Rath leaned in close again, whispering. “I’ll give you a truth,” he said. “You’re safer in here than out free in the world. If you’re released today, you’ll be back soon. Because we’ll have eyes on you. There will be a cruiser parked at the end of your road, round the clock. You won’t be able to walk or drive anywhere, do anything without one of us following you.” It was a lie. Rath could put Larkin on a detail and do some himself, but they could not watch Preacher at all times. They did not have the resources or the bodies. But he wanted Preacher to know, needed him to believe, he was being watched at all times.
Preacher shrugged. “I don’t plan on going anywhere.”
As Rath rose, he sneaked the hair Preacher had placed on the table into his palm, then left, locking the door behind him from the outside.
He looked at Preacher’s hair pinched between his thumb and finger, tucked it in his shirt pocket and leaned back against the door to breathe.
After a moment to collect himself, he ducked inside Test’s office quickly, rooted around, found some envelopes in a wire rack on a bookshelf, and slipped the hair into one, put the envelope in his jacket pocket.
He hurried back out in the hall as Test came out from the room on the other side of the room next door, where she’d been watching the video feed.
“Arrest him,” Rath said.
“We can’t.”
“He can’t be released on the public,” Rath said, though he was not concerned about the public. He was concerned about Rachel. Preacher was playing a game, trying to slowly torture Rath, to see if Rath would tell Rachel what Preacher wanted him to tell her. Do Preacher’s bidding. Rath refused to believe Preacher’s claim, but only because he was afraid to imagine his sister would sleep with Preacher willingly, even if she had not known the monster he was. Laura had struggled with promiscuity in high school and college, cheated on many of her boyfriends. That had ended when she’d met and married Daniel. So Rath had believed. Whether it was true or not did not matter if Preacher told Rachel he was her father. It would wreck her. Rath could not sit back and let Preacher tell her. That would be worse. Preacher would not stop with merely telling her. He’d tell her, then—Finish her. So she died with that being the last thing she ever heard.
“Arrest him,” Rath said. “I don’t care if it’s for looking at you the wrong way.”
“The D.A. will laugh at us. We need physical evidence.”
“He says he knows the time and the means. He has no alibi.”
“It’s not enough. He’ll retract it as soon as we arrest him. Make a mockery of the case against him. What was he talking to you about, you and an alibi? And when you leaned in and whispered. What were you two saying?”
“He was talking shit, trying to get under my skin. He’s a sadist. He’ll hurt people any way he can. I want him locked up.”
“At most, he’s a material witness for having information about a crime. If we want to detain him for that, we need to file an affidavit. I’m already on it. Until it’s turned around, unless he confesses, we have to release him. Otherwise we could blow our case.”
“I’m running this case,” Rath shouted.
“And you’re going to sabotage it.”
“Don’t you dare release him.”
Barrons appeared at the end of the hall and walked slowly toward them. “What’s this?”
“She refuses to arrest Preacher,” Rath said. “He knows Drake was hanged. The time. Neither made public.”
“Is that right?” Barrons looked at Test.
“It makes him material at best,” Test said.
“What else do you have?” Barrons said.
“What else? What the fuck else do we need?” Rath said.
“Was it a confession?” Barrons said.
“No, sir,” Test said.
“File the affidavit. Let him go until he’s an official MW, then haul him in,” Barrons said.
“I want him arrested,” Rath said, “charged with obstruction or—”
“No.” Barrons walked back to his office.
Rath’s phone chimed in his pocket. He took it out and glanced at it. A text from Rachel: What this in news? Dead girl in woods?!! Is it him? Is it?
Test turned to Rath. “Look,” she said. “We hit a snag while you were in with Preacher, makes me think maybe he didn’t do it, not alone anyway.”
“He’d never share his fun with someone else,” Rath said, though he was uncertain. If Preacher had been at home, yet knew about the hanging, did he have a minion? “And what do you mean, snag?”
