The Dead Man

'I'm a scientist and scientists don't make excuses. We explain the physical world.'

'By killing people? What were they to you? Lab rats?'

'Not in the way you imagine, but in my world, yes. The study of trauma will only take us so far in understanding the brain. The real lessons come in controlling and observing the moment of death. Most of my subjects were tortured and tormented long before I chose them.'

'How did you choose them?'

'The ones who'd been traumatized when they were young produced the best nightmares. Milo Harper asked Anthony for some good examples and Anthony let me choose them. I put them to a better use than he would have with his silly lucid dreaming nonsense.'

'So you killed them in the name of science?'

'You mock me, but, no. Not all. Some were in the name of necessity, like Anthony Corliss. He told me that Gary suspected I was the killer. Gary even made a list with Tom Delaney, Regina Blair, Walter Enoch, and Anne Kendall's initials and gave it to Anthony as if that was somehow proof. I assured Anthony that Gary was more likely the killer after what he'd done to that poor woman's cat. Anthony suggested the four of us meet at the Art Gallery to clear the air. I brought my gun, knife, duct tape, and rope. The rest, as they say, is commentary.'

'How many others were there?'

'Let's just say that it's a statistically significant sample of the weak and pathetic.' She raised her hands. 'And this house is the biggest and best souvenir of them all. This is where it began and this is where it will end.'

She turned and walked out to the end of the balcony, her hands on the waist high wooden rail.

'It's over. Come inside.'

She ignored me, rising up and down on her toes as if readying to jump. I crossed the space between us, the shotgun under my right arm, and reached for her shoulder. She whirled around, holding a knife in her right hand that must have been laying on the top of the rail, hidden from me, driving it toward my chest in a short, powerful stroke.

I dropped the shotgun, grabbing her wrist with both hands, the blade slicing through my jacket, piercing my chest. She clawed my face with her left hand as my grip slid along her right arm, slick with blood. Spinning again, she broke the grip of one of my hands and pressed her back into me, jerking the knife downward toward my side, jamming it in my thigh. I held on to her wrist with one hand, forcing the knife out of my leg, using my knee to separate us and pushing my other hand against the small of her back, trying to pin her against the rail when the wood snapped and she plunged to the ground.

'Jack!' Lucy called, running from the barn.

I watched from the balcony as Lucy knelt next to her, rolling her onto her back, shining her flashlight on the hilt of the hunting knife sticking out of Maggie Brennan's lifeless chest.

Chapter Sixty-nine

Dear Daddy, I'm so sorry for everything. You and mom tried so hard and you did your best. I used to think I did my best too. Maybe I was just kidding myself or maybe my best just wasn't good enough. I don't know why things turned out this way. You warned me and I wish I had listened. I thought the money would take care of everything but I don't even have that so I guess the joke is on me. Hah, hah. I wish I could come home but I can't. They would send me to jail and that scares me too much to even think about it. Hold onto Monkey Girl. All that's left of me belongs to her. I love you.

Wendy.

I sat on the bed in Maggie Brennan's bedroom, reading and rereading Wendy's letter, holding the page to my face, hoping to catch a scent of her. I closed my eyes, trying to conjure her, summon her, or feel her. I didn't shake but I did ache. When I opened my eyes, Lucy was there. She clasped one corner of the letter between two fingers, read it, and put it with the other souvenirs.

'At least you know,' she said.

'Yeah, and I'll tell you something. Knowing isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sometimes, dreaming and hoping is better. Where's Goodell?'

'Standing guard over Maggie's body.'

'He must feel pretty good, knowing he was right.'

'Unless he's crying for joy, I don't think so.'

'He's crying?'

'Buckets. Says it's all his fault she got away with it for so long.'

'Getting it wrong or being too late are every cop's nightmares.'

'That's more weight than any of us should have to carry. We do our job the best we can with the evidence we've got and let the chips fall.'

'The weight comes with the job. If you can't carry it, you should get out. And you and I are out of it.'

'The public side, maybe. But that's not all there is.'

'You want to go private? Chase deadbeat dads and cheating wives?'

'There's more to it than that and you know it. Simon has enough work to keep both of us busy. He's only sent a little of it to you but there's more. Plus, Milo Harper and Sherry Fritzshall are connected to everyone in town. After the way we cracked this case, people will be standing in line to hire us.'

'Look around, kiddo. This doesn't exactly qualify for the victory column.'

'Wait till you see what I found in the barn.'

'More souvenirs?'

'And lab journals. It was like she was conducting some grand experiment. Some excuse, huh?'

'Scientists don't make excuses.'

'Think about it,' she said. 'That's all I'm saying. We didn't deal these cards but that doesn't mean we can't play them.'

I got up, walked onto the balcony, looked at the rocky ground where Maggie's body lay. Lucy stood alongside me. The moon broke through the clouds as Tom Goodell raised his head toward us, moonbeams catching his tears. He ducked his head and turned away.

'Deal me out.'

Sirens wailed in the near distance, flashing lights bobbing along the county road visible in the dark from the balcony. Quincy Carter, the Johnson County Sheriff's Department, and the FBI descended on the Brennan farm, not letting us go until close to dawn. I was unconscious the moment my head hit the pillow.

Kevin and Wendy play on the beach, white winged gulls swooping and dipping and dancing overhead. Joy and I watch from the deck of the beach house, the waves breaking in the distance, rolling lazily onto shore, the kids squealing, splashing, and kicking the water. The sun rides across the horizon, red, then yellow and orange, the sky changing from pink to blue to ink, day passing; stars twinkling, planets shining, and the moon sharing and shading its face as a cool wind blows and fireflies christen the night in a phosphorescent shower. Wendy lays her stuffed animal at my feet. Hold on to Monkey Girl, she says. All that's left of me belongs to you. She links arms with Kevin and the wind scours the sand, sweeping them away.

I sat up in bed, glancing at my watch. It was almost eleven. I'd been asleep five hours, not enough to clear the brain fog. I rubbed the dressings on my chest and thigh, feeling the stitches that a paramedic had used to close the wounds.

I tried to untangle Wendy's letter from my dream. Her letter said hold on to Monkey Girl; all that's left of me belongs to her. In my dream, she said all that's left of me belongs to you, the pronoun making the difference, giving new meaning to her letter.

Monkey Girl occupied its familiar perch on the shelf in my closet. I took it down, kneading its synthetic fur, probing until my finger slipped into a fold along the inseam of one leg, rubbing against an implanted narrow strip of Velcro. I ran my finger along the inside length of the leg, then squeezed and shook the toy without finding whatever had been attached to the Velcro. There were no other hidden pockets.

I was certain that Wendy had left something for me inside the stuffed animal, her letter and my dream the clues. Whatever she had hidden, it had to lead to the stolen money. There would have been no other reason for her