"I'll talk to them," Holly said. "You're going to sit still and rest your arm."
"Very important Claude and Lovie get on board with the story," Ralph said. "Now go on. If you're still here when the fire trucks arrive, you'll be stuck."
With the seat and the mirror adjusted to her satisfaction, Holly turned to Yune and to Ralph, still leaning in the passenger door. She looked tired but not exhausted. Her tears had passed. He saw nothing on her face but concentration and purpose.
"We need to keep this simple," she said. "As simple and as close to the truth as we can get."
"You've been through this before," Yune said. "Or something like it. Haven't you?"
"Yes. And they will believe us, even if they're left with questions that can never be answered. You both know why. Ralph, those sirens are getting closer and we have to go."
Ralph closed the passenger door and watched them drive away in the dead Flint City detective's pickup. He considered the hardpan Holly would have to cross in order to avoid the chain, and thought she'd manage it just fine, skirting the worst of the holes and washes in order to spare Yune's arm. Just when he thought he couldn't admire her more . . . he did.
He went to Alec's body first, because it was the harder one to retrieve. The vehicle fire was almost out, but the heat radiating from it was fierce. Alec's face and arms had blackened, his head had been burned bald, and as Ralph grabbed him by the belt and began hauling him toward the gift shop, he tried not to think of the crispy bits and melted gobbets that were being left behind. And of how much Alec now looked like the man who had been at the courthouse that day. All he needs is the yellow shirt over his head, Ralph thought, and that was too much. He let go of the belt and managed to stagger twenty paces before bending over, grasping his knees, and throwing up everything in his stomach. When that part was done, he went back and finished what he had started, dragging first Alec and then Howie Gold into the shade of the gift shop.
He rested, getting his breath back, then examined the shop's door. It was padlocked, but the door itself looked weather-worn and flimsy. The second time he hit it, the hinges gave way. The interior was shadowy and explosively hot. The shelves were not entirely empty; a few souvenir tee-shirts emblazoned with I EXPLORED THE MARYSVILLE HOLE still remained. He took two and shook off the dust as best he could. Outside, the sirens were very close. Ralph thought they wouldn't want to drive their expensive equipment across the hardpan; they'd stop to cut the chain, instead. He still had a little time.
He knelt and covered the faces of the two men. Good men who had fully expected to have years of life left in front of them. Men with families who would grieve. The only good thing (if there was anything good about it) was that their grief would not become a monster's meal.
He sat beside them, forearms resting on his knees, chin on his chest. Was he responsible for these deaths, too? Partly, perhaps, because the chain always led back to that catastrophically unwise public arrest of Terry Maitland. But even in his exhaustion, he felt he did not need to own all of what had happened.
They will believe us, Holly had said. And you both know why.
Ralph did. They would believe even a shaky story, because footsteps didn't just end and there was no way maggots could hatch inside a ripe cantaloupe with its tough skin intact. They would believe because to admit any other possibility was to call reality itself into question. The irony was inescapable: the very thing that had protected the outsider during its long life of murder would now protect them.
No end to the universe, Ralph thought, and waited in the shade of the gift shop for the fire trucks to arrive.
25
Holly drove to the Boltons' sitting upright, hands on the wheel at ten and two, listening as Yune made the calls. Bill Samuels was horrified to learn that Howie Gold and Alec Pelley were dead, but Yune cut off his questions. There would be time for questions and answers later, but that time was not now. Samuels was to re-interview all the witnesses who had been previously questioned, beginning with Willow Rainwater. He was to tell her straight out that serious questions had been raised about the identity of the man she had taken from the strip club to the train station in Dubrow. Was she still sure that person had been Terry Maitland?
"Try to question her in a way that plants doubts," Yune said. "Can you do that?"
"Sure," Samuels said. "I've been doing it in front of juries for the last five years. And based on her statement, Ms. Rainwater already has a few. So do the other witnesses, especially since that tape of Terry at the convention in Cap City went public. It's got half a million hits just on YouTube. Now tell me about Howie and Alec."
"Later. Time is tight, Mr. Samuels. Talk to the wits, starting with Rainwater. And something else: the meeting we had two nights ago. This is muy importante, so listen up."
