Wednesday dawned and with it, the unsettling sense that I’d never see the sun again. In my mind, the coming darkness of winter, with its short days and longer nights, seemed to stretch on to the end of time. As I made breakfast and fed Grace, I tried to shake the unease that had settled over me. I knew some of it stemmed from the fact that we were rapidly approaching the seventy-year anniversary of the terrible fire at John Sven’s pub, and that a copycat killer aimed to somehow re-create the massacre. I was also still unsettled by my visit with Bull. The man I thought of as an open book appeared to have secrets of his own.
A gentle snow fell as I drove down the canyon. The powdery flakes should have been comforting, cleansing. Instead the snow seemed to smother all that it touched, as though winter could only exist once everything around it had died.
At the station, Finn intercepted me in the lobby. “I just asked Liv to come in for an interview.”
“Right now? Okay. Let me put my things down.” I headed to my desk, Finn at my side. “Has something happened?”
“Not exactly. Well, yes.” Finn looked at the ground, the ceiling, anywhere but at me. “I slept with her last night.”
“I need to know this?”
“We stayed at her house. I felt like a damn teenager, sneaking up Moriarty’s garage steps to her rental. Anyway, afterwards, she fell asleep. I was up late, watched some shows. But she’s got all these books around her living room, journals and sketch pads.” Finn rubbed his face. “Personal things.”
“Please don’t tell me you took a look at them.”
“I took a look at them.”
Groaning, I sat down. “What were you thinking? You shouldn’t be poking around her things. If she’s innocent, it’s a disgusting invasion of privacy. And if she’s guilty, anything you found will be inadmissible in court.”
“You think I don’t know all that? Jesus.”
I let him stew another minute, then asked, “What did you find?”
Finn pulled his phone from his back pocket and pulled up a series of photos. “Liv is an artist. She sketches, mostly pencil, some ink. Look at these drawings.”
I took in the art. It was incredibly detailed; detailed and creative. Ramirez had taken various comic book superheroes and placed them, as older individuals, into scenes of everyday life, where their superpowers had little or no importance.
She’d drawn Batman with a welding mask on, lifted to reveal a sweat-soaked brow, a broken-down Batmobile at his side. In another scene, a pregnant Wonder Woman stood in line at a grocery store, a couple of babies in her shopping cart and another pulling at her lasso. She flicked through a tabloid, the look on her face equal parts boredom and grief. A third sketch showed Superman on the floor, a limp dog in his arms, tears streaking down his face. Standing above the sobbing superhero was a veterinarian, a long syringe in his hands, a sympathetic look in his eyes.
They went on like that, dozens of sketches. Each seemed to ask and say the same thing: How did I get here? What happened to my life? I was a big deal once.
Finn put his phone away slowly. “See what I mean?”
“You did the right thing, calling her in.”
He was quiet a moment. “I like her, Gemma. I like her quite a bit.” He started to say more, but the desk sergeant rang, announcing her arrival.
Finn smiled grimly. “Showtime.”
We sat with her in a small room used for interviews and interrogations. Ramirez refused to look at Finn and was frosty, cold, even, with me. She wore a black turtleneck sweater and dark jeans, with steel-toed boots. With her hair down, loose around her shoulders, and her green-gold eyes flashing with anger, she looked like a softer, more vulnerable version of herself. She’d brought Fuego, and the dog lay at her feet, softly whining.
“Why am I here?”
“We need to ask you a few questions. About the Caleb Montgomery and Mike Esposito killings.” I opened my notebook and turned to a fresh page. Ramirez watched me with disdain in her eyes, though I noticed her hands were tightly wound together as if to keep from shaking. “As our investigation has progressed, as you know, we’ve narrowed our suspect list down to someone with military experience, especially sniper and explosives work. We now believe the killer or killers are re-creating the crimes of a man named Josiah Black, who was convicted of multiple murders in the 1940s. In addition, we believe the killer models him or herself after Ghost Boy.”
“Who?” Ramirez asked, a confused look on her face.
“Ghost Boy is a comic book supervillain, a double agent who is skilled in martial arts.”
