Parting Shot

Twenty-seven

Even with his eyes still closed, Barry Duckworth became aware that someone was in the bedroom.

He opened them, blinked a couple of times to get used to the light coming through the window, and saw his son, Trevor, standing just inside the door.

“Trev?” he said.

That prompted Maureen, under the covers next to Duckworth, to turn over, remove the eye mask that blocked out all light, and say, “What’s going on, what’s happening? What time is it?”

She glanced at the clock radio on her bedside table. “It’s six forty. What are you doing up so early?”

Trevor was fully dressed. His hair was slightly tousled, and he didn’t appear to have shaved yet this morning.

“I haven’t been to bed,” he said, his voice shaky. “Dad, I need help.”

His father raised himself up, swung his bare feet down to the hardwood floor. “What happened, son?”

“It’s Carol,” he said. “Something’s happened to Carol.”

Duckworth dressed quickly. By the time he was down in the kitchen, Maureen had made coffee. Trevor was pacing.

“Okay, let’s start from the beginning,” Duckworth said, taking a mug from Maureen and standing by the counter to drink it.

“So we were going to meet up last night. After you and Mom went out for dinner.”

“Where?”

“At the mall.”

“Promise Falls Mall?”

“Yeah. We were going to grab a bite in the food court. They’ve got that movieplex there now and we were thinking we’d check out what was playing, maybe see something.”

“What time were you going to meet?”

“Eight. That’d give us time to eat and see what the shows were.”

“Okay.”

“I got there about quarter to eight. I went to the food court first, in case she was early, but I didn’t see her there, so I decided to look in a couple of stores first, and go by and see what the movies were. But I got right back to the food court for eight, and she still wasn’t there.”

Trevor was trembling as he spoke. Maureen put her hand on his arm as he continued talking.

“So I sat down and started thinking about what I would get to eat, but then it was five after eight, and then ten after eight, so that was when I texted her. You know, like, I’m here, where are you?”

Duckworth nodded. “Did she get back to you?”

Trevor shook his head. “Nothing. I kept looking to see if the text was delivered, and it didn’t come up that it was. So then I phoned, and it went straight to message.”

“She must have turned off her phone,” Maureen said. “Sometimes I turn off my phone, meaning to restart it, and then I forget, and your father’s trying to reach me and I’ve left my stupid phone off.”

“Yeah, but it’s more than her phone being off. She didn’t show.”

“What happened next?” Duckworth asked.

“I started looking around the mall, wondering if she’d gone shopping and lost track of time, always circling back to the food court to see if she was there. But she wasn’t. And the whole time, I’m holding my phone, you know? In case I get a text or anything. But nothing.”

“How long did you wait?”

“Except for the theaters, the mall closes up at nine. So when it got to be nine, I stood for a while where people were buying tickets, thinking maybe Carol got held up and she’d show up at the last minute, but there was no sign of her. So I left the mall, and looked around the parking lot for her car.”

“What does she drive?”

“She’s got a little silver Toyota. A Corolla. It’s about five years old.”

“Did you see it?”

Trevor shook his head. “So I decided to go by her place.”

“Where does she live?”

“She’s got an apartment in Waterside Towers?”

Duckworth knew it. A condo development about half a mile downstream from the falls, in the town’s core.

“I drove over there, and Carol has an assigned parking space, and her car wasn’t there. But then I thought, maybe she had some kind of car trouble, and came home in a taxi and—”

“Did you try her landline?” Maureen asked.

“She doesn’t have one,” Trevor said. “Just her cell. So anyway, I hang around in the lobby and managed to get into the building when someone else was going in, and I go up to her door and bang on it, and there’s no answer.”

Duckworth asked, “When was the last time you tried her cell?”

“One minute before I came into your room,” Trevor said. “I waited in the parking lot of her place all night. When the sun came up, I came home.” He looked to be on the verge of tears. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Where’s she work again?” his father asked.

“She works at the town hall.”

“That’s right.”

Maureen’s eyebrows went up a notch. “For Randall Finley?”

Trevor shook his head. “No, she doesn’t work in the mayor’s office. She’s, like, in the town planning department. She’s got some kind of degree in how to organize cities, that kind of thing.”

“How’d you meet her?” Duckworth asked.

“Does that matter?” Trevor asked.

“Probably not,” he said. “Just curious.”

“I went in there to drop off a résumé, and she recognized me. We were in a couple high-school classes together. We met up later for a coffee — this was about a month ago — and we started seeing each other.”

“When were you planning to bring her around her so we could meet her?” Maureen asked.

Trevor looked at her. “Seriously? That’s what you’re concerned about right now?”

Maureen frowned. “Sorry.”

Duckworth said, “I’m sure she’s fine. I’ll bet there’s a simple explanation. A family emergency, maybe. Something that called her out of town.” He glanced at his watch. “The town hall opens up in another hour or so. We’ll drop by, see if she’s there.”

