How the fuck do you like that? Bird thought. He’d spent a full day of hunting for Lizzie Ouellette’s murderer, conducted dozens of interviews, logged hundreds of miles on his vehicle, and was fast approaching the halfway point of what was shaping up to be a solid forty-eight hours without sleep. And all that time, it appeared that the son of a bitch had been sitting pretty right there in Copper Falls, already dead, transformed by his own hand into a fully crisped hunk of human barbecue. Just waiting to be skewered. It was a lucky break; if not for Earl choosing that particular moment to explore the ruins of his livelihood, it might have been months before they found the body.
And then Gleyber Torres grounded out, stranding the winning runs on base, and all Bird’s worries about baseball and bad omens were drowned out by the outraged groans of the New York crowd and the sporadic, courageous cheering of the Boston fans in attendance. Alone in his car, illuminated by the glow of the dashboard lights, Bird pumped a fist and pressed the accelerator. The cruiser soared into the night.
By the time the Sox finished soaking their locker room in champagne, the start of a celebration that would rage until dawn, Bird was crossing the Maine state line and feeling ready for what came next. Dwayne Cleaves’s death meant closure, if not justice. Cops tended to prefer the latter, but families often felt differently, and Bird thought that Earl Ouellette might be happier with this outcome. A trial had its downsides. Plea bargains, parole, the specter of a killer someday being forgiven and set free, not to mention having to hear in graphic detail just how badly and brutally your loved one’s life had ended. Lizzie’s father didn’t need to sit in a courtroom, to hear a forensic expert describe the mess that Cleaves and a shotgun had made of his daughter’s face. And even if suicide was a better, cleaner fate than the fucker deserved, at least Earl could take comfort that he no longer had to share a world with his daughter’s killer.
It was three o’clock in the morning, the cruiser eating up the last few miles of county road en route to Copper Falls, when Bird’s phone began to buzz.
“This is Bird.”
“Hiya there, Bird,” said Brady. “Still on the road?”
“Nearly there.” Bird stifled a yawn.
“You might want to pull over.”
“Nah, I’m good. I just want to get there. Check out the scene while it’s still fresh.”
“I’m not talking about taking a nap,” said Brady drily, and Bird felt a familiar tickle of foreboding at the back of his neck. He’d experienced the same sensation hours earlier, as he drove away from his unproductive interview with Adrienne Richards, but he thought he’d left it behind. Now it was back, stronger than ever. It was something about Brady’s voice; he sounded almost apologetic.
“What, then?”
“I just got off the phone with Boston PD,” Brady said. “An Officer Murray?”
Bird instinctively lifted his foot from the accelerator. The cruiser began to coast.
“Tell me,” he said.
“There’s been a shooting at the Richards residence. One deceased at the scene. Murray says it’s our suspect.”
Bird hit the brakes and pulled the car to a stop, parking it at a half straddle across the faded white line where shoulder met road, its headlights beaming into the empty night.
“Cleaves?”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. How?”
“No further details, Detective. Sorry. You might want to count yourself lucky that they got in touch at all.”
“Are they sure?”
“I’d guess so.”
Bird dropped the phone into his lap and tented his fingertips over the bridge of his nose. His face suddenly felt like not enough skin stretched over too much bone, and his eyes had started to ache. Gritty feeling around the edges, like the lids were made of sandpaper. He groaned. Brady’s tinny voice floated up from the phone in his lap.
“Bird? You there?”
He lifted the phone to his ear.
“Yeah. Sorry. Just . . .” He trailed off. Thinking. He shook his head. “Then who the fuck is dead in Cleaves’s vehicle at the Copper Falls junkyard?”—only even as the words crossed his lips, he realized he knew the answer.
Just a few hours ago, he’d entertained himself with the idea of being the one to tell Ethan Richards about his wife’s affair. Now he was pretty sure he’d missed his chance.
Not just because Richards already knew, but because Richards was already dead.