“Unless his mom was lying,” Samuels said. “As previously noted, mothers are often willing to do that when their sons are under suspicion.”
“Jeannie had the same thought, but it seems unlikely in this case. The cop was there on a pretext, and he says they both seemed relaxed and open. Zero perp-sweat.”
Samuels folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not convinced.”
“Marcy?” Howard said. “I think it’s your turn to add to the puzzle.”
“I . . . I really don’t want to. Let the detective do it. Grace talked to him.”
Howie took her hand. “It’s for Terry.”
Marcy sighed. “All right. Grace saw a man, too. Twice. The second time in the house. I thought she was having bad dreams because she was upset by her father dying . . . as any child would be . . .” She stopped, chewing at her lower lip.
“Please,” Holly said. “It’s very important, Mrs. Maitland.”
“Yes,” Ralph agreed. “It is.”
“I was so sure it wasn’t real! Positive!”
“Did she describe him?” Jeannie asked.
“Sort of. The first time was about a week ago. She and Sarah were sleeping together in Sarah’s room, and Grace said he was floating outside the window. She said he had a Play-Doh face and straws for eyes. Anybody would think that was just a nightmare, wouldn’t they?”
Nobody said anything.
“The second time was on Sunday. She said she woke up from a nap and he was sitting on her bed. She said he didn’t have straws for eyes anymore, that he had her father’s eyes, but he still scared her. He had tattoos on his arms. And on his hands.”
Ralph spoke up. “She told me his Play-Doh face was gone. That he had short black hair, all sticky-uppy. And a little beard around his mouth.”
“A goatee,” Jeannie said. She looked sick. “It was the same man. The first time she might have been having a dream, but the second time . . . that was Bolton. It must have been.”
Marcy put her palms against her temples and pressed, as if she had a headache. “I know it sounds that way, but it had to have been a dream. She said his shirt changed colors while he was talking to her, and that’s the kind of thing that happens in dreams. Detective Anderson, do you want to tell the rest?”
He shook his head. “You’re doing fine.”
Marcy swiped at her eyes. “She said he made fun of her. He called her a baby, and when she started to cry, he said it was good that she was sad. Then he told her he had a message for Detective Anderson. That he had to stop, or something bad would happen.”
“According to Grace,” Ralph said, “the first time the man showed up, he looked like he wasn’t done. Not finished. The second time he appeared, she described a man who sure sounds like Claude Bolton. Only he’s in Texas. Make of it what you will.”
“If Bolton’s there, he couldn’t have been here,” Bill Samuels said, sounding exasperated. “That seems pretty obvious.”
“It seemed obvious with Terry Maitland,” Howie said. “And now, we have discovered, with Heath Holmes.” He turned his attention to Holly. “We don’t have Miss Marple tonight, but we do have Ms. Gibney. Can you put these pieces together for us?”
Holly didn’t seem to hear him. She was still staring at a painting on the wall. “Straws for eyes,” she said. “Yes. Sure. Straws . . .” She trailed off.
“Ms. Gibney?” Howie said. “Do you have something for us, or not?”
Holly came back from wherever she had been. “Yes. I can explain what’s going on. All I ask is that you keep an open mind. It will be quicker, I think, if I show you part of a movie I brought. I have it in my bag, on a DVD.”
With another brief prayer for strength （and to channel Bill Hodges when they voiced their disbelief and—perhaps—outrage）， she stood up and placed her laptop at the end of the table where Yune’s had been. Then she took out her DVD external drive and hooked it up.
7
Jack Hoskins had considered asking for sick time for his sunburn, emphasizing that skin cancer ran in his family, and decided it was a bad idea. Terrible, in fact. Chief Geller would almost certainly tell him to get out of his office, and when word got around （Rodney Geller wasn’t the close-mouthed sort）， Detective Hoskins would become a laughingstock in the department. In the unlikely event that the chief agreed, he would be expected to go to the doctor, and Jack wasn’t ready for that.