“I stand corrected,” Howie said, “but the question remains: What if our outsider has an accomplice? Somebody with orders to keep tabs on us? Doesn’t that make sense? Even if the outsider doesn’t know we found out about the Marysville Hole, he knows we’re too close for comfort.”
“I see your point, Howie,” Alec said, “but serials are usually loners, and the ones who stay free the longest are drifters. There are exceptions, but I don’t think our guy is one of them. He hopped down to Flint City from Dayton. If you backtrailed him from Ohio, you might find murdered children in Tampa, Florida, or Portland, Maine. There’s an African proverb: he travels fastest who travels alone. And practically speaking, who could he hire for a job like that?”
“A nut,” Howie said.
“Okay,” Ralph said, “but from where? Did he just stop by Nuts R Us and pick one up?”
“Fine,” Howie said. “He’s on his own, just cowering in the Marysville Hole and waiting for us to come and get him. Drag him into the sun or put a stake in his heart or both.”
“In Stoker’s novel,” Holly said, “they cut off Dracula’s head when they caught him, and stuffed his mouth full of garlic.”
Howie tossed the flashlight on the bed and threw up his hands. “Also fine. We’ll stop by Shopwell and buy some garlic. Also a meat cleaver, since we neglected to buy a hacksaw while we were in Home Depot.”
Ralph said, “I think a bullet in the head should do the trick nicely.”
They considered this in silence for a moment, and then Howie said he was going to bed. “But before I do, I’d like to know what the plan is for tomorrow.”
Ralph waited for Holly to enlighten Howie on this point, but she looked at Ralph, instead. He was startled and moved by the hollows under her eyes and the lines that had appeared at the corners of her mouth. Ralph himself was tired, he supposed they all were, but Holly Gibney was exhausted, at this point running on nothing but nerves. And given her tightly wrapped persona, he guessed that for her that would be like running on thorns. Or broken glass.
“Nothing before nine o’clock,” Ralph said. “We all need at least eight hours of sleep, more if we can get it. Then we pack up, check out, go to the Boltons’， and pick up Yune. From there to the Marysville Hole.”
“Wrong direction, if we want Claude to think we’re flying home,” Alec said. “He’ll wonder why we aren’t headed back to Plainville.”
“Okay, we tell Claude and Lovie we have to go to Tippit first because . . . mmm, I don’t know, we have some more shopping to do at Home Depot?”
“Pretty thin,” Howie said.
Alec asked, “Who was the state cop who came out to talk to Claude? Do you remember?”
Ralph didn’t offhand, but he had kept case-notes on his iPad. Routine was routine, even when chasing the boogeyman. “His name was Owen Sipe. Corporal Owen Sipe.”
“Okay. You tell Claude and his momma—which is the same thing as telling the outsider, if he really can get inside Claude’s head—that you got a call from Corporal Sipe saying that a man roughly matching Claude’s description is wanted in Tippit for questioning in a robbery or a car theft or maybe a home invasion. Yune can verify that Claude was at home all night—”
“Not if he was out sleeping in the gaze-bo,” Ralph said.
“You’re telling me he wouldn’t have heard Claude start his car? That thing needed a new muffler two years ago.”
Ralph smiled. “Point taken.”
“Okay, so you say we’re going to Tippit to check it out, and if it leads nowhere, we’re going to fly back to Flint City. Sound okay?”
“Sounds fine,” Ralph said. “Just let’s be damn sure Claude doesn’t see the flashlights and hardhats.”
15
As eleven o’clock came and went, Ralph was lying on the swaybacked bed in his room, knowing he should turn out the light and not doing it. He had called Jeannie and gabbed with her for almost half an hour, some of it about the case, some of it about Derek, most of it inconsequential shit. After that he tried the TV, thinking one of Lovie Bolton’s late-night preachers might work as a sleeping pill—or at least quiet the constant rat-run of his thoughts—but all he got when he turned it on was a message saying OUR SATELLITE IS CURRENTLY DOWN, THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE.
He was reaching for the lamp when a light knock came at the door. He crossed the room, reached for the knob, thought better of it, and tried the peephole. It turned out to be useless, clogged with dirt or something.