“Any other leads?”
“A brother.”
“Find him,” he said, then turned to Nick and extended a hand. “Louis Feldman. I got here a couple hours ago. We could do this better from a field office, have a little more room to spread out.”
“I want things close,” Nick said. The nearest FBI field office was in Cleveland. “Thanks for coming.”
“Sure. I’m three months from retirement. Wouldn’t mind finding Shelly Quinn bef—”
“Sheriff.” Brendan Madigan stood, waving something at Nick from across the room. It was a copy of the note from last night. “Robin Weelkes. Robin Weelkes.”
“You found her? Is she alive?”
“Not even close.”
M
ADIGAN STUMBLED THROUGH
tables toward Nick, who turned to catch Feldman up: “Someone left us a note with that name. It’s the second note. The first had Shelly Quinn’s name on it.”
“You aren’t gonna believe this,” Madigan said. “Robin Weelkes was a firefighter in Minneapolis. Forty-four years old, joined the Eighteenth Firehouse in 1991. But here’s the real kicker.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “She’s a he. Robin. He was a man.”
Nick went still. For the space of three seconds, his brain simply stopped. “Couldn’t be.”
“His wife begs to differ. I just got off the phone with her,” Madigan said. “Her husband disappeared on October 3, 2003. He’d taken a week off to go hunting and fishing up in the lakes. He’d just gotten an award.”
“What kind of award?” Feldman asked.
“For heroism. He pulled a little girl out of a burning trailer a couple months before, saved her life. The mayor gave him an award at a banquet on Saturday, then on Sunday he went off to the lakes. Had a cabin there and planned to meet his brother. He took his gear and his boat
but when his brother got there, he couldn’t find him. He was missing for six months, then his body turned up after the spring thaw.”
Nick shook his head. They were looking at Jack for killing his lovers—lovers of a type: women who were pretty and adventuresome, younger than Jack and looking for love, dabbling with drugs. Women who were…
women.
“Can’t be ours,” Nick said, even as Feldman took the note from Madigan’s hand.
“That’s what I thought,” Madigan said. “Then I looked at the ME’s report. Weelkes was shot through the heart with a .38. Wolves had gotten to him, not much left—just pieces, preserved in the ice.”
He handed Nick a photo, something marked with an evidence tag and coded for an autopsy. At first, Nick couldn’t make out what it was. It was ragged and pale, and almost looked like there was hair on—
“Aw, Jesus,” he said. His stomach turned. “Jesus.”
“It’s a piece of ear and temple,” Madigan said, as Feldman took the photo from Nick’s hand. “The ME found paint thinner on it.”
“Paint thinner?” asked Feldman. Confused.
Nick felt like a brick had hit him in the chest. “Whoever killed Lauren McAllister shot her through the heart and cleaned up her face with paint thinner.”
Feldman whistled. “I think you better catch me up.”
It took ten minutes. When he was finished, Nick said, “You got guys in Minneapolis?”
“Of course,” Feldman said. “I’ll send someone to talk to the ME.”
“And to Weelkes’s wife.”
“Right,” Feldman said, and got on the phone.
Nick tried to piece it all together, but nothing worked. Keep going, keep going. But suddenly he didn’t know what direction to go. A forty-four-year-old heterosexual male? He went back to Madigan. “Grab a Fed and get into every database you can find. Come up with someone else in the past twenty years whose face was cleaned off. Man, woman, old, young—doesn’t matter.”
“Christ,” Madigan said, daunted. But he hurried out anyway. Every cop knew that sometimes the answer was a name on a list, an entry on a coroner’s report, a date on a plane ticket. The problem here was that they’d started with a relatively small pool of possible victims: Jack’s lovers. Suddenly, the victims could be anybody, anywhere.
And how many?
Fury got Nick by the throat. “Son of a bitch.” Here they were, dancing like idiots to find dead women Jack might have seduced with sex and drugs, and all along, there was something else altogether that was getting people killed. And someone in his town knew: whoever left the note.
Nick pulled his brain back into gear, and remembered Fruth and Bishop. He’d asked them to find out where Margaret was when Rebecca disappeared, but then the fire happened and Lud Ferguson was found and the street search got underway. Nick looked at his watch: coming up on eight-thirty in the morning. Quentin and the guys who’d quit late last night ought to be back in the game by now. He dialed Quent.
“I’m on my way,” Quent told him.
