What The Dead Know

who had driven her daughters to their deaths, as sure as Charon ferried the dead across the river Styx. Suspicion was infinite, but energy and time proved finite. Dave’s great, frantic fear, the anxiety that made life with him unbearable, was that they had not done everything they could, that there was always something else they should be doing, checking, examining.

And, sure enough, Dave had been right. Dunned by Dunham, he had sung. Are we being dunned by Dunham again? He had been polite, but stern, and they had quickly learned not to put him in their monthly roulette of bills that may or may not be paid. They could not afford to offend him, lest he drop Sunny from the route. But Dunham was nothing more than a signature, very black and emphatic, on the back of a check that returned each month from a bank in Pennsylvania.

CHAPTER 38

Lenhardt was still trying to figure out the tip for brunch by the time Infante called the duty judge to alert him that they would need a search warrant for Stan Dunham’s room in Sykesville. They met the judge outside the Cross Keys Inn, where he was having Sunday brunch, and in less than an hour Infante and Willoughby were on their way to the nursing home. Kevin had not wanted the old cop to come along, yet he couldn’t help but indulge him. Something had been missed, a detail overlooked, all those years ago. No one’s fault-once the driver was eliminated, why would anyone think of some faceless guy up in Pennsylvania, cashing checks? Still, he could tell that Willoughby was beating himself up.

“You know how we found the Penelope Jackson connection?” Infante asked. Willoughby was looking out the window, studying a golf course on the north side of the freeway.

“Some sort of computer search, I gather.”

“Yeah, by Nancy. The first day I did the typical stuff-NCIC, all those databases. But I didn’t think to check the fucking newspapers, on the off chance that Penelope Jackson had made news in a way that didn’t generate a warrant. If Nancy hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have made the connection between Tony and Stan Dunham. Even knowing what we did, we missed the timeline. Dunham’s lawyer told me he sold the property a few years ago, but I didn’t pin him down on the date. I assumed he was talking about the sale to Mercer, but he was talking about Mercer’s sale to the developer.”

“Thank you, Kevin,” Willoughby said in a brittle voice, as if Infante had offered him an Altoid or something else utterly trivial. “But you’re talking about an oversight you made in the first twenty-four hours of investigating a hit- and-run and a suspicious woman. I had fourteen years to work the Bethany case, and if the information about Dunham is correct, it means I never made a single significant discovery in the disappearance of the Bethany girls. Think about that. All that work, all that time, and I didn’t actually learn anything. Pathetic.”

“When Nancy started working cold cases, she told me the irony is that the name is always in the file, one way or another. But Stan Dunham’s not in the file. You called the bus company, they gave you the name of the route’s driver, you established it couldn’t be him. Besides, we still don’t know anything, other than the fact that there is some sort of connection between Stan Dunham and the Bethany family.”

“A connection that a child wouldn’t know about, because no eleven-year-old knows who endorses a check.” Willoughby ’s gaze returned to the passing scenery, although there wasn’t much of note. “I can’t decide if this makes me more inclined to trust our mystery woman or less. You know, she could be someone that Stan Dunham confided in, for whatever reason. Or Tony Dunham, more likely. A relative, a friend. Nancy told me that she was very insistent that you check the school records, that we’ll find Ruth Leibig in the records at that Catholic school in York.”

“But that won’t prove she is Ruth Leibig, just that Ruth Leibig existed and went to that school. You know, they say you can’t prove a negative, but it’s turning out to be pretty damn hard to prove who this woman is. What if she just claims another identity, then another? Ruth Leibig is dead, after all. This woman is the goddamn Queen of the Dead.”

They left the highway and headed north. The suburbs had crept farther and farther out in the decade since Infante first moved to Baltimore, but there were still some traces of country life here in Sykesville. Yet the facility itself was quite fancy, stark and modern, even more impressive than the one in which Willoughby lived. How did an old cop, one without a trust fund, afford a place like this? Then Infante remembered the sale of the property up in Pennsylvania, Dunham’s interest in annuities when he was still relatively robust, according to the lawyer. The guy was a planner, no doubt about it. The only question was whether he had planned his crimes as carefully as he had mapped out the financial specs of his final years.

WILLOUGHBY SHUDDERED A LITTLE when they were directed to the hospice wing where Stan Dunham was kept. That surprised Infante at first, but then he remembered: Willoughby ’s wife had died in such a place, had made the short, one-way trip from apartment to care ward when she was still in her fifties.

“Mr. Dunham has virtually no speech at this point,” said the pretty young nursing aide who escorted them, Terrie. Nurses-he should date more nurses. They were a good fit for a police. He wished they still wore those white dresses, the ones that were tight at the waist, and those little caps with wings. This one had on mint-green pants, a flowery top, and some butt-ugly green clogs, but she was still striking. “He makes occasional sounds, some of which indicate what he’s feeling, but he can’t communicate more than his basic needs. He’s late- stage.”

“Is that why he’s been moved to the hospice?” Willoughby asked, stumbling a little over the last word.

“We don’t move people into hospice unless their life-span is expected to be less than six months. Mr. Dunham was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer three months ago. Poor guy. He’s really had nothing but bad breaks.”

Yeah , Kevin thought. Poor guy. He asked, “He had a son, Tony. Did he ever visit?”

“I didn’t know his son was alive. His lawyer is our only contact. Maybe they were estranged. That happens.”

Maybe the son didn’t want anything to do with the father. Maybe the son knew what went down, all these years ago, and he told his girlfriend, Penelope, and she told someone, someone who happened to be driving her car.

KEVIN KNEW THAT someone with advanced Alzheimer’s couldn’t provide any meaningful information, but he was still disappointed when he saw Stan Dunham. This was a husk of a man in plaid pajamas and bathrobe. The only signs of life in him were the comb marks in his hair, the fresh shave. Did the nurse do those things? Dunham’s eyes certainly brightened at the sight of her, passed over Kevin and Willoughby with mild interest, then returned to the nurse.

“Hi, Mr. Dunham.” Terrie’s voice was bright and enthusiastic, but it wasn’t overly loud or babyish. “You have two visitors. Someone who used to work with you.”

Dunham continued to look at her.

“I didn’t work with you,” Infante said, trying for Terrie’s tone, only to come across like some hale and hearty car salesman. “But Chet here did. He was in homicide. You remember him? Probably best known for catching the Bethany case. The Bethany case.”

He repeated the last three words slowly and carefully, but nothing registered. Of course. He knew it wouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself. Dunham kept staring at pretty Terrie. His gaze was like a dog’s, affectionate and utterly dependent. If this man was the Bethany girls’ abductor, he was a monster. But even monsters aged, became frail. Even monsters died.

Infante and Willoughby began systematically opening drawers and closets, looking for anything. Looking for everything.

“He doesn’t have a lot of possessions,” Terrie said. “There’s not much point…” Her voice trailed off, as if the