The Third Victim (14 page)

“Now it’s your turn,” he said abruptly. “Tit for tat.”

“All right.” She brought up her chin gamely and got a good grip on her Bud Light. “My mom was a drunk. A mean drunk. A promiscuous drunk. Trailer trash, you know the type. She got into a lot of brawls, hung out with men who beat her, and, following the trickle-down theory of family management, returned home to beat me. Except one day when I came home, she’d been decapitated by a shotgun blast to the head. And unfortunately for me, I was the first person at the scene.”

“Did Shep O’Grady arrest you?”

“Yep.” She shrugged. “I would’ve arrested me too. The whole town knew what she was doing. Now here she was dead, and I had her brains in my hair. I made a great suspect. But I was the wrong one.”

“And who was the right one?”

“Officially, it’s still unsolved. Unofficially, they’re pretty sure it was her man of the moment. A neighbor saw him at the house right before she heard the gunshot. Maybe it was some kind of lover’s quarrel, or maybe he was just too drunk to think straight. My mother didn’t exactly date rocket scientists. He was a trucker, I think. They put out an APB, but no one ever saw him again. Just some guy passing through. And now it’s been so many years I don’t even remember his name.” Rainie shrugged again. “Given the way my mother lived, I don’t think the story could have ended any other way.”

“And for you?” Quincy said quietly. “After all that, I’d think you would’ve left Bakersville for good.”

“I tried. Went to Portland. Enrolled in the university. Got drunk. For four years. Then joined AA. When I finally graduated, I decided I might as well go home, because for all of my running I was ending up in the same place I began. Besides, I like it here. I inherited my mother’s house, all paid for, which is good when you’re making fifteen grand a year.”

“You still live in the house where you grew up?” He gave her a skeptical look.

“I don’t mind. It’s the deck I like the best anyway.” She gave him a funny smile. “Honestly, I like small-town police work. I get to deal with people, not paper. And Bakersville is a good community. We have a lot of nice folks.”

“Excluding the neighbors who never said a word about your mother beating you each night. And excluding the neighbors who still believe that you’re a murderer.”

“Oh, the ones who think I killed my mother don’t mind. In their opinion, what goes around comes around.”

“But you don’t think that, do you, Rainie? And these last two days, staring at Danny O’Grady—that must have been very difficult for you.”

She stiffened. Her hands tightened around her Bud Light. “Don’t psychoanalyze me.”

“I’m not,” he said evenly. “I can’t help noticing, however, that today you gave an instant explanation of attachment disorder. Combine that with the fact you grew up in an abusive household, in circumstances not that different from those experienced by most violent kids. These issues aren’t new to you. You’ve given it some thought. Long after this case is over, you’ll still be giving it some thought.”

“Well, at least my interest is personal and not some misplaced hero complex.”

She had lashed out reflexively. It did not occur to her just how bitter and vicious she sounded until she saw him wince.

“Touché,” he murmured.

Rainie promptly looked down, embarrassed. It was in poor taste to ask a man to share his troubles and then hold them against him. She wanted to be a better person than that, but she knew she wasn’t. She had a quick temper and a bristly personality. Apologies came hard to her.

“I don’t mean to make you self-conscious,” Quincy said quietly.

“Danny bothers me,” she said abruptly, before she changed her mind. “I saw his eyes. Trapped. Angry. Confused. I know that stare, and I looked at those bodies and I wondered . . . Everyone says kids can’t be that angry, homicidally angry, but I know they can be. Sometimes it’s hard not to be. To be young and helpless and defenseless . . .” Her voice broke off. She sat there, holding the rest of the words in and feeling her heart beat against her chest like a trapped bird.

“You worry you could’ve been Danny O’Grady?” Quincy asked.

She didn’t say anything.

“You’re not Danny,” he said firmly.

“I know that! I’m a woman, and women don’t displace rage. We don’t become mass murderers or serial killers. We focus our anger instead, going after whoever hurt us, or self-destructing. It doesn’t matter, though. That’s not what this is about. It’s the violence, I think. Because it’s a shooting and not an automobile crash or combine accident. I’m not sure. But it’s bringing it back. Everything. Like it happened yesterday. And everyone was just so busy wondering that day if I’d killed her or not, no one bothered to ask me how I felt. I’m not sure I even bothered to wonder how I felt. All those times, all those nights, the screaming fits. But she was my mother, and it took so much bleach to get the blood out of the ceiling. I think I scrubbed for days and still you could see the pink stains and she was my
mother,
for God’s sake. The only family I had.”

“Rainie, are you okay?”

“Yes, fine. Dammit, I need to shut up.” He had taken her hand at some point. She didn’t remember when, and the fact she hadn’t noticed such a thing jolted her. She always noticed when she was touched. All these years later, she was very careful about physical space. She took her hand back, raking it through her hair and discovering that she was more agitated than she’d realized. Quincy was looking at her again with concern. It made her want to laugh flippantly, but that would do no good.

