“Merry Christmas, Brennan.”
“Merry Christmas, Ryan.”
I hung up and sat a moment, hand still on the phone. I should have felt pleased. Relieved. Why didn’t I?
The others. Koseluk. Donovan. Would they remain open MP cases? Would active investigations continue? Was someone somewhere searching for the child whose skeleton lay on my shelf?
Annually, over eight hundred thousand people vanish in the United States. At least four years had passed since ME107-10 died. Three since Avery Koseluk went missing. I knew the sad answer.
But Ajax was wearing a tag on his toe. The madness was over.
My eyes drifted to a flyer tacked to my corkboard. Larabee’s comment reminded me. I also had invitations.
The UNCC anthropology department’s holiday gathering was scheduled that night. Often the venue was a zillion miles out in the country. This year it would take place at a faculty home in Plaza-Midwood. Not far from the annex.
Still, I wasn’t in the mood. Rarely am. Hot crowded rooms. Bad sweaters. Merrymakers rosy with eggnog and yuletide beer. It’s not the drinking. I’ve learned to live without alcohol. Small talk over canapés just isn’t my strong suit.
Nevertheless, I like my colleagues. Most of the grad students.
I bought a bottle of pinot, put on a red silk blouse, and headed out for some holly jolly.
I should have been ready to party. We finally had our killer. No motive. No explanation how Ajax hooked up with Pomerleau. Why or how he killed her. Why he continued to follow her playbook. Those answers would come later. What mattered was that he’d never strike again.
Still, troubling questions kept me distracted.
I thought of Ryan’s words. Had Ajax wanted to be caught? Then why the lawyer? Why the innocent act when finally reeled in?
That one was easy. Ajax was a sociopath. Sociopaths lie. And they do it well.
I recalled the interviews. Ajax had expressed no sympathy for the murdered girls. For a child he had treated.
Ajax killed himself. If he was planning suicide, why promise Cauthern he’d return to the hospital? Had the decision been spur-of-themoment? Triggered by what?
Ajax was ten miles away when Leal was abducted. How could he be in two places at once? Did he have an accomplice?
When I look back on that Christmas, on those cases, I always remember the moment we opened that trunk. The quavery fluorescents carving our features. The lights strobing blue and red in the cold dawn air. The overnight frost yielding to the warmth of sunlight.
I always wonder—had I voiced my concerns then, might things have gone differently?
I’ll never know. I said nothing.
PART III
CHAPTER 36
THE HOLIDAYS CAME and went.
I drove often to Heatherhill Farm. Goose was omnipresent, fluffing Mama’s pillows, brushing her hair, setting out clothes and insisting she wear them.
Harry flew in from Texas.
For three days we stayed at a B&B near Marion, the same one where Goose had taken up residence. Our rooms featured four-posters and chintz gone wild.
Harry bought Mama a stuffed zombie doll designed to be pulled apart and disemboweled to vent frustration. And a four-thousandcarat diamond brooch. I got her a cashmere poncho.
Being the center of attention perked Mama up. She twittered about Christmases past. The ones at the beach. The one in Grand Cayman. No mention of the ones she spent in the underworld solo in her room. Or gone.
When we were alone, Mama asked about my cases. I shared the whole story. Pomerleau, the Corneau farm, the barrel of maple syrup, the horror in Ajax’s trunk. I figured the outcome would appeal to her sense of justice.
Mama asked about Ryan’s contribution to the tale. I figured that in her mind, we were Orpheus and Eurydice. Maybe Scully and Mulder.