“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 Café.”
“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.”