Parting Shot

Six

“What do you mean, she’s lost her marbles?” Barry Duckworth asked Monica Gaffney.

Looking at the house across the street, Brian Gaffney’s sister said, “Mrs. Beecham is really old and I don’t think she always knows what’s going on. Like, one time she left her sprinkler going for five days, most of the water hitting the driveway. We’ve had our ups and downs with her over the years, but it got a little better after her husband died, like, ten years ago, because he was a miserable bastard, pardon my French, although she’s no barrel of laughs. Why are you asking about Sean, anyway?”

“It’s a name that came up,” he told her.

The front door of the house opened and Brian Gaffney’s parents emerged.

“Monica, Brian’s in the hospital,” Constance said.

She tipped her head at Duckworth. “He told me.”

“Come on,” Albert said, his head down as he headed for the car.

Monica broke off from Duckworth without another word and got into the back seat as Albert took up position behind the wheel and Constance settled in beside him. Duckworth watched them drive away up the street.

There was an old blue minivan parked in the driveway of the Beecham house. It was a small one-story building nearly swallowed up by untended shrubs reaching toward the eaves. The roof shingles were curling up, and a couple of cracked windows were held together with duct tape. Duckworth crossed the street, walked past the van, and rang the bell.

It was not an old woman who answered, but a thin, bald man in his forties dressed in cutoff jeans and a dark green T-shirt. He eyed Duckworth through glasses held together with a piece of tape in the middle.

“Yeah?” he said. “You here about the bedroom set?”

Duckworth shook his head. “I’m looking for Mrs. Beecham.”

“What do you want?”

Duckworth dug out his ID again and held it long enough for the man to grasp what it was but not long enough to study it.

The man said, “Uh, there’s no trouble here. Everything is fine.”

“Are you Mrs. Beecham’s son?”

“Uh, no.”

“What’s your name, sir?”

“Harvey.”

“Harvey what?”

The man hesitated. “Don’t I have the right not to tell you my name?”

“I suppose you do. You’d also be exercising your right to get on my bad side from the get-go.”

“Harvey Spratt,” he said.

Duckworth smiled. “That your van, Harvey?”

“It’s my girlfriend’s. Norma’s.”

“Well, Mr. Spratt, is Mrs. Beecham home?”

“Did she call you?”

“Mr. Spratt, this is the last time I ask before I start to get annoyed. Is Mrs. Beecham home?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d like to speak with her.”

Harvey Spratt weighed his options, decided he had few, and opened the door wide enough to admit Duckworth. “She’s downstairs watching TV,” he said.

Duckworth took in the disarray as he entered the house. Cardboard boxes, piles of clothing, newspapers, paperback novels, tools, a plastic bag filled with more plastic bags, a box of souvenirs including half a dozen snow globes and an Empire State Building bank, and odd bits of furniture cluttered the living room so completely it wasn’t possible to reach the sofa or easy chairs. Even if you could, they were piled with so much stuff you couldn’t sit on them.

As Harvey headed for a door that led, presumably, to the basement, a woman came out of the kitchen. She was roughly the same age as Spratt, about twice his size, dirty blonde hair hanging in her eyes. Her T-shirt, done in the style of that early Barack Obama “HOPE” poster, featured an image of a man with the word TRUTH below it. It took Duckworth a moment to realize it was Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee turned whistleblower.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Man wants to talk to Eleanor,” Harvey said. “He’s with the police.”

“Police?” The alarm was instantaneous.

Duckworth gave her a wary smile. “Are you related to Mrs. Beecham?”

“Eleanor? No. I come in three times a week to look after her.”

“You’re a nurse?”

The woman shook her head. “Personal care worker. I tend to her. Take care of her, clean the house, make meals, give her a bath, that kind of thing.”

Duckworth cast his eye into the kitchen. The counter was littered with dirty dishes.

“What’s your name?”

“Norma.”

“Last name?” What was it with these people? Duckworth wondered.

“Lastman.”

“Well, Norma, it’s nice to meet you. Is Mr. Spratt here helping you with your duties?”

