I finished photocopying Maggie’s sad little file and handed Stratton back the original.
“I hope I did the right thing,” she said. “This is against every regulation we have.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” I said, “you took a second look and broke the case.”
Stratton slapped the file on top of Maggie’s evidence box and looked out at the snow crusted up on the window of the St. Seb police interview room. “Nobody’s going to buy that.”
“People believe what they’re told.” Fats walked in and tossed me her phone. “I think you want to hear this.”
It was Spidermonkey and he’d done a deep dive into the companies Stott worked for. Loretta sweet-talked the secretaries and got all the tea from the last two companies. Fats nailed it. Stott had used and abused the company credit cards and trucks he used on both jobs. He charged a ridiculous amount of gas and put on hundreds of miles that he couldn’t account for. The last company fired him two months before he moved back to St. Seb and they were pissed. Like the other companies they decided taking a broke ex-con to court wasn’t worth it and they didn’t want him arrested because they looked like idiots for hiring him in the first place. They chalked it up to a lesson learned, but they called every electrician in the state and had Stott blackballed. He couldn’t get a job wiring a light switch and Loretta thought it went beyond just Tennessee. A couple of Kentucky companies called J and R Electrics to see what was up after he applied to them. They didn’t hire him either and that’s when Stott up and moved to St. Seb where he never applied for a job but did start rolling in that trust dough.
“So that solves why he moved back,” I said. “He had something on someone and needed to use it.”
Spidermonkey was quiet, not even typing.
“Hello?” I asked.
“I’m here, but I’m going to give you to Loretta.”
Loretta took the phone and said, “He’s upset.”
“I got that. Is it the autopsy? Maybe I shouldn’t have sent it.”
“No. It’s that the credit cards from the companies showed some interesting activity,” she said.
“Like what? Something other than the gas?”
“It’s where he bought it.”
“Have we got a trail to the Kansas site?” I asked.
“We do and to Florida, Mississippi, and New England.”
Stott was a busy boy.
“Did he find cases connected to the areas he visited?”
“He didn’t look. We’ll leave that to the FBI,” said Loretta.
I looked at Fats and she touched her stomach, tenderly. She did it without thinking and it was the first time I’d seen her do it. The pregnant thing. The mommy thing.
“Was it a kid?” I asked.
Loretta got a little choked up. “He got gas in St. Seb, Mercy. Every time he went to Kansas, he made a detour and went there. You were right. He didn’t come back for Maggie.”
I knew it before she said it. I probably always knew.
“The first time was in August 1999,” she said.
“And he drove in from Kentucky,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Bertram Stott killed Janet Lee Fine.”
“We think so,” said Loretta. “A white panel van was seen in the area before she disappeared. That’s what he was driving. He filled up one town over three hours before. That night he was in St. Seb.”
“During the fair.”
“Yes.”
I couldn’t say anything. For a second, I was back there, digging in the dirt with images and sounds of the fair all around me.
“Are you okay? Finding that little girl must’ve been terrible,” said Loretta.
“It’s all terrible,” I said. “But maybe it will help the parents.”
“I hope so. You’ll hand this all over to those obnoxious rookies now?”
“I have one more thing,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Can you find out who June Pierce is?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. He already did. June Pierce was the asylum secretary at one point,” said Loretta.
Spidermonkey got back on the phone and although his voice was strained he told me that June Pierce retired from her job in 1955. In 1965, when Maggie presumably met with her, she was living in a retirement home having had a series of strokes.
“She must’ve known something about the money,” I said.
“I think she gave Maggie St. Sebastian Savings and Loan,” said Spidermonkey. “Then Maggie called Bianca Crider.”
“And she called Maggie’s murderer,” I said.
“I’ll be through the bank’s firewall in a couple of hours. We’ll have the accounts,” said Spidermonkey. “Just sit tight. 44 is almost clear. I don’t want you risking yourself.”
“I have my Mauser.”
“I’m not sure that’s enough.”
“Me, either.”
Spidermonkey cleared his throat. “Mercy?”