“On the truck parked in Preacher’s yard, we can’t get warrants. It belongs to an Andrea Diamond. Not certain who she is. And, the neighbor woman, Larkin reached her at her work and asked about the window of time Jamie was hanged, to see if she saw Preacher leave or not. She was out. She can’t help.”
“If Preacher did it, he’s got a vehicle stashed somewhere. Or an ATV. Has to,” Rath said. “He was in Johnson, stalking my daughter. There’s no bus service. No one picks up hitchhikers anymore. He’s got a car stashed. We need to find it. We need to get him on something. Anything.”
“We will,” Test said. “If he didn’t do it himself, he’s got an accomplice, or he knows who did it. Maybe a convict in prison bragged about how he was going to torture girls when he got out. Or maybe Preacher hanged her and got a fellow ex-con to drive him.”
“Have Larkin go through the Northeast prison files and make a list of prisoners released the past six months from population with Preacher. We’ll look for a car within a two-mile radius of Preacher’s place. You can put out an APB on a lone car. Or ATV. Parked in an odd spot.”
“You’re going to look for a hidden car in this fog?”
“Every angle, no stone,” Rath said.
Rath looked at the door to the IR where Preacher was held. If Rath could have Preacher kept here even for a day, Rath would not have to set up camp outside Preacher’s house. He could at least get to Johnson to see Rachel, get to the shop, see two other people he needed to see, and know Preacher was at heel. “Do this. We can’t arrest him. So we keep interviewing him. Grill him. Delay his release and keep him here as long as legally possible while I track a few things down and tell my daughter she can at least feel safe for a day.”
“What things?”
“I want to meet with Dana Clark’s daughter. Let her know in person Preacher is a suspect in her mother’s disappearance. She deserves that much. And visit Abby Land. You’re right. She and Drake were close. Maybe it’s nothing. But if anyone knows what dark past Drake may have kept secret, it’s likely Abby Land.”
“I’ll pay a visit to Luke Montgomery before this day is out then. But I’ll interrogate Preacher now, then have Larkin put the screws to him. Have him ask the same questions. It will do Larkin good. Between us we’ll keep Preacher a good spell longer; maybe fatigue will trip him up.”
“Keep him as long as you can.”
Rath ran through the rain and fog, hopped into his Scout. Rachel was in class now. She couldn’t answer a call, but she might see a text if she had her phone on vibrate.
Rath texted: I’ll come out to see you as soon as I can. Sometime late afternoon today or tomorrow. I’ll explain. Be careful. Stick with Felix. Love you
Before Rath could start the Scout, Rachel texted: Is it him? The girl in woods. He do it? Do u know?
Rath didn’t know. Yet, even if it weren’t Preacher, Rath wanted to make certain Rachel took as much precaution as possible, even if it meant she was frightened for the time being. He’d rather she be frightened and safe than the alternative.
Rath texted: Just be safe.
Rachel: K
Her coat, Rath thought, the clothes. Damn it.
39
Rachel slipped her cell phone into her pocket and peered around the library where she sat at the counter of her work-study station. She lifted her backpack onto her lap, the heft of the handgun in it reassuring. If anyone knew she had the gun, security would
be called, she’d likely be arrested, almost certainly expelled. It was worth the risk.
The past three days fear had hijacked her routine, her life. It had killed her appetite and tattered her sleep, left her body exhausted and her mind jagged.
No more.
She was done with darting from class to class like a mouse skittering atop the snow.
No more. Her plan incubated in her mind. The gun shifted her instincts, from flight to fight.
She’d selected the .38 revolver because it packed punch but its recoil was manageable. The gun shop owner had invited her to shoot several boxes of rounds in his range in the rear of his shop, the ammunition on the house.
She’d also signed up for the personal defense classes. Her shooting needed to be better. Much better.
40
Rath got out of the Scout down the street from the Dress Shoppe. Running into Madeline was the last thing he wanted.
He stood on the sidewalk and took in the street. The church at the top of it, the fire station just across and up from the Dress Shoppe. Perhaps Test was right. Perhaps there was something to Luke Montgomery. Test’s instincts were sharp. Better to be thorough and at least eliminate all doubt.