Trevor nodded very slowly, licked his lips as though there was something he still had to say.

“There’s more,” he said quietly.

“What’s that?” Duckworth asked.

“We weren’t... we weren’t entirely honest with you yesterday, when you talked to us at Starbucks.”

Duckworth waited.

“I mean, it wasn’t my place to say anything. If anyone was going to say anything, it was going to be Carol.”

“Why’s that?”

“She’s the one who saw something.”

“Saw something at Knight’s? When you were leaving?”

“Not something, exactly. Just someone. And she didn’t see anyone doing anything. In fact, it’s probably nothing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Okay, so we’re coming out of Knight’s, and it’s kind of dark, and we’re heading for my car — I’d picked her up at her place that night — and she goes, ‘Hey, how you doin’?’ to someone.”

“She saw someone she knew?”

“Yeah. This woman, standing by the alley that goes down the side of Knight’s. You know where I mean?”

“I do.”

“So Carol goes up to her, but I kind of hang back, because it’s not anybody I know, and I feel kind of funny when she introduces me to a friend, because she’s got a good job, and I’m still trying to find something, and I don’t want to have to do a whole bunch of explaining.”

“Sure.”

“So she talks to this girl for about thirty seconds, then says goodbye, and then me and her go to my car and that’s kind of it.”

“Who was she?”

Trevor shrugged. “I asked her, and she said just someone she knew, no big deal, and she actually seemed a bit pissed because this friend didn’t seem to want to talk to her anyway. Kind of gave her the bum’s rush.”

“That’s it? That’s the part you left out?”

“Okay, so, when you found me at Starbucks and started asking us about being at Knight’s, that really, honestly pissed me off, you know.”

“I got that,” Duckworth said.

“I mean, I was thinking of introducing her to you guys, but before I get a chance to do that, suddenly there you are interviewing us like we’re a couple of suspects or something. But then after you left, we were talking, and that’s when she mentioned that she had spoken to this friend of hers. She said that even if we didn’t see anything suspicious, maybe her friend had. She wondered if she should tell you, and then she thought maybe it would be better to get in touch with the friend, and if she did see anything, she could get in touch with you herself.”

“Okay.”

“Carol felt bad that the very first time she meets my dad, she’s not straight with him. She thought that if that other woman knew anything and could help you, that’d be a nice way to make it up to you. Not that you’d ever have known in the first place.”

Maureen said, slowly, “That’s what you were talking about.”

Trevor looked at her. “What?”

“On the phone, last night. I was going past your room and I heard you say something like you didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“You were listening to me?”

“It was just something I heard when I was walking by,” she said.

“Yeah, that’s what we were talking about. I said she didn’t have to do anything, that she didn’t have to get involved just to try to make a good impression on him.” He tipped his head toward his father.

“But she decided to do it.”

Trevor nodded. “She said she was going to give her friend a call. That’s all. Just call her up and tell her something had happened around that time at Knight’s, and that if she saw anything she should get in touch with you.”

“That was the last time you spoke with her?” Duckworth asked.

His son nodded.

“You remember anything at all about this woman?”

“It was dark. And like I said, I didn’t go over. She was probably around our age.”

“White? Black?”

“White.”

“Had she been in Knight’s earlier?”

“Not that we saw.”

“And no name? Carol must have mentioned her name if you talked about this a few times.”

“At first, when I asked who it was — you know, right after she saw her — she just said she was a friend. And it didn’t really matter then. It wasn’t an issue until you came and talked to us. And I said, after, what about your friend, and Carol said, maybe I should get in touch with her.”

“How would she know how to contact her?”

“She said she knew her from where she worked, that she had a number for her.”

Duckworth sighed. “Okay, that whole business, that’s my problem. What we want to do now is confirm that Carol is okay.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Is it possible,” Duckworth asked gently, “that maybe she thought things weren’t working out? That she didn’t want to see you any more, but couldn’t find a way to tell you to your face? So she turned off her phone, didn’t answer her door?”

Trevor looked at him with misted eyes. “I don’t know. I mean, if that’s what she did, I wasn’t picking up the signals, you know?”

Duckworth put a hand on his shoulder. “Here’s what I’m going to do. You don’t want to give her the idea you’re stalking her or something. So why don’t I go into the town hall, down to the planning department, and see if she’s there. In the meantime, you stay here, keep trying her on your phone. If you want, go back to her apartment, see if her car turns up. Does that sound like a plan?”

Trevor nodded. “I guess so.”

Duckworth smiled. “Good. That’s what we’re going to do.”

He gave his son a hug, then gave Maureen a kiss on the cheek as he headed for the door.

Duckworth phoned Trevor ninety minutes later.

“You got any news?” he asked his son.

“Nothing. I’m at her place. No sign of her car. You?”

Duckworth hesitated. “Carol Beakman didn’t show up for work today. And she didn’t call in sick.”