“Uh-huh?”
“This could all have been prevented. That poor little girl. The people in Kansas. All of it back then in 1965.”
“I know.”
We hung up and I asked Stratton, “I don’t suppose you can go arrest Stott?”
“On info from a hacker? No.”
Patton slammed down her coffee mug, sloshing cold coffee all over the table. “This is fucked. We’ve got a serial killer hanging out in Shady Glen and we can’t do anything? My mother told me to get out of this weird ghost-infested town, but did I go? No, I didn’t. She should’ve made me go. Kicked my butt out like the Shipleys did Carrie.”
“She came back,” I said.
“Oh, yeah. How long was she gone?”
“About six or seven months,” said Fats.
“Why that amount of time?” asked Patton.
“We’re not sure. Stott went back to Tennessee by January, so we assume it had to do with the other guy. The Shipleys were pretty scared.”
“I don’t blame them,” said Patton. “I’m afraid of him and I wasn’t even born.”
“They didn’t know who it was though,” I said. “I don’t think they would’ve kept quiet about it, if they had.”
“It depends on who it was,” said Stratton thoughtfully. “You saw the file. Even if they had a good idea they weren’t going to get anywhere. He was well-protected.”
Fats nodded. “I want to know how they ruled out Stott.”
“That’s the key,” I said. “Is the school open yet?” I asked.
“Not quite,” said Stratton. “That tournament’s a crazy idea. The weather and now the grenades. I think I should shut it down.”
“Can you?” I asked. “I wouldn’t want to risk it.”
“I can try, but I’m not chief and this town’s stubborn.”
“We need to see that yearbook,” said Fats. “The grenade thrower took it for a reason.”
“You think the nun’s murderer’s in the yearbook?” Patton asked. “Why?”
“Stott’s in there,” I said.
“Really? You didn’t tell me that.”
Stratton nodded. “That’s how Mercy knew he’d been in town at the time of the murder.”
“What year was he?” Patton asked.
“A senior.”
The deputy got thoughtful. “When I was a senior, my friends were mostly seniors, but my best friend was a junior.”
“We’re hoping to find a picture of him with other people. It wasn’t listed. He only had one photo that we know of.”
Patton picked up her coffee mug and took a sip. She made a face and asked, “When exactly did Carrie get to come back?”
“August,” said Fats.
August. August. August. What happens in August?
Patton and I looked at each other. “College!”
We got the slowest police escort in history. Ten miles an hour through the streets of the snow-clogged St. Sebastian. People thought we were some kind of sad three-car parade, two cop cars and Fats’ truck. They came out and watched with their cups of hot chocolate and concerned expressions. Some waved. Some flipped me off. I get it. The word was out. Local boy Tank Tancredi was in the hospital and Chief Will Gates had been yelling about it being my fault. Bruce, the fire chief, had tried to contain him, but it didn’t work as it often doesn’t with drunks, who are fueled by fear and guilt.
Stratton had done her best to shut down the tournament, but she couldn’t overcome her boss. Will called the principal and told her that it was all under control. He even claimed to have a suspect. Will didn’t have a suspect. He barely had a coherent thought, but the principal bought it. Probably because she needed it to be true. A lot of planning and money went into the tournament. The school sorely needed to recoup that money and make some with all the damage from overflowing toilets and the rest of the odd occurrences. I questioned the wisdom of having the tournament there at all, even if there wasn’t a storm and a bomber on the loose. They had fire alarms that went off for no reason and doors that locked on their own. That couldn’t be good for a crowd and what if our grenade thrower showed up armed to the teeth? What then?
Stratton had managed to pull every available cop within fifty miles. The high school would be crawling with uniforms and they were bringing metal detectors. She was moderately confident that it would be fine. Chuck wasn’t. Dad wasn’t. The FBI wasn’t. Even Calpurnia Fibonacci said it was crazy, but the more outsiders said no, the more the community said yes.
Never mind that we had a bus jackknifed on the bridge and another one in front of us that had the entire team trying to push it out of a snowdrift. Common sense had gone bye-bye.