Samuels listened, Samuels agreed, and Yune moved on to Jeannie Anderson. That call was longer, because she both needed and deserved a fuller explanation. When he finished, there were tears, but perhaps mostly of relief. It was awful that men had died, that Yune himself had been injured, but her man--and her son's father--was okay. Yune told her what she needed to do, and Jeannie agreed to do it immediately.
He was preparing to make the third call, to FC Chief of Police Rodney Geller, when they heard more sirens, this time approaching. Two Texas Highway Patrol cars blasted by them, headed for the Marysville Hole.
"If we're lucky," Yune said, "maybe one of those troops is the guy who talked to the Boltons. Stape, I think his name was."
"Sipe," Holly corrected. "Owen Sipe. How's your arm?"
"Still hurts like blue fuck. I'm gonna take those other two Motrin."
"No. Too much all at once can damage your liver. Make the other calls. But first go to Recents and delete the ones you made to Mr. Samuels and Mrs. Anderson."
"You would have made a hell of a crook, senorita."
"Just being careful. Prudente." She didn't look away from the road. It was empty, but she was that kind of driver. "Do it, then make the rest of your calls."
26
It turned out that Lovie Bolton had some old Percocets for back pain. Yune took two of them instead of the Motrin, and Claude--who had taken a first aid course during his third and last stretch in prison--bandaged his wound while Holly talked. She did so rapidly, and not just because she wanted to get Lieutenant Sablo some real care. She needed the Boltons to understand their part in this before anyone official showed up. That would be soon, because the officers from the Highway Patrol would have questions for Ralph, and he would have to answer them. At least there was no disbelief here; Lovie and Claude had felt the presence of the outsider two nights ago, and Claude had been feeling him even before that: a sense of disquiet, dislocation, and being watched.
"Of course you felt him," Holly said grimly. "He was plundering your mind."
"You saw him," Claude said. "He was hiding in that cave, and you saw him."
"Yes."
"And he looked like me."
"Almost exactly."
Lovie spoke up, sounding timid. "Would I have known the difference?"
Holly smiled. "At a glance. I'm sure of it. Lieutenant Sablo--Yune--are you ready to go?"
"Yes." He stood up. "One great thing about hard drugs--everything still hurts, but you don't give a shit."
Claude burst out laughing and pointed a finger-gun at him. "You got that right, brother." He saw Lovie frowning at him and added, "Sorry, Ma."
"You understand the story you have to tell?" Holly asked.
"Yes, ma'am," Claude said. "Too simple to screw up. The Flint City DA is thinking of re-opening the Maitland case, and you-all came down here to question me."
"And you said what?" Holly asked.
"That the more I think about it, the more I'm sure it wasn't Coach Terry I saw that night, just someone who looked like him."
"What else?" Yune asked. "Very important."
Lovie answered this time. "The bunch of you stopped by this morning to say goodbye, and
to ask if there was anything we might have forgotten. While you were getting ready to leave, there was a phone call."
"On your landline," Holly added, thinking, Thank God they still have one.
"That's right, on the landline. The man said he worked with Detective Anderson."
"Who spoke to him," Holly said.
"That's right. The man told Detective Anderson the fellow you-all were looking for, the real killer, was hiding out in the Marysville Hole."
"Stick to that," Holly said. "And thank you both."
"We are the ones who should be thanking you," Lovie said, and held out her arms. "You come here, Miss Holly Gibney, and give old Lovie a hug."
Holly went to the wheelchair and bent down. After the Marysville Hole, Lovie Bolton's arms felt good. Necessary, even. She stayed in their embrace as long as she could.
27
Marcy Maitland had grown exceedingly wary of callers since her husband's public arrest, not to mention his public execution, so when the knock came at her door, she first went to the window, twitched aside the drapes, and peeped out. It was Detective Anderson's wife on the stoop, and it looked like she had been crying. Marcy hurried to the door and opened it. Yes, those were tears, and as soon as Jeannie saw Marcy's concerned face, they started again.
"What is it? What's happened? Are they all right?"
