A Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay
CLAIRE: really pissed at u. unfriended you on FB
DENNIS: i know. will expln evrytng when i c u
CLAIRE: better
DENNIS: i will. nvr wantd to leve like tht felt like a shit
CLAIRE: u r a shit
DENNIS: told you will expln. just hv to c u
CLAIRE: things shtty here
DENNIS: y
CLAIRE: stupid cops watching me all time mad at my dad trying to scare us dad still in pissing match with cheef
DENNIS: no
CLAIRE: ?
DENNIS: maybe not b cause of dad
CLAIRE: wtf
DENNIS: looking 4 me
CLAIRE: cops looking 4 u?
DENNIS: yeah
CLAIRE: y
DENNIS: cant say now y i ran off sudden. couldnt expln
CLAIRE: what u do?
DENNIS: nothin
CLAIRE: so y?
DENNIS: cant say now. have to c u. have to figure out what to do
CLAIRE: ok. so then com see me
DENNIS: not that simple
CLAIRE: not getting this
DENNIS: think cops watching u has nothing 2 do with your dad
CLAIRE: huh?
DENNIS: cops watching you bcause they think you’ll lead them to me
CLAIRE: no way
DENNIS: yeah so we can meet but you have to shake cops
CLAIRE: wtf did u do
DENNIS: nothin
CLAIRE: so cops following me to get to you bcause u did nothing
DENNIS: told u will explan l8r
CLAIRE: have to get back 2 u
There was a time gap indicated in the message stream. The following day the conversation resumed.
CLAIRE: where r u
DENNIS: not at home.
CLAIRE: figured that where are u now
DENNIS: remember jeremy’s cottage canoga springs
CLAIRE: on the lake?
DENNIS: yeah. it’s safe here
CLAIRE: safe from what
DENNIS: pls, will tell u when i c u, have you figured out way 2 get away from cops?
CLAIRE: hanna helping me have something worked out
DENNIS: what plan
CLAIRE: you still have car
DENNIS: yes
CLAIRE: will phone u when its the day
DENNIS: k
CLAIRE: park at back of iggy’s where no one can see you at 10
DENNIS: k. miss you. luv u so much
CLAIRE: luv u 2
Another time gap of a few hours. Then:
CLAIRE: u there?
DENNIS: here
CLAIRE: k. b there soon. at patchetts waiting for ride. sean coming hanna in position
DENNIS: k
CLAIRE: hungry?
DENNIS: lol. kinda
CLAIRE: wont have time to get anytng at igg
DENNIS: once we get on road
CLAIRE: k. i just wnt to eat you up
DENNIS: oh yeah
CLAIRE: shit
DENNIS: ?
CLAIRE: sean got pulled over.
DENNIS: what happen
CLAIRE: dont know black truck watching me
DENNIS: cant pick u up there not safe
CLAIRE: shit
DENNIS: hitch it
CLAIRE: looking for ride, b there soon i hope
DENNIS: k. luv u.
I said to Donna: “Laptop.”
She grabbed it off the kitchen table and set it in front of me. I went to Google maps and entered “Canoga Springs.”
“It’s in the Finger Lakes area,” I said. “Yeah, here we go. On the west side of Cayuga Lake. Couple hours’ drive, maybe. Not all that far from where Dennis’ dad lives. Good place to hide out.”
“You think they’re still there?” Donna asked.
“I’d bet yes.”
I went to Facebook, back to Claire Sanders’ page, entered the name “Jeremy” to see if she had a friend by that name. I found a Jeremy Finder, who lived in Rochester. Then I went to the online phone directory to see if there might be a Finder listed in the Cayuga Lake area, and found an M FINDER on North Parker Road. I went back to the map page and found the road.
“Ta-da,” I said, pointing to the screen.
I got out my cell and placed a call.
“Didn’t we just talk?” Augie said.
“Why are you looking for Dennis Mullavey?”
“Who?”
“Dennis Mullavey.”
“I have no idea who that is,” he said gruffly.
“You sent one of your people almost all the way to Rochester to try and find him.”
“I’m drawing a blank here, Cal.”
I was about to tell him what I’d found in my car, taped to the frame beneath the rear seat, but then held my tongue. He seemed to be playing straight with me lately. He’d gotten me out of a tight fix when I’d been in that interrogation room. He’d brought me up to speed on Quinn.
But the Griffon police were looking for Dennis Mullavey. And those text messages between Claire and Dennis seemed to confirm that they were following her in hopes that she would lead them to him.
Augie knew I was looking for Claire. Why not slap a GPS on my car and let me do the work for his department? Maybe that was why he’d lied to save my ass when Haines and Brindle had brought me in for threatening Russell Tapscott. Augie needed me out in the field.
“You still there?” Augie snapped.
“Yeah.”
“Was there something else?”
“Why’d you really lie to get me out of that mess, Augie?”
“What?”
“Because I’m family? Or did you need me to do your work for you?”
“By God, you’re a horse’s ass.”
Augie hung up.
When he and I had talked earlier, and he’d told me Quinn denied telling Brindle and Haines that the chief wanted my car towed in, I’d brilliantly deduced that someone had to be lying. I’d meant Quinn, or Brindle or Haines.