She sat back, a disgusted look on her face. Still not acknowledging Finn’s presence in the room, she said, “Last night, I made the tremendous mistake of having sex with a colleague. Finn Nowlin. I believe you know him? When I woke this morning, it was obvious he’d gone through my things. He’s sloppy in more ways than one. That’s really why I’m here, isn’t it? He saw my art, my private art, and now you guys think I’m a maniac killer.”
“Then help us. Help us understand these connections you have to our case,” Finn pleaded. I’d never seen the look in his eyes before; it was one of humble penitence. “I’m truly sorry for what I did. It wasn’t right and you have every reason to hate me. But you have to understand, we’re trying to prevent a massacre.”
“I don’t have to understand anything. Also? You’re terrible in bed.” Ramirez turned away, stared at the wall. Under the table, I kicked Finn. When he looked at me, I mouthed, Get out of here.
He sighed quietly and left, closing the door gently behind him.
“Liv? Finn’s gone. It’s just the two of us. Please. I know you didn’t kill Caleb Montgomery or Michael Esposito. Is there someone, perhaps from your past, that could be involved? A partner, a former soldier you knew overseas?” My questions were cautious, stated calmly. Liv Ramirez was giving off every signal in the book that any minute now, she, too, would bolt from the room.
“Liv? Talk to me. The sooner you do, the sooner you can go.”
Finally, she turned and met my gaze. She sighed deeply, unclenched her hands. “I was really tired when I arrived in Cedar Valley. I’d driven all night from Las Vegas, just Fuego and I, a couple of suitcases and my art supplies in the trunk of my car. As my chief in Vegas explained, Max Teller owed him a favor and if I wanted it, there was a job in Colorado with my name on it. I liked Vegas, I truly did, until I didn’t.”
“What happened in Vegas?”
Fuego whined again. Ramirez leaned down, scratched his head. “A couple of buddies of mine from Iraq were passing through. We met up at a bar after my shift ended. I knew them well, or at least I thought I did. But they’d brought some other friends, guys I didn’t know. Anyway, by midnight, there were five of them. I was careful, watching how much I drank. Someone, I don’t know who, slipped something into my margarita when I stepped away to use the restroom. I woke up the next morning, covered in bruises, in some shitty hotel room off the strip.”
“You’d been raped?”
Ramirez nodded. “Raped, beaten, and robbed. The assholes stole three hundred dollars from my purse. The worst part was it wasn’t the first time. I’d been attacked, twice before, in Iraq. Each time I reported it to my commanding officer and each time, nothing was done. You’d be surprised at the ‘boys will be boys’ mentality still entrenched in the military. Or maybe not. Maybe you’ve experienced it yourself.”
I met her stare. “Nothing like that. Did you report the crimes in Vegas?”
Ramirez nodded. “Yes. The guys were long gone by then. I don’t know how seriously the Vegas cops looked for them. I took a day off from work, then went in hot and furious. I was pissed at the world. I wanted someone else to hurt as badly as I did. I let it get to me and I did something stupid.”
She paused, took another deep breath, and smiled. “His name was John Dervy. We called him Pervy Dervy because he was a fat old pig of an engineer on our crew, always leering at women, making disgusting jokes. We were at a simulation and I got my hands on the fire hose. I turned it on Dervy full blast, right in the nuts. He went down screaming. It took four guys to get that hose away from me. God, it felt good.”
I had to smile, too. Although I rarely advocated violence, it was satisfying to hear Ramirez kick at the establishment, one perv at a time.
She continued. “After that, my chief wasn’t too happy with me. I think he was mostly pissed because I was a good, solid team player, but he couldn’t keep both Dervy and me on. And Dervy had seniority while I was the hothead busted with a hose in my hand. So a week later, I was here, tired and exhausted and about ready to throw in the towel.” Ramirez straightened up, her eyes blazing with emotion. “Then things started happening; good things. I found a sweet little rental. Fire Chief Teller turned out to be awesome. And this town is beautiful. I’d never spent so much time in the mountains. I always thought of myself as a beach gal, but these peaks, they’re something else. Why would I risk all of that to copy the crimes of some old guy I’ve never even heard of?”