Jeannie stepped in. "Where are your girls?"
"Out back under the big tree, playing cribbage with Terry's board. They played all last night and started again early this morning. What's wrong?"
Jeannie took her by the arm and led her into the living room. "You might want to sit down."
Marcy stood where she was. "Just tell me!"
"There's good news, but there's also terrible news. Ralph and the Gibney woman are all right. Lieutenant Sablo was shot, but they don't believe it's life-threatening. Howie Gold and Mr. Pelley, though . . . they're dead. Shot from ambush by a man my husband works with. A detective. Jack Hoskins is his name."
"Dead? Dead? How can they be--" Marcy sat heavily in what had been Terry's easy chair. It was either that or fall down. She stared up at Jeannie uncomprehendingly. "What do you mean, good news? How can there be . . . Jesus, it just keeps getting worse."
She put her hands over her face. Jeannie dropped to her knees beside the chair and pulled them away, gently but firmly. "You need to get yourself together, Marcy."
"I can't. My husband's dead, and now this. I don't think I'll ever be together again. Not even for Grace and Sarah."
"Stop it." Jeannie's voice was low, but Marcy blinked as if she had been slapped. "Nothing can bring Terry back, but two good men died to redeem his name and give your girls a chance in this town. They have families, too, and I'll have to talk to Elaine Gold after I leave here. That's going to be awful. Yune has been hurt, and my husband risked his life. I know you're in pain, but this part is not about you. Ralph needs your help. So do the others. So pull yourself together and listen."
"All right. Yes."
Jeannie lifted one of Marcy's hands and held it. The fingers were cold, and Jeannie supposed her own weren't much warmer.
"Everything Holly Gibney told us was true. There was an outsider, and he wasn't a man. He was . . . something else. Call him El Cuco, call him Dracula, call him the Son of Sam or of Satan, it doesn't matter. He was there, in a cave. They found him and killed him. Ralph told me he looked like Claude Bolton, although the real Claude Bolton was miles away. I talked to Bill Samuels before I came over here. He thinks that if we all tell the same story, everything will be okay. It's likely we can clear Terry's name. If we all tell the same story. Can you do that?"
Jeannie could see hope filling Marcy Maitland's eyes like water filling a well.
"Yes. Yes, I can do that. But what is the story?"
"The meeting we had was only about trying to clear Terry's name. Nothing else."
"Just about clearing his name."
"At that meeting, Bill Samuels agreed to re-interview all the witnesses Ralph and the other officers questioned, starting with Willow Rainwater and working backward. Right?"
"Yes, that's right."
"The reason he couldn't start with Claude Bolton is that Mr. Bolton is in Texas, helping out with his mother, who's not well. Howie suggested that he, Alec, Holly, and my husband should go down there and question Claude. Yune said he would join them if possible. Do you remember that?"
"Yes," Marcy said, nodding rapidly. "We all thought that was an excellent idea. But I don't remember why Ms. Gibney was at the meeting."
"She was the investigator Alec Pelley hired to check on Terry's movements in Ohio. She got interested in the case, so she came down to see if she could give further assistance. Remember now?"
"Yes."
Holding Marcy's hand, looking into Marcy's eyes, Jeannie gave her the last and most important part. "We never discussed shape-changers, or el cucos, or ghostly projections, or anything that might be called supernatural."
"No, absolutely not, it never crossed our minds, why would it?"
"We thought that someone who looked like Terry killed the Peterson boy and tried to frame him for it. We called this person the outsider."
"Yes," Marcy said, squeezing Jeannie's hand. "That's what we called him. The outsider."
FLINT CITY
(After)
1
The plane chartered by the late Howard Gold landed at the Flint City airport just after eleven o'clock in the morning. Neither Howie nor Alec was aboard. Once the medical examiner finished his work, the bodies had been transported back to FC in a hearse from the Plainville Funeral Home. Ralph, Yune, and Holly shared the expense of that, as well as a second hearse, which transported the body of Jack Hoskins. Yune spoke for all of them when he said there was no way the sonofabitch was going home with the men he had murdered.