I’d left out someone.
“You didn’t tell my brother about that GPS thing,” Donna said.
“No,” I said. “Slipped my mind.”
FIFTY-THREE
I decided against leaving right then and there for Canoga Springs, although I contemplated it. I’d be getting there after midnight, and I didn’t want to scare Dennis Mullavey and Claire Sanders to death. I just wanted to find them. Also, I didn’t have an exact address on North Parker Road for the cottage, so I’d need daylight to look for Dennis’ old Volvo station wagon.
Even though I set my alarm for five, I was waking up every half hour through the night to look at the clock radio to see what time it was. At four thirty I decided to just get up. I tried not to disturb Donna, but she was already awake.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You can turn on a light.”
“No, no, go back to sleep. You can get in another couple of hours before you have to get up for work.”
“It’s Saturday, Sherlock.”
Still, I left the bedroom lights off, and turned on the one in the bathroom only after I had closed the door. I showered and shaved. When I came back out, turning off the light first and figuring I could hunt up what I needed from the dresser in the dark, I realized Donna was not there. The smell of coffee wafted up from the kitchen.
I got dressed and went downstairs. Donna was in her blue bathrobe, sitting at the kitchen table, her index finger looped into the handle of a mug. There was a pencil in her other hand, and a sketch in front of her.
“It’s cold,” I said. “The furnace not cutting in?”
“It’s something with the thermostat. If you jiggle it, it comes on. I’m gonna have to call somebody. T
“I was just going to go and grab—”
“Eat some toast.” She got up, poured another cup of coffee and handed it to me, then took some strawberry jam out of the fridge and a jar of peanut butter from the cupboard. “We have a vast array of choices.”
When I shifted over to see what she had been drawing, she cut in front of me and tucked the picture into a folder.
“What?” I said.
“I don’t want you to see that one,” she said. “Not till it’s finished.” Her eyes glistened. “I think this might be the one.”
I took that comment a couple of ways. Maybe this was turning into the best drawing of Scott she’d ever done. Or, if that was the case, this was the sketch that would allow her to move forward. To the next step, whatever that step might actually be.
I backed off. “Okay,” I said.
Once the toast had popped, I slathered jam on one slice and peanut butter on the other. I washed it down with the coffee.
“Something that’s always troubled me,” Donna said, letting the half sentence just hang there.
“What?” I asked.
“We loved him,” she said. “We loved him unreservedly.”
“Of course we did.”
“But I don’t know if . . . I don’t know if he was lovable,” she said softly. “To others. He didn’t have a lot of friends.”
“Donna.”
“He was always . . . you know what he was like. He had a bit of the tattletale in him.”
“I know,” I said, and forced a smile. “Maybe he was just trying to pull people up to his standards.”
Her face fell. “What standards were those?” She shook her head. “He destroyed himself.”
I looked at her across the table from me, unsure what to say or what to do. Two steps forward, one step back. Sometimes you just run out of gas.
“I need to go,” I said.
* * *
I opened the garage, even though my car was already in the driveway. I fished out the still-active GPS device from under the front seat and walked it into the garage, setting it on a shelf where I kept gardening equipment. Whoever was minding this thing, from whatever location, if they could detect that small a movement, they’d figure I’d just moved the Honda into the garage.
While I left the GPS behind, I didn’t set off without my Glock. For the drive, I put it in the glove box.
When I got to the other side of Buffalo, the sun was coming up, nearly blinding me as I drove due east. I flipped the visor down and slipped on my shades to keep from squinting. One of those interstate highway service centers served as a pit stop for me. Got back in the car with another coffee and a blueberry muffin.
Once I’d passed the last of the exits for Rochester, I kept my eye out for the sign for Interchange 41, Waterloo-Clyde. I got off, paid the toll, then went south on 414, taking me past the Seneca Meadows Wetlands Preserve. I stayed on 414 as it bore east into Seneca Falls, then followed it south of town, past the Finger Lakes Regional Airport. When I hit Canoga Street I took it east to 89 through farmland. Finally, I found my way down a narrow road to the shore of Cayuga Lake and North Parker Road.
Cayuga was one of the north-south Finger Lakes, a popular place for people across New York State to buy summer properties. Some of the cottages appeared to date back decades, while others weren’t cottages at all, but proper homes, no doubt built to replace cabins that were no longer worth fixing up.
I traveled slowly down the lane. In a lot of the driveways, there were no cars at all. The summer season was over. Some of the cottages had been boarded up and wouldn’t be opened until spring.
I drove to the end of the road without seeing the Volvo wagon. I turned around, made the trip back just as slowly, in case I’d missed something. The road was littered with leaves, but there were still quite a few clinging to the trees. I got back to where I’d turned onto North Parker, again without seeing the car.
It was possible Claire and Dennis had been here but had now moved to another location. I sat there in the car, the engine idling, wondering if I’d wasted my time coming out here. I decided to do one more drive to the end and back.
It was on the way down, passing one of the cottages where there appeared to be little life, and no car parked outside, that I noticed the smoke.
