“Never mind,” Finley said.
They followed a path that led along the edge of the woods, which was separated from the park by a black chain-link fence about four feet high.
“You lost weight?” Finley asked. “You’re looking good. Tell me your secret, ’cause I could stand to lose a few pounds myself.” He patted his stomach with his free hand.
Duckworth had lost all of two pounds in the last two weeks, and was smart enough to know it didn’t show.
“What’d you find, Randy?”
“You just have to see it, is all. It must have happened overnight, because I walk along here with Bipsie a couple times a day—early in the morning, and before I go to bed. Now, it was getting dark when I came by last night, so it might have been there then and I didn’t notice, but I don’t think so. I might not have even noticed it this morning, but the dog made a beeline for the fence when she caught a whiff of it.”
Duckworth decided not to bother asking Finley anymore what it was he wanted to show him, but he steeled himself. He’d seen a few dead people over the years, and figured he’d see plenty more before he retired. Now that he had twenty years in, he was better than halfway there. But you never really got used to it. Not in Promise Falls, anyway. Duckworth had investigated several homicides over the years, most of them straightforward domestics or bar fights, but also a few that had garnered national attention.
None had been what you’d call a good time.
“Just up here,” Finley said. Bipsie started to bark. “Stop it! Settle down, you little fucker!”
Bipsie settled down.
“Right there, on the fence,” Finley said, pointing.
Duckworth stopped and studied the scene before him.
“Yeah, pretty weird, huh? It’s a goddamn massacre. You ever seen anything like this before?”
Duckworth said nothing, but the answer was no, he had not.
Randall Finley kept on talking. “If it had been just one body, or even two, sure, I wouldn’t have called. But look how many there are. I counted. There’s twenty-three of them, Barry. What kind of sick fuck does something like that?”
Barry counted them himself. Randy was right. One short of two dozen.
Twenty-three dead squirrels. Good-size ones, too. Eleven gray ones, twelve black. Each one with a length of white string, the kind used to secure parcels, knotted tightly around its neck, and hung from the horizontal metal pole that ran across the top of the fence.
The animals were spaced out along a ten-foot stretch, each of them hanging on about a foot of string.
“I got no love for them,” Finley said. “Tree rats, I call them, although I guess they don’t do that much harm. But there’s gotta be a law against that, right? Even though they’re just squirrels?”
FOUR
David
“MARLA, I’m serious. You need to talk to me here,” I said.
“I should put him down for a nap,” she said, cradling the baby in her arms, lightly touching the nipple of the baby bottle to his lips. “I think he’s had all he’s going to have for now.”
She set the bottle on the bedside table. The baby, eyes closed, made soft gurgling noises of contentment.
“He wasn’t like this at first,” Marla said. “He cried a lot yesterday. Making strange and all.”
I was going to ask why a baby who she would have me believe had been with her for months would make strange, but let it pass.
She continued. “I sat with him all night and we’ve made a strong bond, the two of us.” She gave a weak laugh. “I must look a fright. I haven’t had a shower this morning or put on my makeup or anything. Last night I put him down for a sleep once he stopped crying, and ran out to the store to get a few things. I know I shouldn’t have left him alone, but there was no one I felt I could call, not just yet, and I was desperate for supplies. The angel only brought a few things.”
“Who else knows about Matthew?” I asked. “Does Aunt Agnes—does your mother know?”
“I haven’t told her the good news yet. It’s all happened pretty quickly.”
The inconsistencies persisted. “How quickly?”
Marla, her eyes still on the baby, said, “Okay, I haven’t exactly had Matthew for ten full months. Yesterday, late in the afternoon, around the time Dr. Phil comes on, I was doing some reviews for an air-conditioning company in Illinois when the doorbell rang.”
“Who was it?”
A weak smile. “I told you. The angel.”
“Tell me about this angel.”
“Well, okay, she wasn’t a real angel, but it’s hard not to think of her that way.”
“It was a woman.”
“That’s right.”
“The mother?”
Marla looked at me sharply. “I’m the mother now.”
“Okay,” I said. “But up until the moment she gave you Matthew, she was the mother?”
Hesitantly, as though unwilling to make the admission, she said, “Maybe.”