Yune ignored this. He was staring at Holly, as if fascinated with her. "Are you thinking the stuff in the barn is a kind of residue from the change? We're having samples checked, but the results haven't come back yet."
"I don't know what I'm thinking," Holly said. "My research about El Cuco so far amounts to a few legends I read while I was flying down here, and they're not reliable. They were passed down orally, generation to generation, long before forensic science existed. I'm just saying that the police in Ohio should check the places in my photographs. They might not find anything . . . but I think they will. I hope they will. Traces, as Detective Anderson said."
"Are you done, Ms. Gibney?" Howie asked.
"Yes, I think so." She sat down. Ralph thought she looked exhausted, and why not? She'd had a busy few days. In addition to that, being crazy had to wear a person out.
Howie said, "Ladies and gentlemen, are there ideas on how we proceed from here? The floor is open for suggestions."
"The next step seems obvious," Ralph said. "This outsider might be here in FC--the testimony from my wife and Grace Maitland seems to suggest that--but somebody needs to go down to Texas and interview Claude Bolton, see what he knows. If anything. I nominate me."
Alec said, "I want to go with you."
"I think that's a trip I'd also like to make," Howie said. "Lieutenant Sablo?"
"I'd like to, but I have two cases in court. If I don't testify, a couple of very bad boys could walk. I'll call the ADA in Cap City, see if there's any chance of a postponement, but I'm not hopeful. It's not like I can tell him I'm on the trail of a shape-shifting Mexican monster."
Howie smiled. "I should think not. What about you, Ms. Gibney? Want to go a little further south? You'd continue to be compensated, of course."
"Yes, I'll go. Mr. Bolton may know things we need to find out. If, that is, we can ask the right questions."
Howie said, "What about you, Bill? Want to see this thing through?"
Samuels smiled thinly, shook his head, then stood up. "All this has been interesting, in a mad sort of way, but as far as I'm concerned, the case is closed. I'll make some calls to the police in Ohio, but that's where my participation ends. Mrs. Maitland, I'm sorry for your loss."
"You ought to be," Marcy said.
He winced at that, but pressed on. "Ms. Gibney, it's been fascinating. I appreciate your hard work and due diligence. You also make a surprisingly persuasive case for the fantastic, I say that without a trace of irony, but I'm going to go home, grab a beer out of the fridge, and start forgetting this whole thing."
They watched him gather up his briefcase and leave, the cowlick wagging at them like an admonitory finger as he went out the door.
When he was gone, Howie said he would make their travel arrangements. "I'll charter the King Air I sometimes use. The pilots will know the closest landing strip. I'll also arrange for a car. If it's just the four of us, a sedan or a small SUV should do."
"Leave a seat for me," Yune said. "Just in case I can wiggle out of court."
"Happy to."
Alec Pelley said, "Someone needs to reach out to Mr. Bolton tonight, and tell him to expect visitors."
Yune lifted a hand. "That much I can do."
"Make him understand no one is after him for doing something illegal," Howie said. "The last thing we want is for him to jackrabbit somewhere."
"Call me after you talk to him," Ralph said to Yune. "Even if it's late. I want to know how he reacts."
"So do I," Jeannie said.
"You should tell him something else," Holly said. "You should tell him to be careful. Because if I'm right about this, he's the next in line."
12
Full dark had come when Ralph and the others stepped out of Howie Gold's building. Howie himself was still upstairs, making arrangements, and his investigator was with him. Ralph wondered what they would talk about with everyone else gone.
"Ms. Gibney, where are you staying?" Jeannie asked.
"The Flint Luxury Motel. I reserved a room."
"Oh no, you can't," Jeannie said. "The only luxury there is on the sign out front. The place is a pit."
Holly looked disconcerted. "Well, there must be a Holiday Inn--"
"Stay with us," Ralph said, beating Jeannie to it and hoping it would earn him some points later on. God knew he could use them.
