Craig shrugged. “What’s that phrase about an ox?”
Duckworth had to think. “It all depends on whose ox is getting gored.”
Craig snapped his fingers and pointed. “That’s the one. In other words, it’s pretty funny until it happens to you.”
“Yeah.”
“So, Just Deserts has some local disciples, not surprising, considering what went down here. More people who want to make a difference. So after they did me, they were itching for another target. Maybe that’s your friend there with the Hallmark greeting on his back.”
“Maybe.”
“But if that’s the case, they must be bragging about it, right? So what’s the dude’s name again?”
“I didn’t say.”
Craig sighed. “So say it.”
“Brian Gaffney.”
“Spell the last name.”
Duckworth spelled it, and added that Brian was without a “y.”
Craig did a few rapid keystrokes and hit Enter. He slowly shook his head. “Nothin’s comin’ up, Mr. Detective.”
“Okay.”
“I guess someone’s got it in for wee Bri-Bri, but it’s got nothin’ to with Just Deserts, which would suggest to me, not that I am a brilliant detective such as yourself, that you’re looking at someone else.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Duckworth said. “To get back to why I came to see you, do you remember anything else about that night that you haven’t already told us? Even the smallest detail? Something that might not ever have seemed all that important, but looking back, you wonder if maybe it is? Something that might be helpful in our investigation?”
“I can tell you one thing about him,” Craig said.
Duckworth sat forward in his chair.
“What’s that?”
“He can’t spell.”
“Excuse me?”
“He can’t spell,” Craig Pierce said. “Or at least he misspells to be clever.”
“How can you know that?”
He tapped away again on the laptop. “Let’s go back to the commentary he posted with the picture of me. Yeah, here we go. Have a look. And it’s not just that he got my name wrong. Lots of people do that.”
He spun the computer around so Duckworth could read it:
Craig Pearce gets it good. Revenj on the kiddy diddler. You can be sure he wont be mollesting anyone ever again!
Duckworth looked up. “Okay. He got your last name wrong, an extra ‘l’ in molesting, and there’s revenj with a ‘j.’ That’s what you’re talking about.”
“Right. The thing with the ‘j’ is deliberate, I think.”
“Why?’
“Even a moron knows how to spell revenge. The other things, he’s just not a good speller.”
“I don’t immediately see how that’s helpful,” Duckworth said.
“I’m sure you don’t,” Pierce said, shaking his head. “Just what are you people doing on the computer end of things? Going after this website to divulge the IP address that was used to post this, for starters?”
“That’d be our legal department,” Duckworth said weakly. “I think they’re working on that.”
“You think?”
“I’d be happy to look into it for you, update you.”
“Because,” Pierce said, tossing the laptop onto the bed, “right now I feel like I’m doing that kind of work on my own. There’s all kinds of signatures someone leaves when they’re online. You just have to take the time to find them, correlate them, look for patterns. And seeing how I don’t have much else to do...”
“If you’ve learned anything that could help us in our invest—”
“And do your work for you?” Craig settled back into his chair. His knees had been together to support the computer, and now he let them separate a good foot. The bathrobe began to part.
“Okay, there is one thing I remember, from the actual incident,” he said, closing his eyes, seemingly concentrating. “Just before the dog bit down, it kind of tickled.” He opened his eyes and grinned.
“It did something to you, didn’t it?” Duckworth said.
“Is that a serious question?”
“I mean, you seem traumatized in a way I wouldn’t have expected.”
“Do you mean my cheerful demeanor?”
“I’m not sure that’s what I’d call it.”
Craig tipped his head. “Perhaps cheerful bordering on deranged? Did Mommy tell you my therapist is coming today? To talk to me? So I can share my feelings?”
“Thanks for your help,” Duckworth said, and started to get up.
“Wait!” Craig Pierce said. “Don’t go just yet.”
Duckworth sat down again slowly.
“I never liked my father,” Craig said. “I was never good enough for him. And then all this shit happened to me. The charges, the humiliation, the shame I brought down upon the family. But you know what was absolutely worst of all?”
Duckworth waited.
“It was losing my manhood. Havin’ all my equipment bit clean off. That was why he couldn’t come up here and look at me. You believe that? He couldn’t even look at me.”
Duckworth could think of nothing to say.
“I’ve never told my mother what actually happened when my father brought me my tomato soup.” Craig smiled. “She thinks good ol’ Dad came up here and just got very sad, then went downstairs and had his heart attack.”
Duckworth heard himself asking, “So what did happen?”
Another mischievous grin. “This.”
Craig spread his legs further and flung back the robe to expose all that remained: ugly purple-blue bruising, jagged scars and mangled skin. Duckworth was put in mind of a blue cabbage that had been through a food processor.
“I said to Dad, ‘How about them apples, or lack thereof?’”
Duckworth got up and left the room.
Twenty
Cal
I went back into the Plimpton house with Bob Butler trailing after me. Gloria was in the kitchen, pouring herself yet another glass of wine while her aunt watched disapprovingly.
“Where’s Jeremy?” I asked.
“He went upstairs,” Gloria said. “He was very upset. Can you blame him? That asshole Galen comes by here in that car?” She shook her head. “Honest to God, I am surrounded by people who really don’t have a clue. Jesus, Bob, how could you let him come up here at all, let alone in that goddamn car?”
Bob said, “I had no idea.”
“Unbelievable,” Gloria said to him, but now she was turning her sights on me. “Did you really throw Jeremy’s phone into a fryer?”
I nodded unapologetically.
“It might keep him from making further dates with his girlfriend.”
“The Wilson girl?” Gloria asked.
“Yes,” I said, “Charlene.”
“That little slut,” Gloria said.
“For God’s sake,” Madeline Plimpton said. “Pot, meet kettle.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gloria asked.
Ms. Plimpton just shook her head and left the room. Gloria sighed and took another drink.
“Aren’t you hitting that just a bit hard?” Bob asked her.
“With what I’ve been through, you’re lucky I don’t drink straight out of the bottle.” She put down her glass and waved a finger at him. “I’ve had an idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Hiring Mr. Weaver here is all well and good, but maybe what we really need is one of those PR consultants.”
“A what?” asked Bob.
“You know, a public relations person. Someone who could get out our side of the story. How Jeremy — and by extension, all of us — is a victim too. I mean, the judge made his ruling and that should be the end of it, but here we are being tortured on social media. Being threatened, having our reputations dragged through the mud.”