She was right, of course. Absolutely nothing she’d done to this point was indicative of a murderer. I took a deep breath and said, “I’m so sorry, about all of it. The last thing I want to do is make you feel even more persecuted than you’ve been.”
Ramirez said, “I served in the military, with honor. You will never understand the sacrifices our troops make so that you can live in the land of the free. And yes, I’ve earned a black belt after hours, hours, of practice and further sacrifice. As for the comic books? I had a learning disability when I was younger. I struggled with reading. A librarian at my elementary school introduced me to comic books. She taught me how to enjoy books; she saved my life that way. How do you think I survived Iraq? Fiction. Stories. Comics. Drawing. I poured my anxiety and my pain and my anger into those things. And now you’re holding all of that against me.”
My face was on fire by the time she finished; I couldn’t remember being more embarrassed in my professional life than at that moment. Finn’s reckless actions had put me into a baseless confrontation with not a superhero, but an ordinary woman who was using every tool at her disposal to simply get through the day. She was a thousand times more impressive than any superhero.
Lamely, I tried to appeal my case. “You’re an investigator; you know the drill. I had to ask.”
“Not like this, you didn’t. I shouldn’t have expected that we might be friends.” Ramirez leaned back and stared at the table, a scornful expression on her face.
I was sorely disappointed. If we hadn’t questioned her, we wouldn’t have been doing our jobs, and yet she was right; it didn’t have to go down like this. I was sorry she’d had to relive her trauma; sorry she’d had to lay bare her past in order for me to understand her present. And sorry that in all likelihood, I wouldn’t be part of her future. In the short time I’d gotten to know her, I too had thought we could become friends. Maybe even good friends. And that was something I was missing in my life: strong female friends that I could both respect and learn from.
Ramirez pushed back from the table. “Are we done here?”
I nodded. “You’ve done a great job with the investigation. I respect your skills tremendously.”
“Yeah, sure. Fuego, come.” The dog followed his master out of the room, with me trailing behind them. In the hallway, Finn straightened up from the wall where he’d been leaning. Ramirez paused in front of him.
Fuego looked up at Finn and pulled his lips back in an angry snarl, then let out a short, quick bark.
My God, even the dog hated him.
Ramirez stared Finn in the eyes. “Was any of it real? Or did you just use me for your investigation?”
Before he could answer, she slapped him, hard, against the cheek. “See you around, Francis.”
She walked away, her long dark hair swinging behind her, matching her angry strides.
I said to Finn in a low voice, “Consider yourself lucky. She could have knocked your head against that wall and I, for one, wouldn’t have stopped her.”
But my partner ignored me, instead staring after Liv Ramirez, a hangdog look in his eyes and a bright red palm print on the side of his face.
Finn and I sat with the team and went over everything, from the beginning: the death threats Caleb had received and his murder; our trips to Bishop and Belle Vista; the robbery and killing at First Pillar; all of it. On the conference room table were copies of the investigative reports into Josiah Black; his arrest and trial records; copies of newspaper articles covering the crimes; and finally, all the paperwork, photographs included, that Renee, the clerk in Utah, had faxed to me.
Also on the table was a red-and-white-striped box of doughnut holes. Someone else had brought in a bag of clementine oranges. The fruit sat untouched as the doughnut holes dwindled, though I knew if we were in here long enough, eventually one of us would cave and then we’d all follow suit.
Occasionally someone would pick up a transcript, or stare at a photograph, praying that something new would jump out. But nothing did, and the collective mood was glum and anxious. Only Jimmy maintained a steady level of excitement, and I had to admit I knew what he was feeling; it was akin to being in the air mid-dive, feet off the ground, body high up, not yet in the water. It was the same feeling I got when I was deep in the belly of a twisting, complicated case.
But this case, this one, it was too personal, too twisty. I felt nothing but a sense of despair in my chest.
Moriarty leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. “What about the father? Casey Black’s dad?”
“We have no idea who he is. Jimmy tracked down a birth certificate and the name of the father was left blank. I think we can assume that Casey, who is male, by the way, was born out of wedlock.” I reached for the last doughnut in the box. It was chocolate, with orange sprinkles, and I quickly popped it in my mouth before anyone could object. “Jimmy did great; he stayed late and found out quite a bit. Jimmy, why don’t you share the rest?”
