“It didn’t?”
She shook her head. “Anything that couldn’t be challenged, that supposedly happened just between me and Jeremy, where they couldn’t bring in a witness to contradict my testimony... well, we came up with a few good tales.” She smiled sadly. “It was probably like a TV series story meeting. Pitch me your most outrageous idea! You should have heard some of the ones we never used. Like where Jeremy strangled a chicken just for fun and I cooked it to get rid of the evidence.”
“That didn’t happen,” I said.
“No,” she said. “That did not happen. Despite what you’ve been led to believe, Jeremy’s a wonderful boy. He really is.” She grimaced. “But if I’d had to tell that story about the chicken to save him, I’d have done it.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Don’t you think that proves I love him?” she asked.
The question seemed odd to me. “I don’t think anyone ever questioned your love for Jeremy,” I said. “I guess what Grant Finch was doing was showing you loved him too much.”
Her eyes began to well with tears. She raised the glass to her face and tipped it to her lips, partly, I think, to keep me from seeing her cry.
“I’m the one who’s always questioning it,” she said, setting the glass back on the table and wiping her cheek with her sleeve. “The world says I’m a terrible mother, and maybe they’re right.”
We sat there a moment, not talking. Finally, I said, “Do you trust my judgment where your son is concerned?”
She looked at me with red eyes. “I suppose.”
I closed the laptop and left it on the coffee table. I went up the stairs to the second floor. There were a dozen doors along the upstairs hallway, all of them open but for one. I walked past bedrooms and bathrooms until I reached the closed door at the far end.
I rapped softly on it.
No answer. Jesus, he’d taken off again.
I rapped harder.
“Yeah?” Jeremy said.
“It’s Mr. Weaver.”
“Yeah?”
I opened the door. He was lying on the bed, just staring at the ceiling. He turned his head slightly to take me in.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Pack a bag,” I said.
Twenty-one
Barry Duckworth was pulling into his driveway when his cell phone rang. He put the car in park, turned off the engine, and dug the phone out of his pocket. The display said the call was coming from Promise Falls City Hall.
He had a bad feeling.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hey, Barry, how’s it hangin’?”
“Randy,” he said.
Randall Finley chortled. “Barry, aren’t you supposed to call me Your Worship or Your Honor or Mr. Mayor or some shit like that?”
Duckworth thought “Some Shit Like That” did have a nice ring to it, but kept the thought to himself. “What can I do for you, Randy?”
“There’s talk going around that you aren’t coming to the memorial thing. Tell me that’s not true.”
“I’m pretty busy,” Duckworth said.
“You’re the fucking star of the show. You’re the one that caught the guy. You have to be there.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Look, Barry, I’m being serious here. The town needs this. They need to honor those who died a year ago. They need to pay their respects. And everyone loves a hero. You’re the hero. If you don’t show up, it’s like a massage without the happy ending. You gotta be there. We need something like this to counter all the shit that’s been going on. You know what I saw yesterday? Go on, ask me.”
“What did you see yesterday, Randy?” Duckworth asked.
“I was out by the water plant, by the tower.”
It had been the deliberately contaminated water in the tower that had killed scores of Promise Falls residents.
“And there’s this dumb fuck who’s managed to get over the gate and gone up the stairs, and he’s standing right on the top of the water tower and he’s got on a cape or something like that and the words ‘Captain Avenger’ on his shirt. The fire department had to send a crew over to get the dumb bastard down before he killed himself. You know what, Barry? There are a lot of sick fucks out there. People who think we got what we deserved. That what happened here was justice. Can you believe that kind of thinking?”
“Anything else, Randy?” Duckworth asked.
“God, you’ve always been a stubborn son of a bitch. Think about it, okay? If you come, I’m gonna give you a plaque.”
“I don’t want a plaque.”
“I’ve already ordered it.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Mayor.” Duckworth ended the call and got out of the car.
Given that his was the only vehicle in the driveway, he knew he had arrived home before Maureen or Trevor. Maureen he expected to get here at any moment. As for Trevor, who knew?
He came in the side door of the house, which led him directly into the kitchen. He took off his sport jacket, loosened his tie, rolled up his sleeves. Then he removed his weapon from his belt holster and put it in a lockbox in the laundry room, as was his usual routine.
He returned to the kitchen, opened the fridge and reached for a lite beer. He didn’t know that drinking lite beer was really doing anything for him in the calorie department. Used to be he’d have only one beer when he got home, but now he often had two. He uncapped the bottle, put it to his lips, and drew on it for several seconds.
He couldn’t help but feel relieved that Trevor was not home.
He opened the fridge a second time and wondered about dinner. Should he start something? Maureen usually cooked supper, but she worked all day the same as he did. But if it were up to him, they’d be eating steaks with baked potatoes smothered in butter and sour cream. He knew Maureen would have something healthier in mind. In fact, the fridge was filled with clear plastic containers of salad.
Oh joy.
He decided the best action for now was inaction. He took his beer with him to the kitchen table, sat down, and reached for Maureen’s iPad, which was sitting there.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Craig Pierce.
Some things, once seen, could not be unseen.
The man had suffered horrific injuries, and yet, by the end of their discussion, Duckworth was feeling no pity for him. If ever a case proved that victimization did not confer sainthood, it was Craig Pierce.
But Pierce had given Duckworth something to think about. If he and Brian Gaffney had both been set upon by the same person — or persons — why were the horrors visited upon Pierce splashed across the Internet, but not what was done to Gaffney?
Clearly someone was trying to make a point with Gaffney. But the man with the tattooed message on his back claimed not to know what it was about. And Duckworth was finding it hard to believe that what had been done to the man had anything to do with Mrs. Beecham’s dead dog. Although he had a feeling something funny was going on at that old lady’s house that had nothing to do with Brian Gaffney.
Wait, he thought. Maybe—
He heard a car pulling into the driveway, the engine dying. When the door to the kitchen opened, and Maureen stepped in, Duckworth got up to greet her. He walked over, beer in hand, and gave her a peck on the cheek.
“Hey,” he said. “I was going to start dinner, but I thought—”
“Oh, stop,” she said.
The first thing she did, even before taking off her jacket, was kick off her shoes. “God, I’ve been waiting forever to do that. I know desk jobs are awful, but at least if I had one of those I wouldn’t have to stand for nine hours.”