Rath took a breath and entered the store, the bell above him clacking.
Gone were the racks of splashy late-summer clothes on late clearance that had occupied the front of the store a few weeks earlier, before his lone, failed date with Madeline. In the place of the summer sale clothes stood racks and tables of sweaters and slacks and cords in fall hues of brown and rust and black. Rath wondered why people wore bright colors in the summer, and drab colors in the winter. He’d have thought it would be the opposite. But, what did he know? His Johnson wool jacket was infested with burdocks and, he noticed now, too late, gave off a pissy scent of whitetail doe urine he’d accidentally spilled from its bottle onto the jacket cuff when going through his hunting gear, and his born to run T-shirt beneath the jacket had a coffee stain along the contours of the Big Man’s sax.
The store’s earlier powdery scents had given over to odors of cinnamon and nutmeg that made Rath want a slab of apple pie à la mode. His stomach rumbled. He’d not eaten in two days.
The shop stood quiet. Not even the low background hum of holiday Muzak. His first time here, several clerks had circled him as a prospective patron. Now, a lone teenage girl stood at the back of the store near the cash register, folding turtlenecks and placing them on a display table.
She did not notice Rath, had not heard the door’s bell clang apparently.
Rath took a step to ease into her peripheral vision without startling her.
She whirled around, plucked earbuds from her ears, a blush of guilt shadowing her look of alarm, as if she’d breached store policy by wearing the earbuds and thought for a moment she’d been caught by a supervisor.
In seeing Rath, a strange disheveled man, the girl tensed and her look of surprise morphed to guarded suspicion. She smoothed a palm over the turtleneck at the top of a stack, tucked its price tag inside its collar.
“May I help you?” she said, apprehensive, as if Rath had stumbled in to seek directions to the nearest gun show.
Rath welcomed her caution. He hoped Rachel made strange men earn her trust.
“Are you lost?” the clerk said.
She fingered a strand of her lank brown hair behind her ears as she approached, stopping at a distance that did not permit shaking hands.
“I’m looking for clothes and a coat,” Rath said. “For my daughter.”
The girl nodded, but the veil of suspicion in her eyes did not clear.
“Madeline helped me, a few weeks ago,” Rath said.
“Oh,” the girl said, her smile awkward. “OK. How old is your daughter?”
Too quick, Rath thought. She’s too quick to let her guard down to a man who looks so out of place, just because I dropped a familiar name. Trust via association was misplaced trust. Cons used familiar names to disarm marks. Child abductors often mentioned an abductee’s parents’ names to lull the child.
While relieved Madeline was not on the clock, Rath wished she were here for her professional input; she’d nailed Rachel’s tastes.
“How about I let you roam free,” the clerk said as if Rath were a wolf granted freedom in Yellowstone, free except for the tracking collar. “And I’ll find what I think your daughter would like?”
She retreated behind the counter, and the song “Horse with No Name” began to play softly over the speakers.
Rath browsed. His desire to get things perfect for Rachel crippled his usual decisiveness.
After mulling over clothes with more deliberation than a juror on a capital murder trial, Rath had selected just one sweater and was not sold on it.
He hummed “Horse with No Name.” He’d be humming the damn song all day now. He didn’t care for faux ’70s folk. Give him Springsteen. Dark Springsteen. Nebraska. Darkness on the Edge of Town. The River’s despairing tracks. “Stolen Car” and “Drive All Night.”
The clerk strode over, arm draped with apparel. The tops, pants, and jackets were perfect. Where had she found them? Rath had not seen half these items, and the half he had seen he’d dismissed, yet they now seemed ideal.
It was a matter of trust. He trusted the clerk’s eye.
The clerk held far more garments than Rath imagined he’d need. The prices terrified him. He selected several pieces, and a black coat.
The clerk rang him up, folded and bagged the clothes.
Three bags total, so heavy their rope handles dug into Rath’s palms. The clerk got the door for him. As he squeezed past her, he said, “Tell Madeline I said hello.”
