Howie picked up one of the flashlights and winced at the bright purple glare. "This thing will really pick up his trail? His spoor?"
"It will if it's there," Holly said.
"Huh." Howie dropped the flashlight back on the bed, put on one of the hardhats, and went to the mirror over the dresser to inspect himself. "I look ridiculous," he said.
No one disagreed.
"We're really going to do this? Try to, at least? That's not a rhetorical question, by the way. It's me trying to get my head around it as an actual fact."
"I think we'd have a hard job convincing the Texas Highway Patrol to pitch in," Alec said mildly. "What exactly would we tell them? That we think there's a monster hiding in the Marysville Hole?"
"If we don't do it," Holly said, "he'll kill more children. It's how he lives."
Howie turned to her, almost accusingly. "How are we going to get in? The old lady said it's buttoned up tighter than a nun's underwear. And even if we do, where's the rope? Doesn't Home Depot sell rope? They must sell rope."
"We shouldn't need any," she said quietly. "If he's in there--and I'm almost sure he is--he won't have gone deep. For one thing, he'd be afraid of getting lost himself, or of being caught in a cave-in. For another, I think he's weak. He should be in the hibernation part of his cycle, but instead he's been exerting himself."
"By projecting?" Ralph asked. "That's what you believe."
"Yes. What Grace Maitland saw, what your wife saw . . . I believe those were projections. I think a small part of his physical self was there, that's why there were traces in your living room, why he could move the chair and turn on the stove light, but not even enough to leave impressions on the new carpet. Doing that has to tire him out. I think he might have shown up wholly in the flesh only a single time, at the courthouse on the day Terry Maitland was shot. Because he was hungry, and knew there would be a lot to eat."
"He was there in the flesh but didn't show up on any of the TV videotape?" Howie asked. "Like a vampire who doesn't cast a reflection in mirrors?"
He spoke as if expecting her to deny this, but she didn't. "Exactly."
"Then you think he's supernatural. A supernatural being."
"I don't know what he is."
Howie took off the hardhat and tossed it onto the bed. "Guesswork. That's all you've got."
Holly looked wounded by this, and at a loss for how to reply. Nor did she seem to realize what Ralph saw, and was sure Alec saw, as well: Howard Gold was frightened. If this thing went sideways, there was no judge to whom he could object. He could not ask for a mistrial.
Ralph said, "It's still hard for me to accept all this stuff about El Cuco or shape-shifters, but there was an outsider, that I do accept now. Because of the Ohio connection, and because Terry Maitland simply couldn't have been in two places at the same time."
"The outsider screwed up there," Alec said. "He didn't know Terry was going to be at that convention in Cap City. Most of his chosen scapegoats would be like Heath Holmes, with alibis like cheesecloth."
"That doesn't follow," Ralph said.
Alec raised his eyebrows.
"If he got Terry's . . . I don't know how to say it. Memories, sure, but not just memories. A sort of . . ."
"A sort of terrain map of his consciousness," Holly said quietly.
"Okay, call it that," Ralph said. "I can accept that there's stuff he could have missed, the way speed readers miss stuff while they're zipping along, but that convention would have been a big deal to Terry."
"Then why would the cuco still--" Alec began.
"Maybe he had to." Holly had picked up one of the UV flashlights and was shining it on the wall, where it picked up a ghostly handprint from some previous resident. It was a thing Ralph could have done without seeing. "Maybe he was too hungry to wait for a better time."
"Or maybe he didn't care," Ralph said. "Serials often get to that point, usually just before they get caught. Bundy, Speck, Gacy . . . eventually they all started to believe they were a law unto themselves. Godlike. They got arrogant and overreached. And this outsider didn't overreach by all that much, did he? Think about it. We were going to arraign Terry and see him put on trial for the murder of Frank Peterson in spite of everything we knew. We were sure his alibi had to be bogus, no matter how strong it was."
And part of me still wants to believe that. The alternative turns everything I thought I understood about the world I live in upside down.
He felt feverish and a little sick to his stomach. How could a normal man in the twenty-first century accept a shape-shifting monster? If you believed in Holly Gibney's outsider, her El Cuco, then everything was on the table. No end to the universe.