The intern stood and slipped his hands into the pockets of his camo-patterned jacket. “In 1990, just before her mother, Amelia, died, Debbie Black rented a house in Seaport, Texas. She worked days at a dry cleaner and nights at a bar. And she enrolled Casey Black in the local school system. But Debbie wasn’t happy. She’d spent too many years looking for a home of her own, listening to Amelia spill poison about Cedar Valley, telling her to never trust anyone. A lot of this is conjecture, by the way, but I think it’s close to accurate. Bottom line is that Debbie took her own life during Casey’s senior year of high school.”
As we sat back and absorbed the tragic story, Armstrong caved first and pulled a clementine from the bag. As he peeled the fruit, the smell of citrus began to fill the room and I found myself wondering if oranges were grown in Texas. Had Debbie Black stood at her kitchen sink, morning after morning, washing dishes and looking out at citrus groves?
Or was Seaport actually on the coast? Had her view been one of blue on blue, sky on ocean?
Had that been the last thing she’d seen on the day she died?
I couldn’t fathom taking my own life, especially now that I had a child … but my tragedies, my losses, were different than those of Amelia and Debbie Black. Though I’d grown up without parents, I’d been raised with love, in a loving home. This was my home, my town; it grounded and centered me.
Amelia, and Debbie by proxy, must have felt like refugees; forced to leave their home to escape persecution, never to go back.
“How did Debbie kill herself?” Armstrong asked.
“She rented a small boat and took it out in the harbor. When night fell, she still hadn’t returned. It was two days before they found the boat, drifting out at sea. Inside, they found ropes and bricks. They never did find Debbie’s body.” Jimmy paused, swallowed. “Cops didn’t suspect foul play; Debbie went out on the water alone, the harbormaster and the manager at the rental company both swore to that. A couple of days later, they found a suicide note in Debbie’s personal effects.”
The thought of Debbie Black picking up brick after brick and tying them to her body, then slipping from the boat down into the dark, cold depths of the Gulf waters was too gruesome to bear.
“And Casey?” Chief Chavez asked. “What happened to him?”
Jimmy continued. “Casey soon graduated high school and enlisted in the military the next day. This morning, Gemma sent an urgent request to the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. Turnaround time could be two days, though they’re going to try to get it to us sooner.”
“Get what? His military records?” Moriarty asked.
I nodded. “The trail goes cold after Seaport. We’ve been unable to locate a Casey Black with that birthdate and Social Security number anywhere in the U.S. But if we can determine where Casey was sent, if he was deployed overseas or stationed in another state, we’re that much closer to tracking him down.”
Chief Chavez rubbed at his jaw. “And we’re sure that’s where we should be expending our energy?”
“Yes,” Finn said. We’d spent a long time talking about this. “These are the facts: someone is re-creating Josiah Black’s crimes. That someone is comfortable with explosives and weapons. He didn’t flinch when he shot Mike Esposito. Now we discover Black’s grandson has military experience. The kid’s mom took her own life. He has all the reason in the world to hate this town. He’s our best, and only, suspect.”
Jimmy jumped back in. “And the comic book is the icing on the cake. The Ghost Boy character debuted the year Casey Black was born. At his core, Ghost Boy is a soldier who believes the world owes him something. He’s a big baby, really … his dramatic allegiances to evil armies, his disguises. A real man would come out, show himself, and fight an honorable fight. But our killer, like Ghost Boy, slinks around in costumes. The comics he leaves behind are his calling card.”
“Do we have a photograph of Casey?” Moriarty asked. He too went for a clementine, though he bit into it and peeled it with his teeth. “Might help if we knew what the kid looked like.”
“I’m hoping the military records can provide one. We’ve left a message with the DMV in Seaport; they may have a copy of his driver’s license photo still on file. We also tried the high school. Tragically, it burned to the ground a few days after Casey graduated, taking with it all the archived yearbooks. We’ve sent a request to the principal; perhaps there’s a teacher or administrator still around with yearbooks of their own. At this point, anything would help. All we’ve got is the picture of Casey with his mother and grandmother at Disneyland, and all that tells us is that Casey is Caucasian with brown eyes.” I paused, looked over the room. “In other words, Josiah Black’s grandchild, who is now an adult, could be anyone … anywhere.”
