Rage Against the Dying

Forty-two





Without waiting for any response from me, without saying good-bye, Carlo went back into the house, shooing the Pugs as they tried to come out to me. I left through the side gate rather than look like a jerk scrambling back over the fence. Everything seemed secure here, and if Carlo followed my instructions he should be safe with or without Gordo’s protection.

I sat in the car, thinking some. It seemed more logical that the killer was trying to silence me and wouldn’t bother with my husband. My absence would draw fire away from the house while I searched for Coleman and tried to find out who was trying to kill me. Even if everyone else thought I was either crazy or bad, I was more certain than ever that these two things, the attempts on my life and Coleman’s disappearance, were connected.

I stared at the street in front of me, unable for the first time to avoid the thought that there was no reason to suppose that Coleman was still alive. I mean, if they tried to kill me, why not her? Thoughts heading in that direction, already on edge to the point of falling off, I was shocked by a face in my window.

“F*ck!” I shrieked, and grabbed for my gun on the passenger seat, where it should have been, but found only my flashlight. I flicked it on and aimed it through the window, hoping to at least blind my assailant.

Max stood there, blinking. “It’s me,” his muffled voice came through the glass. I slid the window down and, uncaring about the neighbors or Carlo, yelled, “You want to get yourself killed?”

“I don’t think that flashlight is loaded.” Trying to maintain his tough-guy expression but unable to suppress a small smile, he walked around the front of the car and tried to get in the passenger seat, but the door was locked. He waited. I had no choice. I leaned over and flicked the lock.

When he had made himself at home, he said, “Why are you staking out your own house?”

Either I was still in a bit of shock from the surprise, or I was just getting fed up. It seemed I was out of new lies. Also the dark does something for honesty. “Why’d you have to discuss my past with Carlo?”

“I was surprised he didn’t already know. It’s the kind of thing you share with your spouse.”

“Share it with your own spouse. Max, someone is trying to kill me and I’m worried about Carlo’s safety because I think someone has abducted Agent Laura Coleman.”

“Yeah, right,” he said.

So much for honesty. But then it sounded kind of wild to me when I heard myself say it. Kind of trumped up.

He didn’t ask why I was just bringing this up only now but kept his focus on the mundane, “You didn’t answer why you’re out here.”

“I came by to keep an eye on him. We’re breaking up.”

“I’m sorry. He told me you took off suddenly yesterday but I didn’t know it was permanent. Why did you leave?”

“Why are you here?”

“You didn’t return my call. I pulled up and saw you sitting out here watching the house, so I was watching you, wondering how long you’d stay. Except for when you got out of the car just then you’ve been here a long time.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Gerald Peasil.”

I had some sense left even after my shock. “Who?”

Max gave his head an impatient jerk. “Don’t pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about. I’m still waiting for the DNA analysis, but in the meantime I ran the prints we retrieved against your own, the ones you have on file with the Bureau.”

“And?”

“You didn’t match any of them.”

“Of course not.” I cracked open my last bottle of water, buying time. “Want some?”

He took a swig and put it in the cup holder between us. It reminded me of a lion and a gazelle at the watering hole. “So we went up to where he’d been staying. Found evidence of sexual violence, certainly rape, probably murder. At least three. They’re sending cadaver dogs up there on the chance he hid the bodies in the vicinity, in the mine-tailings ponds or somewhere. We found clothes so the dogs have a lot to go on.”

“Is that good news?”

“That the guy appears to be a serial killer or that he’s dead?”

“You tell me,” I said.

“No, you tell me. I still can’t think of more than one reason why you didn’t report it.”

I took a drink from the bottle. We both had dry mouth from the tension of the conversation, and pretended it was simple thirst. “I told you, Max. I was going to call you; I would have called you; I just got scared.” I knew what was coming next. I wondered what I would say.

“Scared, you. Did you kill him, Brigid?”

There it was.

“Not me.”

“Let’s say you did.”

“Let’s just say.”

“How would—”

“Ah, the classic interrogation question. You really think I’m going to do a hypothetical?”

“It was worth a try.”

It was a night for honesty all around. “You ever work a sexual homicide case, Max?”