"He's not arrogant anymore," Holly said quietly. "He's used to staying in one place for months after he kills and while he makes his change. He only moves on when that change is complete, or nearly complete. That's what I believe, based on what I've read and what I learned in Ohio. But his usual pattern has been disrupted. He had to run from Flint City once that boy discovered he'd been staying in that barn. He knew the police would come. So he came down here early, to be near Claude Bolton, and he found a perfect home."
"The Marysville Hole," Alec said.
Holly nodded. "But he doesn't know we know. That's our advantage. Claude knows his uncle and cousins are buried there, yes. What Claude doesn't know is how the outsider hibernates in or near places of the dead, preferably those associated with the bloodline of the person he's changing into or out of. I'm sure it works that way. It must."
Because you want it to, Ralph thought. Yet he couldn't find any holes in her logic. If, that was, you accepted the basic postulate of a supernatural being that had to follow certain rules, possibly out of tradition, possibly out of some unknown imperative none of them would ever be able to understand.
"Can we be sure Lovie won't tell him?" Alec asked.
"I think so," Ralph said. "She'll keep quiet for his own good."
Howie took one of the flashlights and shone it at the rattling air conditioner, this time picking up a litter of spectrally glowing fingerprints. He snapped it off and said, "What if he has a helper? Tell me that. Count Dracula had that guy Renfield. Dr. Frankenstein had a hunchback guy, Igor--"
Holly said, "That's a popular misconception. In the original Frankenstein movie, the doctor's assistant was actually named Fritz, played by Dwight Frye. Later, Bela Lugosi--"
"I stand corrected," Howie said, "but the question remains: What if our outsider has an accomplice? Somebody with orders to keep tabs on us? Doesn't that make sense? Even if the outsider doesn't know we found out about the Marysville Hole, he knows we're too close for comfort."
"I see your point, Howie," Alec said, "but serials are usually loners, and the ones who stay free the longest are drifters. There are exceptions, but I don't think our guy is one of them. He hopped down to Flint City from Dayton. If you backtrailed him from Ohio, you might find murdered children in Tampa, Florida, or Portland, Maine. There's an African proverb: he travels fastest who travels alone. And practically speaking, who could he hire for a job like that?"
"A nut," Howie said.
"Okay," Ralph said, "but from where? Did he just stop by Nuts R Us and pick one up?"
"Fine," Howie said. "He's on his own, just cowering in the Marysville Hole and waiting for us to come and get him. Drag him into the sun or put a stake in his heart or both."
"In Stoker's novel," Holly said, "they cut off Dracula's head when they caught him, and stuffed his mouth full of garlic."
Howie tossed the flashlight on the bed and threw up his hands. "Also fine. We'll stop by Shopwell and buy some garlic. Also a meat cleaver, since we neglected to buy a hacksaw while we were in Home Depot."
Ralph said, "I think a bullet in the head should do the trick nicely."
They considered this in silence for a moment, and then Howie said he was going to bed. "But before I do, I'd like to know what the plan is for tomorrow."
Ralph
waited for Holly to enlighten Howie on this point, but she looked at Ralph, instead. He was startled and moved by the hollows under her eyes and the lines that had appeared at the corners of her mouth. Ralph himself was tired, he supposed they all were, but Holly Gibney was exhausted, at this point running on nothing but nerves. And given her tightly wrapped persona, he guessed that for her that would be like running on thorns. Or broken glass.
"Nothing before nine o'clock," Ralph said. "We all need at least eight hours of sleep, more if we can get it. Then we pack up, check out, go to the Boltons', and pick up Yune. From there to the Marysville Hole."
"Wrong direction, if we want Claude to think we're flying home," Alec said. "He'll wonder why we aren't headed back to Plainville."
"Okay, we tell Claude and Lovie we have to go to Tippit first because . . . mmm, I don't know, we have some more shopping to do at Home Depot?"
"Pretty thin," Howie said.
Alec asked, "Who was the state cop who came out to talk to Claude? Do you remember?"
