“Did he ever talk about his personal life?”
“We were in business. I never asked about his life and he never asked about mine. Do you show your baby pictures to the garbageman?”
Could be a lie, Tess thought. Ashe had shown himself to be a liar, and he might be the jealous, vindictive man they sought. But his very posture spoke of an endemic laziness. It was hard to imagine him mustering the energy to kill someone for any reason.
“And all he did was come by for his money. How much?”
“I dunno. Couldn’t have been more than three hundred dollars, because I got it from an ATM.”
“You said you don’t remember the date,” Carl put in. “What about the time?”
“Night, after dark. I was the only one left on the street.”
Carl glanced at Tess, and she nodded. Eric had checked in at the motel at midday and gone on his “rounds.” He had returned by evening, and the van had been parked there the rest of the night, according to the observant manager. The Maryland state troopers came for Eric the next morning and roused him from sleep to tell him that his fiancée, and his life, had been shot through the heart. One trooper drove Eric’s van home because he was too upset to drive himself.
“What was he driving?” she asked.
“Driving? I don’t know. What does it matter? There was nothing left to haul.”
“Tell us again.”
“Tell you what?”
“What time did he get there? What time did he leave?”
Slumped in his chair, his chinless face receding into his neck, Ashe looked like a turtle half in his shell. “I don’t know. It was six years ago. It was dark, it was late. How much more do you need to know?”
“We need to know,” Tess said, “if there’s a car rental place within walking distance of the motor court, the one near the river.”
“A car rental by that dump? Jesus Christ, I doubt—”
“But there is, Henry,” his wife interrupted. “You probably never noticed, but there’s one of those combination gas station and convenience stores with a car rental franchise in it. If you want to rent a car after six P.M., it’s pretty much the only place in town. Remember when you cracked up the Explorer and we had to get a rental for a whole month, while it was in the shop? I called around and—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ashe said. “So there’s a car rental. So what?” Tess already had a pen out and was turning over the map she had used to find Ashe’s home. “Could you give us directions? Real explicit ones. Because we’re strangers here, and it’s getting dark.”
“A convenience store with a car rental and a car wash and video rentals,” Carl said. “What’s next? How many more things are they going to put under one roof?”
“Everything,” Tess said absently. “I’m surprised the big hospital companies haven’t started buying up those corporate funeral home chains and started advertising ”birth-to-earth‘ service.“
“That’s from—”
“West Side Story. I know. But I bet I know something about that movie that you don’t.”
“What?” Clearly, Carl didn’t think this was possible.
“In the stage version of West Side Story, the character said they would be friends ”from sperm to worm.“ But you couldn’t say that onscreen, not in the sixties.”
“Really?”
“Really. No sperm, not in the sixties. I don’t even think they could say womb to tomb.”
“And now every other word on HBO is fuck this or fuck that. But you don’t really need that hard-core language. In The Wild Bunch—”
But they were in the store now, so Tess was spared any more discussion of William Holden and the opening shot of the scorpion.
The manager at this multidimensional convenience store was a veteran—he had been there for a staggering three years, “two years longer than anyone else on staff,” he told them proudly. Which was an impressive feat, no doubt, but of no help to Tess and Carl.
“Unless—” Tess said, drumming her fingers on the change mat.
“Unless what?” Bright-eyed and eager to please, he was one of those rarities, a young man in the service industry who wanted to provide service. “How can I help you?”
“We’re screenwriters.” The lie just popped out, a by-product of their West Side Story conversation. “And we try to be as accurate as possible. We’re working on a thriller for—”
“A director we dare not name.” Carl jumped in, sensing that Tess was about to falter. “But trust me. It’s someone you know.”
“Are you going to film here in Spartina?” The manager’s eyes were wide.
Carl held a finger to his lips and smiled conspiratorially.
“Well, gosh, what do you need to know?”
“Do you keep records of your car rentals? If you had someone’s name going back, say, six years, could you find him in the system?”
“Maybe with a date—”
“How about—” Carl had taken complete charge, and Tess let him go, impressed by his skills. In day-to-day life, he was an odd little fellow. But when he snapped into cop mode, he could be effective, as long as he stopped short of kicking people’s legs off their ottomans. “How about March nineteenth, six years ago. And use the name—oh, Eric Shivers.”
“That’s kind of an odd name.”
“It’s the name of our major character,” Carl said, winking at him. “Know about clearances? We can’t use the name if it turns out there really is an Eric Shivers renting cars in Spartina.”
The starstruck manager pounded the keyboard with those one-note clicks peculiar to car rental clerks and ticket agents, but found nothing. “You’re in luck. No Eric Shivers, not even a Shivers in all this time. I told you it was an odd name.”
“So you can search by name?” Tess asked.
“Yeah, most of the time. We put people in the computer so we can call up their stats, remember any preferences they have. Company pretends it’s a service, because it cuts a few seconds off the time it takes to do the paperwork. But just between us, I think they sell the information to direct-mail firms.”
“What about by date? Could you print out every car rented from here on that particular date?”