Finn added, “There are signs the fire at Casey’s school was a deliberate act of arson. He’s been comfortable with flames, with fire, for a long time.”
Chief Chavez sighed and leaned forward. “Talk to us about the 1948 crimes. Who got hurt and why.”
Finn stood up, began pacing the room. “The first target was the doctor, then the bank guard, then the people in the tavern, specifically the owner. In all three instances, the prosecution argued that Josiah Black’s victims were people he blamed for the suffering he’d endured during World War II.”
Moriarty ran a hand through his thick white hair. “So the next hit is a bar.”
I said, “Not necessarily. Our modern killer didn’t target a doctor. Instead, he killed the son of the judge who presided over Josiah Black’s trial. The location of the killing was off by about a half mile. In this instance, the victim was more important than the absolute re-creation of the original killing. However, with Mike Esposito’s death, it’s the opposite; the location becomes the driving factor: First Pillar Bank and Trust. The victim doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a guard.”
“So what Gemma’s saying is that the third attack, which we believe to be imminent, could be either victim-based or location-based. Not only that, but this town’s roots go deep. There are folks here, our neighbors, friends, whose relatives are the people pictured in the angry mob outside Josiah Black’s trial.” Finn paused, took a deep breath. “What I’m saying is that for all we do know, we have no way of knowing where the killer will strike next.”
After a moment, Moriarty quietly asked, “And the theater?”
I looked at him. “What about it?”
“Oh, come on. The Shotgun Playhouse will open its doors tomorrow night to the public, for the first time in over a hundred years. It’s a sold-out crowd. Doesn’t that seem like an obvious target for the creep?” Moriarty sat back, crossed his legs, and folded his arms. “You’re friendly with Nash Dumont, Gemma. Get him to reschedule the grand opening.”
“I’m hardly friendly with him. I know him and his wife very superficially. He’s not going to budge. Opening night, the play … his reputation is at stake.”
Moriarty turned to Armstrong. “Lucas, your own daughter will be on that stage. You’re okay with that?”
“No, I’m not.” Armstrong shook his head, troubled. “But Maggie’s an adult. I can’t lock her in her room. Besides, if the theater is the target, pushing back opening night won’t make any difference. The killer will simply wait until the later date, then strike. I think a better approach is to get every available cop in this valley on board. All hands on deck, Chief. We run patrols at the theater, do bag and purse checks. We can move in metal detectors. There’s no way this punk gets through us.”
Jimmy said, “However … thus far, the killer has stuck to Black’s schedule, with attacks roughly five days apart. If the theater is the target and we keep its doors closed, the killer may move on to another location anyway, to stick with his timetable. He won’t want to delay.”
“So is it the date or the location that’s important?” Moriarty groaned. “This is like playing poker with the three blind mice. All bets are good; all bets are bad. Doesn’t matter what the cards show; there’s no one around to see them.”
I bit my lip. “If we direct our efforts on the theater, and we’re wrong, then we risk leaving the rest of the town defenseless. And I just don’t think the theater is the target. The Shotgun Playhouse closed its doors well before Josiah Black’s time. There’s no connection to him, no link to his crimes or his personal life.”
We fell silent after that. Long minutes later, Chief Chavez said, “What I don’t understand, and what I think is critical to understand, is why now? What’s happened to bring this son of a bitch forward? Sure, we’re at the seventy-year anniversary of the original crimes. But his crimes, they’re history.”
“No. Not to the killer, they’re not.” I looked around the room, briefly stopping at each person on the team. “To him, they’re personal. They’re everything.”
We broke after that. Moriarty and Armstrong decided to pore through Black’s records and the articles on him once more, this time looking for any mention of something or someplace that might be especially personal to Black, someplace that could be a potential target. In the meantime, Finn and Jimmy would check the names in the same articles and records, to see if there was anyone still in town that might be a relation to, say, the arresting officer or jury members.
I would have joined them, but Edith Montgomery called and asked me for an update on the case. I reached her house in the late afternoon, once more parking on the street and walking down the driveway, now clear of the leaves that had been there the week before. The snow had stopped falling, although the air remained frigid.