A thin gray wisp of it, drifting up from the chimney.
I stopped the car, backed up thirty yards, and turned in. The driveway amounted to two ruts with grass growing in the center. I could hear the blades brushing along the underside of the car as I drove down between the trees. The cottage was a simple rectangular box, one story, painted dark brown. Beyond it was a separate building at the edge of the water that looked like a place to store a boat, but the big doors on this side suggested a car could just as easily fit inside.
I parked, killed the engine, opened the glove box and took out my Glock. Once I was out of the car, I slipped it into the holster on my belt and pulled my jacket over it.
The cottage was still. I didn’t think my car had made a lot of noise coming in, and it was possible that whoever was inside was still sleeping. I decided to walk down to the outbuilding first.
There were two windows set high on the door, and I peered inside.
The Volvo was there. Tucked in the way it was, with the door closed, they weren’t going to be making any fast getaways. A few steps away from the garage was a wooden dock and, tied to it, an aluminum boat—a fourteen-footer, I guessed, with a small Evinrude outboard motor bolted to the transom.
I walked over to the cottage, stepped up onto a deck that faced the lake and rapped my knuckles on one of the sliding glass doors. There were no curtains drawn across them, so I made my hand into a visor and peered inside. Looked like one big room that was a kitchen and living area with a large television, an older, non-flat screen that looked like it weighed five hundred pounds. There were three doors facing onto the room, probably two bedrooms and a bathroom. What looked like one of the bedroom doors was open. There were dirty dishes in the sink, a pizza box on the dining table.
At one end of the main room sat a small stack of firewood, about a foot away from a wood-burning stove from which a black pipe snaked its way up and out through the roof.
I rapped again, a little louder this time, then heard a rustling in the leaves behind me. I whirled around in time to see a young black man, dressed only in blue boxers and a pair of sneakers, leap up the three steps to the deck and charge me.
I’d been caught off guard the night before, but this time I was ready. He came at me with his right fist, but before he could connect I had my left arm up to block the blow and simultaneously drove forward with my right, catching him just below the ribs. I pulled the punch some before it connected. I didn’t want to hurt him that bad.
He doubled over and stumbled back a couple of steps, but he wasn’t done with me. He raised his head and got ready to attack again, but by this time he was looking down the barrel of my Glock.
“Whoa,” I said, my arm locked into position. The man froze.
When I heard the glass door behind me start to slide, I took a few steps to one side so I could keep my eye on the man and still see whoever was at the door.
It was Claire, dressed in a pair of panties and a T-shirt.
“It’s okay, Dennis,” she said. “It’s Mr. Weaver.”
Dennis Mullavey looked from Claire to me and back to Claire. I slowly lowered the Glock.
“You got coffee?” I asked.
FIFTY-FOUR
The woman is awakened from a sound sleep. She looks at the clock, sees that it is five forty-five a.m. She grabs the phone next to her bed.
“Hello?”
“He thought he could outsmart me,” her son says.
“What are you talking about?”
“He found one of them. But he didn’t find the other.”
She throws back the covers and sits up. “What?”
“He found the one I put under the backseat. But he didn’t find the one I put inside the headrest.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m on the road. I think he’s figured out something. He took off half an hour ago. I’ve got a good feeling.”
The woman allows herself nothing more than cautious optimism. Her son’s successes are often followed by catastrophic lapses in judgment. Just the other night, he tells her this is the night Claire is going to meet with the boy, but before the night is over he’s been fooled. He loses his temper under the bridge, trying to get the other girl to tell him where Claire has gone. And that software he downloaded to Claire’s phone was supposed to allow him to see texts, and track her position, but all it did was let him hear her phone calls.
But she is willing to concede that the second GPS tracker in Weaver’s car was a shrewd move.
“Where do you think he’s going?” the woman asks.
“No idea. But wherever it is, I can find him. He’ll never see me in his rearview mirror.”
“You know that when and if he finds them, it’ll be three who know. If we could have just found Dennis, and dealt with him . . . But he’ll have told the girl, and they’ll tell Weaver.”
“I know,” he says.
“You have to let me know. The minute it’s done.”
“I’ll let you know. I will. Don’t worry, Mom. It’s going to be okay.”
But she’s still going ahead with her backup plan. She’s going to start moving the boxes to just outside the locked door.
FIFTY-FIVE
“Why don’t you two put some clothes on?” I said to Claire and Dennis. “I’ll get the coffee going.”
The two of them went back into the bedroom. There wasn’t a lot to do for the coffee. All they had was a jar of instant. So I plugged in the kettle, cleaned three mugs that had been sitting in some gray water in the sink, and looked in the fridge—a hulking thing that had to be from the 1950s—for cream. I found milk.
I spooned some instant into each of the cups. When they reappeared, I poured in the water and stirred. Dennis Mullavey looked presentable in jeans and a black tee, but Claire, who was similarly dressed except her tee was blue, had hair sticking out all over the place, like she’d just walked through some briar bushes to get here. She had a small black notebook clutched in her left hand, but what really caught my eye was the cut. The one that was missing from Hanna’s hand when she got into my car. It was healing nicely.