Fats slammed her hands against the steering wheel. “Go around them! Jesus!”
“Where are we going to go?” I asked. The road was mostly blocked and the sidewalks narrow.
Fats pointed to the left.
“That’s somebody’s yard. There’s a swing set back there.”
“It’s twelve degrees. Nobody’s on it.”
“They’ll be pissed,” I said. “Look they’ve almost got the bus moving.”
That was an exaggeration, but anything to keep us out of that yard.
“We’re trying to connect a serial killer to a nun murderer. I think they’ll forgive us.”
“I should’ve looked through Carrie’s yearbook when we had it,” I said. “This would be moot.”
“Stop beating yourself up. That’s my job.” She slammed her hands again. “Go, you little weak ass fuckers. That’s it. I’m pushing that bus out.”
I grabbed her arm. “Stratton said no. They won’t like it.”
“You think I’m worried about embarrassing a bunch of high school boys?”
“I am. She is.”
“Why?”
She had me there. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll give them two minutes and that’s it. We’re done coddling those spindly athletes.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
We watched the clock and ignored Fats’ phone. The men in our lives were pinging us at thirty second intervals to make sure we didn’t go to the high school. As if. They knew us. Even Tiny was in on the act and he knew Fats could take a bullet and keep going. Literally. That had happened.
“Maybe Spidermonkey will call,” I said.
“Maybe.” She gripped the steering wheel and bared her teeth.
“What?”
“I want to do it. I want to go.”
“Because of Calpurnia?” I asked.
“She’s pretty hot about this. It’ll look good for me,” said Fats.
The clock clicked another minute down and I crossed my fingers for the spindly basketball boys.
“Since when do you look bad?”
She forced her hands to relax and one went to her stomach.
“Wait. You think Calpurnia will dump you because you’re pregnant?” I asked.
Her hand snapped back to the wheel. “Not dumped. Put out to pasture, like Sal the Slayer Behar.”
The Slayer? Yikes.
“What happened to him?”
Stabbed. Prison. Beat up Lorenzo the meatball nephew.
Fats sighed. “His wife got MS and he had to take care of her and the twins.”
Bad but in a different way.
“He sounds like a good husband and father,” I said.
“He is, but he used to be a badass. Now he’s processing loans at a used car lot. Sal never gets the call when it’s time to take care of business.”
“Oh, I guess that’s bad.”
“It’s bad. There’s a lot of money in the call, respect, face time. I’ve got to stay in there with Calpurnia. Show her I can be counted on with a baby on board.”
“I don’t think I want to know what the call entails,” I said.
She grinned wickedly. “You definitely don’t.”
“Just another reason I should’ve looked through that yearbook with a fine-toothed comb.”
“Looked through it with a comb? A comb? You need to read some quality fiction and stop watching reality TV,” said Fats.
“Shut up.”
“You shut up about that damn yearbook.” She slammed her hands on the wheel and said, “That’s it. Here we go.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
With a yank of the wheel, we were off-roading through yards. Horns were honking. Fists were shaken. Stratton tried to follow, siren blaring but got stuck in the first yard on some poor kid’s sandbox.
“Do I have skills or what?” Fats asked with grim glee.
“Or what! You’re crazy. Do you want to get arrested?”
“I don’t mind. It’s been a while.”
“Well, I do! Get back on the road.”
She drove up on a concrete patio, took out a planter box, and went down into a frozen creek. “I was made for off-roading. Why do you think I have an SUV?”
“Because you fit in it.”
“That, too.”
“Get back on a road!”
“Calm down.” She gave me the side eye. “If you didn’t want to go hard, why’d you bring me?”
“I didn’t bring you. I never bring anyone. You people just show up.”
She put it in gear and hit the gas. “Maybe you should’ve gone through that yearbook.”
“Hey! You were there. You didn’t think of the college thing either,” I said, lurching to the right and grabbing Moe before she hit her noggin on the door handle.
“Why would I?”
“It’s August. That’s when everybody goes to college. Everyone in that room should’ve thought of it.”
