“Why?”
“To find out what really happened. To see if he’s lying about bigfoot. Too much of our knowledge about this case depends on the shouted testimony of a man trying to defend himself from a pedophilia charge.”
“I wish Attina had killed him,” said Nobody.
“Be careful what you wish for,” I said. “Wishes are coming true a lot more often than they should.”
*
Agent Mills knocked on our door the next morning and let himself in as I squinted and straightened in my chair. I’d fallen asleep and dreamed about nothing.
It was the best dream I’d had in ages.
“Rise and shine,” said Mills. “Time to get on the road.”
“Where are we going?” asked Nobody.
“Iowa,” said Mills. “Just kidding, we’re going to DC. You’re both going to be debriefed by some very important people before we decide what to do with you.”
“We need to go to Dillon,” I said.
“To interrogate witnesses?” asked Mills. “To solve an unsolvable crime?”
“We just want to get our dog,” I said, “but sure—we can interrogate people while we’re there, if you want to. Let’s start with Officer Glassman.”
“He’s already been questioned,” said Mills.
“Not by anyone who knows what they’re doing,” said Nobody.
“I’m offended,” said Mills.
“Did you ask him about the bigfoot reference?” I asked.
Mills put his hand on his chest. “I might be the only law enforcement representative who will ever take him seriously about that,” said Mills. “So yes, I thought asking about bigfoot was the least I could do. And I believe him, too; whatever attacked him was huge and inhuman. Despite what the dead girl says, I do know how to question somebody effectively, and I know how to interpret their answers.”
“Good,” I said. “So did you ask him how he survived?”
Mills frowned. “What do you mean? His harrowing tale of violence and bravery is all he wants to talk about. He doesn’t have a great answer about whatever he was doing there in the first place, but when the monster came for the girl he fought with it, sustaining multiple injuries to his arms before it knocked him aside and killed her.”
“But does that add up for you?” I asked. “Why did the Withered target Jessica and not Glassman? Every other victim was male. Every other victim was in his room alone. Every other victim was someone I wanted to kill.”
“You’re admitting that pretty freely,” said Mills.
“Something’s wrong,” I said. “You said serial killers are your specialty, right? So you’ve been trying just as hard as we have to put together a psychological profile that explains all three murders and the arson, but you can’t. We don’t have enough data yet. Jessica’s death doesn’t fit.”
Mills stared at me a while, then looked at Nobody. “He’s very intense.”
“And he’s taken,” said Nobody. “Hands off.”
Mills looked back at me, sucking on his teeth. He sighed. “I’ve been studying you too long to deny that you’re good at this job. If I can buy you two days, can you figure something out?”
“Sometimes it takes months,” I said.
Mills shook his head. “Two days.”
“Three,” I said. “Keep us here through Sunday at least.”
“Why Sunday?”
“Because nobody started dying until we went to church,” I said. “And now the church burned down.”
“As I told him last night,” said Nobody, “he has a very attractive mind.”
Mills brought in a female police officer to watch Nobody while she changed; he and I waited outside, and he bought me some peanuts from the vending machine for protein. A few minutes later the officer emerged with Nobody, Brooke’s wrists handcuffed behind her back, and we walked outside to Mills’s black SUV, which was dinged up from the accident in Dallas.
“No armed marines?” I asked.
“Your psychological profile suggests that you’ll avoid a physical confrontation at any cost,” said Mills, opening the back door of his car. “It also suggests that you distrust authority figures enough to believe any unfair thing they tell you. Made you pretty easy to keep in line.”
Was I really that easy to fool? I glanced at the familiar license plate: 187 RCR, Mills County. My head snapped up to look at him, cheerfully helping Brooke into the car: Agent Mills. I considered him with new wariness and got in the backseat without speaking.