‘I regarded his reluctance to cooperate as a deliberate provocation.’
‘You planning on asking him again tomorrow?’
‘I am, although by then we should know more about him, on account of our inquiries.’
‘You think he could have killed some of the girls in that file of his?’
‘I didn’t get that sense from him.’
‘What sense did you get?’
The question was sincerely meant. Ava trusted her husband’s instincts. She wouldn’t have married him if she didn’t, given that one of those instincts was, presumably, that she might make a good wife, and perhaps also a good mother, although that hadn’t happened, not yet. They were trying, which was fun, but desperation was starting to creep in, which wasn’t. The doctors said it wasn’t him, but her, so it might be that her husband’s instincts, while trustworthy, had not been flawless.
And yet, and yet …
No, she thought. Best to wait. Best to be sure.
‘That he knows his way around the law,’ said Griffin. ‘And he’s angry, which means he might be dangerous.’
He pictured Parker sitting in Boyd’s. He had a picture of a woman and a little girl in his wallet, but he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, so he could be divorced or was never married to the woman to begin with. Either way, he was carrying grief for them – of that much Griffin was certain – so they might be dead. He owned one gun associated with federal agents, and another old and worn enough to have been inherited from a previous generation, a weapon favored – although not exclusively – by detectives back in the day. He was looking into killings of women, deaths notable for their brutality, their strangeness, and – Griffin searched for the right word – the theatricality of the crime scenes. He had access to police reports, photographs, and autopsy findings.
‘I think he might be police,’ said Griffin. ‘If not now, then not so long ago.’
‘Then why didn’t he say so?’
‘I don’t know.’
Ava reached out a hand, and her fingers hovered for a moment over the photograph of Patricia Hartley as though to comfort the ghost of the girl.
‘And what will Jurel Cade have to say about this?’ she asked softly.
‘Best he doesn’t find out.’
‘I hope he does. I hope this man has come to cause him all the trouble in the world.’
‘What’s trouble for Jurel may also be trouble for me.’
She kissed the crown of his head, just where his hair was beginning to thin.
‘No, that’s not true,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re nothing like Jurel. You always try to do what’s right.’
‘I didn’t do right by Patricia Hartley.’
‘You will, down the line, when the opportunity presents itself. Perhaps this man represents an opportunity.’
‘You have a lot of faith in me.’
‘And patience. I was just waiting for you to come around.’
‘To your way of thinking?’
‘To our way of thinking. We’re the same, you and I. That’s why we’re together. But sometimes it takes a while for one of us to catch up with the other.’
She rubbed her right hand through his hair. Her left hand rested on his shoulder, and he took it in one of his paws. He had massive hands. It was a Griffin family trait. When he and Ava began courting, he had been reluctant to hold her fingers too tightly for fear he might break them.
‘You really think the coming of this man is a sign?’ he said.
‘I don’t hold with portents, but you’ve met him and I haven’t.’
That’s right, thought Griffin, and on one level I wish he’d never stopped in Cargill, because life would have been simpler had he kept moving. But now that he’s here, I’m not sure I want him to leave, not if my feeling about him is true.
‘It seems like the whole county wants the memory of Patricia Hartley to be obliterated,’ he said.
‘Not the whole county, just the wrong part of it. She had family and friends, people that cared about her.’
‘The future of thousands is hanging in the balance right now. Everyone’s boat will rise with the tide.’
‘Not Patricia Hartley’s.’
‘No, not hers.’
She kissed him again.
‘How long more do you plan to keep reading?’
‘I’m done. I’ve discovered all I’m likely to for now.’
‘Good. Don’t bother clearing up. I’ll take care of it in the morning.’
She waited for him to get to his feet, just in case he was tempted to reconsider, patted Carter, and turned off the kitchen light. Griffin walked with her through the house, and released her hand only as she entered the bedroom, while he continued to the bathroom. He took care of his business and brushed his teeth. When he spat the toothpaste into the sink, it came away bloodied. He washed the redness away until the porcelain was spotless again.
Evan Griffin sat on the edge of the bathtub and thought, as he did each day, about Patricia Hartley – and Estella Jackson too, because her picture had been in Parker’s file alongside Hartley’s. These were the dead girls. The majority wished them to be forgotten, but the dead, in his experience, preferred to be remembered.
And sometimes, they refused to allow the living to forget.
8
Jurel Cade looked at the man hunched over the stainless steel toilet in the cell, retching dryly. Kel Knight stood behind Cade, impassive.
‘Doesn’t look like he’s sleeping now,’ said Cade. ‘Was he like this when you brought him in?’
‘I told you,’ said Knight. ‘He’d been drinking to excess.’
Parker had been brought to the cell soberer than Knight himself, and that was saying something, since Kel Knight had been an abstainer since his twenties, which came from being the son of an alcoholic. Knight wondered how much Parker had heard of the conversation with Cade, which had continued as they walked to the cell. Enough, Knight decided, to put on a show in order to corroborate the tale spun about him. The more he saw of this Parker, the more puzzled Knight became.
Cade tapped at the bars with his right foot.
‘Hey, you okay in there?’ he said.
Parker raised a hand, seemed to recover himself, and released his hold on the toilet bowl to sit back against the bunk. He wiped his mouth and rubbed his face.
‘I’ve been better.’
‘You’re a long way from home.’
‘I’m traveling.’
‘For what purpose?’
‘I’m hoping to pick up work.’
‘What kind of work?’
‘Security.’
‘In Burdon County?’
‘I took a detour.’
‘To what end?’
‘I got tired of looking at highways.’
Cade didn’t register happiness with this explanation. He tapped at the bar again, and contemplated the toe of his boot, as though imagining the harm it might do to this man were he permitted time alone with him.
‘Where are you headed?’
‘Louisiana, maybe.’
‘Maybe?’ Cade smiled at the use of the word. ‘You got people down there in Louisiana?’