“I’m pretty sure I can’t do that.” More clicks. “No, we changed computer systems since then, and we never reconciled the records. Maybe back at corporate.”
“Oh.” Tess leaned against a rack of chips, disappointed. They had seemed to be on to something. What, she wasn’t sure. The fact that Eric Shivers had left his van at the motor court all evening, and taken a different vehicle to see Ashe, had seemed fraught with significance, the way jagged pieces of information often do. But he might have taken a cab. Or the motor court manager could be mistaken. What would have prevented Eric from going out for half an hour and coming back, with no one noticing?
As for the fact that he had fudged the nature of his work here in Spartina—well, he probably was in photography supplies and saw an opportunity to pick up some extra cash from Ashe. For all they knew, he had recycled some of the chemicals he had transported. She picked up a package of potato chips, studying the label as if the calories and the list of ingredients could dissuade her from wanting them. Talk about chemicals. Maltodextrin, dextrose, wheat starch, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil—
“Palm oil,” she said.
“Bad stuff,” Carl said. “Do they have anything with canola oil?”
“I mean”— her mind was playing a word association game, one that seemed improbable and stupid—“palm oil. Palmer.”
“You think—?” His eyes widened.
“Try Alan Palmer,” Tess told the manager.
“Is that another character?”
“Just do it.”
“Okay. But, man, I can’t believe you guys do all this research and the movies turn out as silly as they do.” Click, click, click. Click, click, click. It seemed to take forever.
“Well, what do you know? Alan Palmer did rent a car that da
y. And he was from Maryland too, same as y’all.”
“You need a valid driver’s license to rent a car, right?”
“Oh, yes, indeedy. Driver’s license and credit card, a real one, not a debit.”
It was all Tess could do to find her voice, thank the young man, leave the store, and make it back to her car. It felt as if the small parking lot was a mile wide. Carl followed, just as dazed. They did not get in the Toyota but just leaned against it, looking up at the night sky. They were far enough out in the country so the sky was riotous with stars.
“What’s happening here?” Carl asked at last. “Did Eric and Alan Palmer know each other? Was it some Strangers on a Train scenario? You kill mine and I’ll kill yours?”
“No,” Tess said, surprised by her own certainty. “Alan Palmer hadn’t met Lucy Fancher by the time Tiffani Gunts died. They wouldn’t meet for another year, remember? Their relationship began the spring of the following year.”
“Then it makes no sense.”
“There’s one way it makes sense.” Her mouth was dry, and she had to lick her lips to get the next sentence out. “Eric Shivers and Alan Palmer are the same person.”
“No way. That’s not possible. You heard the guy. Alan Palmer had a driver’s license and a credit card. How can he have those things if he’s really Eric Shivers?”
“Such things can be faked,” Tess said, thinking of the forger to whom Mickey Pechter had referred her just a few weeks ago. “Don’t you get it? By the time Tiffani Gunts died, Eric Shivers had already made the preparations to disappear, already had his next identity picked out. Alan Palmer could have done the same thing—had his new identity ready to go, rented a car, leaving his van where it would be seen, where his whereabouts would be presumed.”
“Alan Palmer is in a hospital in Connecticut.”
“Oh, I’m sure someone named Alan Palmer is in a hospital in Connecticut. And I bet he has a broken neck from a car accident. But did you check to see when he was admitted, or did you just take the word of that caseworker who called you?”
Carl looked down at the ground. “Didn’t seem like something a person would lie about. He was in the hospital. Never occurred to me to ask when he got there, because I thought I knew.”
“Eric is probably a real person, too. He’s just not the Eric Shivers who courted and wooed Tiffani Gunts.”
“Do you know what you’re saying?”
“The same man killed Tiffani Gunts and Lucy Fancher. And he’s still out there somewhere, probably in a new relationship. He’s found another dark-haired girl, a girl with a history of bad relationships, and he’s changing her life for the better. He’s getting her teeth fixed, helping her establish credit, urging her to go back to school and find a better job. Her friends and family love him, swear he’s the best thing that ever happened to her. They’re happy, they’re in love, and they’re going to get married.”
“You think—”
“I think this guy is the perfect boyfriend—up until the day he kills you.”
CHAPTER 17
The Maryland State Police are strangely invisible to the people they protect. An average citizen, asked to explain what this branch of law enforcement does, would know only that they give out speeding tickets along the major highways. Those who read newspapers might recall that an undercover state trooper is almost always involved when a Marylander attempts to arrange a contract hit on a loved one. Troopers receive the most attention when they get killed in the line of duty.
Otherwise, no one seems quite sure what they do or why they exist. Not Tess, at least. But Carl had worked with troopers on the Fancher case and, presumably, knew what they did.
“I wish we didn’t have to depend on these guys,” Carl muttered, as he and Tess waited ten, twenty, thirty minutes past the scheduled meeting time. “Couldn’t we have gone straight to the FBI?”
“You know better than I that the FBI has no jurisdiction. Our guy may have rented a car in Virginia, but as far as we know he’s killed only within the boundaries of Maryland. Besides, the state police seemed awfully keen when I called.”
