The doorbell rang.
“A misunderstanding?” Agnes said. “Is that what you call fucking my assistant? A misunderstanding?”
“There’s someone at the door,” Marla said shakily.
“You’re jumping to conclusions,” Gill said, raising his voice. “A few phone calls, that’s proof of nothing! For God’s sake, Agnes, you’re absolutely paranoid about this.”
“You know what she said? Just now? Before she realized it was me? She said she thought you two were going to take a break. What do you suppose she meant by that?”
The doorbell rang a second time.
“Who knows what the hell she meant?” Gill said. “I always thought she was a bit off her nut. I don’t know how she’s lasted as long as she has working for you. She’s a total incompetent, you ask me.”
“I hate you,” Agnes said. “If you’d fucked around with anyone else, I’d still hate you, but maybe not quite so much. This . . . this is just rubbing my nose in it.”
“Enough!” Marla screamed.
Now someone was pounding on the door. And shouting, “Ms. Pickens! Mr. Pickens!”
Agnes’s finger was in her husband’s face. “I’ll ruin you. I will. I’ll ruin you.”
“I’m glad it was her,” Gill said. “I really am.”
Marla went to the front door, threw it open. Detective Barry Duckworth was standing there with two uniformed officers.
Agnes and Gill Pickens turned and stared, dumbfounded.
Duckworth waved a piece of paper. “I have a warrant for the arrest of Marla Pickens.”
Marla’s arms hung limply at her sides. She looked numb.
Agnes glanced at her husband, took the phone he was holding, and said, “I’ll call Natalie.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
ACTING Promise Falls detective Angus Carlson’s first day out of uniform wasn’t going to be anything to brag about to his wife when he took her out for dinner that evening. Barry Duckworth had left him a note of things he wanted him to follow up on.
First up, the squirrels.
Carlson figured this was Duckworth’s way of getting even. Okay, so maybe he cracked a couple of stupid jokes. Just trying to break the tension was all. Where was the harm in that? Carlson had always been looking for ways to lighten the mood. What had his mother always said? Turn up the corners of your mouth.
But Duckworth’s list of to-dos didn’t end with squirrels. He wanted Carlson to head back out to Thackeray to interview three young women who’d been attacked, presumably by some guy named Mason Helt, who’d been shot in the head by campus security chief Clive Duncomb.
Finally, Duckworth wanted Carlson to go back out to Five Mountains and learn more about those three naked mannequins—“You’ll Be Sorry” painted across their chests—that had gone for a spin on the Ferris wheel.
Duckworth had added some cryptic notes about the number 23. How that number was a common element in all three incidents. How it might mean something.
“Hmm,” Carlson had said under his breath as he read the detective’s notes. Duckworth wanted him to be on the alert for any recurrence of that number.
He began his day at the park where the squirrels had been found. Walked carefully through the adjoining wooded area. Talked to anyone who happened to pass by, asked whether they’d noticed anything odd the night before last. Knocked on the doors of nearby houses to ask the same.
Came up with a big fat zero.
At one door, an elderly man grinned and said, “This case’ll be a tough nut to crack!”
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that funny.
He didn’t do much better at Thackeray. None of the women he wanted to interview was available. Two had gone home for a couple of days. The third, who apparently was going to be spending the summer at the college taking extra courses, couldn’t be found. Another student who lived across the hall from her said she could be at the library, or in town doing some shopping, or just out for a long walk.
Carlson wasn’t going to waste his entire day out there.
Next stop: Five Mountains.
He went straight to the administration offices, where he found Fenwick. According to Duckworth’s exhaustive note, she was going to draw up a list of people who had operated the Ferris wheel during the months the park was open. While it was possible anyone with some mechanical smarts might have been able to get the ride going, someone who’d actually run the thing would have an edge.
“I’m still freaked out about this,” Fenwick said, sitting at her computer, tapping away.
“Sure,” Carlson said. “That’s totally understandable, you being here alone and all, late at night.”
“I thought I was going to have a list for you this afternoon, but I haven’t heard from our former facilities supervisor. He’d know who ran each ride, but of course, head office fired him, and it’s not like he’s in any rush to do me a favor. If I don’t hear from him by the end of today I’ll call him. Weren’t you in uniform last night?”