Bleary but wired, Rath sat at the kitchen table with Preacher’s envelope in his hand.
One DNA test. He could have it done by an old friend in forensics with the state police. He’d know in a week. Easy.
He put the envelope in his pocket and stood and looked at his .30-06, still sitting on the table from the other night when he hadn’t gotten to it.
He set to breaking the rifle down to clean it.
By 11:07 p.m. he’d managed to drink two beers but had only taken apart and laid out the carbine’s barrel, action tube assembly and action bar lock, the walnut forend and slide action when his phone buzzed.
Grout.
Shit. Rath kept forgetting.
He picked up. Before he could say hello, Grout said, “Come clean, you’re breaking up with me, aren’t you? Found yourself a—”
“I had a shit day.”
“She was that ugly, eh?”
“Pretty ugly. How about we meet tomorrow? Noon?”
“Promise?”
“Swear.”
“Good, because we need to meet. I need to tell you a few things. Express myself. Bring chocolates and roses. I’m pretty pissed.”
Rath ended the call.
He was on a second Labatt Blue and had his .30-06’s trigger assembly and safety taken apart, and was looking on the kitchen floor on his hands and knees under the kitchen table for the damned sear spring that had sprung out from between his fingers, when his phone buzzed. Test.
It was 11:54.
Rath answered as he checked for the spring between the cracks in the floorboards.
“The blood from Sheldon’s unit bathroom is contaminated by bleach. Of no use,” Test said. “Prints will take a while. The hair was easy, got one of Clark’s from a brush at her daughter’s. NH put a rush on it. It’s not Dana Clark’s. She wasn’t gray.”
“Damn it,” Rath said. “Her DNA has to be in there somewhere. That ‘drunk wife’ Sheldon ‘helped’ inside. And those goddamn photos. That locks it. Maybe we’ll get a match of prints. Let’s hope.”
Rath spotted the spring on the floor, reached for it. No. It wasn’t the spring. It was just a coil of dark thread. “Damn it,” he said.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Rath searched along the base of the kitchen counter. How did things just disappear like this? Where the hell was that spring?
“NH’s forensics got a good sweep. Other fibers and hairs. If she was there, we can match her. Speaking of prints, Larkin wanted me to pass along we got no match in the FBI system or any system for the prints from our Quebecois copains. There’s an APB out for Sheldon and his vehicle across New England. The motel manager will call immediately if Sheldon returns.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Rath said.
“It could. He doesn’t know we know. We came the second time because of what Glade said. It’s likely Sheldon killed Clark before we interviewed him the first time, yet he was still there. His clothes and belongings are still there. We put the place back in order. He paid for the whole week.”
Rath’s back and knees ached from searching for the spring. He stood with a groan and searched from a standing position, a new, wider perspective.
Still, nothing.
“Where the hell is he then?”
“Maybe he’s working on his next victim. Maybe you’re right and he’s long gone, in Milwaukee or Anchorage or Biloxi. Maybe he’s lost in this fog. But maybe, just maybe, he’ll be back.”
“Anything else?”
“Larkin did a complete background on Sheldon, his ex-wife, and his daughter. Sheldon’s tattoo, there’s something to it.”
“Which tattoo?” Rath said. “The guy had more graffiti than a hick town water tower.”
Rath gave up looking for the spring and sat at the table.
“The one across the top of his chest,” Test said. “It said Angel. His daughter’s name is Angel. It was his daughter’s name.”
“So he’s one of a million ink junkies who thinks getting a tattoo of his kid’s name, or worse, a hideous rendition of his kid’s face, proves how much he loves his kid instead it reeking of insecurity and bad taste.”
“If anyone can justify having his daughter’s name tattooed across his chest, it’s Sheldon,” Test said. “His daughter was murdered. Raped and murdered. When she was fifteen.”
“What?” Rath said. “When?”
“Years ago. Before he robbed that place and killed the clerk. No one was ever arrested. But a neighbor who was a suspect killed himself soon after. No note, though; so no telling if it was actually him or not. There was no DNA to match. The rapist had doused the daughter’s entire body in bleach.”
“Bleach? Like in Sheldon’s bathtub?”
“I hate to even think anyone would do that to his own daughter. But we both know that’s not the world we live in. Sheldon’s life unraveled. He got divorced, lost his job. He told us he robbed that store out of desperation. That was true. He was broke, angry, suicidal, living in slummy digs.”
“You think he killed his daughter? Maybe she was one of many?”
“I don’t know anything. Except Sheldon had the Polaroids. No one else could have them except Dana Clark’s attacker. My guess is he had one seriously dark, secret life. And maybe he shared it with Preacher inside, and now they’re on a tear together.”
“Larkin stay posted on Preacher all day?”
“All day, poor kid. Preacher never moved. Mailman came and went. Neighbor. No Preacher.”
“That it?” he said.
“For now.”
“Get back to your family.”
“Are you kidding? They were all sleeping three hours ago.” She hung up.
Rath stood and stretched, and felt it. He lifted his bare foot off the floor. There it was. The spring. Right underfoot.