A Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay Page B

been dusk when I’d arrived at the Rodomskis’, but by the time I got to the Skillings’ night had descended completely. I drove slowly down the street, looking for numbers, marveling at how many people don’t make them easy to spot. If they didn’t want to do it for the fire department, you’d think they’d at least do it for the pizza delivery guy.
    The house was even numbered, so it had to be on the left, and I figured I was only a couple of doors away when I saw a car’s headlights come on in a driveway just ahead. It had been backed in, so the lights intercepted my path. I glanced over as I passed by, blinded briefly. Brass numbers were affixed to a large decorative stone set by the curb. This was the place.
    It wasn’t a car after all, but a pickup. A black Ford Ranger. Once I had the headlight glare out of my eyes, I was able to spot a young man in a ball cap behind the wheel.
    I pulled over to the opposite curb as the truck roared onto the street, accelerating so quickly it fishtailed, and tore off in the direction I’d come from. I executed a fast three-point turn and hit the gas. The pickup had disappeared beyond the bend, so I thought it was unlikely he’d noticed me turning around to come after him.
    A left turn, then a right, and we were on Danbury. I had a hunch where he might be going.
    Four minutes later, it proved right. The Ranger crossed the street and wheeled into the parking lot behind Patchett’s. I pulled over to the shoulder so I could get a look at him as he got out of the truck and walked briskly into the bar. While he wasn’t running, there was a sense of urgency in his stride, and he moved like an athlete. He was six feet, hundred and eighty pounds, with dirty blond hair falling out from beneath a cap branded with two broad horizontal stripes across the front. A Bills cap. He wouldn’t be the only one in Patchett’s wearing one of those.
    Once he’d disappeared inside, I put the Honda in park, leaving it behind a couple of Harley-Davidsons with raised handlebars, crossed the street and entered the bar. Patchett’s was like a thousand other bars. Dim lighting, loud music, railings and chairs and tables made of heavy oak, the smell of beer and sweat and human longing hanging in the air. There were about a hundred people in here, some standing at the bar, others at the tables working on ribs and wings and potato skins along with their pitchers of beer, about a dozen hanging out around the pool table.
    I wasn’t the oldest guy in the room, but the crowd was mostly made up of men and women in their twenties. And, knowing Patchett’s as I did, probably several in their late teens. They were easy to spot, and not just because they looked younger. They were the ones trying the hardest to look cool while drinking. Holding the necks of their beer bottles between their index and middle fingers, like they’d been drinking this way their whole lives.
    I scanned the room for Skilling, spotted him talking to a man at the bar. With the speakers blaring the 1969 hit “Proud Mary” by Creedence Clearwater Revival—there couldn’t have been a person here who was alive when that came out, and even I’d only just made it—I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I’m no lip reader, so I sidled up to the bar, behind him, caught the bartender’s attention and ordered a Corona, all the while trying to hear what the kid was saying.
    It wasn’t that hard, once I got close, considering everyone had to shout to be heard over the music. The man Sean was talking to yelled, “Haven’t seen her, man. When’d you last talk to her?”
    “Saw her last night!” he shouted.
    “She not answering her cell?”
    He shook his head. “Look, if you see her, tell her to call me, okay?”
    “Yeah, no problem!”
    Sean Skilling moved away from the bar and crossed the room to talk to someone standing in a group of three by the pool table, where a couple of overweight bearded men in black leather jackets, who