Ralph didn't offhand, but he had kept case-notes on his iPad. Routine was routine, even when chasing the boogeyman. "His name was Owen Sipe. Corporal Owen Sipe."
"Okay. You tell Claude and his momma--which is the same thing as telling the outsider, if he really can get inside Claude's head--that you got a call from Corporal Sipe saying that a man roughly matching Claude's description is wanted in Tippit for questioning in a robbery or a car theft or maybe a home invasion. Yune can verify that Claude was at home all night--"
"Not if he was out sleeping in the gaze-bo," Ralph said.
"You're telling me he wouldn't have heard Claude start his car? That thing needed a new muffler two years ago."
Ralph smiled. "Point taken."
"Okay, so you say we're going to Tippit to check it out, and if it leads nowhere, we're going to fly back to Flint City. Sound okay?"
"Sounds fine," Ralph said. "Just let's be damn sure Claude doesn't see the flashlights and hardhats."
15
As eleven o'clock came and went, Ralph was lying on the swaybacked bed in his room, knowing he should turn out the light and not doing it. He had called Jeannie and gabbed with her for almost half an hour, some of it about the case, some of it about Derek, most of it inconsequential shit. After that he tried the TV, thinking one of Lovie Bolton's late-night preachers might work as a sleeping pill--or at least quiet the constant rat-run of his thoughts--but all he got when he turned it on was a message saying OUR SATELLITE IS CURRENTLY DOWN, THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE.
He was reaching for the lamp when a light knock came at the door. He crossed the room, reached for the knob, thought better of it, and tried the peephole. It turned out to be useless, clogged with dirt or something.
"Who is it?"
"Me," Holly said. Her voice was as small as her knock.
He opened the door. Her tee-shirt was untucked and the coat of her suit, which she had put on against the late-night chill, hung down comically on one side. Her short gray hair flew in the rising wind. She was holding her iPad. Ralph suddenly realized he was in his boxers, with the buttonless fly no doubt gaping slightly. He remembered something they used to say when they were kids: Who gave you a license to sell hotdogs?
"I woke you up," she said.
"You didn't. Come in."
She hesitated, then stepped into the room and sat in the single chair while he put on his pants.
"You need to get some sleep, Holly. You look very tired."
"I am. But sometimes it seems as if the more tired I am, the harder it is to go to sleep. Especially if I'm worried and anxious."
"Tried Ambien?"
"It's not recommended for people taking antidepressants."
"I see."
"I did some research. Sometimes that puts me to sleep. I started by looking up the newspaper stories concerning the tragedy Claude's mother told us about. There was a lot of coverage, and a lot of background. I thought you might like to hear."
"Will it help us?"
"I think it will."
"Then I want to hear."
He moved to the bed, and Holly perched on the edge of the chair, knees together.
"All right. Lovie kept talking about the Ahiga side, and she said one of the Jamieson twins dropped a plastic Chief Ahiga out of his pocket." She opened her iPad. "This was taken in 1888."
The sepia-toned photograph showed a noble-looking Native American man in profile. He was wearing a headdress that flowed halfway down his back.
"For awhile the chief lived with a small contingent of Navajos on the Tigua reservation near El Paso, then married a Caucasian woman and moved first to Austin, where he was treated badly, and then to Marysville, where he was accepted as a member of the community after cutting his hair and professing his Christian faith. His wife had a little money, and they opened the Marysville Trading Post. Which eventually became the Indian Motel and Cafe."
"Home sweet home," Ralph said, looking around at the shabby room.
"Yes. Here is Chief Ahiga in 1926, two years before he died. By then he'd changed his name to Thomas Higgins." She showed him a second picture.
"Holy shit!" Ralph exclaimed. "I'd say he went native, but this is more like the opposite."
It was the same noble profile, but now the cheek facing the camera was deeply scored with wrinkles and the headdress was gone. The former Navajo chieftain was wearing rimless spectacles, a white shirt, and a tie.
Holly said, "In addition to running Marysville's only successful business, it was Chief Ahiga, aka Thomas Higgins, who discovered the Hole and ran the first tours. They were quite popular."