Holly hesitated. She didn't do well in the houses of other people. She didn't do well even in the one where she had grown up, when on her quarterly duty visits to her mother. She knew that in the home of these strangers she would lie awake long and wake early, hearing every unfamiliar creak of the walls and the floors, listening to the murmured voices of the Andersons and wondering if they were talking about her . . . which they almost certainly would be. Hoping that if she had to get up in the night to spend a penny, they wouldn't hear her. She needed her sleep. The meeting had been stressful enough, and the steady pushback of Detective Anderson's disbelief had been understandable but exhausting.
But, as Bill Hodges would have said. But.
Anderson's disbelief was the but. It was the reason she had to accept the invitation, and she did.
"Thank you, that's very kind, but I have to run an errand first. It won't take long. Give me your address, and my iPad will take me right to you."
"Is it anything I can help you with?" Ralph asked. "I'd be happy to--"
"No. Really. I'll be fine." She shook hands with Yune. "Come with us if you can, Lieutenant Sablo. I'm sure you want to."
He smiled. "I do, believe me, but it's like that poem says--I have promises to keep."
Marcy Maitland was standing by herself, holding her purse against her stomach and looking shell-shocked. Jeannie went to her without hesitation. Ralph watched with interest as Marcy initially drew back, as if in alarm, then allowed herself to be hugged. After a moment she even put her head on Jeannie Anderson's shoulder and hugged back. She looked like a tired child. When the two women drew apart, both of them were crying.
"I'm so sorry for your loss," Jeannie said.
"Thank you."
"If there's anything I can do for you or your girls, anything at all--"
"You can't, but he can." She turned her attention to Ralph, and although her eyes were still wet with tears, they were cold. Assessing. "This outsider, I want you to find him. Don't let him get away just because you don't believe in him. Can you do that?"
"I don't know," Ralph said, "but I'll try."
Marcy said no more, only took Yune Sablo's offered arm and let him lead her to her car.
13
Half a block down, parked in front of the long-abandoned Woolworth's, Jack sat in his truck, sipping from a flask and watching the group on the sidewalk. The only one he couldn't identify was a slender woman in the kind of suit a businesswoman might wear on a trip. Her hair was short, the graying bangs a little ragged, as if she had cut them herself. The case slung over her shoulder looked big enough to hold a shortwave radio. This woman watched as Sablo, the taco-bender state cop, squired Mrs. Maitland away. The stranger then walked to her car, which was too nondescript to be anything but an airport rental. Hoskins thought briefly of following her, but decided to stick with the Andersons. It had been Ralph who brought him here, after all, and wasn't there some saying about going home with the girl you took to the dance?
Besides, Anderson bore watching. Hoskins had never liked him, and since that snotty two-word evaluation a year ago (No opinion, he'd written . . . as if his shit didn't stink), Jack had detested him. He had been delighted when Anderson tripped over his dick with the Maitland arrest, and it didn't surprise him to discover the self-righteous sonofabitch was now meddling in things better left alone. A closed case, for instance.
Jack touched the back of his neck, winced, then started his truck. He supposed he could go home after he saw the Andersons inside, but he thought maybe he'd just park up the street and keep an eye on their house. See what happened. He had a Gatorade bottle he could piss in, and he might even be ab
le to sleep a little, if the steady hot throb from the back of his neck would allow that. It wouldn't be the first time he'd slept in this truck; he'd done it on several occasions since the day the old ball and chain had walked out.
Jack wasn't sure what came next, but he had a clear fix on the basic task: to stop the meddling. The meddling in exactly what he didn't know, only that it had something to do with the Peterson boy. And the barn in Canning Township. That was enough for now, and--sunburn aside, possible skin cancer aside--he was getting interested.
He felt that when the time came for the next step, he would be told.
14
With the help of her navigation app, Holly made a quick and easy drive to the Flint City Walmart. She loved Walmarts, the size of them, the anonymity of them. Shoppers didn't seem to look at other shoppers as they did in other stores; it was as if they were all in their own private capsules, buying clothes or video games or toilet paper in bulk. It wasn't even necessary to speak to a cashier, if you used the self-checkout. Which Holly always did. Her shopping was quick, because she knew exactly what she wanted. She went first to OFFICE SUPPLIES, then to MENS AND BOYS WEAR, finally to AUTOMOTIVE. She took her basket to the self-checkout and tucked the receipt into her wallet. These were business expenses, for which she expected to be reimbursed. If she lived, that was. She had an idea (one of Holly's famous intuitions, she heard Bill Hodges saying) that was more likely to happen if Ralph Anderson--so like Bill in some ways, so very different from him in others--could get past the divide in his mind.