“I didn’t,” said Fats.
“What?” I asked.
“Go to college.”
“You didn’t go to college? You read Proust on purpose. Your explanation of String theory lost me two sentences in.”
“You weren’t paying attention.” Fats took a sharp right and we climbed over a five-foot gravel pile. “You could get it.”
“I was trying. Seriously. How did you not go to college?”
Fats drove us through another backyard and we went onto a road. An actual road. I was so happy.
“I was going, but I went to Hamburg instead,” she said.
I straightened Moe’s jacket and said, “What was in Hamburg?”
Fats smiled and it made me feel like I needed a shower.
“Christoph.”
“Never mind,” I said. “So where were you going to college?”
“He had the most amazing ass. Top shelf. An unbelievable butt.”
Maybe not so smart.
“You gave up college for a butt?”
“And there was a great trainer who was working with Christoph. He wanted me for World’s.”
“Was it worth it?” I asked.
She shrugged. “He had a great ass.”
“Enough of the ass. I’m having flashbacks to when you met my cousin.”
“Great ass. Sad penis.”
“Ew. Too much information.”
We cleared the city limits and I spotted the sign for the high school. Thank God.
“Have you seen one?” Fats asked.
“A penis?”
“A micro.”
“Again. Ew.”
“Christoph took a lot of steroids. The effect was sort of mesmerizing. By the end it was like a pink jellybean.”
“Oh, my God, stop talking,” I said.
“This might be useful to you,” she said.
“How?”
“You’re a nurse,” said Fats. “You might come across one and need to identify the cause.”
We pulled into the high school parking lot that was already half full, mostly with squad cars and buses, but Stratton was right. Adverse conditions were nothing to basketball fans.
Fats parked next to an enormous snow pile in front of the school. It was so high you could barely see the first story.
“I have a picture,” said Fats.
“No, thanks.”
“It’s truly astonishing.”
“I believe you,” I said.
She popped out a toothpick. “I wonder if medical textbooks would be interested. Good for training.”
“I think we’re good. It’s like porn. You can’t define it, but you know a steroid penis when you see it.”
“Your loss.” She put on the emergency brake. “Do we have a plan?”
“Find the yearbook,” I said.
“That’s it?”
“What else do you want?”
Fats took Moe and got out to dig in the back. “A Plan B in case the nun killer doesn’t, ya know, look like an obvious maniac.”
I put on my poofball hat and followed Fats across the lawn up to my shins in snow. “He doesn’t look like a maniac. He went to college.”
“Ted Bundy went to college,” she said.
“Not helpful.”
“We need a plan.”
“I don’t do plans. We’ll look for a group shot and see if we can find him.”
Moe growled and Fats said, “Oh, yeah, that’s fool proof.”
“Okay. Fine. We’ll get the names of every dude in his class and eliminate them one by one,” I said. “There can’t be that many.”
“Spidermonkey will get into those bank accounts before we manage that.” Fats walked up to Deputy Mosbach, who was on the doors with a hand wand, and gave the startled cop her dog.
“What…I…uh…have to—” he stuttered.
“Check us for weaponry?” Fats asked as she yanked off her hat and quickly redid her French braid. “You don’t want to do that.”
“I don’t?”
I hadn’t thought of that. Fats had lost her Python, but she’d restocked from the back of her truck. Fats had enough weaponry and equipment to pull off an operation for the CIA . I had my Mauser, but that was just cute compared to her three automatics and the switchblade in her left boot.
“No.” She eyed herself in the reflection of the door’s glass.
“How’d it go with Stott?” I asked.
Mosbach had a hard time focusing on me. “Uh…huh?”
“Stott. What’d he say when you interviewed him?”
“I didn’t. He said I was a Triscuit and he was waiting for a Dorito,” he said.
Fats took out her braid again and made it into two, identical and perfect. “He means you.”
“Me?” Mosbach asked.
“Mercy.”
“How do you get that?” I asked.
“Every guy I know calls you a tasty snack. Before the plane incident, anyway,” she said. “And you’re connected with Kansas and Blankenship. Stott has to know that. Those psychos keep in touch.”
