Parting Shot

Twelve Cal

“You’re gonna have to buy me a new phone,” Jeremy Pilford told me from the passenger seat.

We were pulling out of the parking lot of the burger place. I glanced in my rear-view to see Jeremy’s girlfriend backing out of her spot in her red Miata, grinding the gears slightly as she did so.

“She’s something,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Charlene. She seems to believe in you.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Been friends a long time?”

“Pretty much forever, I guess.”

“Girlfriend?”

He gave me a pained look. “You already asked me the going-steady question.”

“Which you really didn’t answer.”

“You’re like my mom. You’re all hung up on labels. Is she a girlfriend. She’s a friend. Sometimes we’re closer than at other times.”

“Regardless of how close you are right now, you shouldn’t have called her or let her know where you are.”

“What?”

“I think the word you were looking for there is ‘pardon.’ Or perhaps a question, along the lines of, oh, Mr. Weaver, why would you say that?”

“You think you’re funny, don’t you?” Jeremy asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m saving my best stuff for later. Anyway, since you’re not going to ask, I’ll tell you. You’ve got a target on your back. Now, if you want to be stupid and let the world know where you are, that’s one thing. But when you invited Charlene up here to join you, you put her at risk. You want to get her killed?”

He shot me a look. “No one’s going to kill me.”

“Let’s hope not.”

“I’m not scared.”

It was my turn to shoot him a look. “Then what was that I saw earlier?”

“When?”

“On the porch of Ms. Plimpton’s house.”

“Huh?”

“The look in your eyes. I know what I saw.”

“What did you see?”

“You looked scared to me.”

“Yeah, right. I’m fucking shaking in my boots.”

“Fine,” I said. “Look, I know the whole world’s been calling you a big baby and you want to show that you’re not. I get that. But the fact is, a little bit of fear is a good thing. It makes you smarter. It makes you pay attention. Now, all I’m being hired to do is have a look at your level of security, and right now I’d say it’s zero. A good portion of the blame goes to you and your mother for being too free with what you say online. You might as well have put a billboard on your grandmother’s front lawn advertising your arrival. Part of you wants to bust out and party, but part of you knows you may actually be in danger. That’s what I saw when I looked at you on the porch.”

Jeremy didn’t say anything for several seconds. “Maybe. But only a little.”

“Whatever. You’re a soldier.”

“You gonna buy me a new phone?”

“No.”

He thought about that. “Bob will.”

“There you go. I thought you didn’t like him.”

Jeremy looked out his window. “I don’t know. I guess he’s okay.”

“What’s his story?”

“He’s some big real-estate guy. Has properties all over the place. He’s always doing deals. Always waiting for the really, really big one, like the one he did with, you know.”

“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.”