She returned to her car and drove to the Anderson house. But before leaving the parking lot, she said a brief prayer. For all of them.
15
Ralph's cell phone rang just as he and Jeannie were entering the kitchen. It was Yune. He had gotten the Marysville number of Lovie Bolton from John Zellman, the owner of Gentlemen, Please, and had reached Claude with no trouble.
"What did you tell him?" Ralph asked.
"Pretty much what we decided on in Howie's office. That we wanted to interview him, because we're having doubts about Terry Maitland's guilt. Emphasized that we didn't think Bolton himself was guilty of anything, and that the people who'd be coming to see him were acting strictly as private citizens. He asked if you'd be one of them. I said you would. Hope that's okay with you. It seemed to be with him."
"That's fine." Jeannie had gone directly upstairs, and now he heard the start-up chime of the desktop computer they shared. "What else?"
"I said that if Maitland was framed, then Bolton might be at risk for the same treatment, especially since he was a man with a record."
"How did he react to that?"
"Okay. He didn't get defensive or anything. But then he said something interesting. Asked me if I was sure it really had been Terry Maitland he saw in the club the night the Peterson boy was murdered."
"He said that? Why?"
"Because Maitland acted like he'd never seen him before, and when Bolton asked how the baseball team was doing, Maitland passed it off with some kind of generality. No details, even though the team was in the playoffs. He also told me Maitland was wearing fancy sneakers. 'Like the ones the kids save up for so they can look like gangbangers,' he said. According to Bolton, he never saw Maitland in anything like that."
"Those were the sneakers we found in that barn."
"No way to prove it, but I'm sure you're right."
Upstairs, Ralph now heard the moaning, grinding sound of their old Hewlett-Packard printer coming to life, and wondered what the hell Jeannie was up to.
Yune said, "Remember the Gibney woman telling us about the hair they found in Maitland's father's room at the assisted living place? From one of the murdered girls?"
"Sure."
"What do you want to bet that if we go through Maitland's credit purchases, we'll find a record of him buying those sneakers? And a slip with a signature on it that matches Maitland's exactly?"
"I guess this hypothetical outsider could do that," Ralph said, "but only if he snitched one of Terry's credit cards."
"He wouldn't even need to do that. Remember, the Maitlands have lived in Flint City like forever. They've probably got charge accounts at half a dozen downtown stores. All this guy would have to do is walk into the sporting goods department, pick out those fancy kicks, and sign his name. Who'd question him? Everyone in town knows him. It's the same thing as the hair and the girls' underthings, don't you see? He takes their faces and does his dirt, but that isn't enough for him. He also weaves the rope that hangs them. Because he eats sadness. He eats sadness!"
Ralph paused, put a hand over his eyes, pressed his fingers to one temple and his thumb to the other.
"Ralph? Are you there?"
"Yes. But Yune . . . you're making leaps I'm not ready to make."
"I understand. I'm not a hundred per cent on board with this myself. But you need to at least keep the possibility in mind."
But it's not a possibility, Ralph thought. It's an impossibility.
He asked Yune if he had told Bolton to be careful.
Yune laughed. "I did. He laughed. Said there were three guns in the house, two rifles and a pistol, and that his mother is a better shot than he is, even with emphysema. Man, I wish I was going down there with you."
"Try to make it happen."
"I will."
As he ended the call, Jeannie came down with a thin sheaf of paper. "I've been researching Holly Gibney. Tell you what, for a soft-spoken lady with absolutely no clothes sense, she's been up to a lot."
As Ralph took the pages, headlights spilled up the driveway. Jeannie grabbed the pages back before he could do more than look at the newspaper headline on the first sheet: RETIRED COP, TWO OTHERS SAVE THOUSANDS AT MINGO AUDITORIUM CONCERT. He assumed Ms. Holly Gibney was one of the two others.
