with the strangest maladies. And Betty, hell, Betty was an expert. She could have been a doctor. Knew more than I did about these foreign diseases. She spent practically all her time looking through that huge copy of Gray’s Anatomy. She’d sit on the front porch with a glass of cool tea and read like her heart was about to give out.
“Roger was gone all the time, and those boys, those poor boys. We did what we could, tried to help, to be neighborly. Brought food over, covered dishes and the like, offered to do the laundry. But Betty wouldn’t let us get too close. She beat those kids, treated them like animals inside the house, but outside, she played the role of doting mother. They were all cowed by her. Roger included. I think that’s why he was so anxious to leave.
“When the boys were sick and in the hospital, she would hover over them and berate us like we were idiots. Insist on giving the medicine herself, things like that. The winter my mama died was when the oldest took sick. I wasn’t here, I had to go and stay up with her at the hospice. I came back and everything was changed. Roger was dead, Edward was dead, Betty was in jail, poor Errol was in the loony bin sick as a cat, and Ewan was here by himself, trying to make ends meet. Then they put him in that home and he just fell apart.
“That slut who Roger got pregnant should have taken in those boys, but she pranced off and married Anderson, made sure she and her little bastard were taken care of. I always hated her a little for that, and I know it’s a sin. But if she’d loved that man at all, she’d have seen to his boys. As it was, when Errol killed himself, she was in Myrtle Beach, with her girlfriends. Ewan had no one to help him plan his little brother’s funeral. I remember him sitting by the gravesite, eyes just blank. Once he hurt that girl and disappeared, the whole story faded away, into town legend. The house got taken by the bank, and no one’s been there since. They never were able to sell it. The walls probably scream.”
Taylor felt a chill go through her at the thought, reflexively sipped on the strong hot tea.
“What was he like?” Baldwin asked.
Ms. Potts was enjoying her bit of company on this cold night, and she was a natural storyteller. She bustled around her little kitchen, fixing them some more tea and setting out a plate of cookies. Tagalongs, from what Taylor could see of the box. Her stomach growled in a decidedly unladylike fashion. The nurse just smiled and pushed the plate of cookies closer.
“Ewan? Like his mama, I daresay.”
“Like her how?”
She tapped her finger on the table, thinking. “Messed up in the head. He tried so hard. It was heartbreaking, really, watching him struggle. Like he knew what he did was wrong and bad, but he just couldn’t help himself. Take the dog. That stake you tripped over? They had a dog when Ewan was about ten. Just a mutt, nothing special. He found him over the tracks, back in the woods. Boyo loved that dog. Slept with him. Walked him. Played with him. And when he shot him, and the dog lay there dying in the front yard, whimpering and bleeding and looking up at the one good thing in its poor little life, he stood over it and cried. I watched him do it. That’s when I knew. He was wrong, bad wrong. But he didn’t want to be that way, I don’t think. He was compelled.”
Taylor set her half-eaten cookie back on the plate. “You saw him shoot the dog?”
“I did. I’d just gotten home from my first shift. Heard the shot, looked over. Ewan was standing there, snot running down his face. I remember he looked up at me, and he was so stricken. ‘I had to,’ he said. ‘He was hurt.’ But that dog was fine, right as rain. He killed him because he wanted to.”
Baldwin nodded. “He equated pain with love. That’s what his mother’s Munchausen’s did to him. The only way you can tell someone how much you love them is by hurting them. Physically hurting them. It brings all the attention to you.”
“That sounds about right. Betty did love those boys, no one could deny that. But she hated them a bit, too. She must have. How else could she have kept hurting them, over and over and over?”
Taylor met Baldwin’s eyes. They were beginning to have a better understanding of their adversary. Such understanding could lead to sympathy if they weren’t careful, and suddenly Taylor felt like they were stalling. It was time to go. Time to erase this bastard off the face of the earth.
“Ms. Potts, you’ve been a wonderful help,” Taylor said. “Thank you so much for fixing me up. We need to get back on the road now.”
With minimal protestation, the nurse saw them out, pressed the extra Tagalongs into Taylor’s hand. She accepted them gratefully; she needed the sugar boost, could eat again despite the knowledge she’d just gained and the heavy, late lunch. They promised to stop by again if they were ever in town, then made their way to Baldwin’s BMW.
The noose was drawing tighter.
Twenty-Seven
To: troy14@ncr. tr. com From: crypto@ncr. zk. com Subject: Kansas City, MO
Dear Troy, Entering Kansas City now. It’s been a long drive. But don’t worry, everything is under control. ZK
H ighway. Again. Gray strips of asphalt that ran on forever. He wished he had more time; he’d get off the interstate and run the roads through the cornfields. Get your kicks, on Route 66. Did Route 66 run through Missouri? He thought it must have, but he couldn’t remember. He carefully placed his knee against the steering wheel and reached beside him for his notebook. Glancing at the road every few seconds, he wrote himself a note.
Check on Route 66.
It was his way. He was the curious type. Despite his previous troubles, he liked to learn. He didn’t have the best memory in the world, so he sometimes had to refresh himself.
Denver had gone so well. It was the best of the three cities he’d been in. It even topped his first in San Francisco. He thought popping his cherry was going to be the highlight of his life, but Denver proved him wrong. It would get better, and better, and better. He was getting more confident. That helped. He chalked Vegas, the flailing and gushing blood everywhere, up to simply being scared. Performance anxiety. He had worried that when the time came, he wouldn’t be able to deliver. He’d gotten himself really worked up and the nerves made him pull the knife early. He rushed the big finish. He hadn’t gotten a real chance to see the terror in their eyes fade to nothingness as they died.
But Denver…oh, sweet mother of God. Denver was perfection. Cherry Creek Reservoir was hand-built for murder. The meandering paths, the snowy lane. Drops of blood on the white canvas of his world, so elegant. He was not making Jackson Pollock paintings. Wait, was that the artist’s name? Jackson? Or Johnson?
He pulled out the notebook again.
One hundred miles to Kentucky. And he was right on time. He bent his neck to the left, then to the right, hunched his shoulders and felt the muscles stretch out. He was so cramped in this car, so boxed in. He needed something bigger to allow his frame to sit comfortably. He had a friend once who’d owned a Prius. He’d lasted an hour in it before his thighs cramped up.
It wouldn’t be too much longer now. He was on the last leg of his itinerary.
Their fearless leader had picked the victims so well. Troy had assured him that the girl would respond to the Craigslist ad. Rollerblades. In winter, at that. He wondered how the man knew so much, then pushed that thought aside. When it was time, he would be enlightened. When he won the game, the master would share all with him- the money, the benefit of his years of experience, his real name. They’d been instructed to call him Troy. If he were being honest with himself, Troy didn’t sound like the name of a man who could mastermind an operation of this kind. But he’d promised the winner the goods. Winner take all. The million-dollar prize. He could do so much with that money.
And once he’d won, been chosen, Troy would hone his new apprentice into a fine, sharp edge, so they could go on killing without ever getting caught.
He wasn’t entirely sure of himself yet. The idea of becoming a serial killer had its upside, yes. Truth be told, he just needed the money. He hadn’t counted on enjoying it so much.
Troy. Wasn’t that the name of that city, the one with the fake horse? All that blood spilled over a woman. What was her name? Hera? No, that was a goddess, Zeus’s wife. Halley? No, that was the name of the girl he’d just
