“Pretty much what we decided on in Howie’s office. That we wanted to interview him, because we’re having doubts about Terry Maitland’s guilt. Emphasized that we didn’t think Bolton himself was guilty of anything, and that the people who’d be coming to see him were acting strictly as private citizens. He asked if you’d be one of them. I said you would. Hope that’s okay with you. It seemed to be with him.”
“That’s fine.” Jeannie had gone directly upstairs, and now he heard the start-up chime of the desktop computer they shared. “What else?”
“I said that if Maitland was framed, then Bolton might be at risk for the same treatment, especially since he was a man with a record.”
“How did he react to that?”
“Okay. He didn’t get defensive or anything. But then he said something interesting. Asked me if I was sure it really had been Terry Maitland he saw in the club the night the Peterson boy was murdered.”
“He said that? Why?”
“Because Maitland acted like he’d never seen him before, and when Bolton asked how the baseball team was doing, Maitland passed it off with some kind of generality. No details, even though the team was in the playoffs. He also told me Maitland was wearing fancy sneakers. ‘Like the ones the kids save up for so they can look like gangbangers,’ he said. According to Bolton, he never saw Maitland in anything like that.”
“Those were the sneakers we found in that barn.”
“No way to prove it, but I’m sure you’re right.”
Upstairs, Ralph now heard the moaning, grinding sound of their old Hewlett-Packard printer coming to life, and wondered what the hell Jeannie was up to.
Yune said, “Remember the Gibney woman telling us about the hair they found in Maitland’s father’s room at the assisted living place? From one of the murdered girls?”
“Sure.”
“What do you want to bet that if we go through Maitland’s credit purchases, we’ll find a record of him buying those sneakers? And a slip with a signature on it that matches Maitland’s exactly?”
“I guess this hypothetical outsider could do that,” Ralph said, “but only if he snitched one of Terry’s credit cards.”
“He wouldn’t even need to do that. Remember, the Maitlands have lived in Flint City like forever. They’ve probably got charge accounts at half a dozen downtown stores. All this guy would have to do is walk into the sporting goods department, pick out those fancy kicks, and sign his name. Who’d question him? Everyone in town knows him. It’s the same thing as the hair and the girls’ underthings, don’t you see? He takes their faces and does his dirt, but that isn’t enough for him. He also weaves the rope that hangs them. Because he eats sadness. He eats sadness!”
Ralph paused, put a hand over his eyes, pressed his fingers to one temple and his thumb to the other.
“Ralph? Are you there?”
“Yes. But Yune . . . you’re making leaps I’m not ready to make.”
“I understand. I’m not a hundred per cent on board with this myself. But you need to at least keep the possibility in mind.”
But it’s not a possibility, Ralph thought. It’s an impossibility.
He asked Yune if he had told Bolton to be careful.
Yune laughed. “I did. He laughed. Said there were three guns in the house, two rifles and a pistol, and that his mother is a better shot than he is, even with emphysema. Man, I wish I was going down there with you.”
“Try to make it happen.”
“I will.”
As he ended the call, Jeannie came down with a thin sheaf of paper. “I’ve been researching Holly Gibney. Tell you what, for a soft-spoken lady with absolutely no clothes sense, she’s been up to a lot.”
As Ralph took the pages, headlights spilled up the driveway. Jeannie grabbed the pages back before he could do more than look at the newspaper headline on the first sheet: RETIRED COP, TWO OTHERS SAVE THOUSANDS AT MINGO AUDITORIUM CONCERT. He assumed Ms. Holly Gibney was one of the two others.
“Go help her in with her luggage,” Jeannie said. “You can read these in bed.”
16
Holly’s luggage consisted of the shoulder-bag that held her laptop, a hold-all small enough to fit in an airplane’s overhead compartment, and a plastic Walmart bag. She let Ralph take the hold-all, but insisted on keeping custody of the shoulder-bag and whatever she’d purchased at Wally World.
“You’re very good to have me,” she said to Jeannie.
“It’s our pleasure. Can I call you Holly?”
“Yes, please. That would be good.”
“Our spare room is at the end of the upstairs hall. The sheets are fresh, and it has its own bathroom. Just don’t stumble over my sewing machine table if you have to use the facility in the middle of the night.”
An unmistakable expression of relief crossed Holly’s face at this, and she smiled. “I’ll try not to.”
“Would you like cocoa? I could make some. Or maybe something stronger?”
“Just bed, I think. I don’t mean to be impolite, but I’ve had a very long day.”
“Of course you have. I’ll show you the way.”
But Holly lingered for a moment, looking through the archway and into the Andersons’ living room. “Your intruder was sitting just there when you came downstairs?”
“Yes. In one of our kitchen chairs.” She pointed, then crossed her arms and cupped her elbows. “At first I could only see him from the knees down. Then the word on his fingers. MUST. Then he leaned forward and I could see his face.”
“Bolton’s face.”
“Yes.”
Holly considered this, then broke into a radiant smile that surprised both Ralph and his wife. It made her look years younger. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to dreamland.”
Jeannie led her upstairs, chatting away. Setting her at ease in a way I never could, Ralph thought. It’s a talent, and it will probably work even on this extremely peculiar woman.
Peculiar she might be, but she was strangely likeable, in spite of her mad ideas about Terry Maitland and Heath Holmes.
Mad ideas that just happen to fit the facts.
But it was impossible.
That fit them like a glove.
“Still impossible,” he murmured.
Upstairs, the two women laughed. Hearing that made Ralph smile. He waited where he was until he heard Jeannie’s steps heading back to their room, then he went up himself. The door to the guest room at the end of the hall was firmly closed. The sheaf of papers—the fruits of Jeannie’s hurried research—was lying on his pillow. He undressed, lay down, and began to read about Ms. Holly Gibney, co-owner of a skip-tracing firm called Finders Keepers.
17
Outside and down the block, Jack watched as the woman in the suit turned into Anderson’s driveway. Anderson came out and helped her with her things. She didn’t have much, traveling light. One of her bags was from Walmart. So that was where she’d gone. Maybe to get a nightie and a toothbrush. Judging from the look of her, the nightie would be ugly and the bristles of the toothbrush would be hard enough to draw blood from her gums.
He took a nip from his flask, and as he was screwing on the cap and thinking about going home (why not, since all the good little children were in for the night), he realized he was no longer alone in the truck. Someone was sitting on the passenger side. He had just appeared in the corner of Hoskins’s eye. That was impossible, of course, but he couldn’t have been there all along. Could he?
Hoskins looked straight ahead. The sunburn on his neck, which had been relatively quiet, began to throb again, and very painfully.
A hand came into his peripheral vision, floating. It seemed he could almost see the seat through it. Written on the fingers in faded blue ink was the word MUST. Hoskins closed his eyes, praying that his visitor would not touch him.
“You need to take a drive,” the visitor said. “Unless you want to die the way your mother died, that is. Do you remember how she screamed?”
Yes, Jack remembered. Until she couldn’t scream anymore.
“Until she couldn’t scream anymore,” said the passenger. The hand touched his thigh, very lightly, and Jack knew the skin there would soon begin to burn, just like the back of his neck. The pants he was wearing would be no protection; the poison would seep right through. “Yes, you remember. How could you forget?”