I thought about it. As pretty as this place was, I did feel like a change of scenery. “What the hell, let’s do that. I wouldn’t mind hitting a bakery, if there’s one open. They’ve got these things called whoopie pies.”
“Whoopie pies?”
“They kind of look like a hamburger, but the bun part’s chocolate cake, with whipped cream in the middle.”
“I want ice cream,” Jeremy said.
I nodded. “Meet me at the car in three minutes.”
I hit the bathroom, grabbed my jacket, made sure I had some cash and my car keys — I thought of something my late father used to say when he was heading out: “Spectacles, testicles, wallet and keys” — and went outside, where I found Jeremy standing next to the Honda. I locked up the beach house, got in behind the wheel and said, “Shit, I forgot my phone.”
“Oh yeah, so I’m not even allowed to have one, but you can’t go five minutes without yours.” Jeremy pointed a finger at me. “You’ve got a problem. You know that? You can’t deal with your problem until you admit you’ve got one.”
I grinned. “Shut up.”
“You’re just mad ’cause I’m right.”
“Fine,” I said. “I can quit any time I want.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve heard that one. That’s what my mom says about booze.”
It was meant to be funny, but he suddenly went very quiet.
“The hell with the phone,” I said. “How long does it take to get ice cream? Someone wants to reach me, they can leave a message.”
“That came out wrong,” he said as I backed the car down the narrow driveway. “About my mom.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“I mean, she’s kind of messed up, but I love her,” he said.
“Sure,” I said. “Everyone loves their mom.”
Forty-nine
Once Barry Duckworth was behind the wheel, he got out his phone. Cal Weaver was already in his list of contacts. He brought up the number and tapped it. The phone rang eight times before going to voicemail.
“Cal, it’s Barry,” Duckworth said. “I’ve just been at the Plimpton house and know Jeremy Pilford is in your care, which is a good thing, but there’s something you need to know. Despite all the various threats made against the kid, I think there’s one very credible one. A guy named Cory Calder. He could be armed. The guy’s a whackjob, Cal, and you need to take this one seriously. I don’t have any reason to believe he knows where you are — Ms. Plimpton filled me in, by the way — but you need to be on guard just the same. Call when you get this, and in the meantime, I’ll send you a picture of this guy in case you should happen to run into him. Take it easy.”
As he drove away from the Plimpton house, Duckworth realized he was only a mile from Brian Gaffney’s parents’ place. He wanted to see how Brian was doing. The young man might have been released from hospital and gone to stay with his family for a while, which would give Duckworth a chance to ask him whether the name Cory Calder was familiar to him. He had his doubts that it would, but it was still worth posing the question.
As he pulled up in front of the Gaffneys’ house, his gaze went to the opposite side of the street. A rental cube van was backed up to the open garage of Eleanor Beecham’s place. The front door was propped open with a stick.
A short, heavyset guy with curly hair who Duckworth did not recognize came out holding a chair from a kitchen dinette set. He put it in the back of the van, and as he re-emerged, Harvey Spratt, the man Duckworth had spoken to the previous day, exchanged a few words with him.
Maybe there was time for another quick chat with the folks looking after Mrs. Beecham. Norma, in particular. Duckworth had what he would call a lot of balls in the air right now — a tattooed man, a murder, a missing woman, an Internet target — so he didn’t really have time for this, but since he was here, he decided to follow up on what had been bothering him since his first visit.
He got out of the car and approached the house. Harvey spotted him and said, “Back again?”
Duckworth nodded amiably. “That I am.”
“We’re kind of busy at the moment,” Harvey said as the man helping him stopped to see who he was talking to.
“Just like to talk to Norma a minute,” Duckworth said.
“Well, she’s pretty busy too.”
Duckworth stood there. “I’ll wait while you get her.”
Harvey mumbled something under his breath, then poked his head into the house. “Norma!”
From inside, “What?”
“Get out here!”
“What is it?”
“That policeman’s here again.”
Silence.
Then Duckworth heard someone stomping through the house, and seconds later, Norma was at the door.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Good day, Ms. Lastman,” he said. “Do I have that right?”
Norma’s right cheek twitched. “You can call me Norma.”
“But your last name is Lastman? That’s what you told me the first time I was here. That’s what Eleanor — Mrs. Beecham — said your name was, too.”
“Yup, that’s right,” she said, stepping out of the house and onto the lawn.
“She was telling me,” Duckworth said, “that after you’d been working here a while, you discovered that the two of you are actually related to each other. That she’s your aunt.”
Norma nodded slowly. “She said that?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Well, yeah, we did find out there was a connection.” She smiled nervously.
“She said your father was her brother. What was his name?”
Norma didn’t answer immediately. Duckworth could almost see the wheels turning. “It was Sean,” she said. “Sean Lastman. But I never really knew him.”
“That’s quite something,” Duckworth mused. “Must have brought you closer together. I mean, you weren’t just employee and employer any more. You were niece and aunt.”
“You could say that,” Norma agreed.
Duckworth asked, “You ever been married, Norma?”
“Sorry?”
“I said, have you ever been married?”
“No. Me and Harvey, we’re probably going to get married.”
Harvey, coming out of the house carrying a couch with the other man’s help, smiled in their direction.
“Soon!” he said.
“Harvey doesn’t like to rush into anything,” Norma said, laughing and shaking her head.
“Yeah, some men are like that,” Duckworth said. He tipped his head toward the van parked in the driveway. “That’s yours, right?”
“Hmm?”
“Not the big rental, the regular van. Harvey said yesterday that it’s yours.”
She nodded. “Yeah, it’s mine.”
“What’s funny,” Duckworth said, “is that I ran the plate to see who it was registered to, and you know what name came up?”
Norma said nothing.
“Norma Howton. So what I’m wondering is, if you were born Norma Lastman, and you’ve never been married, why’s your van registered in the name Norma Howton?”
Norma struggled with a response. “Um, maybe you called it in wrong. There could be a mistake.”
“I don’t think so.”
Harvey emerged from the big cube van. “What was that?”
“Just asking your girlfriend if her last name is Lastman or Howton,” Duckworth said.
Harvey and Norma exchanged a nervous look.
“Tell you what,” Duckworth said. “Why don’t you see if you can come up with an answer while I go across the street and talk to those folks? When I come back, we’ll see what you’ve thought up. And then we can also talk about what appears to be going on here.”
“What would that be?” Harvey asked.