“We can talk in the library; I’ve got a fire going.” She gestured for me to follow her and I did, our footsteps echoing on the floor. “It’s as though frost has settled in my bones. Maybe it’s in my soul.”
“Where’s Tom?”
She said in a low voice, “He’s around here somewhere. I think he’s having a midlife crisis. Our mother always did coddle him. I think it made him soft, if you know what I mean. Truth be told, I’m looking forward to him leaving soon. He can be a bit … dramatic. It’s wearing on me.”
Inside the library, a fire roared. Edith offered me a brandy, which I declined. She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She poured herself a generous amount, neat, into a crystal snifter.
We took seats in two plush armchairs that were set back a comfortable distance from the fireplace. Edith had left the ceiling lights off, preferring instead to turn on only a few side table lamps. Though the fire was bright, and Edith pleasant, the room felt heavy with gloom.
Gloom, and regret.
“Are you making progress on finding my husband’s killer? It’s been over a week. Surely you’ve found something.”
“Yes.” I told Edith what I could, watching as her face registered shock and horror as I recounted Josiah Black’s crimes. She gasped when I explained that Henry Montgomery had been the judge at Josiah Black’s trail. “You’re saying that’s why Caleb was killed? Because of something that crazy old man did?”
“I take it you weren’t a fan.”
Edith nodded emphatically. “Henry Montgomery was a punitive son of a bitch who made life hell for Caleb. Henry even went so far as to proposition me on my wedding night; he asked why I was content to be with the boy when I could have the man. Can you imagine? He was disgusting. I was thrilled when he dropped dead of a massive stroke. And though he’d never admit it, I know Caleb was happier after his father was gone.”
From my purse, I pulled out the photograph that Gloria Dumont had given me, of a young Caleb and his father, Judge Henry Montgomery. Silently, I handed it to Edith and watched as her eyes filled with tears.
She stroked Caleb’s face. “Where did you find this?”
“Caleb gave it to Gloria Dumont when he retired. He wanted her to have it, said she should have it as a reminder to always keep the law on her side. He also mentioned something about wanting to atone for the sins of his father.” I paused, thinking about everything I’d read on the Josiah Black trial. “It’s not obvious that Black was guilty. Could Henry Montgomery have done something to ensure a conviction?”
Edith set the photograph in her lap and wiped her eyes. After a moment, she nodded. “As I understand it, there was a lot of corruption back in those days. In many ways, Cedar Valley was the Wild, Wild West. From what I’ve read and heard, it was like that all over the country. You had these young, and older, men and some women who’d been away during the war. Then they returned, changed. Scarred by their time in the service, by the things they’d seen and had to do. It’s my belief that some people, even those too old to enlist, those who’d remained behind, like Henry Montgomery, were changed by the war. We’re all part of one big quilt, Gemma. A few loose threads here, a small tear there, we might not notice it. Not right away. But eventually, we all feel it.”
I wasn’t totally following Edith. She’d finished the brandy by then and in her eyes, an amber glow seemed to burn. It was the haze of someone on the edge of tipsy.
Then she perked back up. “Oh! Do you remember, you were asking about that torn photograph you found in Caleb’s hotel room?”
I nodded, and she went to a nearby bookshelf and returned with an album. I flipped through it, once more taking in the images of the expensive Southern wedding. I paused a moment on a picture of the beaming bride and happy groom with their parents, noting Henry Montgomery’s predatory gaze at his son’s new bride.
I moved on, finally coming to the last picture in the album. It was Edith, a young Tom Gearhart, and Caleb. Tom’s arm was draped around their shoulders, a heavy ring visible on his hand.
Tom was the person who’d been ripped out of the photograph.
Even more surprising was the fact that Tom, who could not have been older than twenty or twenty-one years in the picture, was in Marine Corps dress blues.
“Tom served?”
Edith nodded. “Oh yes. He was in the Middle East for a spell, then was injured in a roadside bombing. He was brokenhearted about it, but I suppose everything happens for a reason. He made his way to Hollywood after that and well, the rest is history.”
I swallowed, aware of how quiet the house suddenly seemed. “Can you call him? Ask him to join us for a moment?”