“Harvey’s my boyfriend,” she said. “And yeah, he’s just giving me a hand.”

“With the bedroom suite that you’re selling?”

She shot Harvey a look. “Actually, I’m not sure it’s for sale. I have to have another chat with Eleanor.”

“Which is exactly what I would like to have,” Duckworth said. He tipped his head toward the door. “Down here?”

Harvey nodded.

Duckworth opened the door himself and descended the stairs into a dimly lit wood-paneled recreation room that smelled of mold and urine. Brown shag carpeting from the time of the Reagan administration covered much of the floor. The walls were adorned with cheaply framed nature scenes that looked like paint-by-number pieces. An old black-and-white movie was playing on the TV. John Wayne was riding a horse.

Eleanor Beecham was sitting on a plaid recliner, legs extended under a pink chenille blanket. She looked to be in her late eighties. Her face was pale and wrinkled, and the few gray hairs still on her head stuck out in all directions. Tucked between her thigh and the edge of the chair was a box of tissues, a remote, a checkbook, a hairbrush, and a bag of mini Mars candy bars like one would give to kids at Halloween.

“Mrs. Beecham?” Duckworth said.

The woman’s head turned slowly. She focused her eyes on him and said, “Well, look who’s here.” There was chocolate stuck to one of her teeth.

“Have we met before?” he said.

“Don’t think so.”

“But you recognize me?”

“Nope.”

He smiled and showed her his ID. “I’m Detective Barry Duckworth, with the Promise Falls Police.” He sat down on a couch at right angles to the woman’s chair.

“Nice to meet ya. You like John Wayne?”

“Sure. He was one of the great movie stars of all time.”

“Whaddya mean, was? He’s dead?”

Duckworth hated to be the bearer of bad news. “I’m afraid so. For a long time, now.”

“Oh, that’s a shame.” She shook her head sadly. “Gone too soon.”

“It happens. I wonder if you’d mind turning down the TV so I could ask you a couple of questions.”

She hunted for the remote, pointed it to the set and muted it. “Whatcha want?”

“I wanted to ask you about your neighbors across the street.”

Eleanor Beecham furrowed her brow. “What about ’em?”

“Specifically, I wanted to ask you about Brian. Brian Gaffney?”

She grimaced. “That simpleton? What’s he gone and done now?”

“When’s the last time you saw him?”

She struggled to remember. “The other day, I saw his dad teaching him how to ride a bike. He caught onto it real fast.”

Duckworth nodded slowly. “Right. That was probably quite a few years ago, though, when he was very young.”

She studied him with glassy eyes, waiting for another question. At that moment Duckworth heard breathing behind him. He turned, spotted Norma Lastman huddling near the top of the stairs.

“This is a private conversation,” he told her. He waited until the woman had retreated, and closed the door, before continuing.

“What about when he started driving a car? Do you remember that? Was there an incident with your dog?”

“With Sean?” Her face brightened.

“Yes. With Sean.”

Mrs. Beecham’s face appeared to melt. “He was the nicest dog. Smart, too.”

“Really.”

“Oh, yeah. My husband could say to him, go find my slippers, and Sean would run up the stairs and fetch them. He was a good dog. Licked himself a lot. My husband used to say he envied his flexibility.”

“You remember what happened to Sean?”

“The dumb bastard squashed him,” she said.

“The dumb bastard being Brian.”

She pointed in the general direction of the house across the street. Even though she was in a windowless basement, she got it more or less right. “They’re a bunch of bastards, them Gaffneys.”

“You don’t get along?”

The old woman shrugged. “They’re not so bad lately, but he’s a dumbass and his wife’s a bitch.”

“Albert and Constance,” Duckworth said.

“And they got a slut daughter, too. Forget her name.”

“Monica,” he said.

“That’s it.” She glanced back at the TV. “I forgot he was dead. He would have made a great president. Better than Reagan.”

“You must have been very upset when Brian ran over your dog.”

“Yup. Got back at them right away.”

“What did you do?”

She smiled slyly. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“You might arrest me.”

