“It’s a good question,” Chiến said. “You’ve spent so much time looking into me, you haven’t even bothered to ask that question.”
Seth gave Chiến a sour look and ate another donut.
“They are good,” Chiến said. He popped a donut into his mouth. “My granddaughter owns a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City. These are not as good as hers are, but I am biased. Do you have grandchildren, O’Malley?”
“One,” Seth said. “Rachel Ann. She’s a little over a year old.”
“Nothing better,” Chiến said.
“Do you know who’s carving people up? Who killed my friend this week?”
“I don’t,” Chiến said. “I would tell you if I did. I don’t know.”
“How is that possible?” Seth asked. “They’re being mutilated in the exact manner that you killed the Rangers. Exactly the same!”
“If that’s true, and I doubt it, it’s Chiến Tránh Quỷ.”
“The Devil of War,” Seth said.
Chiến nodded.
“You believe that?
“I’ve lived Chiến Tránh Quỷ,” Chiến said. “I know the very smell of him.”
“You deny knowing Brent Davies?”
“That’s another question,” Chiến said. “I knew a boy named Brent Davies. He was a gorgeous boy. Dark hair, clear blue eyes. I used to tell him he looked like Superman. I had him in my history class two years in a row.”
“What other contact did you have with him?”
“Outside of what I read in the newspaper?” Chiến shrugged. “None.”
Seth scowled. His mind flipped through the facts.
“How did you kill the Rangers?” Seth asked.
“They were asleep—drunk, probably,” Chiến said. “They had just gone through a nearby village. They had girls they had taken from the village with them.”
Chiến nodded.
“Horrifying,” Chiến said. “I slit their throats. One at a time. They were drunk or high or I don’t know what, but they didn’t notice me. I took souvenirs from their bodies and gave them to the girls they had abused. The girls knew Chiến Tránh Quỷ when they saw him and ran home.”
“And their insides?” Seth asked.
“Their insides?” Chiến shook his head. “What does that mean?”
“They use an animal—I think it’s a mink—to clear out the organs from inside the body,” Seth said.
Chiến shivered in disgust.
“They start with an electric stun to the forehead,” Seth said.
“What did you say?” Chiến asked.
“They hit their victims in the forehead with a stun gun.” Seth gestured with his hand.
“Curious,” Chiến said. “Any Vietnamese person would tell you that is the only way to rid a person of a demon.”
“A stun gun to the forehead?”
“Hitting someone in what you call ‘the third eye,’” Chiến said. “Why do they do this?”
“So they’re alive when he mutilates them,” Seth said.
“No. No. I did not do that,” Chiến shook his head. “No. I slit their throats one at a time. Dead. Took the souvenirs from their bodies for the girls. If the Rangers were . . . ‘cleared out’ as you say, it must have been predators. So much death. The jungles were teeming with animals hungry for human flesh.”
Seth stared at the man.
“You don’t know if they were emptied, do you?” Chiến asked.
“I just assumed,” Seth said.
“So, the great Magic O’Malley is human.” Chiến tipped his head back and laughed. “That’s why you’re going to solve this thing.”
“You don’t think I’ll end up like O’Shaughnessy?” Seth asked.
“Your humanity is your strength. I think you’ll solve this thing,” Chiến said. “First you have to think—who is infected with Chiến Tránh Quỷ?”
Seth wasn’t sure what the man was saying. He tipped his head to the side.
“You want me to figure out who’s infected by the Devil of War?” Seth asked. “Who isn’t? Seems like everyone’s out for blood these days.”
Chiến shook his head.
“Chiến Tránh Quỷ left me that day in the clearing,” Chiến said. “He had to go somewhere.”
“You’re saying that someone else was in that clearing, and she or he became infected with Chiến Tránh Quỷ when the devil let go of you,” Seth said.
Chiến nodded.
“Who?” Seth asked.
“I don’t know,” Chiến said. “I would tell you if I knew, but I don’t. I saw nothing. No one. Did anyone come down the trail after you?”
Seth rubbed his eyes and tried to remember.
“CIA came in by helicopter,” Seth said. “But they could easily be Chiến Tránh Quỷ.”
“That’s the truth,” Chiến laughed.
He filled their teacups. They sat silently drinking their tea while Seth thought it through.
“I can’t come up with anyone,” Seth said. “Brent Davies hadn’t even been even born then.”
“Wasn’t him,” Chiến said. “I have wondered about his stepfather.”
“Stepfather?”
“He was in Vietnam with the Army,” Chiến said. “Brent told me the first day I met him. Was his stepfather there?”
“No idea,” Seth said.
“Brent had this crazy story that he was Ted Bundy’s son,” Chiến said. “Mother met Bundy at a park in Florida one of the times Bundy escaped. She was so terrified by Bundy that she moved to Arizona.”
“Really.”
“That’s what he told the kids,” Chiến said. “I assumed Bundy raped his mother, but Brent never said.”
“Bundy didn’t kill her?”
“No—for some reason, he did not,” Chiến said.
“Probably because he was on the run,” Seth said. “Didn’t have time to toy with her.”
“That’s likely,” Chiến said. “Do you have Davies’ DNA?”
“I think so,” Seth said.
“You should check,” Chiến said. “It could explain a lot.”
“Davies is his mother’s last name.”
“Yes,” Chiến said. “He didn’t take his stepfather’s name. He told the kids that he wanted to be easy to find when his father broke out of prison.”
“He would have been ten or so when his father was executed,” Seth said.
Chiến nodded.
“Did he know his father had been executed?” Seth asked.
“Oh, yes,” Chiến said. “He would tell the story, with every gory detail included. No, Seth, he didn’t change his name because he hated his stepfather.”
“I hated my father, but it didn’t make me a murderer,” Seth said.
“You’re not Ted Bundy’s son,” Chiến said. “With that, I will take my leave.”
He stood from his seat and gave Seth a deep bow.
“Thank you,” Chiến said.
“Thank you,” Seth said. He stood to shake Chiến’s hand.
“When I see you next, I will be Nguyễn Làm Chinh,” Chiến said. “Lieu Chiến died in that clearing.”
“I will still be Seth O’Malley,” Seth grinned.
Chiến shook his head and laughed. Seth walked him to the door.
“Until then,” Chiến said.
Seth watched as the man walked down the hallway and turned down the stairs. Chiến had intentionally left the teacup so that Seth could easily get his fingerprints and DNA. Seth grabbed the plastic bag liner from the trashcan and picked up the glass. While his instinct told him that Chiến was not the killer, he would ask Ava to test it when he got back.
His cellphone rang. He answered it without thinking.
“Seth?” Ava asked.
“Ava!” Seth said.
“You sound surprised,” Ava said.
“I was thinking about something else.” Seth looked at the clock and realized it was two in the morning. “Are you going to sleep?”
“Yeah,” Ava yawned. “I set up a bed in the office. Maresol dropped Dale off on the edge of the Lost Creek Wilderness. She’s going to stay with her son tonight.”
“Good thinking,” Seth said.
“This whole case . . . It’s starting to get to all of us,” Ava said. “You need to solve it.”
“I know,” Seth said.
“Hey, before we hang up: Leslie showed me the pictures she made,” Ava said. “She hasn’t shown them to the victim, so we can’t be sure they are exactly right, but . . .”
“It’s Davies?”
“Well, sure,” Ava said. “But we knew that. It’s the other guy I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Asian guy, about five-foot-six, fit?” Seth said.
“No,” Ava said. “It doesn’t look like that at all.”