Pete rolled onto his back, tucked his hands behind his head. Tried to piece it together. But his head was a jumble of beer and tiredness and medical jargon. He dozed off and woke up hours later, sweating through his clothes, a foul taste in his mouth.
He got up, drank some water, stared at his reflection in the dark window. He had a feeling he wouldn’t sleep again tonight.
He sat on his bed, put the autopsy report back into the envelope, took out the photos of Ruth Malone’s home. They didn’t show much: it was just an ordinary apartment where a mother and two kids lived. In the kitchen, there were plates stacked in the dish rack, toys on the floor. Piles of folded laundry on a couple of the chairs.
Then he came to a photo of Ruth’s bedroom, and stopped. It was neater than the other rooms: the surfaces were uncluttered, polished. The large bed dominated the room. It was covered in patterned throw pillows; a satin comforter hemmed with ribbon lay across the foot.
Why had Devlin given these to him? There was nothing relevant here.
He tucked them back into the envelope, slid the interview tape into his cassette player. He lay down and listened to it clicking around, and then to Devlin’s low, deliberate voice filling the air. There was something different about him on this tape. That rasping voice, those thick vowels, were the same—but he sounded like he was hurrying to get where he wanted to go.
“Interview restarting . . . September seventeenth, nineteen sixty-five, eleven twenty-two a.m. Okay. Uh . . . Mrs. Malone. What did you feed your children on the evening of July thirteenth?”
“I already told you. Twice.”
“Tell us again.”
“I fried veal, I opened a can of beans. They drank milk, I had iced tea.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Of course I’m sure. You asked me for the first time just the day after. It was the last meal I . . .”
There was a pause. A cough.
“Did you give them pasta? Macaroni? Anything like that?”
“I told you. We ate meat. String beans. They had milk. That’s it.”
Her voice was measured, emphatic.
“So, no pasta.”
“Jesus Christ! How many times? We didn’t have any fucking pasta!”
Another pause.
“So who put the empty box of macaroni in your garbage?”
“What?”
“We found a box of macaroni in your garbage.”
She gave a harsh half-laugh. “So? Maybe a neighbor used our garbage can if theirs was full. Maybe it was me, I don’t know. It could have been there for days! I don’t remember everything I fed them that week.”
“You don’t?” He made it sound like a crime. Paper rustled.
“No, I don’t.” Verging on insolent.
The click of a lighter. The drawing of breath.
“And what about the plate of leftover macaroni in your refrigerator? Did a neighbor put that there too?”
“What? What the hell is all this? I just told you, I don’t remember what else I fed them that week. Maybe there was pasta left over from the day before or from the weekend. I. Don’t. Remember. Why does all this matter? Why aren’t you out there looking for the person who killed my kids? There’s some crazy guy out there killing children and you’re asking me questions about goddamn macaroni!”
“Because right now, Mrs. Malone, I’m talking to you.” A pause. “You said . . .” More rustling: Devlin, flicking through his notes, although Pete had a feeling that Devlin remembered exactly what she had said.
“. . . uh-huh, here we are . . . you said in your initial statement that you stopped at Walsh’s Deli on your way home on the thirteenth because—and I’m quoting here—‘There was nothing in the apartment for dinner.’ Why would you do that, Mrs. Malone, if there was a plate of macaroni in the refrigerator?”
She was silent.
“Why, Mrs. Malone?”
“I don’t know, okay? I don’t know what you want me to say. I must have forgotten the macaroni was there.”
Devlin took a soft breath, almost imperceptible. There was a gentle click—perhaps he was laying down his pen before speaking.
Pete could almost see him, hunched over the table, leaning toward her. Getting closer. Circling and smelling her fear.
When he spoke, his voice was low and measured.
“You bought veal, a can of string beans, milk, the day your children disappeared. At Walsh’s Deli on Main Street. And you fed those items to your children that evening for their last meal.”
“I told you, I—”
“So what would you say, Mrs. Malone, if I told you that the autopsy on your daughter found undigested pasta in her stomach?”
And as Devlin pounced, Pete could hear him relishing the panic and confusion that was surely painting her face.
“What? I don’t understand. I—”
“Undigested pasta, which you fed both your children on the evening they were killed. Very shortly before they were killed. The autopsy shows that your daughter was dead less than two hours after she ate. This story about feeding them veal, about checking on them at midnight—none of it’s true, is it, Mrs. Malone?”