"Yes. Natalie Breen. She owned the boutique where this was purchased. She was murdered last night."
"What?" he said, looking genuinely shocked at the news. Or else he was a very good actor.
Forty-Seven
Photos of the tire tracks taken near the place where Pearl Grannan's body was dumped turned out to match those on Fred Grannan's Station Wagon. That, and Grannan's record of wife beating was enough to get them a search warrant. It paid off. Luminal showed numerous bloodstains on the carpet in the upstairs bedroom. Some of the beige color had been bleached from the carpet in the process of trying to remove them. A few spots he'd missed entirely.
At least they could cross Fred Grannan off the list as the possible serial killer, Detective Tom O'Neal thought, setting his plate in the sink and running hot water over it. Finding out he had a record of domestic assaults against his wife put a different light on the man. Painted a different picture of the marriage.
They'd even turned up a 911 tape of his wife's hysterical call a couple of years back saying her husband was threatening to kill her. According to a couple of friends and neighbors, seems she couldn't move without arousing Fred's suspicions. Her best friend from school said Pearl was terrified of Fred. Always walked softly around him. Tried to leave him a few times, but like a bad vaccination, it never took. The public would be spared the expense of a trial. A couple of hours at the station had brought a tearful confession, made amidst much sobbing and nose blowing. He'd accused her of seeing other men and they got into one of their fights. This one got out of control and Pearl ended up dead. Grannan panicked and seized on the idea of pinning her murder on the man police were looking for, for the other murders. A copycat killing. Read his Miranda rights, the silent, gray and contrite man was handcuffed and led off to his cell to await sentencing.
Maybe he
was
genuinely sorry. Who knew? But Fred's remorse or lack thereof was not Tom's problem. His problem was trying to find a serial killer, a man who it appeared was murdering women at random. The headline in the local paper did little to ease the fears of St. Simeon women. Their killer was still out there.
It was coming onto dusk when Tom plugged in the lights he'd hung on the porch railing. His contribution to Christmas. They twinkled merrily, throwing their blue and green and red lights on the snowy stretch of land in front of the house and made him smile. "Don't look too bad, eh, fella," he said to his friend who stood on the porch watching him, tail thumping the deck floor, grinning right along with him.
It had begun to snow, and was cold, which for some odd reason made him think of Caroline Hill and her fuzzy, yellow robe. Odder still, she called him a few minutes later. He went inside to answer. It gave him a weird feeling hearing her voice on the phone, but he wasn't really surprised. Not that he was a big believer in ESP, but he didn't discount it either. Someone had hung a gift bag with a gold brooch inside on her door on Christmas Eve, she told him. The bag came from Natalie's Boutique. "I work all day tomorrow, but if you'll come to my room anytime after six, I'll give it to you."
He thanked her for calling. Said he'd be there. Then stood with the phone in his hand, frowning.
Forty-Eight
The following evening at twenty past six, Detective O'Neal was standing in Caroline Hill's room, looking at the brooch someone had left for her. Not that he expected it to reveal any clues, but a mystery fingerprint was always possible, maybe on the box or the bag. He would ask the victim's daughter to check out the day's receipts. With luck, Mrs. Breen kept a list of customers' names on file. He'd know quickly enough who had purchased it.
"I didn't buy it," Caroline Hill said, "if that's what you're thinking. "I'm not crazy." She was sitting on the sofa, picking at a fingernail. She hadn't answered her door in her yellow robe this time, however, but in a white sweater and navy slacks. Tiny pearl earrings. There was a new self-confidence about her, despite the nervousness.
"No one's suggesting you are, Miss Hill. But someone bought it. You must have an idea. I don't expect you still believe in Santa." The question was rhetorical and she didn't answer it.
"No, I have no idea who hung it on my doorknob. I asked who it was. He said YOU. Then he fled down the stairs and out of the building.
"Did you see him?"
"Just a glimpse. It was dark."
"But you didn't recognize him."
"No, she whispered." She'd had a few suspicions, but that's all they were.
"Or his voice."
"No."
"Are you seeing anyone who lives in the building?" He already knew she was, thanks to her landlady.
"I went out on Christmas Eve with Mr. Denton upstairs," she said without hesitation. "He teaches piano. I've already asked him and he assured me it did not come from him. There's no one else I can think of. Well, there's just one… but I don't think…"
"You let me do the detective work, okay? Who?" He took out his pen and notebook.
She told him all about Mike Handratty, including his getting beaten up on the night he accosted her on the way home, not by a gang of three, as he'd told police, but by a man who came to her rescue.
The detective listened attentively, then he said, "Seems unlikely Mike Handratty would be leaving you Christmas presents after taking a pretty serious knocking about on your behalf." He remembered the incident; her version of what happened had a ring of truth. "Why didn't you call the police and report what happened?"
"I know I should have called that night when I got home, but I was afraid. I didn't know what to do. Seeing as how I spent the last…anyway, I thought I might be blamed somehow. Called a troublemaker. Crazy. I might even lose my job."
"I can understand that. Well, I'm glad you're being forthcoming now. We'll check him out of course. Anything else?"
"There's Harold. Mrs. Bannister's nephew. I—uh, think he likes me. But he already gave me a Christmas present, a box of cakes and cookies, in Christmas wrapping. He wouldn't be buying a brooch too. Anyway, he doesn't make much money. He works at a The Big Bakery, across from the restaurant where I work. Frank's."
"I know it. Get a meal there from time to time. I'll have to take this brooch with me, Miss Hill."
"Yes, please. I don't want to look at it again. Mrs. Breen was a nice lady. I hope you catch her killer. He's the same one who killed those other women, isn't he?"
"We don't know that for sure, but it's possible."