“If they’re so interested,” Carl said, “why are they making us wait?”
“To remind us that they’re more important than we are,” Tess said complacently. “Or to convince themselves of their own importance.”
“Trust me, they never doubt their own importance. They’re dicks. I hated working with them up in Cecil County.”
“They were in charge of the Lucy Fancher case, right?”
“Yes, and they were dicks. Know-it-all dicks. They’ll cut us out of this investigation in a heartbeat. Treat us like ordinary citizens.”
“We are ordinary citizens,” Tess pointed out. “But follow my lead in there, and we’ll be able to keep our hand in.”
Another five minutes elapsed before a secretary ushered them into a conference room where three uniformed men waited. In their stiff khaki uniforms, their broad-brimmed hats on the table in front of them, they gave the impression of wearing mirrored sunglasses, although they were not—their eyes were simply that flat and expressionless. No one offered an apology for making them wait, although the youngest of the three nodded at Carl.
“Carl,” he said.
“Corporal Gregg.” He nodded back.
“Craig. And I’ve made sergeant since we last met.”
“That’s right, you assisted on the Fancher case for a while, Mr. Dewitt,” said the middle of the three men. His nameplate identified him as Lieutenant Green. “Sergeant Craig briefed us on that situation. All water under the bridge, you’ll pardon the expression.”
Tess tried not to make a face at the ill-advised pun.
“Now we’ve looked at the two cases you believe are linked and already contacted VICAP,” Lieutenant Green continued. “No obvious connections have jumped out, but we have forty open homicides of adult women over the last five years—including another decapitation, although an arrest was made in that case. And in that case the body was found before the head.”
He looked quite pleased with himself for knowing this chronology was relevant. The oldest of the trio, Major Shields, rewarded him with a smile. This appeared to make Sergeant Craig, a boyish blond, eager for his share of approval.
“We’re also looking at domestics that were resolved as murder-suicides.”
“Resolved?” Tess echoed.
Major Shields caught her tone. “Resolved in the sense that they’re not ongoing cases. But we have to be open to the possibility that this killer—assuming you’re right about there being just one—has stopped killing because he’s already dead. Or he’s in another state. In which case, there’s not a lot we can do but put the word out and hope someone else is checking VICAP.”
“He wouldn’t kill himself,” Carl said. Tess wasn’t so sure, but she didn’t want the state police to see them as less than a united front, so she put a cautionary hand on the side of Carl’s leg, beneath the table where it couldn’t be seen. He let it rest there for a moment, then shook it off.
“No,” the major agreed. “Not if you’re right about his pattern. But it’s hard to deduce a pattern from just two. Sam here has been down to Quantico and trained as a profiler.” He nodded toward the lieutenant. “These things are not as cut-and-dried as you might think.”
Again, Tess tried not to make a face. She had a friend in Baltimore City homicide who had gone to Quantico on a consultation once, for two seemingly random homicides that had happened in two of the city’s posher neighborhoods. It was a red ball squared, to use cop parlance, but the trip to Quantico had been more public relations than police work. The profiler had looked at the files and said, “Both these crimes occurred at night. So now we know your killer is nocturnal.” That turned out to be the only useful information derived from the session. The homicides were unrelated, after all, and the two independent perps who were ultimately arrested proved capable of committing crimes at any time of the day or night.
“What a
bout closed cases?” She tried to sound deferential, non-combative. There was a bad feel to the room, the sense of some unresolved grudge between Carl and Sergeant Craig.
“Closed cases?” Lieutenant Green looked baffled. “Closed cases are closed.”
“But what if the person who committed these crimes is in prison for another crime?”
“Well, of course. We’re always open to that possibility.”
“Or what if one of your resolved cases was resolved incorrectly? What if the wrong man was convicted for a crime, allowing this killer to continue?”
“That’s”—the major searched for a word—“an interesting notion. We’ll consider that too. We do appreciate your help, your cooperation. This case may turn out to be quite important.”
The troopers were giving them the bum’s rush, just as Carl had feared. Tess could sense his anger building, but she knew they needed to be tactful, almost servile, to get what they wanted. Like beta dogs, they had to roll on their backs and offer up their stomachs to the alpha dogs. This was a hard lesson for men, but it came naturally to most women.
“We called the state police because we want to help. We’d like to work with you.”
Major Shields smiled at her. “The state police doesn’t work with civilians.”
“Of course.” She paused for a beat, and the troopers smiled, full of the warm feeling that comes from getting one’s way effortlessly. “Only this extremely sensitive information grew out of our investigation. I’m still under contract. My work hasn’t ended. You could even say I own this information. Me and my clients.”
The troopers were no longer smiling.
“You are free to continue whatever it is you do,” the major said, “where it does not overlap or interfere with official police work.”
It was a bluff. Tess shook her head, calling him on it.
“My clients are well-connected people. They’re not used to being pushed aside or controlled in any fashion. They already know what I’ve uncovered. And so far they haven’t gone to the media or made a stink. Nor will they—as long as I’m involved. If I tell them you’ve shut me out, they’ll be all over television, screaming cover-up.”
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