BooksBarbecue
Back Whistle
Chapters (73)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Part IAnnie
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Part IIHarry
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Part IIIAnnie
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Part IVHarry
  40. Thirty-Three
  41. Thirty-Four
  42. Thirty-Five
  43. Thirty-Six
  44. Thirty-Seven
  45. Thirty-Eight
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. Forty
  48. Forty-One
  49. Forty-Two
  50. Forty-Three
  51. Forty-Four
  52. Forty-Five
  53. Forty-Six
  54. Forty-Seven
  55. Forty-Eight
  56. Part VAnnie
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. Fifty-Two
  61. Fifty-Three
  62. Fifty-Four
  63. Fifty-Five
  64. Fifty-Six
  65. Fifty-Seven
  66. Fifty-Eight
  67. Fifty-Nine
  68. Sixty
  69. Sixty-One
  70. Acknowledgments
  71. About the Author
  72. Also by Linwood Barclay
  73. About the Publisher

Harry was thinking about that now, sitting at the diner counter in a fresh jacket. Had he done all he could? Maybe, if he hadn’t had to wait for Mrs. Dorfman to get down off that TV tower, if he’d gotten up there ten seconds sooner, he might—

“Any sign of our friend?”

Harry was shaken out of his dark reverie. He looked up from his notebook to see Jenny filling his porcelain mug with coffee.

“Say again?”

“Gavin,” Jenny said. “Found him yet?”

Harry shook his head regretfully. “No.”

Jenny leaned in close so that no one else would be able to hear what she had to say. Harry could smell bacon in her hair.

“People are on edge, Harry. Don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but everyone’s kinda freaking out.”

“Say it ain’t so,” Harry whispered back. “Suggestions?”

“Harry, my area of expertise is putting enough bacon and eggs and hash browns into people so that one day they clutch their chest and drop dead of a heart attack but they’re still smiling when they go because we serve the best breakfast within fifty miles. It is not trying to figure out why everyone in Lucknow is losing their shit. That’s your job.”

“I’m workin’ on it.”

“Workin’ on it, he says,” Jenny said dismissively, and went off to deal with another customer.

Harry went back to studying his notebook. He’d written down something Delbert’s mother, June, said as his body was being loaded into the ambulance.

“He didn’t even smoke,” she told the chief.

Thirty-Six

Back when Edwin Nabler opened his very first shop—where was it, now? Cleveland? or was it Scranton?—there was a thrill surrounding the first customer of the day. Who would it be? A serious shopper? A browser? (There weren’t many of those. Nabler had a gift when it came to salesmanship. They might not buy on the first visit, but they always came back.)

But he had to admit, that thrill was gone.

It was still a pleasure to welcome the first person to open the shop door. He still had the strength for a “How are you today?” or a “What fine weather we’re having, wouldn’t you say?” or “Is there anything special you’re looking for?” But that charge he used to get at the start of his business day had dropped to a lower voltage.

Still, he managed a smile for the woman who had stepped into Choo-Choo’s Trains on this sunny morning. When he emerged from the back room, he closed the door quickly so as to muffle the sound of those multiple trains chugging their way around his layout.

He walked up to the cash register and flashed the woman a smile as she looked his way.

“What fine weather we’re having, wouldn’t you say?” he asked. As good an opener as any from his repertoire.