Believe No One (39 page)

‘And you just happened to step outside as I passed? I call it a piss-poor cover story.'

His arm was so far up his back by now that the man standing on tiptoe. ‘Look, I'm just here on a visit. I heard there were a few gay-friendly bars in town, and …'

Josh experienced a moment of uncertainty, relaxed his hold and the man twisted free.

Out of practice, Josh. Out of condition.
He moved to the stance, ready for what came next, but the man's hands went up immediately.

‘Look,' he said. ‘I didn't mean to scare you, but,
Jesus
, you're scaring the shit out of
me
!'

Josh didn't even blink.

‘I just … I wanted to ask if you fancied a nightcap, but I guess I felt shy … I … I'm not even “out” yet.'

He was tremulous and vulnerable, and Josh felt suddenly ashamed. ‘Look,' he said. ‘I'm sorry. Overreaction.'

The man looked at him with tears in his eyes, dug in his pocket for a tissue and wiped his nose, his hand shaking.

Poor little queer, having a hard time coming to terms with his sexuality, plucks up the courage to make an approach and what does he get – Essex Man acting like the Kray twins. They stood three feet apart, Josh uncertain what to do next, until a crowd of people spilled out of O'Neill's and headed up the street.

The guy shrugged. ‘I'm shit at this. I should …' He turned back down towards the harbour, his shoulders slumped.

Josh called, ‘Hey!'

The forlorn look on the guy's face was the decider.

‘What about that nightcap?' Josh said.

It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

N
OËL
C
OWARD

Edge of Westfield, Williams County, Oklahoma
Tuesday, 11.30 p.m.

Fennimore had fulfilled his obligations to his publishers, made things right with
That's Entertainment!,
signed books, charmed readers and booksellers in Chicago. He had even won over John, the sales rep he'd kept waiting at the airport, with a case of expensive imported Glenlivet. Now he was back in Oklahoma, sitting at Abigail Hicks's kitchen table. He had planned to stay another night in Chicago and get the first flight on the Wednesday, but when it came to it, he couldn't stand being away from the investigation any longer. He'd managed to catch a direct flight that got him into Tulsa International at 10.15 p.m., hired a car and drove straight over.

As Hicks cooked chilli and rice, she set a cold beer before him and gave him the highlights of the past thirty hours. It was good to hear that the FBI had produced an aged-up the photograph from ‘Thomas Holsten's' fake driver's licence, adding a beard and longer hair; that had been distributed to truck companies up and down I-44. He enjoyed listening to Hicks's tale of interviewing Sharla Jane's neighbour with Kate Simms. He wished he'd been there to see it.

‘So Goodman saw the boy go into the woods, followed by a man?' Fennimore said.

‘He did.'

‘Did anyone think to check the fence for DNA?'

She smiled. ‘Roper said you'd ask. He found skin cells from an unknown male. Team Adam paid for a private lab to rush the results; it matched the DNA off the rail-rod screws in Sharla Jane's trailer.'

Click. One more piece of the puzzle,
Fennimore thought.

‘Could Mr Goodman describe the man?'

‘Tall, black clothes, ski mask. And he claimed he hardly saw Sharla Jane's boyfriend.'

The Task Force had released a psychological profile of the killer while Fennimore was away, and the boyfriend was named as a Person of Interest.

Abigail Hicks handed Fennimore a plate of chilli rice. ‘See anything useful in there?'

Kate Simms had sent him the exchange of emails between an unnamed correspondent and the man calling himself ‘SouthernKingfish' – they were sitting in front of him on the red melamine.

‘Just two serial killers flinging schoolboy insults at each other.' He flicked to the last page, some way into the name-calling.

‘Seriously? You dropped your lassie in
Alemoor Loch,
and
you're
lecturing
me
?' This was from the man wanted by the Task Force.

The reply: ‘Do you
want
to be banged up for the rest of your life?'

Their guy: ‘Jail, or dead, better than being hooked up with a nurrit-prick too scared to do it for himself.'

‘What's a “nurrit-prick”?' Hicks asked, reading over Fennimore's shoulder.

