Parting Shot

Five Cal

Ms. Plimpton led me out of the dining room, through a kitchen that was bigger than my entire apartment, and out to a screened-in porch that overlooked an expansive backyard with a working fountain. The porch was decked out with white wicker furniture decorated with plump flowered cushions. Four of the chairs were occupied.

I’d been given the impression I’d be meeting just two people, not an entourage.

I figured the woman sitting in the closest chair was Ms. Plimpton’s niece, Gloria Pilford. Fortyish, decked out in white slacks, a coral-colored top and high-heeled sandals. Her blonde hair seemed to be inflated, making her head look too big for her slender body. She sprang to her feet when Ms. Plimpton and I entered the room, and those heels allowed her to look me right in the eye. When she smiled, her face wrinkled like crêpe paper, as if the muscles used to convey happiness might end up tearing her face apart.

She extended a hand and I took it.

“This is wonderful,” she said. “I’m so pleased you’re going to help us.”

Before I could say anything, Ms. Plimpton raised a hand of caution. “He’s agreed to meet you, Gloria. Nothing more than that, for now.”

The smile retracted immediately, and Gloria struggled to restore it. She turned to the three people — all male — who were still seated.

“Mr. Weaver, this is my good friend, and partner, Bob Butler.”

The first man stood. Just over six feet, silver-haired, barrel-chested and strong-jawed, blue eyes. Pushing fifty, or maybe he’d recently pushed past it. Tailored slacks, open-collared white dress shirt, plaid sport jacket. He put out a hand too. The grip was firm.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Madeline has had good things to say about you.”

“And this,” Gloria Pilford said, as the second man stood, “is Grant Finch.”

He was the only one in a suit, and I was betting the Rolex on his wrist was the only one in the room. He’d be the one who owned that Beemer in the driveway. He was slighter shorter than Bob Butler, but his grip was just as firm when we shook hands.

“I’ve also heard good things,” he said, giving me a smile worthy of a game-show letter-turner. Those perfect teeth probably cost as much as his car. “I expect you already know why I’m here. I acted on Jeremy’s behalf during the trial.”

“Most famous lawyer in the country,” I said.

He waved a hand dismissively. “Or infamous, depending on one’s point of view. That’ll last a week or two, then I’ll be forgotten until HBO decides to make this all into a miniseries twenty years from now.”

The way he said it suggested he was counting on it.

Gloria moved the two men aside so I could view the young man slouching in the wicker chair at the end of the porch. Extending her arm in a kind of ta da! gesture, she said, “And last but not least, my son, Jeremy.”

The young man had slid so far down the chair I was worried he might hit the floor. He had the rigidity of boneless chicken. His head was inches from where the cushions met, his eyes focused on the phone he held firmly in his lap in both hands. His thumbs were moving rapidly.

His great-aunt, Ms. Plimpton, had said he was eighteen, but he could have passed for twenty or twenty-one. Short black hair, pasty complexion, as though he’d spent more time looking at video screens than running bases. It was hard to tell how tall he was, given his slithered state, but under six feet.

Without looking away from his phone, he said, “Hey.”

“Jeremy, for God’s sake, shake the man’s hand,” his mother said, like I was a puppy she wanted him to pet.

“It’s okay,” I said, raising a palm. “Nice to meet you, Jeremy.”

Gloria smiled awkwardly at me. “Please excuse him. He’s tired, and he’s been under a great deal of stress.”

“We all have,” Bob Butler said.

Gloria had referred to Bob as her friend and partner. He wasn’t the boy’s father. That much seemed clear.

“Of course,” I said.

“Jeremy,” Gloria said, her voice struggling to stay upbeat, “can I get you anything?”

He grunted.

She turned to me for another chance at hospitality. “How about you, Mr. Weaver? A drink?”

“I’m good,” I said. “Your aunt served tea.”

She sighed and said quietly, “I could use something stronger. Why don’t we move this conversation to the kitchen.”

Grant Finch put a friendly hand atop my shoulder as we — all of us except Jeremy — left the sunroom. “We’ve all been through a lot, but at least we’re coming out the other side of the nightmare,” he said.

Seconds later we were standing around the kitchen island while Gloria opened the oversized stainless-steel refrigerator and took out a bottle of wine.

“Anyone?” she asked.

There were no takers.

I said, “Maybe you could tell me about the harassment you’ve been getting.”

“It hasn’t just been Jeremy,” Gloria said over the pop of the cork. The bottle was already half empty. “I’ve been getting my fair share too. People are saying unbelievable things about me on the Internet. That I’m the worst mother in the world.” Another sigh. “Maybe it’s true.”

“It certainly isn’t,” said Bob. “Gloria loves Jeremy more than anything in the world. She’s a wonderful mother. I’ve seen that first hand.”

Ms. Plimpton was stone-faced. She turned away and went to the dining room to bring in the teapot and cups.

I looked at Bob. “You and Ms. Pilford...” I let the sentence dangle.

Gloria moved in close to Bob and slipped her arm into his, then displayed her hand so I wouldn’t miss the rock on her finger. “Bob and I are engaged. The one bright spot in my life these days.” She grimaced. “No, I take that back. Jeremy not going to jail, that was a wonderful thing.”