"But the cave was named for the town instead of for him," Ralph said. "Which figures. He may have been a Christian and a successful businessman, but he remained a redskin to the community. Still, I guess the locals treated him better than the Christians in Austin. Got to give them some credit for that. Go on."
She showed him another picture. This one was of a wooden sign with a painted version of Chief Ahiga in his headdress, and a legend beneath reading BEST PICTOGRAPHS THIS WAY. She used her fingers to zoom out, and Ralph could see a path leading through the rocks.
"The cave has the town's name," she said, "but at least the chief got something--the Ahiga entrance, much less glamorous than the Chamber of Sound, but with a direct connection to it. Ahiga's where the staff brought in supplies, and it was a way out in case of an emergency."
"That's where the rescue parties went in, hoping to find an alternate route that would take them to the kids?"
"Correct." She leaned forward, eyes shining. "The main entrance isn't just boarded up, Ralph, it's cemented over. They didn't want to lose any more kids. The Ahiga entrance--the back door--was also boarded up, but none of the articles I read said anything about it being plugged with cement."
"That doesn't mean it wasn't."
She gave her head an impatient toss. "I know, but if it wasn't . . ."
"Then that's how he got in. The outsider. That's what you believe."
"We should go there first, and if there are signs of a break-in . . ."
"I get it," he said, "and it sounds like a plan. Good going. You're a hell of a detective, Holly."
She thanked him with her eyes lowered, and in the tentative voice of a woman who doesn't know quite what to do with compliments. "You're kind to say that."
"It's not kindness. You're better than Betsy Riggins, and much better than the waste of space known as Jack Hoskins. He'll be retiring soon, and if the job was mine to give, you'd get it."
Holly shook her head, but she was smiling. "Bail-jumpers, repos, and lost dogs are enough for me. I never want to be part of another murder investigation."
He stood up. "Time for you to go back to your room and get some shut-eye. If you're right about any of this, tomorrow's going to be a John Wayne day."
"In a minute. I had another reason for coming here. You better sit down."
16
Even though she was a
much stronger person than she had been on the day she'd had the great good fortune to meet Bill Hodges, Holly was not used to telling people they had to change their behavior, or that they were flat-out wrong. That younger woman had been a terrified, scurrying mouse who sometimes thought suicide might be the best solution for her feelings of terror, inadequacy, and free-floating shame. What she felt most of all on the day when Bill had sat down next to her behind a funeral parlor she could not bring herself to enter, was the sense that she had lost something vital; not just a purse or a credit card, but the life she could have led if things had been just a little different, or if God had seen fit to put just a little more of some important chemical in her system.
I think you lost this, Bill had said, without ever actually saying it. Here, better put it back in your pocket.
Now Bill was dead and here was this man, so like Bill in many ways: his intelligence, his occasional flashes of good humor, and most of all, his doggedness. She was sure Bill would have liked him, because Detective Ralph Anderson also believed in chasing the case.
But there were differences, too, and not just that he was thirty years younger than Bill had been when he died. That Ralph had made a terrible mistake in arresting Terry Maitland in public, before he understood the true dimensions of the case, was only one of those differences, and probably not the most important, no matter how it haunted him.
God, help me tell him what I need to tell him, because this is the only chance I'll have. And let him hear me. Please God, let him hear me.
She said, "Every time you and the others talk about the outsider, it's conditional."
"I'm not sure I understand you, Holly."
"I think you do. 'If he exists. Supposing he exists. Assuming he exists.' "
Ralph was silent.
"I don't care about the others, but I need you to believe, Ralph. I need you to believe. I do, but I'm not enough."
"Holly--"
"No," she said fiercely. "No. Listen to me. I know it's crazy. But is the idea of El Cuco any more inexplicable than some of the terrible things that happen in the world? Not natural disasters or accidents, I'm talking about the things some people do to others. Wasn't Ted Bundy just a version of El Cuco, a shape-shifter with one face for the people he knew and another for the women he killed? The last thing those women saw was his other face, his inside face, the face of El Cuco. There are others. They walk among us. You know they do. They're aliens. Monsters beyond our understanding. Yet you believe in them. You've put some of them away, maybe seen them executed."