Waiting for them on the tarmac was Jeannie Anderson, standing next to Yune's wife and two sons. The boys brushed past Jeannie (one of them, a husky preteen named Hector, almost knocked her off her feet) and bolted for their father, whose arm was in a cast and a sling. He embraced them with his good arm as best he could, disengaged himself, and beckoned his wife. She came on the run. So did Jeannie, her skirt flying out behind her. She threw her arms around Ralph and hugged him fiercely.
The Sablos and the Andersons stood in family embraces near the door to the little private terminal, hugging and laughing, until Ralph looked around and saw Holly standing alone by the wing of the King Air, watching them. She was wearing a new pantsuit, which she had been forced to buy at Plainville Ladies' Apparel, the nearest Walmart being forty miles away, on the outskirts of Austin.
Ralph beckoned her, and she came forward, a little shyly. She stopped a few feet away, but Jeannie was having none of that. She reached for Holly's hand, pulled her close, and hugged her. Ralph put his arms around both of them.
"Thank you," Jeannie whispered in Holly's ear. "Thank you for bringing him back to me."
Holly said, "We hoped to come home right after the inquest, but the doctors made Lieutenant Sablo--Yune--wait another day. There was a blood clot in his arm, and the doctor wanted to dissolve it." She disengaged herself from the embrace, flushed but looking pleased. Ten feet away, Gabriela Sablo was exhorting her boys to leave papi alone, or they would break his arm all over again.
"What does Derek know about this?" Ralph asked his wife.
"He knows that his dad was in a shootout down in Texas, and that you're all right. He knows two other men died. He asked to come home early."
"And you said?"
"I said okay. He'll be here next week. Does that work for you?"
"Yes." It would be good to see his son again: tanned, healthy, with a few new muscles from swimming and rowing and archery. And on the right side of the ground. That was the most important thing.
"We're eating at the house tonight," Jeannie said to Holly, "and you'll stay with us again. No arguments, now. The guest room is all made up."
"Th
at would be nice," Holly said, and smiled. Her smile faded as she turned to Ralph. "It would be better if Mr. Gold and Mr. Pelley could sit down to dinner with us. It's very wrong that they should be dead. It just seems . . ."
"I know," Ralph said, and put an arm around her. "I know how it seems."
2
Ralph barbecued steaks on a grill that was, thanks to his administrative leave, spandy-clean. There was also salad, corn on the cob, and apple pie a la mode for dessert. "Very American meal, senor," Yune observed as his wife cut his steak for him.
"It was delicious," Holly said.
Bill Samuels patted his stomach. "I may be ready to eat again by Labor Day, but I'm not sure."
"Stuff and nonsense," Jeannie said. She took a bottle of beer from the cooler beside the picnic table, pouring half into Samuels's glass and half into her own. "You're too thin. You need a wife to feed you up."
"Maybe when I go into private practice, my ex will come around. There's going to be a demand for a good lawyer here in town now that Howie--" He suddenly realized what he was saying and brushed at his cowlick (which, thanks to a fresh haircut, wasn't there). "A good lawyer can always find work, is what I meant."
They were quiet for a moment, then Ralph raised his beer bottle. "To absent friends."
They drank to that. Holly said, in a voice almost too quiet to be heard, "Sometimes life can be very poopy." No one laughed.
The oppressive July heat had let up, the worst of the bugs were gone, and the Anderson backyard was a pleasant place to be. Once the meal was finished, Yune's two boys and Marcy Maitland's two girls drifted to the basketball hoop on the side of the garage, and began playing Horse.
"So," Marcy said. Even though the kids were a good distance away, and absorbed in their game, she lowered her voice. "The inquest. Did the story hold up?"
"It did," Ralph said. "Hoskins called the Bolton house and lured us to the Marysville Hole. There he went on a shooting spree, killing Howie and Alec and wounding Yune. I stated my belief that it was me he was really after. We've had our differences over the years, and the more he drank, the more that must have eaten into him. The assumption is that he was with some as yet unidentified accomplice, who kept him supplied with booze and drugs--the medical examiner found traces of cocaine in his system--and fed his paranoia. The Texas HP went into the Chamber of Sound, but did not find the accomplice."