“Swing by Hilltop and get Margaret. Bring her in for questioning.”
Then he called Dorian. The prick.
Margaret was not a happy camper. Rodney, who’d insisted on coming with her, appeared confused.
Nick didn’t care. Someone in Hopewell was fucking with him.
He kept Rodney waiting in the lobby and walked Margaret past the holding cells—past Ace Holmes—and to the table in the interview room. He’d removed the coffee and snacks before she arrived, stripping the room as bare as possible. He’d always had a comfortable relationship with Margaret but didn’t want her comfortable now. It needed to be like TV or a movie. Get a bare light bulb, maybe, pump her full of coffee and refuse to let her pee… Something.
Quentin told Margaret to sit.
“What’s this about?” she asked. “Have you found out something about John’s death? Or about Carl Whitmore?”
“This is about Rebecca Engel.” Nick watched her with an eye for reaction—any reaction. Nothing.
“You’ve seen the news?” Quent asked.
She moved her shoulders.
So what?
“Then you know Rebecca Engel’s disappearance wasn’t by choice like we thought,” Nick said. “She didn’t run off with her boyfriend. In fact, as you just saw, her boyfriend is in custody here. We believe she was abducted from the street near her house, early yesterday morning.”
Her eyebrows rose, then she seemed to lose her breath. “You don’t think John… Oh, dear God, do you think he’s alive?”
“No. I don’t think he’s alive. I think he was murdered, like Carl.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t need to take your loaded gun with you to run your car over a cliff. And because there are
people involved now who
weren’t
Jack’s lovers. Some look like cover-ups, like Carl. Others were connected to Jack—or you—somehow.”
She shook her head. “This is too much—”
“You knew about Jack’s affairs, except the one with Rebecca. Here’s what I think, Margaret: I think you like to
say
you never loved Jack. But I think you do. And you found out about his affair with Rebecca from Katie Engel, after she dropped that note at Hilltop. And I think you went after Rebecca. And you want to know what else? I think you were afraid of what John might have confided to Carl Whitmore, and killed him, too. That’s what I think, Margaret.”
She looked flabbergasted. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Where were you between five and six yesterday morning?”
Her face went slack. “Are you serious?”
“Dead.”
She started to get up, and Nick said, “Sit down, Margaret.”
Startled, she sank back to the chair. “I want to call my lawyer now.”
“No need.”
“I know my rights, Nick.”
Right on cue, Dorian came down the hall, Valeria calling after him in Spanish. Nick gestured him inside. “Margaret was just getting ready to tell me where she was yesterday morning when Rebecca Engel disappeared.”
Dorian rolled his eyes. “You can’t be serio—”
“I’m a little fucking tired of everyone thinking I’m not serious,” he shot, and Quentin shifted.
Cool, man,
he said with his eyes. Nick looked at Margaret. “Five to six o’clock yesterday morn—”
“This is crazy, Nick,” Dorian complained.
“I was in bed,” she said, and the three men looked at her. “Where else would I be? Can I prove it? No. Was I alone? Yes.”
“Then you wouldn’t mind if we search Hilltop again.”
“You think I have Rebecca Engel tied up in one of the guest rooms?”
Dorian: “Get a warrant.”
“He doesn’t need a warrant,” Margaret said. “Go ahead, Nick. Search the inn. I didn’t kidnap Rebecca.”
Dorian puffed up. “Yes. He
does
need a warrant,” he said, punctuating each word. He turned to Nick. “Anything else, Sheriff?”
Nick almost bared his teeth. “Yes.” He homed in on Margaret. “Who is Robin Weelkes?”
She blinked, and Dorian’s hand shot out to hush Margaret. “Wait.” To Nick: “What’s this about?”
“He was a firefighter killed in Minnesota in 2003, probably by the same person who killed Lauren McAllister.”
Dorian cursed. “You don’t have to answer, Mar—”
“He was a friend of John’s,” she said over him. Her body lost a little of its starch. “He died… a hunting accident. Or hiking or something.”
“Did you ever visit him in Minnesota?”
“No,” she said, but her hands were wringing.
“Did Jack?”
“I don’t remember. Maybe.”
“Try harder.”
“Asked and answered, Sheriff,” Dorian said.