Bob smiled uncomfortably. “Gloria just needs to sort some things out before we can get married. But we’ve been together a few years now.”

Gloria nodded. “Once I’m finally free of Jack, we can move forward. That’s my ex.” She rolled her eyes. “Just waiting for the divorce to go through. Bob’s been so patient. He’s been so good to me.”

And then she dug her teeth into her lower lip.

“Well,” I said. “That’s great.”

“And my other hero is this man right here,” she said, indicating Grant Finch. “If it weren’t for him, my boy’d be in jail right now.” She gave Bob’s arm a squeeze. “I can thank you for Grant.”

Bob said, “Well, me and Galen.”

At the mention of that name, Gloria slipped her arm out of Bob’s and went back to find a glass for her wine.

Bob continued, “It was Galen who put me on to Grant. When Jeremy had his troubles, Galen immediately thought of Grant and it was a terrific recommendation.”

“Galen?” I said.

Bob nodded at my puzzlement. “Sorry. Galen Broadhurst. My business associate. I’m in real estate, land development, that kind of thing.”

“Is he here?” I asked.

“He actually said he might be coming up later today.”

“We just couldn’t have done it without you, Grant,” Gloria said to Finch, pouring wine into a long-stemmed glass. Her eyes narrowed. “Even if you did make me look like a fool in the process.”

It was the first thing she’d said that sounded like it was straight from the heart.

“Well,” Grant said, “we all wanted the same thing. To keep Jeremy out of jail. He didn’t deserve that fate.”

“He certainly didn’t,” Gloria said evenly.

“What about Jeremy’s father?” I asked. “Jack, you said?”

Gloria sipped — maybe gulped would be a better word — her first mouthful from the glass. “We split up three years ago.” She shook her head. “He’s not a tenth the businessman Bob is.” A pause. “Not that that had anything to do with our breaking up.”

“It’s all very complicated,” Bob said. He forced a grin. “Isn’t everything?”

“No kidding,” Gloria said.

“What about during the trial?” I asked. “Was Jack involved?”

“Involved how?” Gloria asked.

I shrugged. “Financially? Moral support?”

“Yeah, right,” Gloria said with another eye roll.

“Maybe if you hadn’t shut him out, he’d have tried harder to be there for Jeremy,” Bob Butler said. He looked at me. “I paid most of Jeremy’s legal costs. Grant Finch doesn’t come cheap.”

Finch tried to look embarrassed, but he couldn’t pull it off.

Bob continued. “Galen helped with Grant’s bill too. He felt something of an obligation. I mean, no offense, Gloria, but there was no way you could have afforded it.”

“No,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without you.” It was hard to hear the gratitude in the comment.

Bob threw up his hands. “Well, anyway, I’m sure you’re not interested in all this background, Mr. Weaver. I’m guessing you’d like to know more about the matter at hand.”

“Tell me about that.”

“Gloria,” he said, “show him your phone.”

She went for her purse, which was hanging on one of the chairs. She rooted around, brought out an iPhone, and started tapping away.

“Okay,” she said, handing the phone to me. “That’s my Facebook page. Look at some of the things people have posted on my timeline. There were a whole bunch more but I deleted them. These have come in since breakfast.”

I looked at the screen. A sampling:

You’re the big baby not your son.

Worst mother in the United States of Amerika.

Kids have to know there is consequences. I feel sorry for your stupid kid having a mother like you. Your own mother must have screwed up big time to make you such an asshole.

And a simple, straightforward expression of opinion: Eat shit.

Gloria, who was standing close enough that she was reading them along with me, pointed to that last one and said quietly, “Let me delete that right now. I don’t want Madeline to see it.”

“Don’t want me to see what?” Ms. Plimpton said, returning from the dining room with a tray of cups and milk and sugar.

“Nothing,” Gloria said. She deleted the comment. “Okay, keep going.”

I read a few more.

You’re kid should dye and so should you.

How do you sleep at night when your son is free but the girl he killed will be dead forever?

A bullet between the eyes would be too good for you.

Think you can hide from us? Wherever you go in America people will know. Everyone is watching you and your asshole kid.

The vitriol didn’t surprise me. What amazed me was the fact that people left their real names attached to such venom.

I put the phone down on the counter and said to Gloria, “Have you thought about shutting down your Facebook page? You’re just giving these people a way to get in touch with you.”

“I have to defend myself,” Gloria said. “I can’t let people get away with saying those things about me.”

“You’re giving them an outlet to say it,” I pointed out.

She closed her eyes briefly and sighed. Clearly she’d had to explain her position on this before.

“They’d be saying it anyway. This way, I know who it is and can respond.” A tear formed in the corner of her right eye. “They don’t understand. They have no idea.”

“How did these people become your friends in the first place?” I asked. “Don’t people have to ask, and then you accept?”

Grant Finch gave me a tired look. “We’ve talked about this.”

“I like to know who my enemies are,” Gloria said defiantly.

