“Not in Flint City?” Alec asked.
“There was no Flint City back then. Just a little village called Flint, a wide spot in the road. Until statehood, in the early twentieth century, Canning was the biggest town in the area. Named after the biggest landowner, of course. When it came to acreage, the Maitlands were second or third. Canning was an important town until the big dust storms came in the twenties and thirties, when most of the good topsoil blew away. These days there’s nothing out there but a store and a church hardly anyone goes to.”
“And the graveyard,” Alec said. “Where people did their burying until the town dried up. Including a bunch of Terry’s ancestors.”
Marcy smiled wanly. “That graveyard . . . I thought it was awful. Like an empty house nobody cares about.”
Yune said, “If this outsider was absorbing Terry’s thoughts and memories as the transformation progressed, then he would have known about the graveyard.” He was looking at one of the pictures on the wall now, but Ralph had a good idea what was going through his mind. It was going through his, as well. The barn. The discarded clothes.
“According to the legends—there are dozens about El Cuco online—these creatures like places of death,” Holly said. “It’s where they feel most at home.”
“If there are creatures who eat sadness,” Jeannie mused, “a graveyard would make a nice cafeteria, wouldn’t it?”
Ralph wished mightily that his wife hadn’t come. If not for her, he would have been out the door ten minutes ago. Yes, the barn where the clothes had been found was near that dusty old boneyard. Yes, the goo that had turned the hay black was puzzling, and yes, perhaps there had been an outsider. That was a theory he was willing to accept, at least for the time being. It explained a lot. An outsider who was consciously re-creating a Mexican legend would explain even more . . . but it didn’t explain the disappearing man at the courthouse, or how Terry Maitland could have been in two places at the same time. He kept coming up against those things; they were like pebbles lodged in his throat.
Holly said, “Let me show you some pictures I took at another graveyard. They may open a line of more normal investigation. If either Detective Anderson or Lieutenant Sablo is willing to talk to the police in Montgomery County, Ohio, that is.”
Yune said, “At this point I’d talk to the pope, if it would help to clear this up.”
One by one, Holly projected the photos on the screen: the train station, the factory with the swastika spray-painted on the side, the deserted car wash.
“I took these from the parking lot of the Peaceful Rest Cemetery in Regis. It’s where Heath Holmes is buried with his parents.”
She cycled through the pictures again: train station, factory, car wash.
“I think the outsider took the van he stole from the lot in Dayton to one of these places, and I think if you could persuade the Montgomery County police to search them, some trace of it might still be there. The police might even find some trace of him. There, or maybe here.”
This time she projected the photograph of the boxcars, sitting lonely and deserted on their siding. “He couldn’t have hidden the van in either of those, but he might have stayed in one of them. They’re even closer to the cemetery.”
Here at last was something Ralph could take hold of. Something real. “Sheltered places. There could be traces. Even after three months.”
“Tire tracks,” Yune said. “Maybe more discarded clothes.”
“Or other stuff,” Holly said. “Will you check? And they should be prepared to do an acid phosphate test.”
Semen stains, Ralph thought, and remembered the goo in the barn. What had Yune said about those? A nocturnal emission worthy of The Guinness Book of Records, wasn’t that it?
Yune sounded admiring. “You know your stuff, ma’am.”
Color rose in her cheeks, and she looked down. “Bill Hodges was very good at his job. He taught me a lot.”
“I can call the Montgomery County prosecutor, if you want,” Samuels said. “Get somebody from whatever police department has jurisdiction in that town—Regis?—to coordinate with the Staties. Given what that Elfman kid found in that barn in Canning Township, it’s worth looking into.”
“What?” Holly asked, immediately alight. “What did he find, beside the belt buckle with the prints on it?”
“A pile of clothes,” Samuels said, “Pants, underwear shorts, sneakers. There was some kind of goo on them, also on the hay. It turned the hay black.” He paused. “No shirt, though. The shirt was missing.”
Yune said, “That shirt might have been what the burned man was wearing on his head like a do-rag when we saw him at the courthouse.”
“How far is this barn from the graveyard?” Holly asked.
“Less than half a mile,” Yune said. “The residue on the clothes looked like semen. Is that what you’re thinking, Ms. Gibney? Is that why you want the Ohio cops to do an acid phosphate test?”
“Can’t have been semen,” Ralph said. “There was too much of it.”
Yune ignored this. He was staring at Holly, as if fascinated with her. “Are you thinking the stuff in the barn is a kind of residue from the change? We’re having samples checked, but the results haven’t come back yet.”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” Holly said. “My research about El Cuco so far amounts to a few legends I read while I was flying down here, and they’re not reliable. They were passed down orally, generation to generation, long before forensic science existed. I’m just saying that the police in Ohio should check the places in my photographs. They might not find anything . . . but I think they will. I hope they will. Traces, as Detective Anderson said.”
“Are you done, Ms. Gibney?” Howie asked.
“Yes, I think so.” She sat down. Ralph thought she looked exhausted, and why not? She’d had a busy few days. In addition to that, being crazy had to wear a person out.
Howie said, “Ladies and gentlemen, are there ideas on how we proceed from here? The floor is open for suggestions.”
“The next step seems obvious,” Ralph said. “This outsider might be here in FC—the testimony from my wife and Grace Maitland seems to suggest that—but somebody needs to go down to Texas and interview Claude Bolton, see what he knows. If anything. I nominate me.”
Alec said, “I want to go with you.”
“I think that’s a trip I’d also like to make,” Howie said. “Lieutenant Sablo?”
“I’d like to, but I have two cases in court. If I don’t testify, a couple of very bad boys could walk. I’ll call the ADA in Cap City, see if there’s any chance of a postponement, but I’m not hopeful. It’s not like I can tell him I’m on the trail of a shape-shifting Mexican monster.”
Howie smiled. “I should think not. What about you, Ms. Gibney? Want to go a little further south? You’d continue to be compensated, of course.”
“Yes, I’ll go. Mr. Bolton may know things we need to find out. If, that is, we can ask the right questions.”
Howie said, “What about you, Bill? Want to see this thing through?”
Samuels smiled thinly, shook his head, then stood up. “All this has been interesting, in a mad sort of way, but as far as I’m concerned, the case is closed. I’ll make some calls to the police in Ohio, but that’s where my participation ends. Mrs. Maitland, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“You ought to be,” Marcy said.
He winced at that, but pressed on. “Ms. Gibney, it’s been fascinating. I appreciate your hard work and due diligence. You also make a surprisingly persuasive case for the fantastic, I say that without a trace of irony, but I’m going to go home, grab a beer out of the fridge, and start forgetting this whole thing.”