Nick held her eyes until she broke the contact, then said, “Get out.” After they were gone, he said to Quentin, “Go search the inn. With a forensics team this time. Take the Feds. And have one of the FBI geeks look up everything in
Margaret’s history. I want to know about her life as Maggie Huggins. And,” he said, with the bitter taste of betrayal in his throat, “put a tail on her.”
Nick followed Dorian out and saw Rodney hunched over a newspaper at an empty desk, looking at it through a magnifying glass from an inch away. While Dorian pulled Margaret aside to talk, Nick looked at her nephew, considering. Jack, Margaret, Rodney. They were the three people who’d been in Florida when Lauren McAllister was murdered, in Virginia when Sara Daniels disappeared, and now, in Hopewell with Rebecca missing.
Nick narrowed his eyes, trying to be realistic.
Rodney?
They’d talked about it and decided
no.
He’d have been nineteen when Lauren was killed—old enough. But there were too many aspects of the murders that required sight, keen sight, as well as the ability to drive. Rodney wasn’t a viable suspect. And they’d already pumped him for information about Jack, just as they’d pumped half the town.
Even so, Nick went over to him, pulling a couple of chairs out of his way as he walked. “Rodney, it’s Nick,” he said, and straddled a chair, laying his forearms across its back. “I was wondering… Do you recall Jack or Margaret ever going to Minnesota?”
His brows rose above the dark glasses. “Minnesota? Not for a long time.”
Nick’s pulse jumped. “When?”
“A few years ago, Jack went. I think it was Minneapolis. He had a friend there who was getting an award. Guy named Robin. He’d been in Miami the week before.”
Nick glanced across the lobby at Margaret. She’d lied, pretended she could barely remember who Weelkes was.
Nick’s throat went dry. It was the Hugginses, that was
for damn sure. Somehow and for some reason, it was the Hugginses. Now the only question was which one: Jack or Margaret?
Nick started to leave then gave in to a ridiculous impulse. He looked at Rodney, trying to see his eyes behind the dark glasses. He could barely make them out.
“Is there something else, Sheriff?” Rodney asked.
“Where were you yesterday morning, early? Around five-ish?”
The hint of a smile curved Rodney’s lips. “Good God, you’re getting desperate.”
“Humor me.”
“Actually, I went to Kroger.”
“At five in the morning?”
“Somewhere around there. I get headaches from my eyes, always have—ever since my surgery. I went to get a painkiller.” He pulled a small container of Motrin from his pocket and shook it. It sounded full.
“You don’t have a prescription?” Nick asked.
“I’d run out.”
“How did you get there?”
“Same way I get most places: my three-wheeler. It has a headlight, but it’s slow going in the dark. It took more than thirty minutes each way. So, I was out between, say, five and six-ish.”
Nick’s eyes narrowed; Rodney must have sensed it.
“Hold on,” Rodney said, and dug out his wallet. “I might still have the receipt.” He came up with a folded piece of paper, opened it up, and handed it to Nick. “Is this it?”
Nick looked. It was a receipt from Tuesday, November thirteenth, from the Kroger on Shallowford Road. That was a long way from Rebecca Engel’s neighborhood, in
fact, on the other side of town. The time was stamped five-thirty-two a.m.
“This is for orange juice.”
“Oh. Whoops,” Rodney said. “I went back inside for that after I bought the Motrin.” He reached back into his pocket. “I must have tossed the first receipt.”
“Is this where you usually shop for aspirin?”
He got a little cocky. “What else is open at five in the morning?”
“Okay,” Nick said, standing. Rodney was right: He
was
getting desperate. Still, Nick pocketed the receipt and carefully slid his chair back under the desk. He carefully
didn’t
move one of the others. “I think Dorian’s done with Margaret.”
Rodney got up. “Thanks.”
He trailed his fingers along the desks to retrace his path, tripped on the chair Nick had left and almost went down. Nick caught him.
“Jeez. Sorry, man,” Nick said. “You okay?”
Rodney turned in his general direction, and rubbed his leg. “Fine.”
Nick watched him leave then picked up the newspaper and read the top headline Rodney had seemed to be focused on. L
OCAL
D
RUNK
W
ITNESSES
E
NGEL
D
ISAPPEARANCE.
That fucking Roach. But he’d deal with her later. Right now something else nagged at him. He walked to the command room and found Quentin talking to a female Fed wearing glasses the size of movie tickets, asking her to delve into Margaret’s background. Nick wrote down Rodney’s name and interrupted them.