‘Because there was a similar crime here, at the same time Maitland was here. Not a boy killed, but two little girls. Same basic MO: rape and mutilation. The man the police arrested claimed to have been staying with his mother in a town thirty miles away, and she corroborated that, but he was also seen in Trotwood, the suburb where the little girls were abducted. There’s surveillance footage of him. Does this sound familiar?’
‘Familiar but not surprising. Most killers toss up some kind of alibi once they’re caught. You might not know that from your work collaring bail-jumpers, Ms Gibney – Alec told me what your firm mostly does – but surely you know it from TV.’
‘This man was an orderly at the Heisman Memory Unit, and although he was supposed to be on vacation, he was there at least once during the same week that Mr Maitland was there visiting his father. On the occasion of Mr Maitland’s last visit – April 26th, this would have been – these two supposed killers actually bumped into each other. And I mean that literally.’
‘Are you shitting me?’ Anderson nearly shouted.
‘I am not. This is what my old partner at Finders Keepers would have called an authentic no-shit situation. Is your interest piqued?’
‘Did Pelley tell you the orderly scraped Maitland when he fell down? Reached out and grabbed for him and nicked his arm?’
Holly was silent. She was thinking about the movie she had packed in her carry-on. She wasn’t in the habit of self-congratulation – just the opposite – but it now seemed like an act of intuitive genius. Only had she ever doubted there was something far out of the ordinary about the Maitland case? She had not. Mostly because of her association with the monstrous Brady Wilson Hartsfield. A thing like that tended to widen your perspective quite a bit.
‘And that wasn’t the only cut.’ He sounded like he was talking to himself. ‘There was another one. But down here. After Frank Peterson was murdered.’
Here was another missing piece.
‘Tell me, Detective. Tell me tell me tell me!’
‘I think … not over the phone. Can you fly down here? We should sit down and talk. You, me, Alec Pelley, Howie Gold, and a State Police detective who’s also been working the case. And maybe Marcy, Her, too.’
‘I think that’s a good idea, but I’ll have to discuss it with my client, Mr Pelley.’
‘Talk to Howie Gold instead. I’ll give you his number.’
‘Protocol—’
‘Howie employs Alec, so protocol isn’t an issue.’
Holly mulled this over. ‘Can you get in touch with the Dayton Police Department, and the Montgomery County district attorney? I can’t find out all I want to know about the murders of the Howard girls and about Heath Holmes – that’s the orderly’s name – but I think you could.’
‘Is this guy’s trial still pending? If it is, they probably won’t want to give out a whole lot of infor—’
‘Mr Holmes is dead.’ She paused. ‘Just like Terry Maitland.’
‘Jesus,’ he muttered. ‘How weird can this get?’
‘Weirder,’ she said. Another thing of which she had no doubt.
‘Weirder,’ he repeated. ‘Maggots in the cantaloupe.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Nothing. Call Mr Gold, okay?’
‘I still think I had better call Mr Pelley first. Just to be sure.’
‘If you really think so. And Ms Gibney … I guess maybe you do know your business.’
That made her smile.
11
Holly got the green light from Mr Pelley and called Howie Gold at once, now pacing a worry-track on the cheap hotel carpet and obsessively punching at her Fitbit to read her pulse. Yes, Mr Gold thought it would be a good idea if she flew down, and no, she didn’t need to fly coach. ‘Book business class,’ he said. ‘More legroom.’
‘All right.’ She felt giddy. ‘I will.’
‘You really don’t believe Terry killed the Peterson boy?’
‘No more than I think Heath Holmes killed those two girls,’ she said. ‘I think it was someone else. I think it was an outsider.’
VISITS
July 25th
1
Detective Jack Hoskins of the Flint City PD woke up at two AM on that Wednesday morning in triple misery: he had a hangover, he had a sunburn, and he needed to take a shit. It’s what I get for eating at Los Tres Molinos, he thought … but had he eaten there? He was pretty sure he had – enchiladas stuffed with pork and that spicy cheese – but wasn’t positive. It might have been Hacienda. Last night was hazy.
Have to cut back on the vodka. Vacation is over.
Yes, and over early. Because their shitty little department currently had just one working detective. Sometimes life was a bitch. Often, even.
He got out of bed, wincing at the single hard thud in his head when his feet hit the floor and rubbing at the burn on the back of his neck. He shucked his shorts, grabbed the newspaper off the nightstand, and plodded to the bathroom to take care of his business. Ensconced on the toilet, waiting for the semi-liquid gush that always came six hours or so after he ate Mexican food (would he never learn?), he opened the Call and rattled his way to the comics, the only part of the local paper that was worth a damn.
He was squinting at the tiny dialogue balloons in Get Fuzzy when he heard the shower curtain rattle. He looked up and saw a shadow behind the printed daisies. His heart leaped into his throat, walloping. Someone was standing in his tub. An intruder, and not just some stoned junkie thief who’d wriggled through the bathroom window and taken refuge in the only place available when he saw the bedroom light come on. No. This was the same someone who had been standing behind him at that fucking abandoned barn out in Canning Township. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. That encounter (if it had been an encounter) refused to leave his mind, and it was almost as if he had been expecting this … return.
You know that’s bullshit. You thought you saw a man in the barn, but when you put the light on the guy, he turned out to be nothing but a piece of busted farm equipment. Now you think there’s a man in your tub, but what looks like his head is just the shower head and what looks like his arm is nothing but your long-handled back-scrubber stuck through the grab handle on the wall. The rattling sound you heard was either a draft or just in your head.
He closed his eyes. Opened them again and stared at the shower curtain with its stupid plastic flowers, the kind of shower curtain only an ex-wife could love. Now that he was fully awake, reality reasserted itself. Just the shower head, just the grab handle with the back-scrubber stuck through it. He was an idiot. A hungover idiot, the worst kind. He—
The shower curtain rattled again. It rattled because what he had wanted to believe was his back-scrubber now grew shadowy fingers and reached out to touch the plastic. The shower head turned and seemed to stare at him through the translucent curtain. The newspaper fell from Hoskins’s relaxing fingers and landed on the tiles with a soft flap. His head was thudding and thudding. The back of his neck was burning and burning. His bowels relaxed, and the small bathroom was filled with the smell of what Jack was suddenly sure had been his last meal. The hand was reaching for the edge of the curtain. In a second – two, at the most – it would be pulled back and he would be looking at something so horrible it would make his worst nightmare seem like a sweet daydream.
‘No,’ he whispered. ‘No.’ He tried to get up from the toilet, but his legs wouldn’t support him and his considerable bottom thumped back onto the ring. ‘Please, no. Don’t.’
A hand crept around the edge of the curtain, but instead of pulling it back, the fingers only folded around it. Tattooed on those fingers was a word: CANT.
‘Jack.’
He couldn’t reply. He sat naked on the toilet with the last of his shit still dripping and plopping into the bowl, his heart a runaway engine in his chest. He felt that soon it would rip right out of him, and his last sight on earth would be of it lying on the tiles, splattering blood on his ankles and the comics section of the Flint City Call with its final twitching beats.
‘That’s not a sunburn, Jack.’