Edith looked surprised but nodded. “Of course.” She went to a sideboard, where a discreet house phone was set into the corner. She picked up the phone, murmured a few words into it, then hung up.
She returned to me and poured herself another brandy. “Tom will be down in a moment.”
I sat with my hands in my lap, my heart thudding. Had we been completely thrown off track by learning of Josiah Black? Was there something else going on here? Why hadn’t Finn and I questioned Edith and Tom after we’d learned of her run-in with Michael Esposito in Belle Vista?
Moving silently, Tom appeared in the doorway. He slunk into the room and made his way to the brandy. His mood was surly, his only acknowledgment of me a brief nod. Gone was the showman, the bright actor. In his place was a hungover man who smelled of stale cigarette smoke.
I walked the album over to him and flipped it open to the photograph in question. He stared down at it, then looked up at me. “Yeah?”
“Were you Marine Corps?
“First Battalion, Third Marines. I was stationed in Afghanistan,” Tom stammered. A faint blush bloomed across his throat. “I was discharged, honorably, of course, for an injury I sustained in the course of duty.”
“What kind of work did you do over there?”
“A little bit of this, a little of that. Look, why are you asking me about my time in the service? What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Why haven’t you caught Caleb’s killer yet?”
I decided to take a chance. “Tom, we’re looking for a killer with a military background. Possibly a man about your age. Someone who had access to Caleb; knew his habits, his routine. Someone who is comfortable with costumes, disguises.”
A log in the fireplace fell and the three of us jumped. The flames leaped up and out, then resettled. Tom paled. “You can’t think … It’s impossible. I didn’t have anything to do with Caleb’s death.” He turned to Edith, who wore an equally shocked look on her face, the color high in her cheeks.
She took a step toward us, her hands balled into fists.
“What did you do?” she hissed and shot a glance toward the fireplace, where a set of brass pokers rested against the brick.
“Edith, stop right there. Please don’t take another step.” I held an arm up, willing her to freeze. Then I turned back to Tom. His face was full of confusion. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at his older sister.
“Edie, my God, how could you think I had anything to do with your husband’s murder? Look, I wasn’t in the Marine Corps, okay? They wouldn’t take me. I made the whole thing up. I moved to Charleston when I was nineteen and faked letters home. You could say it was the start of my acting career.” Tom seemed to veer between embarrassment and pride. “It was a rather clever and crafty scheme.”
Edith swayed with disbelief. “Thomas. How could you? Your mother and our dad were so proud.”
“And that’s exactly why I had to keep the lie going. You were the golden child. You could never do anything wrong. Do you know, the first time Dad ever said he was proud to call me his son was after I told him I enlisted.” Tom went to Edith, but she moved away and perched on the edge of an armchair, shakily pulling a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket.
“How did you keep the lie going for so long?” she demanded. “I have letters from you, postmarked from the Middle East.”
“Oh, that was easy. I had so many friends there. I’d send them packages that included sealed letters I asked them to send back for me. No one questioned it.” Tom shrugged. “After a while, the lie just became a part of who I was.”
I was frustrated to once again find myself with a possible lead only to have it dashed to pieces. “So just to be clear, Tom, you don’t have any military experience?”
He shook his head vigorously. “No. Though I have played a number of soldiers on the big screen. I was the sergeant who appeared as a witness for the defense in The Glorious Fall … You may have seen it?”
“No, I missed that one.”
I left Edith and Tom still bickering in the library and let myself out.
It was dark by then and I walked with the moonlight my only illumination. As I approached my car, I suddenly stopped. I was ten feet away. The driver’s side door was ajar, and a man sat in my seat, hunched over, doing something with, or under, the steering wheel. I saw by the dome light that he was a decent size and weight, solid, with a dark hooded sweatshirt pulled up over his head.
Slowly, silently, I withdrew my weapon from the harness on my hip. With the utmost care and stealth, I clicked the safety off and took a wide-legged stance, both hands painfully gripped around the gun; hands that were still healing, tender to the touch.
I said a silent prayer as I exhaled that they were hands that still knew how to do the job, if it came to that.
