“Sure. She’s stopped hiding her kills so carefully.” Clara nodded. “Yeah. Fetlock thought it was because she was getting scared, and that made her sloppy. You and I had a different idea, if you recall—that it was just the opposite, that she’s stopped thinking of us, of law enforcement, as a threat.”
“Yes,” Glauer said. “I remember.” He stopped pacing and looked at her. “You think you have a better explanation?” “Maybe. I think she might be building up to something.” Glauer sighed. “I don’t like the sound of that.” “We know she’s a smart one. Every time Laura had Malvern in her sights, Malvern managed to get away almost on a technicality, or at the last minute. And even when she was stuck in her coffin, too weak to move, she always found a way to cause trouble. I can’t imagine she doesn’t have a plan right now.”
“But what could it possibly be?” Glauer asked. “She needs blood, lots of blood. More blood every night. That’s a zero-sum game. It means we’ll never stop looking for her. And no matter how inept we may be, eventually we’re going to find her. No matter how clever or how careful she is, she can’t keep doing this forever, but she can’t stop, either. What kind of plan would get her out of this mess?”
“I don’t know. I’m not as smart as she is,” Clara admitted. “I just have a feeling, that’s all. She hasn’t finished surprising us yet. Shit. Is that really the time?”
Glauer looked up at the clock over the bar. “Almost. Places like this set the clock ahead about fifteen minutes, because they know when last call comes, it’ll still take the patrons that long to finish their drinks and get out. They call it bar time.”
Clara smiled at the big cop. She probably knew a lot more about closing down bars than he did. “Listen, I know Fetlock doesn’t want to bring Laura into this investigation. But I’m going to run her through it anyway and see what she says. I’m going up to Tioga County today to visit her.”
“Really? He’s not going to like that,” Glauer said. “For one thing, he’s definitely going to want you on call, and if he can’t reach you—”
“It’s only a four-hour drive,” Clara told him. It was almost noon and she really needed to get on the road. “You… heard, right? About where she is now?”
“That they segregated her?” He shrugged. “Yeah.” Every cop knew a few corrections officers—they ran in the same social circles. And any time an ex-cop ended up inside it made for excellent gossip. Probably every state trooper and sheriff’s deputy in Pennsylvania had heard about Caxton’s descent to the hole. “Probably the safest place for her is in an SHU. She can’t have a lot of friends in the general population.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not all good. Prisoners in the SHU only get one hour of non-contact visitation a month. If I don’t get up there by five o’clock today it’ll be the end of April before I can get another appointment. It’s four hours up there, an hour visit, and four hours back. I’ll be back here by ten at the latest. So if Fetlock comes calling, stall him for me, will you? Just pretend you can’t reach me, that I’m out of cell phone range or something. Please. It’s really important that I talk to her now.”
Glauer smiled at her. “You know I will. It’s got to mean a lot to her, to have someone come see her as regularly as you do.”
“Yeah,” Clara said. “It must.”
“You’re a good person,” he told her. “A lot of people wouldn’t have wanted to wait for her to get out. Maybe they would hold out for a while, you know, but eventually they wouldn’t be able to handle it. They would have to break things off.”
“Um. Yeah,” Clara said.
His eyes went wide. “Oh,” he said. “You’re going to—”
“I’m going to be late,” Clara said, “if I don’t get going right now.”
Glauer turned his face away from her. “Tell her I said hi.”