“She doesn’t work here anymore,” the girl said.
“Oh,” Rath said. “Do you know where she works now?”
Suspicion returned to the girl’s eyes. “No.”
“Right.” Rath walked out into the fog and got into the Scout to drive toward the Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury, realizing facing Madeline had not been the last thing he wanted after all.
41
In the parking garage of the NECC, Rath ejected the clip from his newly issued S&W M&P45, locked the weapon in his glove box, placed the clip in a steel ammo lockbox, and tucked the box under his seat.
Rath detested the M&P45. While the .45 APC cartridge possessed a velocity of roughly one thousand FPS, the weapon’s frame was Zytel polymer, with a four-and-a-half-inch barrel. Too light. Insubstantial. Plastic. Rath preferred the .357 with the seven-inch vent rib barrel, if only because it was the sidearm issued in his day; those days as long gone as pull tab beer cans.
He got out of the Scout and locked its door, headed to Building C, the all-female wing of the correctional facility where Abby Land awaited trial for the murder of Mandy Wilks.
From his desk at the front of the building, the balding middle-aged administrative assistant peered over his glasses, giving Rath a wary eye. “May I help you?”
Rath handed his new ID to the man. “I phoned earlier for an interview with inmate Abby Land.”
“Detective,” the man said, glancing at Rath, sizing up his rumpled appearance. “Are you in possession of your sidearm?”
“It’s locked in my vehicle. Unloaded.”
Rath signed in and headed to the next room beyond the lobby.
“Metal objects in this basket, please,” the C.O. said as she adjusted her blue clip-on tie at the neck of her white uniform shirt. She was tall, at least six foot four. Rath emptied his pockets of coins and keys and cell phone. “Belt and shoes, too,” the C.O. said.
Rath unslung his belt and shoes and placed them in the basket.
Rath handed her his ID.
“I don’t need to see that,” the woman said.
“Out of practice,” Rath said.
“No harm.”
The woman requested he proceed through the metal detector to the male C.O. awaiting him on the other side.
The metal detecto
r went off. Rath stepped back out from it. Checked all his pockets again to find a live .30-.30 deer cartridge in the chest pocket of his Johnson coat he wore everywhere except funerals and his lone date with Madeline.
“What is that, sir?” the C.O. awaiting him said.
“Nothing, a—”
“Hand it here.”
Rath obliged.
The guard inspected the cartridge in his gloved fingers.
“I’m a deer hunter,” Rath said. “I wear this jacket—”
The guard nodded, tossed the cartridge in the wastebasket beside him.
The metal detector remained silent as Rath passed through it again.
“Anything, sir?” the guard said.
“No, no more cartridges.”
“Any luck deer hunting, I mean.” The guard’s face remained professionally neutral, but Rath saw in his eyes he was a deer hunter.
“I wish,” Rath said. Boy, did he. “No time to hunt. A small buck back during bow season. You?”
“My daughter got her first deer on youth day. Six pointer. Have a good day, sir.”
Rath collected his belongings and put on his shoes, headed down the hall.
42
Because she was a minor as well as female, Abby Land was held in the prison’s Administrative Segregation area for her own safety.
Rath nodded at the O.C. outside the assigned activity room in Segregation and entered. At a square metal table in the center of the room Abby Land sat on one of the four metal seats welded to the table and bolted to the floor. She looked like she’d lived thirty stony years in the short time since her arrest. The hot defiance in her eyes had paled to a watery dullness. Her flush pink skin had gone as sallow as that of an aged chain smoker. Her chin, once calcified in an obstinate, fuck-you thrust, sunk to her chest as she gnawed at a thumbnail.
On a seat to Land’s left sat public defender Joanne Blanc, whom Rath had phoned earlier to set up the meeting. Blanc was already going to be on-site for most of the day, but was resistant to letting Rath speak to Land, until Rath had told the attorney that what he had to say might get Land off the hook. That he believed she had not killed Mandy Wilks, or at least not alone. He didn’t believe this, but it had bought him a half hour.
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