“How did he get you into the car?”
“I never got into any car. I don’t know anything about a mugging.”
“The mugging’s a freebie, Eric. We don’t want you for it. He’s not going to testify about it. Just tell me.”
“Sure, just tell you. How about if I tell my attorney now?”
“You don’t need an attorney to talk to me. I’m a private citizen.”
“You’re not a fed? Why am I talking to you in the first place?”
“You’re not. I’m not here. You heard Tee. You’re alone in a locked room.”
Becker placed his thumb atop Eric’s knuckle and slowly squeezed. Eric was not prepared for the pain and gasped. Becker released the pressure but held on to the hand. His voice was still sweet and reasonable.
“Did you ever talk to anybody about insurance, Eric?”
“I suppose so. They call me up. Don’t they call everybody?”
“Did you ever meet anybody to talk about it?”
“Ever? Maybe, sometime. I don’t know.”
“Did you ever see him before you beat him up?” Becker touched the knuckle again and watched Eric’s eyes widen.
“Never. Are they going to let you do this to me?”
“Do what, Eric?”
“You’re torturing me, man. I’m going to scream brutality to the papers.”
“There’s not a mark on you-except the one you put there yourself.” Becker tapped the knuckle again.
Eric moaned. “You got no idea what that feels like.”
“Of course I do. Listen to me, Eric. Nobody wants you here, you’re not important in this one. We want him, the guy you mugged, the guy whose house you broke into. We want him very, very badly and we don’t have time to waste with you, so just answer the questions and get it over with.”
“And cop to all kinds of shit? How do I know what I’m involved in here? I want my lawyer.”
“That’s what we don’t have time for. We can’t wait a week to cut a deal before you answer a few simple questions. You are not going to incriminate yourself with me. Do you believe me?”
Becker pressed the knuckle and held it. Eric moaned.
“Do you believe me?”
“I believe you!”
Becker released the knuckle but continued to hold Eric’s hand in his.
“How did he get you into the car?”
“He was parked right next to my wagon. He had the passenger door open so I couldn’t get past him. He said he needed my help in starting the car without his key. Some bullshit. I don’t think he knew how to hot-wire.”
“The syringe?”
“He must have had it down on the seat. It fell on the floor when I dragged him across the seat. I didn’t know about it till then.”
“You were too busy hitting him.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the busted knuckle. Ironic, don’t you think? You use it on him, I use it on you, it gets you coming and going.”
Becker released Eric’s hand.
“You did want to kill me in that house, didn’t you?”
Becker smiled at him.
“I still do.”
The snails were doing their usual thorough job. After five hours of labor, there was not a square inch of Dyce’s house that Drooden’s forensic team hadn’t scrutinized, dusted, scraped, probed, or photographed. Becker could read their trails everywhere, like the rivulets of slime left behind by garden slugs. As Becker had known it would, the house had given up its ghosts, and they had been replaced by tape measures, grid lines marked with string, smudges of fingerprint powder. The house was no longer a place where a man had dreamed his nightmares and made them come true-it was now an archaeological dig. All that remained undisturbed were the bones.
“I thought it might be helpful for you to see this in situ before we take the bones for analysis,” Hatcher said.
Drooden leaned against the refrigerator, watching like a protective parent. He had resented the Bureau involvement from the beginning and was barely able to tolerate Becker’s unorthodox presence. A member of his forensic team stood in the doorway, tapping the ashes from his cigarette into an evidence bag.
“If he didn’t see it last night,” said Drooden.
Hatcher ignored the state cop. He had seldom met one who liked being outranked.
“I was struck by the stones,” said Hatcher. He pointed with the toe of his shoe as Becker squatted next to the makeshift graveyard. The state police had removed enough floorboards to reveal all of the skeletons, which lay atop each other like the tossed shafts of a game of pick-up-sticks. Only the skulls were kept separate. They were sitting side by side in a row eight long. Next to each skull, like a hyphen separating it from its neighbor, was a small stone.
The snails had covered the area with a grid of string bisected into three-foot squares and then photographed it from several angles so that exact measurements could be reproduced later. A twelve-inch ruler included in the photos to give perspective still lay between a pair of thigh bones.
“I assume he kept the skulls separate as some sort of burial notion. Given the cramped circumstances, it was probably the best he could do.” Hatcher stepped back and watched Becker.
“You call that a burial?” Drooden asked.
“Well, he didn’t just throw the skulls in there with the rest. What would you call it?”
“You cut somebody up in your bathtub, flush his hair down the drain, and boil his bones-I doubt that you care enough about him to give him a burial,” said Drooden.
Becker spoke for the first time. “He cared about these men very much. They were very important to him.” Becker looked at the forensic man, who was watching his smoke rise to the ceiling. “They were all men?”
The forensic man nodded. “Pelvic bones look like it. We’ll know for sure later.”
“He cared enough about them to keep them alive for a while,” said Becker. “He might very well care enough to give them the best kind of burial he could manage.”
“Kept them alive while he did what to them?”
“Watched them, for one thing.”
“How do you know that?” Drooden demanded. Becker moved a hand toward one of the stones. “May I?”
The forensic man removed a pair of disposable plastic gloves from his pocket and handed them to Becker.
“Wait a minute,” said Drooden. He rounded on the forensic man. “Did I say anything could be disturbed yet?”
“No, sir.”
“You wait until I do, damn it.”
The forensic man was standing at attention in the doorway, trying to figure how to get rid of the cigarette without leaving and without giving Drooden another chance to yell at him;
“What have you found out about him from the neighbors?” Hatcher asked evenly. He moved slightly to screen Becker who was already holding one of the stones between his gloved fingers.
“They liked him,” said Drooden. “Nice man, quiet, minded his own business. He distributed fruit cakes at Christmas, attended the annual Fourth of July barbecue one of them gives in his backyard. On Halloween the kids said he usually gave candy and acted like he was scared by every ghost and ballerina that showed up. The first year here he gave them fruit, but apparently someone set him straight and after that it was always candy. The kids think he’s fine. The adults don’t pretend to know him, but think he’s fine, too. Can you imagine Halloween at this house?”
“Did they say anything about his girl?” Becker asked, straightening. He had replaced the stone.
“No one knew about her. If she came here, they never saw her.”
