His eyes met hers. In an instant, he knew she had heard.
“This isn’t a copycat killer,” he said to his father’s back.
“What the fuck are you talking about now?”
He only glanced at Nick over his shoulder. He took the set of autopsy photos from Eddie, who willingly handed over the originals without even looking in Nick’s direction.
“Jeffreys was only responsible for Bobby Wilson’s death.” His father didn’t look up from the photos. “He didn’t kill all three boys. But then, you already knew that.” Nick waited for the implication to sink in, for it to register as the accusation he meant it to be.
Finally, his father looked at him with the scowl usually powerful enough to transform him into a sniveling teenager. Nick stood straight, keeping his hands from hiding in his pockets. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest. He was ready.
“What the fuck are you implying?”
“I’ve read Jeffreys’ arrest file. I’ve seen all the autopsy reports. There’s no way in hell Jeffrey committed all three murders. Even Jeffreys told you that, over and over again.”
“Oh, so now you believe a goddamn murdering fag over your own father?”
“Your own reports prove Jeffreys didn’t kill the other two boys. Only you were too blind. No, you wanted to be a hero. So you ignored the truth and let a killer get away. Or maybe you even helped plant the evidence. Now your own grandson’s going to pay the price for your mistakes and your fucking pride.”
The fist took Nick completely off guard. It slammed into his jaw and knocked him back into the copy machine. He caught his balance, but his vision was still blurred when the second fist slammed into his face. He looked up to see his father in the same place, same stance, photos still in his hands, a look of surprise on his face. Nick didn’t even realize it wasn’t his father’s fists that had hit him until he saw Hal restraining Eddie Gillick.
Chapter 72
Maggie waited but wasn’t surprised when Nick didn’t come back to their makeshift interrogation room. Adam Preston delivered dinner from Wanda’s. She told Ray Howard he was welcome to stay and eat his steak, then he was free to go. He eyed her suspiciously until Adam placed the steaming plate in front of him. Then all seemed to be forgotten.
She started to leave while Adam unpacked and laid out the rest of the food.
“Agent O’Dell, this is for you.”
“I’m not very hungry.” She turned to him, but it wasn’t a sandwich he handed her. She stared at the small, white envelope from across the table. “Where did you get that?”
“It was in the order from Wanda’s. It has your name on it.” He held it out to her, his arm stretched over the table, but she made no attempt to take it. Even Howard looked up at her from his banquet.
“Agent O’Dell? What is it? Do you want me to open it?” Adam’s green eyes were serious. His boyish face concerned.
“No, I’ll take it.” She slowly grabbed a corner, pretending- though it was too late-that it was no big deal. To prove it, she opened it without hesitation while Adam watched. Her fingers were amazingly steady though her stomach did acrobatic flips.
She read the note. It was simple, only one line: “I KNOW ABOUT STUCKY.”
She glanced up at Adam.
“Is Nick around?” She needed to keep her breathing even and steady. She needed to contain the crawly things invading her insides.
“No one’s seen him since…”
“Since Eddie decked him,” Howard finished for Adam. He smiled up at them over a forkful of mashed potatoes. “Eddie’s my man,” he said, then stuffed his mouth.
“What do you mean by that?” Maggie snapped at him, and Howard’s look told her it was too much, too shrill. She needed to be careful, but it was too late. She had set him on edge again.
“Nothin‘. He’s just a friend.”
“Deputy Gillick is a friend of yours?” She looked at Adam who simply shrugged.
“Yeah, he’s a friend. There ain’t no crime in that, is there? We do stuff together. It’s no big deal.”
“What kind of stuff?”
Howard looked from her to Adam. His hands had stopped cutting and scooping. His back straightened. When he looked back at Maggie, she saw the cold defiance.
“Sometimes he comes over to the rectory and plays cards with Father Keller and me. Sometimes just him and me go out for burgers.”
“You and Deputy Gillick?”
“Didn’t you say I was free to go?”
She stared him down. She was right. Those clever, reptilian eyes did know more, much more. Deep down, she knew he wasn’t the killer, despite Nick’s hunches. Howard may have been unfortunate enough to be in possession of her cellular phone, but Ray Howard was not the killer. His limp would never allow him to maneuver the steep woods along the river, let alone carry a sixty- to seventy-pound boy. And despite his smart remarks, he simply wasn’t smart enough to carry off a series of killings.
“Yes, I did say you were free to leave,” she finally answered without breaking his gaze. She wanted him to see the suspicion. She wanted him to slip up, sweat a little. Instead, he ignored her and went back to scraping great globs of food onto his fork, anchoring it with his knife and stuffing his mouth full before he started to chew.
She gestured to Adam, and he followed her out. Safely down the hall, she stopped and leaned against the wall, holding herself up from the exhaustion. Adam waited patiently with quick glances in both directions, although making sure no one saw him alone with her. He was too young to be a leftover of Antonio Morrelli’s regime, though he, too, seemed anxious to please, anxious to be a part of the group. Still, his respect for authority extended to Maggie, and his tall, thin frame slouched, ready to listen.
“You grew up in Platte City, right?”
The question surprised him. Of course, it would. He nodded, anyway.
“What can you tell me about the old church, the one in the country?”
“We checked it out, if that’s what you mean. Lloyd and I went out there before the snow and then again after. The place is boarded up. Didn’t look like anyone’s been in there for years. No footprints, no tire tracks.”
“It’s close to the river?”
“Yeah, just off Old Church Road-guess that’s probably where it gets its name. The church is listed as an historical landmark. That’s why no one’s torn it down.”
“How do you know all of that?” She pretended to be interested, though its location was really all she needed to know. If Howard went there to cut wood, perhaps he had seen something close by. She rubbed the knot in her neck, squeezing and applying pressure. Exhaustion clouded her thoughts. Or maybe she just didn’t want to think anymore.
“My dad owns land close by,” Adam continued. “He wanted to buy the church property, tear down the building. It’s prime farmland. Father Keller told him it couldn’t be torn down on account of it’s registered as an historical landmark. I guess it was used as part of John Brown’s Underground Railroad in the 1860s. Supposedly there’s a tunnel from the church to the graveyard.”
Maggie stood up, suddenly interested.
Adam seemed pleased.
“They hid runaway slaves in the church. At night they used the tunnel to sneak them to the river where a boat would take them upstream to the next hideout. There’s an old church down by Nebraska City that was used, too. They’ve made that one into quite the tourist trap. This one’s too deteriorated. They say the tunnel’s all caved in-too close to the river. They don’t even use the graveyard anymore. A few years ago when the river flooded, it uprooted some graves. Even sent a few coffins floating down the river once. That was kind of a creepy sight.”
Maggie imagined the deserted graveyard and the swift river current sucking corpses from their graves. Suddenly, it sounded like the perfect place for a killer obsessed with his victims’ salvation.