‘
Nurrit
is Hawick dialect for a small and insignificant thing,' Fennimore said solemnly.

‘They really are at the level of the schoolyard, aren't they?' she said.

‘I'll squash you,' the second man had blasted back. ‘I'll pin you to a board, you bloodsucker. You fucking
insect
…'

‘I doubt that, Mr “I'm-too-
English
-to-get-my-hands-dirty”,' their guy wrote. ‘But you want to come visit, I could give you a few tips.'

Just about everyone on the Task Force had scrutinized the printouts while Fennimore was in Chicago and out of the loop, so his first sight of the full text was at the airport, where he'd downloaded it before boarding the plane. He'd read it many times over since then, but every time he put the emails down, they began preying on his mind.

He scooped up a forkful of rice, set it down without tasting it and began thumbing through the pages again.

‘Did Josh dig up anything useful from the
Hawick News
archives?' he asked.

‘You didn't hear from him?'

‘I told him to liaise with Chief Inspector Simms.'

‘She couldn't reach him,' Hicks said.

Fennimore checked his watch; it would be early morning in Aberdeen. This wasn't like Josh. He tried the student's mobile number – it went straight to voicemail. He left a message, sent an email and was wondering whether to Skype, when he realized that Hicks was looking at him, her head cocked to one side.

‘Sorry, did you say something?'

‘I said, should we be worried?'

‘Not sure,' he said, and when he shook his head, the room started to spin slowly clockwise.

‘Did you get
any
sleep since you left here?'

He thought about it. ‘I dozed on the plane for a bit.'

She took the bundle out of his hands and set it aside. ‘Relax, eat something, rest awhile.'

A day and a half of back-to-back events and American hospitality had left him exhausted and more than a little hungover, he had to admit. Frustrated with himself, he took up his plate of food.

After supper, they went out into the orchard again. She turned her face to the moon, and for some minutes they sipped their beer and watched the bats flit between the trees like cartoon animations.

‘Have you ever seen a hunting bat in slow motion?' he asked. ‘They use their wings to net an insect – it can be as tiny as a mosquito or a midge – then—' He stopped, and suddenly the sounds around him dimmed. He closed his eyes and saw the faces of people waiting to have their books signed, email messages; words and images swirling in his head until he felt dizzy. Finally, the crickets and the katydids were silenced entirely, and he knew why he'd felt compelled to read the printed pages over and over again. Sweat broke out on his face and neck; he felt cold and sick.

Hicks turned to him, concerned. ‘Are you all right, Professor?'

‘The man our guy has been communicating with.' Fennimore couldn't seem to get his breathing right, and he had to pause for a gulp of air. ‘The Scottish connection – I think he's here, in the United States. I think I spoke to him.'

Hicks stared at him. ‘What?
When
?'

‘In Chicago. One of the readings—'

Her phone beeped and she cursed, dragged it from her shirt pocket and checked the screen. ‘Aw, shit …'

‘What?' he said, but she was already heading back to the house.

‘You can tell me about it on the way into town,' she said. ‘He did it again: mother and child disappeared from a truck stop off I-44 twenty miles north-east of Hays.'

A midge has a set of mouth parts which are like shearing scissors.

D
R
A
LISON
B
LACKWELL

It was a short drive over to the Incident Command Post from Hicks's house, so Fennimore kept it brief.

‘There was a fan at one of the Chicago events. He was over-friendly,' he explained. ‘Acted like he knew me, insisted on shaking my hand, held the grip too long – generally made me uneasy. He sounded English, so I asked him if he was in the States on business. He said a mixture of business and pleasure. He told me he was an entomologist; he'd accepted an invitation from an old friend. But it didn't sound like a friendly visit.'

She shrugged. ‘He sounded English, what makes you think he's the Scotch connection?'

‘In the emails, the accomplice called our guy an “insect”, a “bloodsucker”; threatened to pin him to a board, to which
our
guy wrote, “I doubt that, Mr ‘I'm-too-
English
-to-get-my-hands-dirty'.” He even offered an invitation, of sorts.'

‘When did he do that?'

Fennimore quoted from memory: ‘“But you want to come visit, I could give you a few tips.”'

