10

I fought the urge to kick the crow into the bushes and forget about it. After all, I knew who this was from. I knew what it meant. Besides, I’d only be here a few more days. The idea of taking the time to report this to the local police didn’t appeal to me.

Unfortunately, Pat Martin shuffled up behind me at that moment, her cane clacking against the stone steps. “What’s the hold up?”

I sensed the moment she spied the crow. She went still. Then, stepping up beside me, she lowered her head to peer down through her goggle glasses. She pulled in her lips and sucked her teeth. “That's not natural.”

“It's not,” I agreed. There was no getting around it now. “I have something to tell you.”



Pat sat across from me at her tiny kitchen table, gentle steam rising from the cups of tea between us. “So your stalker’s a woman.” She seemed stuck on this point. I understood her confusion. Initially, Bev Pickett had confused me, too.

“I promise she's harmless. We think. Anyway, she’s agoraphobic. Because she never leaves her house, the police in Virginia have no trouble keeping tabs on her. Which means she was never actually here.” Probably.

Pat grunted. She lifted her tea and blew on it through wrinkled lips. “So where’d the bird come from?”

I sighed. This whole situation was so stupid. “Typically, she uses Internet message boards and websites to ask people to help her ‘prank her friend’ or whatever. Only we’re not friends, and they’re not pranks. I’m not sure what’s wrong with her or why she’s fixated on me, but the local police back home coordinate with the officers where she lives, and they've confirmed that she hasn't left her house in years.”

She did have Internet, though. She had it with a vengeance.

I’d been afraid Pat might kick me out of the StayAway for this, but apparently it wasn't against the rules to have a stalker. And it was a good thing, too. My flight home wasn't until the day after Christmas, and I didn't think Birchardville had any other accommodations.

It was hard for me to imagine that a local resident of a close-knit community like this would have agreed to put a dead bird on Pat Martin’s doorstep at the behest of a stranger on a message board. Didn't everyone here know each other? Maybe someone had driven in from another town. Montrose, perhaps.

This was so annoying. The whole process was much easier since I had Leah, though. She’d taken over forwarding information to the cyber-crimes unit back home, saving me hassle. My local crew knew the whole history of Beverly Mae Pickett and her weird obsession. Was it even worth it to open that can of worms up here while I was on my vacation?

I said as much to Pat, feeling her out. If she wanted me to report the dead bird, I would. If not, I'd let it go. I'd only be here a few days, and I didn't want anyone else knowing that I had an Internet stalker. It wasn't something I'd made public on The Usual Suspects.

Heaven only knows how Reed would react.

Pat leaned back in her chair and tapped her hand against the table. “Well, even if you called dispatch now, it could be an hour or two before they get a unit out here.” She studied me over the rim of her glasses.

“That long?”

“Birchardville doesn’t have local police,” she explained. “We’re under state jurisdiction. They always have a few units out patrolling, but they could be anywhere in Susquehanna County right now, so who knows how long that would take. Then by the time they get here, you'll have to rehash the whole thing, and it'll be midnight.” She waved a hand. “I'd call them in the morning, if at all.”

“So you're not scared?”

She cackled and stabbed a gnarled finger toward a family photo hanging over the microwave. “I raised six sons. Cops, soldiers, coal miners, truckers. They got their grit somewhere, and it wasn't from their dad.”

I nodded, relieved. So we wouldn't call the police—at least, not immediately. I could continue with my activities as planned. I had little enough time here to research the Roth murders.

I would e-mail Leah and fill her in, though. There wasn't anything the Florida police could do, but they might want a written record of the incident. Although since I had to do the write-up myself, I might as well forward it to the department and save Leah the hassle. But for that, I’d need Internet access.

Wary of running into Reed and getting embroiled in conversation again, I only went as far as the steps to The Olde Birchardville Store. Though the signal was weak, my phone eventually connected. There I huddled, cold and impatient, as the circle of doom spun on my screen. When my inbox eventually popped up, however, there was already an e-mail waiting from Leah.

The subject line: JOHNSON FREE.