“The man who killed the Howard girls used a panel truck,” Yune said, “and when he was done with it, he dumped it in an easily discoverable location. The man who killed Frank Peterson did the same with the van he used to abduct the boy; actually drew attention to it by leaving it behind Shorty’s Pub and speaking to a couple of witnesses—the way Holmes spoke to the cook and the waitress in the Waffle House. The Ohio cops found plenty of fingerprints in the panel truck, both the killer’s and his victims’; we found plenty in the van. But the van prints included at least one set that went unidentified. Until late today, that is.”
Ralph leaned forward, intent.
“Let me show you some stuff.” Yune fiddled with his laptop. Two fingerprints appeared on the screen. “These are from the kid who stole the van in upstate New York. One from the van, one from his intake when he was arrested in El Paso. Now check this out.”
He fiddled some more, and the two prints came together perfectly.
“That takes care of Merlin Cassidy. Now here’s Frank Peterson—one print from the ME, and one from the van.”
The overlay again showed a perfect match.
“Next, Maitland. One print from the van—one of many, I might add—and the other from his intake at the Flint City PD.”
He brought them together, and again the match was perfect. Marcy made a sighing sound.
“Okay, now prepare to have your mind boggled. On the left, an unsub print from the van; on the right, a Heath Holmes print from his intake in Montgomery County, Ohio.”
He brought them together. This time the fit was not perfect, but it was very close. Holly believed a jury would have accepted it as a match. She certainly did.
“You’ll notice a few minor differences,” Yune said. “That’s because the Holmes print from the van is a bit degraded, maybe from the passage of time. But there are enough points of identity to satisfy me. Heath Holmes was in that van at some point. This is new information.”
The room was silent.
Yune put up two more prints. The one on the left was sharp and clear. Holly realized they had already seen it. Ralph did, too. “Terry’s,” he said. “From the van.”
“Correct. And on the right, here’s one from the buckle left in the barn.”
The whorls were the same, but oddly faded in places. When Yune brought them together, the van print filled in the blanks on the buckle print.
“No doubt they’re the same,” Yune said. “Both Terry Maitland’s. Only the one on the buckle looks like it came from a much older finger.”
“How is that possible?” Jeannie asked.
“It’s not,” Samuels said. “I saw a set of Maitland’s prints on his intake card . . . which were made days after he last touched that buckle. They were firm and clear. Every line and whorl intact.”
“We also took an unsub print from that buckle,” Yune said. “Here it is.”
This one no jury would accept; there were a few lines and whorls, but they were faint, barely there at all. Most of the print was no more than a blur.
Yune said, “It’s impossible to be sure, given the poor quality, but I don’t believe that’s Mr. Maitland’s fingerprint, and it can’t be Holmes’s, because he was dead long before that buckle first showed up in the train station video. And yet . . . Heath Holmes was in the van that was used to abduct the Peterson boy. I’m at a loss to explain the when, the how, or the why, but I’m not exaggerating when I say I’d give a thousand dollars to know who left that blurry fingerprint on the belt buckle, and at least five hundred to know how come the Maitland fingerprint on it looks so old.”
He unplugged his laptop and sat down.
“Plenty of pieces on the table,” Howie said, “but I’ll be damned if they make a picture. Does anyone have any more?”
Ralph turned to his wife. “Tell them,” he said. “Tell them who you dreamed was in our house.”
“It was no dream,” she said. “Dreams fade. Reality doesn’t.”
Speaking slowly at first, but picking up speed, she told them about seeing the light on downstairs, and finding the man sitting beyond the archway, on one of the chairs from their kitchen table. She finished with the warning he had given her, emphasizing it with the fading blue letters inked on his fingers. You MUST tell him to stop. “I fainted. I’ve never done that before in my life.”
“She woke up in bed,” Ralph said. “No sign of entry. Burglar alarm was set.”
“A dream,” Samuels said flatly.
Jeannie shook her head hard enough to make her hair fly. “He was there.”
“Something happened,” Ralph said. “That much I’m sure of. The man with the burned face had tats on his fingers—”
“The man who wasn’t there in the films,” Howie said.
“I know how it sounds—crazy. But someone else in this case had finger-tats, and I finally remembered who it was. I had Yune send me a picture, and Jeannie ID’d it. The man Jeannie saw in her dream—or in our house—is Claude Bolton, the bouncer at Gentlemen, Please. The one who got a cut while shaking Maitland’s hand.”
“The way Terry got cut when he bumped into the orderly,” Marcy said. “That orderly was Heath Holmes, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, sure,” Holly said, almost absently. She was looking at one of the pictures on the wall. “Who else would it be?”
Alec Pelley spoke up. “Have either of you checked on Bolton’s whereabouts?”
“I did,” Ralph said, and explained. “He’s in a west Texas town called Marysville, four hundred miles from here, and unless he had a private jet stashed somewhere, he was there at the time Jeannie saw him in our house.”
“Unless his mom was lying,” Samuels said. “As previously noted, mothers are often willing to do that when their sons are under suspicion.”
“Jeannie had the same thought, but it seems unlikely in this case. The cop was there on a pretext, and he says they both seemed relaxed and open. Zero perp-sweat.”
Samuels folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not convinced.”
“Marcy?” Howard said. “I think it’s your turn to add to the puzzle.”
“I . . . I really don’t want to. Let the detective do it. Grace talked to him.”
Howie took her hand. “It’s for Terry.”
Marcy sighed. “All right. Grace saw a man, too. Twice. The second time in the house. I thought she was having bad dreams because she was upset by her father dying . . . as any child would be . . .” She stopped, chewing at her lower lip.
“Please,” Holly said. “It’s very important, Mrs. Maitland.”
“Yes,” Ralph agreed. “It is.”
“I was so sure it wasn’t real! Positive!”
“Did she describe him?” Jeannie asked.
“Sort of. The first time was about a week ago. She and Sarah were sleeping together in Sarah’s room, and Grace said he was floating outside the window. She said he had a Play-Doh face and straws for eyes. Anybody would think that was just a nightmare, wouldn’t they?”
Nobody said anything.
“The second time was on Sunday. She said she woke up from a nap and he was sitting on her bed. She said he didn’t have straws for eyes anymore, that he had her father’s eyes, but he still scared her. He had tattoos on his arms. And on his hands.”
Ralph spoke up. “She told me his Play-Doh face was gone. That he had short black hair, all sticky-uppy. And a little beard around his mouth.”
“A goatee,” Jeannie said. She looked sick. “It was the same man. The first time she might have been having a dream, but the second time . . . that was Bolton. It must have been.”
Marcy put her palms against her temples and pressed, as if she had a headache. “I know it sounds that way, but it had to have been a dream. She said his shirt changed colors while he was talking to her, and that’s the kind of thing that happens in dreams. Detective Anderson, do you want to tell the rest?”
He shook his head. “You’re doing fine.”