Chapter Forty-four
Faye stood at the spot where two people had stepped from the open ground of the churchyard onto a stone-paved path that led into the trees and, according to Reverent Atkinson, toward a church graveyard. She reached down and almost touched the shallow depressions in the soil. Side by side, a man’s footprints paralleled a little girl’s.
Her finger hovered over one of the prints, shaped like a small foot wearing small shoes.
She knew where to find Kali now. He had taken her to the cemetery at the end of this path, where her mother would soon be buried.
Of course he had. This killer had shown his fascination with burial and its trappings, time and again. Here was a graveyard, close at hand. Where else would he go?
She reached for her phone and texted McDaniel.
He took her to the graveyard. Come quick.
Then she stepped onto the stone path. She would have liked to have waited for McDaniel, but this was a hunt where seconds counted.
She found herself counting her steps—one, two, three, four—and the meditative act of counting freed her brain of the fear long enough for a moment of insight. Every time he killed, the murderer transported a shovel and, perhaps, a body. This was not something a man could do on foot. Frida’s killer must own a car.
Her thoughts turned immediately to Jeremiah’s tank-like ride and to Walt Walker’s barge of a car. Their trunks were ample for any purpose. Armand seemed plenty prosperous enough to be a car owner. On the other hand, if Richard owned a car, it wasn’t in Memphis.
What about Linton and Mayfield? She remembered seeing Mayfield on foot as he passed Kali’s house. The parking lot at the convenience store had been empty both times she shopped there, so Linton and Mayfield had walked to work. Everything argued against either of them owning a car. When McDaniel caught up with her, and surely he’d be doing that any second, she would tell him to focus on Walt, Jeremiah, and Armand.
She wished for a weapon. On any ordinary day, she would have had one.
Faye always carried a pocketknife in the cargo pockets of her work pants and, oh, how she wished she were wearing them today. Conversely, she wished she were really and truly dressed up, with a wicked pair of stilettos to wield, but no. She was wearing a plain dress and flat shoes, and she didn’t even have on a belt or a pair of pantyhose that might serve as a garrote.
She did, however, have a purse. It was made to carry with a dress while going to church, so it wasn’t much more than a large leather drawstring pouch on a long shoulder strap, but it was heavy. Joe rarely picked up her purse without asking, “Did you pack your anvil?”
Today, she wished she actually had packed an anvil. Her overstuffed wallet, sunglasses case, and keyring were heavy, when it came to carrying them around all day on her bum shoulder. When used as a weapon against a very dangerous man? Not so much.
She squatted and searched the ground around her. There weren’t many rocks bigger than pebbles, but she grabbed them by the fistful and dumped them into her purse. Hefting it a time or two, she knew that a few pebbles weren’t enough to stop a killer for good. Her plan, such as it was, could only be to immobilize Walt…Linton…whoever, and to do it before they landed a hit. In hand-to-hand combat, she would lose. Not being suicidal, she hoped it didn’t get that far.
Her strangely loaded purse wasn’t much of a weapon, but she didn’t have any other ideas. Not unless praying for miracles counted.
When McDaniel got Faye’s text, he turned and ran. He left the sanctuary where he was crawling under every pew, looking for Linton, Kali, or even just a clue. He ran past Reverend Atkinson, who barely looked up from his prayers for Frida. He ran past Frida herself, lying waxen and beautiful, wearing a daffodil-yellow dress and resting under a blanket of pink carnations. He just ran.
Heads turned as he ran past. He tried to let their faces register as he sprinted past. Without turning his head to look, those faces were distorted in his peripheral vision. Maybe he recognized them. Maybe he didn’t.
Richard.
Ayesha.
Armand.
No Linton.
Jeremiah? Did he see Jeremiah? Mayfield? Walt? He was moving too fast to be sure.
The stone path to the graveyard was straight ahead of him but he didn’t take it. Somewhere to the left of the path he saw something moving in the woods, and it was wearing a white shirt.
Faye and Kali were both wearing black. He ran headlong after the white shirt.
Joe had found the church and he had found the problem. There was obviously a problem, because people were milling aimlessly around the church parking lot, and some of them were crying. As far as Joe was concerned, there was a second problem, because Faye’s car was in the parking lot, but she wasn’t.
He had tried the direct approach first, by accosting random strangers and asking if they’d seen Dr. Faye Longchamp-Mantooth. The first four strangers said they didn’t know her. The fifth one, though, said she worked for Faye, but didn’t know where she was at the moment. This was progress, he guessed.
“I know the little girl was missing,” he said. “Kali is her name, right? Did somebody find her?”
“Yes,” she said, and Joe was much relieved, until she said, “but then she went missing again. Nobody seems to know what’s happening.”
“What about the detective? I think his name is McDaniel.”
The young woman’s eyes had darted around the parking lot for a long moment until she said, “Oh, there he is!” Then she had pointed at a medium-sized man, sandy-haired, running like he was being
