ONCE Barry Duckworth was behind the wheel, he got out his phone. Cal Weaver was already in his list of contacts. He brought up the number and tapped it. The phone rang eight times before going to voicemail.

“Cal, it’s Barry,” Duckworth said. “I’ve just been at the Plimpton house and know Jeremy Pilford is in your care, which is a good thing, but there’s something you need to know. Despite all the various threats made against the kid, I think there’s one very credible one. A guy named Cory Calder. He could be armed. The guy’s a whackjob, Cal, and you need to take this one seriously. I don’t have any reason to believe he knows where you are—Ms. Plimpton filled me in, by the way—but you need to be on guard just the same. Call when you get this, and in the meantime, I’ll send you a picture of this guy in case you should happen to run into him. Take it easy.”

As he drove away from the Plimpton house, Duckworth realized he was only a mile from Brian Gaffney’s parents’ place. He wanted to see how Brian was doing. The young man might have been released from hospital and gone to stay with his family for a while, which would give Duckworth a chance to ask him whether the name Cory Calder was familiar to him. He had his doubts that it would, but it was still worth posing the question.

As he pulled up in front of the Gaffneys’ house, his gaze went to the opposite side of the street. A rental cube van was backed up to the open garage of Eleanor Beecham’s place. The front door was propped open with a stick.

A short, heavyset guy with curly hair who Duckworth did not recognize came out holding a chair from a kitchen dinette set. He put it in the back of the van, and as he re-emerged, Harvey Spratt, the man Duckworth had spoken to the previous day, exchanged a few words with him.

Maybe there was time for another quick chat with the folks looking after Mrs. Beecham. Norma, in particular. Duckworth had what he would call a lot of balls in the air right now—a tattooed man, a murder, a missing woman, an Internet target—so he didn’t really have time for this, but since he was here, he decided to follow up on what had been bothering him since his first visit.

He got out of the car and approached the house. Harvey spotted him and said, “Back again?”

Duckworth nodded amiably. “That I am.”

“We’re kind of busy at the moment,” Harvey said as the man helping him stopped to see who he was talking to.

“Just like to talk to Norma a minute,” Duckworth said.

“Well, she’s pretty busy too.”

Duckworth stood there. “I’ll wait while you get her.”