And then she told him about feeling that someone had been stalking her for weeks now. When she was in the park, on her way home from work before she started taking the bus. "I never told anyone. I thought people would just think I was being paranoid. In fact, I wondered that myself."
O'Neal wondered too. At first, as she'd suspected, he considered she might have purchased the brooch herself and called the police, looking for attention. It happened more than occasionally. And as she herself had pointed out, she was in a mental institution for a good part of her life. But in spite of that, or maybe because of it, he was starting to feel an admiration for Caroline Hill, though not altogether ready to give up on his earlier theory. As she talked, he merely listened and nodded, kept his cop's poker face, then slipped the Natalie's lavender bag into an evidence bag.
She didn't look so much scared as concerned, he thought. She also looked relieved to have gotten some stuff off her chest.
"You keep your doors locked, and be careful," he told her. "You might even want to keep a chair wedged under the knob. Even with the bolt. I don't want to frighten you needlessly, but anyone who ever lived here could have a key to the front door. They could have had an extra key made. Or failed to turn theirs in. I just don't want you to have a false sense of security here."
"Oh, I don't, not at all."
"Good. At the same time go about your life as usual, as much as you can. You have my card. If you feel threatened for whatever reason, don't hesitate to call. In the meantime, we'll send a cruiser around to keep an eye on things. I'll be in touch."
Since he was already in the building, he went upstairs and knocked on Jeffrey Denton's door. He wasn't at home. Or if he was, he wasn't he wasn't answering the door. The landlady, on the other hand, answered his knock at once and Tom suspected she'd been standing on the other side of the door waiting for him for come back downstairs. He asked to speak with Harold.
After the detective left Caroline's room and went downstairs, it seemed eerily silent. As if it were alive, and holding its breath…
She bolted the door then wedged a chair under the doorknob.
Forty-Nine
At work the next day at work Caroline sought out Ethel in the kitchen and told her the truth about what had happened that night with Mike Handratty. She didn't like having lied to her. And she didn't want to hold any more secrets; secrets were heavy. Ethel showed little surprise at the revelation.
"I thought it was something like that," she said. "It was written all over your face that something had happened when you came in that morning. You're not the best cover-upper, Caroline. Well, now we know how Mike ended up in the hospital. You were lucky that fella came along. Who knows what Mike might have done. Do you think it's Mike who's been following you?"
"I don't know, Ethel. I'm sure he blames me for what happened to him."
"I think that's fair to assume," Ethel agreed. "Not only did he lose his job, but got beat up in the bargain." A devilish grin passed over her lips. "It wouldn't occur to him that all of it happened because of his own actions. But that's Mike."
"I know. And yet somehow I don't really think it's him. Anyway, how would he get into the building? He'd need a key."
"Oh, that wouldn't stop him," Ethel said. "If he was determined enough, I'm sure he'd find a way."
Almost Caroline's own words to Mrs. Bannister.
"Don't sell Mike short, Caroline," Ethel said, wiping down the grill. "He's very sly. And quite the charmer when it suits him, as you well know. He could just slip in with one of the tenants, and then hide in a broom closet or something. Then again, it wouldn't surprise me if he never wanted to look on your face again. I don't see him as a particularly brave soul."
But then it still left the question of who left the brooch?
Fifty
Buddy stood across the street from Frank's, watching the restaurant. He hiked up his coat collar. He was tired of lurking in shadows, cold and alone. But all that would end soon. He'd tracked down Earl in Toronto, singing in a small bar on Yonge Street. Buddy had practically jumped inside his skin when the guy on the phone told him. He had started to ask him what he wanted him for, but Buddy hung up, cutting him off.
It would be better even than that other Christmas Earl had been with him, a long time ago. And yet to Buddy, only yesterday.
Earl had probably been looking for him, too, he thought almost tearfully, blocking out the small voice in his head that reminded him that Earl knew very well where he lived all those years he was growing up. He hadn't even sent him a postcard. But Buddy wasn't listening. He believed Earl did write to him and that his mother destroyed the letters.
"Son-of-a-bitch is gone," his mother had told him when he got home from school that day, lighting up yet another cigarette, gray smoke curling up past her face. She was still in her faded blue robe, her frowsy dark hair messy, letting him know she just crawled out of bed. She smelled of booze, but she wasn't drunk. "Packed his crap and took off, just like that." She sucked in smoke and blew it at the ceiling. "Stole some cash out of my purse, too, the bastard."
Buddy had been so stunned at this news he momentarily forgot his fear of his mother. "When's he coming back?" he demanded.
"Don't you listen, you little shit? I said he packed his stuff and left. He ain't comin' back, and good riddance."
The scalding tears had poured down his face. He could feel them now, taste their salt, could almost hear the shattering of his heart. He screamed at her that it wasn't true. It couldn't be. "He didn't go for good, momma. Earl's coming back. He loves me, he wouldn't just go. You sent Earl away. You sent my daddy away. You sent my dadd…"
The force of her backhand across his mouth rattled his teeth and sent him flying across the room. Then her face was thrust into his own. "Earl ain't your daddy," she hissed at him, breathing that stale booze in his face. "You ain't got no daddy, you little bastard. Okay? You got that? Now get the hell out of here. Go find the son-of-a-bitch and see if he'll take you with him." She laughed, a dog's bark. "Wouldn't be no loss to me if he did. Probably took off for Toronto, his old stomping ground."
That nugget of information stuck in Danny's head. She'd been right about that and now he had found him after all these years. He'd tried before to find him before but never had any luck. This time he'd just called a bunch of bars listed in the phone book and someone finally told him he was at a place called Curly's. Buddy had come to the end of a long road. He would take Caroline with him to Toronto and they would be a family again. Like before. Only better. He wiped his tears of joy with his sleeve.