"Go help her in with her luggage," Jeannie said. "You can read these in bed."
16
Holly's luggage consisted of the shoulder-bag that held her laptop, a hold-all small enough to fit in an airplane's overhead compartment, and a plastic Walmart bag. She let Ralph take the hold-all, but insisted on keeping custody of the shoulder-bag and whatever she'd purchased at Wally World.
"You're very good to have me," she said to Jeannie.
"It's our pleasure. Can I call you Holly?"
"Yes, please. That would be good."
"Our spare room is at the end of the upstairs hall. The sheets are fresh, and it has its own bathroom. Just don't stumble over my sewing machine table if you have to use the facility in the middle of the night."
An unmistakable expression of relief crossed Holly's face at this, and she smiled. "I'll try not to."
"Would you like cocoa? I could make some. Or maybe something stronger?"
"Just bed, I think. I don't mean to be impolite, but I've had a very long day."
"Of course you have. I'll show you the way."
But Holly lingered for a moment, looking through the archway and into the Andersons' living room. "Your intruder was sitting just there when you came downstairs?"
"Yes. In one of our kitchen chairs." She pointed, then crossed her arms and cupped her elbows. "At first I could only see him from the knees down. Then the word on his fingers. MUST. Then he leaned forward and I could see his face."
"Bolton's face."
"Yes."
Holly considered this, then broke into a radiant smile that surprised both Ralph and his wife. It made her look years younger. "If you'll excuse me, I'm off to dreamland."
Jeannie led her upstairs, chatting away. Setting her at ease in a way I never could, Ralph thought. It's a talent, and it will probably work even on this extremely peculiar woman.
Peculiar she might be, but she was strangely likeable, in spite of her mad ideas about Terry Maitland and Heath Holmes.
Mad ideas that just happen to fit the facts.
But it was impossible.
That fit them like a glove.
"Still impossible," he murmured.
/>
Upstairs, the two women laughed. Hearing that made Ralph smile. He waited where he was until he heard Jeannie's steps heading back to their room, then he went up himself. The door to the guest room at the end of the hall was firmly closed. The sheaf of papers--the fruits of Jeannie's hurried research--was lying on his pillow. He undressed, lay down, and began to read about Ms. Holly Gibney, co-owner of a skip-tracing firm called Finders Keepers.
17
Outside and down the block, Jack watched as the woman in the suit turned into Anderson's driveway. Anderson came out and helped her with her things. She didn't have much, traveling light. One of her bags was from Walmart. So that was where she'd gone. Maybe to get a nightie and a toothbrush. Judging from the look of her, the nightie would be ugly and the bristles of the toothbrush would be hard enough to draw blood from her gums.
He took a nip from his flask, and as he was screwing on the cap and thinking about going home (why not, since all the good little children were in for the night), he realized he was no longer alone in the truck. Someone was sitting on the passenger side. He had just appeared in the corner of Hoskins's eye. That was impossible, of course, but he couldn't have been there all along. Could he?
Hoskins looked straight ahead. The sunburn on his neck, which had been relatively quiet, began to throb again, and very painfully.
A hand came into his peripheral vision, floating. It seemed he could almost see the seat through it. Written on the fingers in faded blue ink was the word MUST. Hoskins closed his eyes, praying that his visitor would not touch him.
"You need to take a drive," the visitor said. "Unless you want to die the way your mother died, that is. Do you remember how she screamed?"
Yes, Jack remembered. Until she couldn't scream anymore.
"Until she couldn't scream anymore," said the passenger. The hand touched his thigh, very lightly, and Jack knew the skin there would soon begin to burn, just like the back of his neck. The pants he was wearing would be no protection; the poison would seep right through. "Yes, you remember. How could you forget?"
"Where do you want me to go?"
The passenger told him, and then the touch of that awful hand disappeared. Jack opened his eyes and looked around. The other side of the bench seat was empty. The lights in the Anderson house were out. He looked at his watch and saw it was fifteen minutes to eleven. He had fallen asleep. He could almost believe he'd just had a dream. A very bad one. Except for one thing.