“Like a tune?”
“Like moths. You need special ears to hear it.”
“And I don’t have the right ears to hear the moths humming?”
“No, I’m afraid you don’t.”
“Do you remember hurting yourself in the police car? You hit your face against the safety grill. Why did you do that?”
“Yes, I remember. I did it because I wanted to go to prison. This prison.”
“That’s interesting. Why?”
“To see you.”
“That’s flattering.”
“But it gets you nowhere, you know. Flattery, I mean.”
“The sheriff said you knew her name. Was that because you’ve been arrested before? Try and remember. Because it would really help if we could find out a little more about your background. If there’s an arrest record, that could lead us to a relative, a friend. You could use an advocate, don’t you think, Evie?”
“The sheriff is your wife.”
“How did you know that?”
“Did you kiss her goodbye?”
“Beg your pardon?”
The woman who called herself Eve Black leaned forward, looking at him earnestly. “Kiss: an osculation requiring—hard to believe, I know—a hundred and forty-seven different muscles. Goodbye: a word of parting. Do you need any further elucidation?”
Clint was thrown. She was really, really disturbed, going in and out of coherence, as if her brain were in the neurological equivalent of an ophthalmologist’s chair, seeing the world through a series of flicking lenses. “No need of elucidation. If I answer your question, will you tell me something?”
“Deal.”
“Yes. I kissed her goodbye.”
“Oh, that’s sweet. You’re getting old, you know, not quite The Man anymore, I get that. Probably having some doubts now and then. ‘Do I still have it? Am I still a powerful ape?’ But you haven’t lost your desire for your wife. Lovely. And there are pills. ‘Ask your doctor if it’s right for you.’ I sympathize. Really. I can relate! If you think getting old is tough for men, let me tell you, it’s no picnic for women. Once your tits fall, you become pretty much invisible to fifty percent of the population.”
“My turn. How do you know my wife? How do you know me?”
“Those are the wrong questions. But I’m going to answer the right one for you. ‘Where was Lila last night?’ That’s the right question. And the answer is: not on Mountain Rest Road. Not in Dooling. She found out about you, Clint. And now she’s getting sleepy. Alas.”
“Found out about what? I have nothing to hide.”
“I think you believe that, which shows how well you’ve hidden it. Ask Lila.”
Clint rose. The cell was hot and he was sticky with sweat. This exchange had gone nothing at all like any introductory talk with an inmate in his entire career. She was schizophrenic—had to be, and some of them were very good at picking up cues and clues—but she was unnervingly quick in a way that was unlike any schizophrenic he had ever met.
And how could she know about Mountain Rest Road?
“You wouldn’t have happened to be on Mountain Rest Road last night, would you, Evie?”
“Could be.” She winked at him. “Could be.”
“Thank you, Evie. We’ll talk again soon, I’m sure.”
“Of course we will, and I look forward to it.” Through their conversation her focus on him had been unfaltering—again, nothing like any unmedicated schizophrenic he’d ever dealt with—but she now returned to pulling haphazardly at her hair. She drew down, grunting at a knot that came loose with an audible tearing sound. “Oh, Dr. Norcross—”
“Yes?”
“Your son’s been injured. I’m sorry.”
CHAPTER 9
1
Dozing in the shade of a sycamore, his head propped on his balled-up yellow fire jacket, faintly smoldering pipe resting on the chest of his faded workshirt, Willy Burke, the Adopt-A-Highway man, was a picture. Well known for his poaching of fish and game on public lands as well as for the potency of his small-batch moonshine, renowned for never having been caught poaching fish and game or cooking corn, Willy Burke was a perfect human evocation of the state motto, a fancy Latin phrase that translated as mountaineers are always free. He was seventy-five. His gray beard fluffed up around his neck and a ratty Cason with a couple of lures snagged in the felt rested on the ground beside him. If someone else wanted to try to catch him for his various offenses, that was life, but Lila turned a blind eye. Willy was a good man who worked a lot of town services for free. He’d had a sister who had died of Alzheimer’s, and before she’d passed, Willy had cared for her. Lila used to see them at firehouse chicken dinners; even as Willy’s sister had stared off with her glazed eyes, Willy had kept up a patter, talking to her about this and that while he cut up her chicken and fed her bites.
Now Lila stood over him and watched his eyes move under the lids. It was nice to see that at least one person wasn’t about to allow a worldwide crisis to disturb his afternoon. She just wished she could lie down under a neighboring tree and take a snooze herself.
Instead of doing that, she nudged one of his rubber boots. “Mr. Van Winkle. Your wife filed a missing persons report. She says you’ve been gone for decades.”
Willy’s lids parted. He blinked a couple of times and picked his pipe off his chest and levered himself upright. “Sheriff.”
“What were you dreaming about? Starting a forest fire?”
“I been sleeping with a pipe on my chest since I was a boy. It’s perfectly safe if you’ve mastered the skill. I was dreaming about a new pickup, for your information.” Willy’s truck, a rusty dinosaur from the Vietnam era, was parked at the edge of the gravel apron in front of Truman Mayweather’s trailer. Lila had drawn her cruiser up beside it.
“What’s the story here?” She chinned at the surrounding woods, the trailer surrounded by yellow tape. “Fires all out? Just you?”
“We sprayed down the meth shack that exploded. Also watered down the pieces. Lotta pieces. It’s not too dry here, which was lucky. Be awhile before the smell goes, though. Everyone else split. Thought I’d better wait, preserve the scene and whatnot.” Willy groaned as he got to his feet. “Do I even want to know why there’s a hole the size of a bowling ball in the side of that trailer?”
“No,” said Lila. “Give you nightmares. You can go on, Willy. Thanks for making sure the fire didn’t spread.”
Lila crunched across the gravel to the trailer. The blood caked around the hole in its side had darkened to maroon. Beneath the smell of burn and ozone from the explosion, there was the turned-over tang of living tissue left to cook in the sun. Before ducking under the police tape, Lila shook out a handkerchief and pressed it over her nose and mouth.
“All right, then,” said Willy, “I’ll get. Must be past three. Ought to get a bite. Oh, one other thing. Might be some chemical reaction going on up there beyond what’s left of that shed. That’s all I can figure.” Willy seemed in no hurry to go, despite his avowed intention of doing so; he was packing a new pipe, selecting cuts from his front shirt pocket.