“Awesome,” I said. “Mosbach, did you mention Maggie’s medal to Stott?”
Mosbach flushed. “I forgot. Sorry. He freaked me out.”
“Did you find out if he left Shady Glen during the bombing?”
“That guy couldn’t leave the bathroom on his own. He looks like shit. One of the nurses said he’s got lung cancer and he refused treatment.”
Cancer and congestive heart failure. Stott wouldn’t last long.
“They’re pretty free with info on a patient,” I said.
“Dude, they hate him. The only people who will deal with that creep are the teen volunteers because they don’t know any better and think they’re tough,” said Mosbach.
“They’re letting kids talk to him?” Fats cracked her knuckles. “Anybody like that gets near my kid, it won’t be pretty.”
“It’s during the school day. The parents don’t know crap. Besides, he can’t do anything,” said Mosbach. “I’m telling you the guy has one foot in the grave.”
Fats evaluated her reflection one more time after pulling out some locks to artfully conceal her stitches. “How do I look?”
He glanced at me and I smiled. “The stitches are hardly noticeable. Isn’t that right, Mosbach?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “You look great. Pretty…incredible. You could be an Incredible. Mrs. Incredible. But you’re not old. You’re young and not a man.”
I took Moe from him. “You should stop talking and open the door for us.”
He opened the door and just like that we were in a high school locked and loaded. Successful, but it made me think about homeschooling any future rugrats I might have.
The lobby was jammed with confused basketball players, coaches, and staff.
“We will have the gym doors open in a minute,” called out a man over the crowd. “Please be patient.”
Fats leaned over to me. “I bet they won’t.”
“Toilets are gonna blow any second,” I said.
I was wrong on that. It wasn’t toilets. It was the lights. All power went out and it took ten long seconds for the emergency lights to kick in.
“You said this was all taken care of!” a woman yelled.
“It’s just a glitch!”
“Some glitch! We should’ve moved it to Owensville!”
“No, no! It’s fine.”
It was not fine, but Fats pushed her way through the crowd with one hand and me in the other. I now know what it’s like to be a puppy being dragged around by the scruff of the neck.
When the regular lights came back on they were dimmed and flickering, giving the school an Overlook Hotel vibe. I had Stanley Kubrick to thank for a lot of nightmares and it was hard to make myself walk down the hall. Happily, I didn’t have to. Fats had me by the good arm and she wasn’t letting go.
A man yelled, “It’s open!
A cheer went up and Fats’ grip tightened. “Idiots.”
“Stratton tried,” I said.
The sound of shattering glass echoed down the hall and a woman yelled, “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“This is not good,” said Fats.
“No one is going to get hurt. No one has ever gotten hurt here.”
“Because Maggie wouldn’t hurt anyone?”
“She wouldn’t,” I said.
“What if it’s not Maggie?” Fats asked as we stopped at the office door.
It’s Maggie. It’s Maggie. It better be Maggie.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
“Just stating the obvious.”
“Well, don’t.” I tried the door and it was locked. “Ah, crap. I left my picks in my bag at Miss Elizabeth’s.”
Fats rolled her eyes and the lights went out and, along with the screams in the lobby, there was a loud click in the door.
“See,” I said, opening the door. “It’s Maggie.”
“Let’s hope. This town is questionable.”
“Whatever.” I shook off Fats’ hand and went behind a tall reception desk. Lots of files and shelves of binders, but no yearbooks. The lights came back up, this time extra bright and we had to shield our eyes.
We stumbled through to a conference room and then a storeroom with no luck.
“Where else would they keep them?” I asked.
“Principal’s office?”
“Maybe.”
I checked the well-used emergency preparedness map that was on the secretary’s desk, not a good sign for a school I wouldn’t think, and found the principal’s office was down another hall to the left.
We went out into the hall, which was now normally lit, and teenagers in band uniforms crowded us, trying to get organized.
“Why are there so many tubas?” Fats yelled.