“It’s like you’ve opened the front door for them,” I said. “What about actual phone calls? Have you been threatened that way?”

She shook her head. “Bob insisted we change our numbers, unlist them. We were getting calls every hour of the day.”

Bob said, “There’s more than just the Facebook stuff. Madeline, have you got your laptop handy?”

Ms. Plimpton disappeared from the kitchen and seconds later reappeared carrying one of those super-thin Macs. Bob lifted up the lid, opened a browser, and made a few lightning-quick keystrokes.

“I can’t bear to look at this anymore,” Ms. Plimpton said. She went to the fridge, grabbed a can of Coke. “I’ll take this out to Jeremy.” She exited the kitchen.

Bob turned the Mac towards me, and I read the headline across the top of the page: “Teach the Big Baby a Lesson.” There was a graphic, what they called a GIF or something, of a whining infant that repeated every three or four seconds. Below that, people had commented about what they would like to do to Jeremy Pilford. Some recommended he be run over with a car, just as he’d done with his victim. Someone else called for beheading, ISIS style. Someone else liked the idea of hitting him with a car, but with a difference. They wanted him to live, as a cripple, so he could be reminded every day of what he’d done.

“This isn’t the only site like this,” Bob pointed out. “There’s one sort of like Anonymous. You know? The network who’ve exposed government secrets online, who’ve hacked websites? Except this site, they promote a more hands-on approach. None of this social-network shaming. They advocate actual violence. There’s a contest, did you know that? A ‘Spot the Big Baby’ contest on the site. People are invited to send in tips where Jeremy might be. The whole world’s looking for him. If he goes anywhere, someone tweets about it with a hashtag of #sawthebaby or #babyspot. Some yahoos are even offering cash rewards for whoever finds him, even more money for who finds him and does something to him. For all we know, there are hacker types out there trying to figure out how to track his every move.”

Something else on the page caught my eye. It was a reference to Promise Falls, but it had nothing to do with Jeremy. It was a photo of the man found responsible for the poisoned water catastrophe of a year ago. Incredibly, he’d become something of a folk hero in certain communities once it became known that his monstrous crime was intended as a lesson.

The people of Promise Falls had gained a reputation for not caring when no one came to the aid of a woman being murdered in the downtown park.

Now we had a new reputation. We were the national capital for retribution.

In fact, there’d been an incident in town three months ago involving someone named Pierce. Craig, or maybe it was Greg. Something like that. Anyway, he’d been acquitted of molesting a handicapped girl, but as much as admitted later that he’d done it. The courts could no longer touch him, so someone else gave it a try.

He became a meal for a pit bull.

But what had happened to him wasn’t my problem then, nor was it my problem now.

“I’ve seen enough,” I said. Bob shut the laptop.

“Will you help us?” Gloria asked, pointing to the closed computer. “You can see that the threats are for real. My boy’s a target. He’s not safe.” Her eyes were starting to well up.

“I can’t help you find out who’s making the threats,” I said. “I mean, they’re coming from all over the place, hundreds of them. Most of these people aren’t even worried about identifying themselves. But my understanding from what your aunt said is that’s not what you want, anyway.”

“We just want you to protect him.”

“I’m not a bodyguard. I made that clear.”

“Maybe give us some tips, then,” Grant Finch said. “Assess the security needs. Maybe, even just for a day or two, hang around.”

He gave Gloria a look that suggested she should stay put. Then he took me aside and said quietly, “It would give Gloria and Bob some comfort, some peace of mind. You’d be well compensated for your time. I came along today because I wanted to meet you, and I like what I see. You seem like a good man, and they could really use your help.”

Ms. Plimpton returned and took a seat. She looked tired. “I gave him his Coke,” she reported.

Finch broke free of me and said to everyone, “I must go. I’ve got a meeting back at the office in Albany in forty-five minutes and I think I can just make it.”

Bob shook his hand aggressively while Gloria leaned up against the kitchen counter and drank her wine. She nodded a farewell. Madeline Plimpton, with some effort, got back to her feet to say goodbye to the lawyer.

“Goodbye, Madeline,” Grant said. He took her hand in his and squeezed it as she allowed him to lean in and give her an air kiss on the side of her neck.

“Goodbye, Grant,” she said. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

Grant held onto her hand another second before letting go. There was some kind of history there.

As he departed, I caught Ms. Plimpton’s eye and said, “Could you direct me to the facilities?”

She pointed.

I already knew where the bathroom was. I’d seen it on our way to the porch. Visiting it wasn’t my true mission.

I stopped at the open doorway to the porch. Jeremy Pilford had put aside his phone. The can of Coke sat on a table in front of him.

He was staring out through the screen to the backyard.

Just staring.

Moments earlier, I’d thought he could pass for twenty or older, but now he looked no more than fourteen or fifteen.

Maybe that was what he really was. Emotionally.

He must have sensed I was standing there. He turned his head slowly and took me in. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought what I saw in his eyes was hopelessness. Maybe even fear.

I nodded, stepped back, and returned to the kitchen. The three of them had been talking quietly, but went silent and focused on me.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll help you.”