“What does this have to do with Katherine Royce?”
Wilma removes one more item from the folder. It’s a color photocopy of a postcard. An aerial view of a jagged lake surrounded by forests and mountains. I’ve seen the image a hundred times on racks in local stores and know what it is without needing to read the name printed at the bottom of the card.
Lake Greene.
“Last month, someone sent this postcard to the local police department.” Wilma looks to Boone. “Your old stomping grounds. They passed it on to us. Because of this.”
She flips the page, revealing the photocopied back of the postcard. On the left side, written in all-caps handwriting so shaky it looks like the work of a child, is the address of Boone’s former workplace, located about fifteen minutes from here. On the right side, in that same childlike scrawl, are three names.
Megan Keene.
Toni Burnett.
Sue Ellen Stryker.
Beneath the names are four words.
I think they’re here.
“Holy shit,” Boone says.
I say nothing, too stunned to speak.
“There’s no way to trace who sent it,” Wilma says. “This exact postcard has been sold all over the county for years. As you can see, there’s no return address.”
“Fingerprints?” Boone says.
“Plenty. That card passed through more than a dozen hands before coming to the state police. The stamp was self-stick, so there’s no DNA on the back. A handwriting analysis concluded it was written by someone right-handed using their left hand. That’s why it’s barely legible. Whoever sent it did a very good job of covering their tracks. The only clue we have, really, is the postmark, which tells us it had been dropped into a mailbox on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. That, incidentally, is where Tom and Katherine Royce’s apartment is located. It could be a coincidence, but I doubt it.”
Boone rubs a hand through his stubble, contemplating all this information. “You think one of them sent that postcard?”
“Yes,” Wilma says. “Katherine, in particular. The handwriting analysis suggests it was written by a female.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Why do you think?”
It takes less than a second for it to sink in, with Boone’s expression shifting as he moves from thought to theory to realization. “You really think Tom killed those girls?” he says. “And that Katherine knew about it? Or at least suspected it?”
“That’s one theory,” Wilma says. “That’s why we’re being very careful here. If Katherine sent that postcard as a way to tip off the police about her husband, then it’s also possible she ran away and is in hiding somewhere.”
“Or that Tom found out and silenced her,” Boone says.
“That’s also a possibility, yes. But if she has gone into hiding as a way to protect herself, we want to find her before her husband does. Either way, both of you deserve some credit for this. If you hadn’t called me about Katherine, we never would have thought to tie her and Tom to this postcard. So thank you.”
“What’s the next step?” Boone asks, beaming with pride. Once a cop, always a cop, I guess.
Wilma gathers up the pages and stuffs them back into the folder. As she does, I get one last glimpse at the faces of those missing girls. Megan and Toni and Sue Ellen. Each one squeezes my heart so tight that I almost wince. Then Wilma closes the folder and the three of them vanish all over again.
“Right now, we’re looking into all the places Tom rented in Vermont in the past two years. Where he stayed. How long he was there. If Katherine was with him.” Wilma drops the folder into her messenger bag and looks my way. “If the dates match up to these disappearances, then that will be the right time to talk to Tom Royce.”
Another shiver hits me. One of those full-body ones that rattle you like a cocktail shaker.
The police think Tom is a serial killer.
Although Wilma didn’t say it outright, the implication is clear.
They think he did it.
And the situation is all so much worse than I first thought.
NOW
I grip the knife tighter, hoping it will mask the way my hand is still shaking. He looks at it with feigned disinterest and says, “Am I supposed to feel threatened by that? Because I don’t.”
“I honestly don’t care how you feel.”
It’s the truth, although slightly overstated. I do care. I do want him to feel threatened. But I also know it doesn’t really matter. The most important thing is getting him to talk, and if matching him in indifference will do the trick, then I’m willing to go there.