Knight’s to have a look at their surveillance footage. I focused in on the time just before Mr. Gaffney arrived, and just after he left. I thought, you know, if he’d had a run-in with someone, a fight, that’d give me an idea who might have done this to him.”

  Another exchange of looks between Trevor and Carol.

  “What’d you see?” Trevor asked.

  “Well, I didn’t see anything like that. But what I did notice was that the two of you were in the bar at the time.”

  “Oh,” said Carol, her face flushing.

  “Jesus, Dad,” Trevor said, shaking his head. “I never thought I’d see the day when you’d be investigating your own kid.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “It’s what it sounds like to me. Just ’cause I’ve moved back in doesn’t mean you get to stick your nose into my personal life.” He looked apologetically at Carol. “I’m really sorry about this.”

  Carol placed a hand on Trevor’s arm. “I don’t think your father—”

  Trevor shook her hand off. “No, this is really crossing the line.”

  Keeping his voice very calm, Duckworth said, “I’m only here because I thought you might be able to help me. It’s not like the two of you are in any kind of trouble.”

  “You actually looked at us sitting there, in the bar?”

  “I did.”

  Carol’s face flushed again. “You must . . . you must have a terrible impression of me.”

  Duckworth smiled reassuringly. “Not at all. I was young myself once, or so I’m told. It’s hard to remember back that far.”

  “So, basically, you watched us make out,” Trevor said accusingly.

  “Trevor,” Duckworth said evenly, “you and Carol here are potential witnesses to a crime. You may have seen something without even realizing it. I observed the two of you in a booth, yes. Shortly after Mr. Gaffney left the bar, you left too. I’m hoping maybe one or both of you noticed something outside that might be helpful in the investigation. If you’re uncomfortable being interviewed by me, then I can turn this over to someone else and have them do it.�
�

  Trevor was silent.

  “Is that what you’d like?”

  Trevor looked away. While he considered a response, Carol said, “I’m okay with talking to you. I mean, I didn’t see anything, but I don’t mind talking to you. Trevor, are you okay with me talking to your dad?”

  “This is just weird, that’s all,” he said.

  “I get that,” Duckworth said. “I mean, it’s not like I think you two tattooed this guy.”

  Carol laughed nervously. “Well, that’s good to know!”

  Trevor, however, did not look amused.

  “Do you remember seeing Mr. Gaffney?”

  Carol shook her head. “I don’t. But,” and she placed her hand gingerly over her mouth, as though she were about to tell a secret, “I wasn’t really paying attention to anyone else.”

  “Trevor?”

  “Don’t remember him.”

  “What about when you left Knight’s? You had to have come out just a few seconds after Mr. Gaffney. This would have been right around the time he met the person or persons who abducted him. Did you notice anything odd? Maybe someone hanging around outside the bar, or at the entrance to the alley? Did you hear something that sounded like a fight or a scuffle?”

  “No,” Trevor said quickly. “No to all of those things. We came out and went to my car and that’s that.” He looked at Carol. “Right?”

  She studied Trevor’s face for a moment before replying. “That’s right. That’s certainly the way I remember it.”

  “You didn’t talk to anyone, see anyone when you came out?” Duckworth persisted.

  “Didn’t I just answer that?” Trevor asked before Carol could say anything.

  Duckworth gave his son a slow appraisal. “Okay, then.” He smiled weakly at Carol. “I thought it was worth a shot, is all.” He put his phone back into his pocket and leaned back from the table.

  “It’s such a pleasure to have met you,” he said to Carol.

  “Nice to meet you too.”

  “What do you do, Carol?”

  “I work for the town.”

  “That must be interesting, especially now that we have Randall Finley running things again.”

  “Never a dull moment,” Carol said.

  “And David Harwood’s still his assistant, right?”

  “He is. They never charged him for shooting that escaped convict.”