“The paper said he was on vacation when the girls were killed.”
“Yeah, went up to Regis, about thirty miles north of here. To his mother’s. Who told the cops he was there the whole time.” Wilson rolled her eyes.
“The paper also said he had a record.”
“Well, yeah, but nothing gross, just a joyride in a stolen car when he was seventeen.” She frowned at her cigarette. “Paper wasn’t supposed to have that, you know, he was a juvenile and those records are supposed to be sealed. If they weren’t, he probably wouldn’t have gotten the job at Heisman, even with all his army training and his five years working at Walter Reed. Maybe, but probably not.”
“You speak as if you knew him pretty well.”
“I’m not defending him, don’t get that idea. I had drinks with him, sure, but it wasn’t a date situation, nothing like that. A bunch of us used to go out to the Shamrock sometimes after work—this was back when I still had some money and could buy a round when it was my turn. Those days are gone, honey. Anyway, we used to call ourselves the Forgetful Five, on account of—”
“I think I get it,” Holly said.
“Yeah, I bet you do, and we knew all the Alzheimer’s jokes. Most of them are kind of mean, and lots of our patients are actually pretty nice, but we told them to kind of . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Whistle past the graveyard?” Holly suggested.
“Yes, that’s it. You want a beer, Holly?”
“Okay. Thanks.” She didn’t have much of a taste for beer, and it wasn’t really recommended when you were taking Lexapro, but she wanted to keep the conversation rolling.
Wilson brought back a couple of Bud Lights. She offered Holly a glass no more than she had offered one of her cigarettes.
“Yeah, I knew about the joyride bust,” she said, once more sitting in the mended easy chair. It gave a tired woof. “We all did. You know how people talk when they’ve had a few. But it was nothing like what he did in April. I still can’t believe it. I kissed that guy under the mistletoe at last year’s Christmas party.” She either shuddered or pretended to.
“So he was on vacation the week of April 23rd . . .”
“If you say so. I just know it was in the spring, because of my allergies.” So saying, she lit a fresh cigarette. “Said he was going up to Regis, said he and his mom were going to have a service for his dad, who died a year ago. ‘A memory service,’ he called it. And maybe he did go, but he came back to kill those girls from Trotwood. No question about it, because people saw him and there was surveillance video from a gas station that showed him filling up.”
“Filling what up?” Holly asked. “Was it a van?” This was leading the witness, and Bill wouldn’t have approved, but she couldn’t help herself.
“I don’t know. Not sure the papers said. Probably his truck. He had a Tahoe, all fancied up. Custom tires, lots of chrome. And a camper cap. He could have put them in there. Drugged them, maybe, until he was ready to . . . you know . . . use them.”
“Oough,” Holly said. She couldn’t help it.
Candy Wilson nodded. “Yeah. Kind of thing you don’t want to imagine, but you just can’t help it. At least I can’t. They also found his DNA, as I’m sure you know, because that was in the paper, too.”
“Yes.”
“And I saw him that week, because he came in to work one day. ‘Just can’t stay away from this place, can you?’ I asked him. He didn’t say anything, just gave me a creepy smile and kept walking down B Wing. I never saw him smile like that, never. I bet he still had their blood under his fingernails. Maybe even on his cock and balls. Christ, it gives me the willies just thinking about it.”
It gave Holly the willies, too, but she didn’t say so, only took a sip of her beer and asked what day that had been.
“I don’t know off the top of my head, but after those girls disappeared. You know what? I bet I can tell you exactly, because I had a hair appointment that same day after work. To have it colored. Haven’t been to the beauty parlor since, as I’m sure you can plainly see. Just a minute.”
She went to a little desk in the corner of the room, came up with an appointment book, and flipped back through the pages. “Here it is, Debbie’s Hairport. April 26th.”
Holly wrote it down, and added an exclamation point. That was the day of Terry’s last visit to see his father. He and his family had flown home the following day.
“Did Peter Maitland know Mr. Holmes?”
Wilson laughed. “Peter Maitland doesn’t really know anybody, hon. He had some clear days last year, and even early this year he remembered enough to get to the caff on his own and ask for chocolate—the things they really like are the things most of them remember the longest. Now he just sits and stares. If I get that shit, I’m going to take a bunch of pills and die while I still have enough working brain cells to remember what the pills are for. But if you’re asking if Heath knew Maitland, the answer is sure, you bet. Some of the orderlies switch around, but Heath stuck pretty much to the odd-numbered suites on B Wing. He used to say that some part of them knew him, even when most of their brains were gone. And Maitland is in suite B-5.”
“Did he visit Maitland’s room on the day you saw him?”
“Must have. I know something that wasn’t in the paper, but you can bet your ass it would have been a big deal at Heath’s trial, if he’d ever had one.”
“What, Candy? What was it, what?”
“When the cops found out he’d been in to the Memory Unit after the murders, they searched all the B Wing suites, paying especially close attention to Maitland’s, because Cam Melinsky said he saw Heath coming out of there. Cam’s a janitor. He noticed Heath especially because he—Cam, I mean—was washing the hall floor, and Heath took a slip and went on his ass.”
“You’re sure of this, Candy?”
“I am, and here’s the big thing. My best friend on the nursing staff is a woman named Penny Prudhomme, and she heard one of the cops talking on his phone after they searched B-5. He said they found hair in the room, and it was blond. What do you think of that?”
“I think they must have run a DNA test on it, to see if it belonged to one of the Howard girls.”
“Bet your ass they did. CSI stuff.”
“Those results were never made public,” Holly said. “Were they?”
“No. But you know what the cops found in Mrs. Holmes’s basement, don’t you?”
Holly nodded. That detail had been made public, and reading it must have been like putting an arrow in the parents’ hearts. Someone had talked and the paper had printed it. Probably it had been on TV, too.
“A lot of sex-killers take trophies,” Candy said authoritatively. “I’ve seen it on Forensic Files and Dateline. It’s common behavior with these whackos.”
“Although Heath Holmes never seemed like a whacko to you.”
“They hide it,” Candy Wilson said ominously.
“But he didn’t try very hard to hide this crime, did he? People saw him, and there was even that surveillance video.”
“So what? He went crazy, and crazy people don’t give a shit.”
I’m sure Detective Anderson and the Flint County DA said the exact same thing about Terry Maitland, Holly thought. Even though some serial killers—sex-killers, to use Candy Wilson’s term—keep getting away with it for years. Ted Bundy for one, John Wayne Gacy for another.
Holly got up. “Thank you so much for your time.”
“Thank me by making sure Mrs. Kelly doesn’t find out I talked to you.”
“I’ll do that,” Holly said.
As she was stepping out the door, Candy said, “You know about his mom, right? What she did after Heath offed himself in jail?”
Holly stopped, keys in hand. “No.”
“It was a month later. Guess you didn’t get that far in your researches. She hung herself. Just like him, only in her basement instead of a jail cell.”
“Holy frack! Did she leave a note?”
“That I don’t know,” Candy said, “but the basement was where the cops found those bloody underpants. The ones with Winnie and Tigger and Roo on them. If your only son does a thing like that, who needs to leave a note?”
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