‘I guess …' Hicks said. ‘But it'd take more than that to convince the Sheriff.'

‘Okay …' Fennimore dug back in his memory for more details. ‘The man at the reading said he was a specialist in
midge
eradication.'

‘Midge?'

‘What you would call a fly. Scottish midges are notorious bloodsuckers. It's all there, Abigail: the English reference, “insect”, bloodsucker, the invitation.'

‘And his search-and-destroy mission,' Hicks agreed. ‘Well, we better find our guy first, 'cos if the “bug man” gets there ahead of us, we won't stand a chance of finding this woman and her daughter alive.'

The missing woman was Faith Eversley, a twenty-three-year-old single mother; her daughter, Ava, was aged eight. Kate Simms watched Fennimore from across the room. He looked pale and preoccupied, only half listening to Sheriff Launer's report.

‘No family,' Launer told them. ‘But she's been waitressing in O'Malley's Irish bar in Hays. The bar owner called it in. At six p.m., Faith called from the service area east of Hays. She was due in at seven, said she might be late – her car engine overheated. She said she knew what to do, and she would call back when she was on her way. Now, Faith never missed a day in the four months she's been on the payroll, so when she didn't make that call, the bar owner tried her cell phone. It went to voicemail. She waited some more, called the sheriff's office at eight thirty-five p.m.'

‘Do we have a trace on the phone?' Dunlap asked.

Launer shook his head. ‘Turned off.'

‘Why'd it take till now for us to get to hear about it?' Simms asked. It was well after midnight.

‘The truck stop's a hair over the county line,' Launer explained. ‘Craig County sheriff called me after he sent a deputy out there, found her car still in the parking lot, hood up, blood on the passenger seat.' He looked around the room. ‘Are we agreed this is our guy?'

‘Different MO, but the victimology's too similar to be ignored.' Detmeyer, wary, as ever, of overstating the case.

‘Well, we don't have time to stand around with our dicks in our hands,' Launer said, instantly tetchy. ‘So, you don't mind, I'll take that as a yes. I'm going to send out an Amber Alert for the girl.'

Nods of agreement from everyone, including Detmeyer, who never seemed to take others' rudeness personally.

‘The bar owner had a picture of the mother and daughter,' Launer went on. ‘The County Sheriff emailed it to me. We need to get that out to the media.'

‘And the car should be processed,' Fennimore said. He continued doodling on the back of a document wallet as he spoke, a sure sign he was thinking, rather than distracted.

Launer gave Fennimore a sour look. ‘Craig County already processed it.'

‘Oh,' Fennimore said. ‘You mean Craig County
deputies
processed it?'

Sarcasm,
Simms thought.
Great strategy, Nick.
She glanced towards Hicks, but the deputy had preoccupations of her own. She'd perched her netbook on a spare table and was studying the screen.

Simms unfolded her arms and stood up straight, catching Fennimore's eye. He raised his eyebrows as if to say,
What?
She spread her hands – a plea for diplomacy – and he subsided with a frustrated sigh.

Dunlap stepped in: ‘If you can smooth the way, Sheriff, we might be able to catch some additional evidence.'

‘Craig County
did
invite us in,' Launer said. ‘I'll call the Sheriff. Hicks will …' He glanced over to where Hicks was still staring at her netbook. ‘Deputy
Hicks
.'

She looked up.

‘When you're finished playing with your new toy, you can escort these two gentlemen out to the truck stop,' Launer said with a nod to the two CSIs.

‘Yes, sir, Sheriff,' she said, not in the least chastened. ‘Before I do, I've been looking at the locations. We got victims along four hundred-some miles of I-44, all the way from Bristow to St Louis.'

‘I
know that,
‘ Launer said.

She walked to the two Rand McNally maps of Oklahoma and Missouri taped together on a wall board at the front of the room and pointed to the eastern edge of the map, St Louis being on the Illinois state line. ‘Kyra Pender, found in a park in St Louis.' She slid her finger south and west, following the line of I-44 to Williams County. ‘Laney Dawalt, her body was dumped in a pond just a few miles east of Westfield. He put 350 miles between those two victims.'