“Yes.”

“Accidental, quick, or truly brutal?”

“You know the answer to that. Somebody gets too rough, somebody dies. Somebody suffocates getting themself off.”

I nodded in the dark. “But never serial sexual homicide with mutilation. Most people go through their whole career without seeing that. Those images you carry for the rest of your life.”

“Oh, here we go. The great Brigid Quinn has seen it all. And I’m just a poor country sheriff’s deputy from Bumf*ckaz where nothing ever happens except maybe cattle ruslin’. Give me a break.”

“Well, I can tell you women’s breasts look a lot more attractive when they’re still attached to the body.”

Max’s body twisted. “Jesus Christ, Brigid, do you joke about everything?”

“Was that a joke? I’m sorry, sometimes I can’t tell the difference anymore.” I took another swig of water, and offered him the bottle, which he didn’t bother to acknowledge this time. “So now you’ve got Gerald Peasil,” I said. “A real serial killer … you say.”

“And what a coincidence in this small town where there were only thirty-five homicides all last year that we have both Gerald Peasil and Floyd Lynch within weeks of each other, huh?”

“I guess that’s a pretty big coincidence.”

“You might think that. Only because it’s a small town where there were only thirty-five homicides last year, I started thinking about it. I got to thinking about all these dots we have.” Max leaned forward and started making dots in a row with his weiner finger on the dashboard as he listed each one. “There’s you not reporting the van in the wash, Gerald Peasil being a serial killer, Floyd Lynch being a serial killer. Then I got to thinking about this hair we found in Peasil’s apartment. It looked like hair from three different women, but all shades of gray, white, mixed, braided together. See, that’s another dot. I got to thinking about the color, awful lot of gray hair going around, you know, that maybe there’s no coincidence about Peasil attacking older women and you being an older woman and about two serial killers operating in the same area. And you being somehow connected to them both.” He drew an imaginary line connecting the imaginary dots. “Then I got to thinking about how the ME found that Peasil’s artery had been slashed and how you had that stick with a blade on the end. Carlo said you lost it.”

“It broke.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I threw it away.” I paused. Max didn’t say anything. “In the garbage,” I added.

I turned to see the moonlight shining off Max’s eyes. When someone has a temper, like my father for instance, you get used to the slamming and the shouting. It’s the calm and controlled people who unnerve you.

Max didn’t avert his gaze. I could tell he was looking at what he was convinced was a rogue agent and it was useless to try to change his mind just now. He said, “Of course, right now I just got lots of dots. But I know your connection to Lynch, the Route 66 case. Next is finding out your connection to Peasil. Maybe it’s not through Lynch. I’m beginning to think maybe a chance encounter, you were trying to disable him, and things went out of control. You didn’t mean to jab his artery. We don’t have to call it murder, Brigid. We could call it self-defense.”

While trying to act like he had my best interests at heart, Max was still fishing. That told me, for all that Carlo had professed to no longer know me, to no longer love me, he hadn’t yet told Max about finding the bloody clothes in the washing machine. If he had, Max would have taken me downtown. I didn’t even care anymore about being arrested, except I knew that once that happened Coleman would almost certainly be lost. And that reminded me I was wasting precious time. I needed to get out of this conversation.

“You could call it self-defense? You and I both know you have no power to cut a deal on this, Max. If it happened like you’re suggesting, the DA would probably go more for involuntary manslaughter. And that’s if the defendant was lucky. Hard to argue that a trained agent with a shady past punctured an artery by accident. Especially with a subsequent cover-up. No, I bet that DA would go for at least murder two. But I didn’t do it, Max.” I tried to keep my voice steady, soft, noncombative. I needed to not push him over the edge, just out of my car. “If you took me in now, the most you’d get is hours of typing up a very long and complicated report. You don’t have any witnesses or forensic evidence. You don’t even have the murder weapon.”

Max leaned close enough toward me that I could feel wet breath and smell the Whopper he had for dinner. I took it without flinching but without fighting back either. With the same calm tone he’d use for pointing out a cloud in the sky, “Carlo is good people. That’s why I want to be very careful before I do something that will ruin his life.”