Driving through Hope’s Peak, Harper calls Albie Goode’s phone.
“Albie.”
“It’s Harper. I’m heading out with Raley, following up on a potential lead. Do you think you could ask around, see what you can turn up about Alma Buford’s friends?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks. Let me know what you find out.”
“Will do,” he says.
Harper hangs up.
Stu offers her a stick of gum. “Here.”
“Thanks,” she says. “Are you saying I’ve got coffee breath?”
“Nope. And anyway, if you do, I do, too.” Stu pockets the gum. They stop at a set of lights. “Hey, uh, I’ll have a talk with Karen. You know, when I’ve got a chance. Convince her she’s wrong about us. She must’ve heard something from someone.”
“How do you mean?” Harper asks.
“Someone’s told her we’re sleeping together, and that it dates back to before we were divorced.”
The lights change. Harper presses the gas pedal and moves with the flow of traffic.
“Who’d do that?” she asks. “We’re on good terms with most of the station.”
Stu shrugs. “Could be anyone. People gossip too much. You know what it’s like in a workplace, how quickly these fucking rumors spread.”
Truth be told, they haven’t had sex for weeks. With both of them coming out of long-term relationships, the last thing they wanted to do was throw themselves at each other. That, and they’d have to stop working together. Likely she’d get stuck with John Dudley as her new partner.
That is not an option.
“I’m not going to think about it right now, Stu,” Harper admits. “There’s just the case. Everything else can wait.”
“I hear you,” he says, knowing all too well why she hasn’t been interested in sleeping with him. Since getting assigned to run the Alma Buford case, Harper cannot switch off, and her romantic entanglements with Stu Raley are at the bottom of her list.
They drive on in silence for a while and Harper wonders if what she really meant was that they could wait.
She suspects that Stu is wondering the same thing.
The desk clerk at the Baxter Retirement Home calls for a nurse to take them through the east wing of the building. They go through one set of security doors, accessed by punching in a code. There is a short hall, with a few doors on either side, then another security door that prevents any further progress.
“What is this place? Fort Knox?” Stu asks.
The nurse chuckles. “Something like that. We have to be careful. The old folks like to go off and wander.”
“Escape you mean,” Stu says.
“We’re extra vigilant today because we lost a resident a few days ago. Most of the staff have gone to the funeral, so we’re running a skeleton crew until they come back.”
“That’s sad,” Harper says. “How old?”
“Eighty-six years old,” the nurse says. “Went in her sleep.”
Stu sighs. “What a way to go . . .”
Harper knows her partner is thinking about those girls, and how they were not afforded the luxury of passing away as they slept.
They’re led to a communal area where a few of the residents are playing checkers. One particularly miserable-looking man sits in an armchair, head resting on his chest, snoring, dribble running from his mouth and down his top.
“Don’t mind Frank,” the nurse says. “That’s how he sleeps. It’s because he takes his teeth out.”
In the corner an old man listens to the radio, head cocked to one side.
“Lloyd—” the nurse starts to say.
The old man waves a hand at him. “Shush for a minute.”
Their chaperone shares a look with them. “Lloyd, you’ve got visitors.”
Lloyd ignores him.
Harper realizes the old man’s listening to the ninth inning of a baseball game. In his hand, he holds a piece of paper, a betting slip.
“You bet the game,” Harper says.
Lloyd looks at her, then returns to the radio. “Figure that out all by yourself?”
“I did, actually.”
Stu raises a hand in the air. “With my help.”
The nurse tells them to take a seat and lowers his voice to a near whisper. “You won’t get much out of him till this game is over. Might as well sit down and get comfortable.”
As it is, the game only goes on for another few minutes, thanks to a lucky catch turned into a double play by a rookie first baseman, and Lloyd is finished with it. He wads the betting slip up into a little ball and chucks it on the floor. Now he looks at the two detectives with a face that belies his frustration.
“Who’re you two?”
“I am Detective Jane Harper. This is my partner, Detective Stu Raley.”
“From Hope’s Peak PD?”
“Yes sir,” Stu says.
Lloyd sits back, hands locked together over his paunch. “Still a shit hole of a place to work?”
“It can be, sometimes,” Harper admits. “But that’s not why we’re here.”
“Well whatever it is, don’t bother asking me for betting tips. Ain’t had a lucky streak for quite some time,” Lloyd tells them.
Harper looks at him. Hair almost gone, and what there is of it is pure white. His hands are smothered in age spots. Lloyd’s face is deeply lined, his jowls sagging with the years, but his eyes are bright.
“We’re not here for tips, Mister Claymore,” Stu says. “We’re here for help.”
“Eh?”
Harper sits forward. “Do you remember Ruby Lane, Detective?”
Recognition flashes. “I do. And it’s not ‘Detective’ anymore. Just Lloyd.”
“Okay, Lloyd. Tell us what you remember about her,” Harper says.
What he has to say is very much in line with what she’s already read from the file, with just a few of the details fudged. Despite that, his memory is remarkably sharp for someone pushing eighty. He recalls names, dates, places. Who said what and where. Harper is impressed.
“You’ve got a good memory,” Stu says.
“Just ’cause I’m in here don’t mean I’m senile, son,” Lloyd says. He taps the left side of his chest. “It’s my ticker’s the problem. Not my head.”
Stu smirks. “Got it.”
“So, her daughter. Ida—”
“Look, if you’re here to talk to me about Ruby Lane, that means one thing. That means you’ve connected some dots. You have a dead girl on your hands. Maybe a few?”
Harper holds up her fingers. “Two.”
“And you’ve noticed a distinct similarity with the murder of Ruby Lane and the two new ones, yes?”
She nods.
“Good. Then it means I can impart something to you both that might be a little . . . sensitive.”
“What do you mean?”
Lloyd sighs. He looks at them both. “I’ve got the cancer. It’s in my bladder; it’s in my spine. I’m pretty sure it’s in my lungs and God knows where else by now. They say I’ve got six months . . . Well, who knows, eh?”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Stu says.
“While I thank you for your sympathy, it’s misplaced, believe me.”
Harper cocks her head to one side. “How so?”
“I’ve kept a secret, Detective Harper. One that has tainted this town long enough. Unfortunately, it’s a secret I cannot carry with me to the grave. Not if he’s killing again.”