“Why don’t you tell me anyway?” he said.

“If you arrest me, I’ll deny that I told you. Do we have a deal?”

“Sure.”

“I went over there late one night and slashed a few tires.” She smiled proudly, showing off teeth the color of caramel.

“Well,” Duckworth said. “Did the Gaffneys accuse you?”

She shook her head. “They never said nothin’ to me. They wouldn’t have been able to prove it, so what’s the point?”

“You might be right.” Duckworth leaned in a little closer. “How about more recently? Sometimes there are things that are hard to forgive, or forget, even after several years have gone by.”

“That’s for sure,” Mrs. Beecham said.

One thing Duckworth knew for sure was that this old woman couldn’t have abducted Brian Gaffney and held him captive for two days while she carved a message into his back. But that didn’t mean someone couldn’t have done it for her.

“Mrs. Beecham, do you have any children? Anyone else who might have been very angry with Brian about what happened to the dog?”

“Never had children.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Mr. Beecham — that’d be Lyall — was shootin’ blanks, if you get my drift.”

“I see. So there was no one else who’d have been deeply troubled by what happened to Sean.”

“Well, Sean wasn’t too fucking happy about it,” she said, and Duckworth got another look at those stained teeth as she grinned.

“Why Sean?” he asked. “It seems like an unusual name for a dog.”

“We named him after my brother.”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah. Sean Samuel Lastman, rest his soul. Kind of a dumb way to remember him, but what the hell. You do what you can.”

“What happened to your brother?”

“He died nearly thirty years ago. Fell off a roof he was shingling.”

Duckworth thought of the woman upstairs. “I just met Norma. Is there a family connection?”

Her eyes briefly sparkled. “Here’s something pretty amazing. Norma came to work for me a couple of years ago. And we get talking, and I was telling her about my brother, and turns out Sean was her daddy.”

“Norma’s your niece?”

Mrs. Beecham nodded. “Small world, right? She didn’t even know for years that he was her dad. Sean got some girl knocked up, never married her, and Norma was only about four years old when he died. Before Norma’s mom died, she told her who her real daddy was.”

“Amazing,” Duckworth said. “And what about Harvey?”

Mrs. Beecham’s nose wrinkled. “He’s her boyfriend. He doesn’t amount to much, but he helps out, too.” She patted the checkbook next to her thigh. “He’s getting the house all fixed up for me case I decide to put it on the market. The plumbing’s got to be redone and he found something wrong with the furnace. Whatcha asking me all these questions for anyway?”

“Brian ran into some trouble,” he said.

“I don’t doubt it. He always was kind of a simple kid. Not downright stupid, but kinda simple.” She looked back at the TV. “You about done? I’d like to see the end of this.”

“Sure,” Duckworth said. “Thank you for your time.”

He went quietly back up the stairs. When he opened the door, he found Harvey and Norma had been huddled close to it.

“Did you catch everything?” Duckworth asked them.

“I just wanted to be sure she’s okay,” Norma said, wringing her hands. “What were you asking her?”

“Just a few things.”

“She says a lot of crazy stuff,” Norma said.

“She’s pretty nuts,” Harvey added.

Duckworth studied the two of them. “Either of you know Brian Gaffney?” he asked.

“Never heard of him,” Harvey said.

“Nope,” said Norma.

Duckworth looked at her. “Your aunt’s lived here a long time. You never heard of the Gaffneys? They’re right across the street.”

Norma blinked. “Nope,” she said. “Never.”

“How about Sean?” he asked. “You know anyone by that name?”

Norma and Harvey both shook their heads.

“That’s funny,” Duckworth said.

“Why’s it funny?” the woman asked him.

“Because that was your father’s name, wasn’t it?” the detective said.

Her mouth made a perfect circle. “Oh!” she said. “Yes, that’s right. But I thought you meant someone we knew now.”

Duckworth studied the pair for several seconds, saying nothing.

Finally, he nodded and said, “You folks have a nice day.”

On the way to his car, he took a quick photo of the plate on the back bumper of the van.