“Maybe it’s like a drum line but with tubas!”
“That’s not a thing!”
It must be a thing because there were twenty tubas in that hall and they were all warming up. The clamor was amazing. When we cleared the tubas, my ears were ringing.
“Holy crap,” I said.
“My kid is not doing band,” said Fats.
“Tiny was a tuba player.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me you’re joking. I might agree to drum line, but that’s it,” she said as she assessed the principal’s door and then gave it a swift kick. It popped open and the glass didn’t even shatter.
“It wasn’t locked,” I said.
Fats reached up to the shoulder holster on her left. “Correct. Stay here.”
I didn’t stay there. I never stay there. I don’t know why people order me to do things, unless they want me to do the opposite. That was a distinct possibility, but not in Fats’ case. When she eased inside the office, she tried to stiff arm me, but sometimes being short comes in handy. I ducked down, pulled my Mauser, and got in ahead of my oversized bodyguard.
She gritted her teeth behind me as we advanced through an outer secretary’s office and then into the principal’s office. Also unlocked with the door open. I didn’t know if that was normal, but I didn’t feel good about it. I eased the door wide with my foot. The room was quite nice with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that had a college professor vibe and a big desk with a blotter, a bible, stacks of paperwork, and a bunch of nun photos. The heavily-padded chair was off to the right, almost to the window. Other than that, nothing appeared to be out of place.
Fats held up her hand and silently went around the desk. “Clear.”
“It seems like it should’ve been locked,” I said.
“Agreed.”
We started going through the bookcases on the wrong side of the office. I should’ve started where the chair was. Duh. Only a person tall as Fats could’ve reached the shelf where the yearbooks were, in order, starting in 1920.
I stood on the chair, staring at an empty slot. “It’s gone. He got here first.”
“I never should’ve waited behind Stratton,” said Fats.
“It could’ve been gone for weeks. We don’t know.”
“We know he’s a moron. Another yearbook’s going to turn up.”
I climbed off the chair and picked up Moe off the desk. “It’s very short-sighted. He’s really just reacting or overreacting, I guess. There’s no plan. If anything, blowing up the Sentinel gets more attention not less on Maggie’s case.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“Or young, like Stratton said,” I said. “Who’s more impulsive than a teenager?”
Fats chewed on her toothpick. “My Aunt Marie. Every tattoo a mistake.”
“Stay with me. The first fires were definitely kids with links to the high school and that bar fight when they couldn’t get served. The ones ten years ago are the same style with the dumpsters and the Sentinel being hit in the middle of the night. Tank’s house, that was electrical. Stott was an electrician.”
“We already know this isn’t him. He’s tucked up at Shady Glen, safe and sound, the bastard.”
“And what did Mosbach say?” I asked. “The only people who would deal with Stott were the teen volunteers because they didn’t know any better.”
“Where’s a kid going to get a grenade?” Fats asked.
“I can’t believe you asked me that.”
She knocked her head with the palm of her hand. “Must be the hormones.”
“You’re fine,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“Where to? No Plan B.”
I grinned at her. “We just got one.”
“And what’s that?”
“Attendance.”
Moe started growling and Fats took him from me. “Shush. What about attendance?”
“Mosbach said the kids came during the school day,” I said. “We need to know who’s been signed out for that program. They must somehow be connected with Maggie’s murder. Why else would they bomb us?”
Moe struggled and barked, but Fats wouldn’t let her go.
We started into the secretary’s office and she said, “Attendance as a clue. That’s a new one.”
I stopped her at the door. “Attendance.”
“Yes. Attendance. Let’s move. I’m craving a cheeseburger and I don’t eat anything that’s described as a cheese product, so we’ve got to find a good place.”
“Listen,” I said. “That’s how Des and Mary knew who didn’t kill Maggie. They checked the attendance. If Stott was in school, he couldn’t have killed her.”
Fats pointed a gun finger at me. “Old files in the basement.”
“Old files in the basement.”
We turned around, the outer office door opened and something long flew across the room. It crashed through the window and the next thing I knew I was eating tile.