“You think you’re the first?” he said, and came close to a smile.
“Who else has been here?”
“You think if I wouldn’t talk to the police, I’m going to talk to you?”
“The police have been here?” I asked. “Which police? State? Griffon?”
He waved his hand like he didn’t give a damn. “Someone came around looking for Dennis. Said he’d done some things I know aren’t true, that he stole from people’s houses when he was cutting their lawns and they were away. That’s bullshit. I sent him on his way.”
“It must have been a Griffon cop,” I said. “Did you get a name? When was this?”
Mullavey ran a hand over the crown of his head. “You know, I used to work for Kodak. Retired ten years ago. My wife, Denny’s mom, passed away two weeks after I stopped working.”
He looked off in the direction of Lake Ontario, although we couldn’t see it from here. “I’m glad I wasn’t there at Kodak for the end, when it ceased to be, what with people no longer needing film. There’s a phrase I used to say there — maybe it wouldn’t be so applicable these days, what with everything being digital and all, but whenever someone asked me what was going to happen next, I used to say, ‘I guess we’ll see what develops.’ I guess we’ll see what develops, Mr. Weaver, but in the meantime, I have nothing to say to you.”
“I’m not the enemy,” I said.
“Would the enemy say he was?” Doug Mullavey shot back.
“No,” I said. “He wouldn’t.” I handed him one of my business cards and to my surprise, he accepted it. He called out to me as I walked back to the car. “Mr. Weaver?”
I turned. “Yes?”
“Dennis is a good kid.”
“I hope he’s more than that,” I said. “I hope he’s smart. Because it looks like he’s not just responsible for his own safety. He’s responsible for Claire Sanders’, too. I hope I don’t have to come back here and tell you something happened to her, or to your son, and that you could have told me something that would have prevented it.”
I continued on my way and didn’t look back.
On the drive back to Griffon, Donna called to say she’d be home late, probably around nine. If we were really going to try to go away, there was a lot of work she had to get ahead on. She figured she’d stay late today, a Friday, and Monday so that whoever had to do her job in her absence wouldn’t make a complete mess of it. I suggested that when she got home, we order a pizza.
No argument.
I told her I probably wouldn’t make it home much before she did, and that turned out to be true. When I pulled into the driveway at six forty-five, her car wasn’t there. It was dusk, and the streetlights had come on. I felt I’d done about as much as I could today. I was running on empty. I would make a few calls from home tonight, see if I could find out anything about Dennis Mullavey online. Maybe I could track down a Facebook page for him, find out who some of his friends were. If I got lucky, some of them might be right here in Griffon. If I had the energy later in the evening, I’d go looking for them.
A lot of maybes. Everything depended on my being able to stay awake once I went through the front door. I felt a face-plant on the couch coming on.
And then it occurred to me I really owed Bert Sanders a call. If I were him, I’d be waiting by the phone, hoping to hear something, anything. That would be the first thing I’d do.
No. The second. The first thing I was going to do was get a beer from the fridge.
I put the car in park, took out the key, and sat there for the better part of ten seconds.
Decompressing.
Finally, I opened the door, got out.
Behind me, someone said, “Mr. Weaver?”
I turned around, saw the baseball bat a millisecond before it connected, catching me at the back of the neck, just below my skull.
Then things got really bad.
Forty-seven
I didn’t black out completely. I was pretty fuzzy at first, no doubt about it. But I could hear things, like when you’re having an afternoon nap on the couch but are still distantly aware of things going on in the house around you.
I heard someone say, “Fucker!”
A second voice said, “Got him good.”
Male voices.
After I hit the driveway, I slapped my palms onto the asphalt and woozily tried to push myself up, but a sharp kick to my side hindered my efforts, knocking the wind out of me. I dropped and rolled over onto my side. I could hear pitiful moaning.
That was me.
I opened my eyes, saw them looking down on me like a couple of skyscrapers. Hard to judge how tall they were from my vantage point. They could have been five one and still looked like giants. Stocky builds, thick arms. Their faces remained a mystery. They wore ski masks, so all I could see was their eyes and mouths. One wore a red mask, with knitted snowflakes on it, while the other had pulled a solid blue one down over his face.
Red Mask said, “How do you like it, huh? You like that?”
Blue Mask said, “You better check and see if he’s got a gun on him.”
Red Mask said, “Shit, yeah, okay.”
He dropped to his knees, patted me down. “Nothing,” he said.
Just as well I’d decided not to carry the Glock today. I stood a chance of surviving a beating, but a shot to the head was a lot harder to recover from. I made an unsuccessful attempt to punch Red in the face, but he deflected the blow. Then I went for his mask, trying to slip my fingers under the bottom edge. Stubble under his chin rubbed against my fingers like sandpaper.
“Fuck off!” he said, ripping my arm away and hitting me backhanded on the cheek.
“Sit on him,” said Blue. “Hold him down.”
I was straddled. He grabbed my wrists and with his weight pinned them to the pavement. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of duct tape being torn off a roll. Next thing I felt was tape being wound around my ankles, binding my legs together.
“Hold him!”
“I’ve got him. Work fast before someone comes.”
Blue moved up by my head. While his partner crossed my wrists, Blue taped them together. He wound the tape around half a dozen times, did a pretty good job of it. What he hadn’t thought of was, when I brought my arms down, my wrists would be in front of me. That was a lot better than having them bound behind my back. He tore off a couple more strips and slapped them over my mouth.
“Okay, asshole, stand up.”
They had to help me to my feet, then bent me over the hood of my car so I all I could see was metal. Blue held me there while Red ran off. Seconds later, I heard a car start up, then the whining noise of a car backing up speedily. I managed to turn my head enough to see the car back in right behind me. I couldn’t see what make it was. A trunk popped open.
Red jumped out of the car and with Blue’s help they hauled me off the hood and turned me around. Suddenly, I raised my arms in front of me, wrists still crossed, and attempted to bat Blue across the head. Got him, too, but not hard enough to hurt him. That was when he got the roll of tape again, making several turns around me at waist height, pinning my arms down.
Shit.
They shuffled me over to the back of their car, the trunk yawning open to receive me.
“Yeah, see how you like it,” Blue said. The two of them loaded me in. I lay on my side, looking up.
“The fun’s just beginning,” said Red.
And then everything went dark.
I heard some muffled chatter through the trunk lid, then both doors opening and closing. We shot out of the driveway like a sprinter coming out of the blocks. I was tossed around, hit my head.
The car accelerated, made several turns, and within five minutes we were traveling steadily at what I guessed to be sixty or more miles per hour. We were on a highway. Most likely the Robert Moses, but heading where, I could only guess at this point.