Charlie and Ren told me yesterday, I had a sick feeling I knew what was going on. I left Jewell’s place and drove straight to Marquette to confront Bell. He’d been drinking. It didn’t take much to get him to admit things. Hell, he was delighted to talk.” His face drew taut and his hands made fists. “In Africa, I saw the aftermath of genocide, and I saw that same look on the faces of the men responsible, a grotesque kind of rapture. I knew how to make myself cold and hard so that I could ask the right questions to get the answers I needed. He even showed me a videotape he’d made of what he and Stokely did, and he invited me to join them. He thought I was an animal like him.”
“Why would he think that?”
This time Johnson didn’t answer. Jewell spoke for him. “You were with him and Stokely and Tom Messinger twenty years ago, the night the runaway girl was killed, weren’t you, Gary?”
He stared at her and denied nothing.
“What happened that night?” she asked gently.
His gaze went distant for a while. Static whispered from the television. In the kitchen, the refrigerator motor had kicked on. Dina shifted on her feet and a floorboard squeaked. These were normal, everyday sounds, yet in the terrible quiet of the house, in the repugnant presence of violent death, they seemed macabre and out of place.
“We were coming home,” Johnson began. “We’d been drinking, celebrating, feeling good. We stopped for gas just outside Marquette, and she was there. She asked us what was up, where we were going. She said she’d be happy to party with us. We still had beer. Instead of going home, we drove to an old overlook along the lakeshore. One thing led to another and she was willing. We drew straws. Tommy went first. He wasn’t used to drinking and he was already almost gone. He went with her to the car. A few minutes later he came back, puked, passed out. Stokely went next, then Bell. Then it was my turn. I don’t know what Stokely and Bell did to her, but she was a mess, huddled in the backseat, crying. She didn’t want me there.”
He paused, tears in his eyes.
“It was my fault. All my fault.”
“Why?” Jewell asked.
“I’d spent that autumn on the sidelines with a damn cast on my leg. I missed the whole championship season. Now I was going to miss my turn with that girl. I went back to the other guys, told them. Stokely, Bell, they said like hell. They went to the car, pulled her out, held her down.”
Through the big window at the back of the house, Cork could see the light slipping away. At the horizon, the line between lake and sky was hard to distinguish. Dark like a black fog crept into far rooms, and the light from the lamp that lit the dead man seemed to grow brighter.
“I raped her,” Johnson finished. A line of tears glistened down both cheeks, but he went on. “I did it and then I left her. I stumbled away. Christ, I was sick at what I was doing, what I’d done. I made my way down to the lakeshore and threw up. I wasn’t far enough away that I couldn’t hear Stokely and Bell going at her again. I knew I should do something, but it was like I was in the middle of a nightmare and I couldn’t move.
“When I got back to the others, the girl was still on the ground. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t moving. I don’t know what they did to her, but I knew she was dead. Stokely, Bell, they took her body, threw it in the lake. I didn’t even try to stop them. Superior wasn’t supposed to give up its dead, except this time it did. Tommy was devastated. He took it all on his shoulders. We killed two people that night. I’ve spent my life trying to put the memory behind me. I left Bodine thinking if I ran far enough, maybe…”
Jewell said, “Africa wasn’t far enough?”
“Whenever I closed my eyes, she was there. You can’t imagine the sleepless nights.”
“Why come back to where it all happened?” Cork asked.
“You’re a cop. Don’t criminals always return to the scene of the crime?” He looked immeasurably tired. “When my father got sick, he asked me to come home and take over the paper. Running away hadn’t done me any good and I thought maybe coming back here and facing the demon might free me.” He stared down at Stokely’s body. “If I’d been a good person, a strong person, I’d have ended this the night it all began.”
“It’s ended now,” Jewell said softly.
“You think so?” He was a huge man, but he seemed to shrink, to condense into himself, a great balloon deflating. “It never ends.”
“What did Bell tell you about him and Stokely?” Cork asked.
“He said for years after that night on the lakeshore they would go over what they’d done to the girl. They fed on the grisly details like ghouls. I’m running all over the world trying to forget, and for them it was the heart of their lives. Bell said they planned other killings but never went through with them-until they began driving trucks cross- country. They came across kids looking for rides everywhere. Tender meat, Bell called them. And so it started. Always kids, always runaways. They brutalized them, killed them, buried them somewhere off the highway where they’d never be found.
“When they had to give up trucking, Bell looked for another source of prey. He found it in Providence House.” He shook his head bitterly. “Providence. Hell of a name, when you think about it. Provided him and Stokely with God only knows how many victims. He said they chose kids no one would miss, and there were a lot of those. He told me he’d been eyeing Sara Wolf for a long time. Finally he couldn’t stand it anymore, so he waited for her one day after school, pretended to be passing by, offered her a ride. He gave her a Pepsi he’d laced with Rohypnol and brought her up to Calvin’s cabin. But she fought them and damned if she didn’t beat them. Got away from Stokely and his dog, Bell said, and threw herself off a cliff into the Copper River. He was disappointed because he still had a lot of ideas about what he could do to her.
“Since I came back, I’d exchanged no more than a couple of dozen words with Bell and Stokely. I purposely avoided them. But there he is, spilling his guts to me, telling me these things because in his sick thinking he really believes that night twenty years ago made me just like him. So I killed him. Blew his heart right out of his chest. I came back to Bodine and called Calvin. When he got here, I started the video Bell had given me.” Johnson nodded at the blue screen. “I asked him, was he a part of this? He was smarter than Bell. He understood exactly what I thought of him. He stared at me and said, ‘You won’t say anything. Because if you do, I’ll tell everyone what kind of man we both know you really are.’ He grinned, grinned at me like he had me cornered. I shot him where he stood. All the hours since, I’ve had that gun in my hand, thinking I might as well kill myself while I’m at it.”
“Why didn’t you just go to the police, Gary?” Hodder said.
“Because everyone would know what I am. A monster just like Bell and Stokely.”
“You’re no monster, Gary.” Jewell tried to move toward him, to reach out and comfort him, but Hodder kept her back.
Johnson stood slumped over, his enormous shoulders rounded in shame. “I don’t feel human, Jewell. Not anymore. Maybe never since that night. Tommy had the right idea. I thought I could do what he did, only it turns out I don’t have the courage. I’ve been sitting here for hours. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
Cork asked, “Did either of them talk about Isaac Stokely being involved?”
“Just them.”
“Did they say anything about Charlie?” Dina asked.
“Bell did. Said they went looking for her at Max’s place. They killed him when he wouldn’t tell them where she was. Bell said he had a lot of ideas about what he’d do to Charlie when he got hold of her.”
“He didn’t get hold of her?”
“Didn’t sound like it. Why? She’s with you, isn’t she?”
“She ran away last night. Nobody’s seen her since,” Dina replied. “What time did Calvin Stokely get here?”
He thought about it. “Maybe eight o’clock or nine. He took his time getting here after I called. I figured he’d been drinking in a bar somewhere, eh. I could smell it on him.”
“And he didn’t say anything about Charlie?”
He shook his head. “Our exchange was brief, then I shot him. I just kept pulling the trigger, I wanted him dead so bad.”
Hodder laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’re going back to my office, Gary. I’m going to hold you there and call the Marquette Sheriff’s Department.”
Johnson nodded and let himself be taken.
Cork said, “I’ll meet you guys outside. I want to check Stokely’s truck.” He didn’t have to add that he was looking for Charlie’s body.
He went through the door between the kitchen and the garage and turned on the light. The place was neat.
