As the light of his first full day back in Flint City dawned, Ralph once more stood at his bedroom window, hands clasped behind his back, looking down at Holly Gibney, who was once more sitting in one of the backyard lawn chairs. He checked Jeannie, found her asleep and snoring softly, and went downstairs. He wasn’t surprised to see Holly’s bag in the kitchen, already packed with her few things for the flight north. As well as knowing her own mind, she was a lady who did not let the grass grow under her feet. And he supposed she would be very glad to get the hell out of Flint City.
On the previous early morning when he had been out here with Holly, the smell of coffee had awakened Jeannie, so this time he brought orange juice. He loved his wife, and valued her company, but he wanted this to be just between him and Holly. They shared a bond and always would, even if they never saw each other again.
“Thank you,” she said. “There’s nothing better than orange juice in the morning.” She looked at the glass with satisfaction, then drank half of it. “Coffee can wait.”
“What time is your flight?”
“Quarter past eleven. I’ll leave here by eight.” She gave a slightly embarrassed smile at his look of surprise. “I know, I’m a compulsive early bird. The Zoloft helps with a lot of things, but it doesn’t seem to help with that.”
“Did you sleep?”
“A little. Did you?”
“A little.”
They were quiet for a time. The first bird sang, tender and sweet. Another responded.
“Bad dreams?” he asked.
“Yes. You?”
“Yes. Those worms.”
“I had bad dreams after Brady Hartsfield, too. Both times.” She touched his hand very lightly, then drew her fingers back. “There were a lot at first, but fewer as time passed.”
“Do you think they ever go away entirely?”
“No. And I’m not sure I’d want them to. Dreams are the way we touch the unseen world, that’s what I believe. They are a special gift.”
“Even the bad ones?”
“Even the bad ones.”
“Will you stay in touch?”
She looked surprised. “Of course. I’ll want to know how things turn out. I’m a very curious person. Sometimes that gets me in trouble.”
“And sometimes it gets you out.”
Holly smiled. “I like to think so.” She drank the rest of her juice. “Mr. Samuels will help you with this, I think. He reminds me a little bit of Scrooge, after he saw the three ghosts. Actually, you do, too.”
That made him laugh. “Bill’s going to do everything he can for Marcy and her daughters. I’ll help. We both have a lot to make up for.”
She nodded. “Do what you can, absolutely. But then . . . let the fracking thing go. If you can’t let go of the past, the mistakes you’ve made will eat you alive.” She turned to him and gave him one of her rare dead-on looks. “I’m a woman who knows.”
The kitchen light went on. Jeannie was up. Soon the three of them would have coffee out here at the picnic table, but while it was just the two of them, he had something else to say, and it was important.
“Thank you, Holly. Thank you for coming, and thank you for believing. Thank you for making me believe. If not for you, he’d still be out there.”
She smiled. It was the radiant one. “You’re welcome, but I’ll be very happy to go back to finding deadbeats and bail-jumpers and lost pets.”
From the doorway, Jeannie called, “Who wants coffee?”
“Both of us!” Ralph called back.
“Coming right up! Save a place for me!”
Holly spoke in a voice so low he had to lean forward to hear her. “He was evil. Pure evil.”
“No argument there,” Ralph said.
“But there’s something I keep thinking about: that scrap of paper you found in the van. The one from Tommy and Tuppence. We talked about explanations for why it ended up where it did, do you remember?”
“Sure.”
“They all seem unlikely to me. It never should have been there at all, but it was. And if not for that scrap—the link to what happened in Ohio—that thing might still be out there.”
“Your point being?”
“It’s simple,” Holly said. “There’s also a force for good in the world. That’s something else I believe. Partly so I don’t go crazy when I think of all the awful things that happen, I guess, but also . . . well . . . the evidence seems to bear it out, wouldn’t you say? Not just here but everywhere. There’s some force that tries to restore the balance. When the bad dreams come, Ralph, try to remember that little scrap of paper.”
He didn’t reply at first, and she asked what he was thinking about. The screen door slammed: Jeannie with coffee. Their time together alone was almost up.
“I was thinking about the universe. There really is no end to it, is there? And no explaining it.”
“That’s right,” she said. “No point in even trying.”
(August 10th)
4
Flint County district attorney William Samuels strode to the podium in the courthouse conference room with a slim folder in one hand. He stood behind a cluster of microphones. TV lights came on. He touched the back of his head (no cowlick), and waited for the assembled reporters to quiet. Ralph was sitting in the front row. Samuels gave him a brief nod before commencing.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I have a brief statement to make in regard to the murder of Frank Peterson, and then I will take your questions.
“As many of you know, a videotape exists showing Terence Maitland attending a conference in Cap City at the same time Frank Peterson was being abducted and subsequently murdered here in Flint City. There can be no doubt of this tape’s authenticity. Nor can we doubt the statements given by Mr. Maitland’s colleagues, who accompanied him to the conference and attest to his presence there. In the course of our investigation we have also discovered Mr. Maitland’s fingerprints at the Cap City hotel where the conference was held, and have obtained ancillary testimony that proves those prints were made too close to the time of the Peterson boy’s murder for Mr. Maitland to be considered a suspect.”
There was a murmur from the reporters. One of them called, “Then how do you explain Maitland’s prints at the scene of the murder?”
Samuels gave the reporter his best prosecutorial frown. “Hold your questions, please; I was just coming to that. After further forensic examination, we now feel that the fingerprints found in the van used to abduct the child and those found in Figgis Park were planted. This is uncommon but far from impossible. Various techniques for planting bogus fingerprints can be found on the Internet, which is a valuable resource for criminals as well as law enforcement.
“It does suggest, however, that this murderer is crafty as well as perverted and extremely dangerous. It may or may not suggest that he had a grudge against Terry Maitland. That is a line of investigation we will continue to pursue.”
He surveyed his audience soberly, feeling very glad indeed that he would never have to run for re-election in Flint County; after this, any shyster with a mail-order law degree could probably beat him, and handily.
“You would have a perfect right to ask why we proceeded with the case against Mr. Maitland, given the facts I have just reviewed for you. There were two reasons. The most obvious is that we did not have all these facts in hand on the day Mr. Maitland was arrested, or on the day he would have been arraigned.”