“Freeze! Put your hands on your head, now, now!” I shouted. Inside the car, the man flinched and then went very still. “Hands on your head, do it, right now!”
Still the man refused to move. We were at an impasse. I could hardly shoot a man in the back simply for breaking into my car, and yet the longer he went without obeying my command, the closer we got to a dangerous point.
I tried again, shouting louder. “This is the Cedar Valley Police Department. Move your ass, right now.”
Slowly, the man lifted first his left hand and then his right. He placed them on the top of his head and backed out of the car.
“Turn around.”
The man turned and I gasped when I saw his face. Under the hood, he wore a latex mask of a stitched face. Sutures in neat X’s crossed his eyes, and his mouth was sewn shut by a dozen more. Around the sutures, bruises competed with dried blood.
I swallowed, hard. “Take off the mask.”
The man shook his head and I lowered the gun so that it pointed dead center on his chest. “Take off the goddamn mask. Slowly.”
With a reluctant nod, he put his right hand on the left side of his face and began to tug the rubber from his skin. I loosened my grip and then, impossibly, an enormous brown bat flew down in front of me, close enough for me to feel the beat of its leathery wings against the cold night air. It shrieked and darted around my face. Startled, I stepped back with a cry and swung at the air with my hands, gun still firmly gripped in both.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the man bolt. By the time I’d stepped away from the bat and made it into the street, he was gone. I turned in a slow circle, gun raised again, my heart thudding a million miles in my chest, but it was no use.
The street was empty and I was alone, a shaken cop standing under the light of a blinking streetlamp, furious at myself and at the man in the mask.
Back at my car, I called Finn and a mechanic, Mac Neal, whom I trusted implicitly. They arrived at the same time and as I told Finn what had happened, Neal inspected every inch of my car. Finally, he stood and pronounced it hunky-dory.
“If I had to guess, kiddo, I think you interrupted the creep just as he was getting started. Looks like he was going for the brake lines.” Mac stroked his long salt-and-pepper beard, his eyes heavy with worry. “Driving up the canyon, late at night like this, all it would take is a deer crossing the road and bam, you’d be up shit’s creek if you didn’t have your brakes.”
“Thanks for the mental picture, Mac. What do I owe you?”
He shook his head. “This one’s on the house. You’ve given me a lot of business over the years.”
After he left, Finn and I spent a few minutes talking. Finn thought we should go after the man in the mask immediately.
“How? I have no idea what direction he went, or what he looks like. Take off the hoodie and the mask and he could be anyone. I think we take this as a good sign, Finn. We’re on the right track with our investigation.” I slid into my car and sniffed. It smelled of Mac’s auto shop and heavy, male sweat. Quickly rolling down the window, I smiled up at Finn. “We’re on the right track.”
He leaned down, rested his forearms on my windowsill. “A bat, huh?”
“They’re hibernating somewhere close by. This one must have been sick, or maybe hungry. Maybe it just needed a breath of fresh air. You ever smelled guano? It’s horrific.” I turned the ignition and started the car. Nothing unusual happened and I exhaled shakily. “The thing was three feet across, at least. Probably a vampire bat.”
“Uh-huh. Drive safe. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I drove away from Edith’s house and headed home under the light of a pale, rising moon. It moved slowly across the indigo sky, traveling as though it didn’t have a care in the world. What a life, I thought, to meander among the stars, crossing the universe one evening at a time. If there was a man in the moon, sitting up there since the dawn of time, the sheer number of things he’d seen in his existence was staggering.
As I drove, my heart was heavy with anticipation and dread. Every few seconds, I checked the rearview mirror for the headlights of someone following me, but I had the roads to myself. I remembered a scary story my girlfriends and I used to tell every Halloween when we were young, about the woman driving home alone who looks in her rearview mirror and, to her horror, sees a man with an axe slowly rising from the backseat.
I shivered, hoping I’d soon forget the mask the man in my own car had worn, with its crude stitches and bloody, battered eyes and mouth.
Instead, I tried to focus on the fact that I didn’t know what the next day would bring, what fresh horror might find us. The worst part of all was the voice in my ear, constantly whispering to me, that the town itself had somehow summoned its own version of Ghost Boy back to life for one final act of terror.