“I’m sorry,” she said shortly. “I accuse you of treating me like a patient, then I treat you like a shrink.”

“I’m not your therapist,” he said evenly. “Let’s keep that straight.”

“Of course not. I don’t need a therapist!”

He raised a brow. She grew more flustered. He took back her hand.

His gaze was reassuring. “Rainie, listen to me. What you’re going through is very real. It’s called post-traumatic stress syndrome. Fourteen years ago you suffered a major trauma. And even though you’ve dealt with that trauma on many levels, it still affected you. Now you’re going through a similar situation and that’s bringing the first one back. It happens to everyone. When the Gulf War happened, the Veterans Administration had to set up hotlines for the Vietnam vets who were suddenly experiencing flashbacks to twenty-year-old firefights. Sadly, every time one of these school shootings happens, it puts all the other families in all the other communities through the wringer again. Flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety attacks. All part of the drill.”

“I’m a professional. It’s my job. Will attend homicide. Won’t bat an eye.”

“You’re human.” His fingers squeezed hers. “You’re an intelligent human. Your brain is going to work in spite of you.”

“Well, take this brain back. It’s stuck on instant replay and I’ve had enough.”

He smiled faintly. “The older the trauma, the sooner it will fade. In the meantime, it might help to talk to someone. Does the sheriff’s department provide any mental-health resources?”

“Our department doesn’t even provide coffee.”

“Perhaps some of the professionals flying in to help the kids.”

“Yeah, perhaps.” But her tone of voice told them both she’d never go. Seeking out a real professional would be too much like admitting a weakness. She didn’t do that anymore.

“It’s getting late,” Quincy said.

Rainie looked around. The music was dying down and tables had cleared out. He was right; they should both be going. Separate rooms, she knew. She had said too much, and you couldn’t hook up for a one-night stand after baring your soul.

She rose on her own. After a moment Quincy followed suit.

“Quincy . . . Sorry about your daughter.”

“Thank you. It doesn’t help, but it does.”

“I know.” She hesitated. “I’m also sorry for what I said earlier. The misplaced hero complex. I’m not the best at playing nice with others.”

“And here I thought it was part of your charm.”

Quincy placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her toward the door.

Outside, the night was cool and Rainie was back to watching him expectantly. His hand still rested on her back. His body was close. She could smell his aftershave, subtle and expensive. She didn’t know what it was about him. He was strong, intelligent, sophisticated. She’d never tried finding someone who challenged her. She’d always just gone with the unquestioning young stud, the kind who wouldn’t ask too many questions. It was safer.

Now she studied the exposed hollow of Quincy’s throat, where a light smattering of dark hair rippled across it. Now she gazed at his other hand with those long, deft fingers. Now she looked up into his face and peering blue eyes that saw too much.

She took an instinctive step back, confused and suddenly spooked. His head had already dropped forward and his lips brushed her cheek.

“I’m not your therapist, Rainie.”

“I know.”

His lips brushed her other cheek, warm, firm, dry.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here. I have policies about these things.” His lips fell to the hollow of her neck. Her head had fallen back. She knew better, but she didn’t. The kiss was light. It teased her.

“No fraternizing?” she murmured.

He raised his head. “No one-night stands. No passing through. I’m too old for that shit, Rainie. I’ve been to too many towns, spent too much time studying the worst that men can do. I’ve tried marriage and I’ve tried fatherhood and I have all the things I’m proud of in my life and all the things I wish I’d never done. I don’t believe in one-night escapism anymore. I don’t see the point.”

She tried to open her mouth to argue, but he cut her off by brushing his lips over hers. She startled in surprise. He stopped, lingered, his mouth moist, seeking. His hands were splayed across her back. He held her lightly, giving her plenty of room, and that made her both grateful and disappointed.

She had just started to lean forward when he broke off the kiss.

“I’m interested in you, Rainie,” he murmured against her ear. “You’re not what I expected. You’re smart. You’re complicated. And I already know you won’t go home with me tonight.”

“I won’t,” she whispered.

“You’re going to torture yourself with the drive to the ME’s office tomorrow. You’re going to dream of your mother and dead little girls.”

“Don’t—”

“I’m not your therapist, Rainie. I’m simply a man who’s been there.”

His hands fell from her back. He stepped away and she felt the night intrude bitterly. Her arms grew cold. She shivered as she watched him walk over to his car, but she didn’t call him back. She had her own vehicle to drive home. One of her rules. One of her many, many rules designed to keep herself safe.

Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy drove away.

And, after another moment, Rainie went home alone.

FOURTEEN
                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Thursday, May 17, 1:08
A
.
M
.

S
HEP WAS WAITING
FOR
Rainie on her back porch when she got to her house. Judging by the pile of empty beer bottles at his feet, he’d been there a while, and the wait had done nothing to improve his mood.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded when she finally walked through the sliding glass door.

Rainie eyed him for a minute. It was late, well past midnight, and she didn’t have the patience for this conversation. On the other hand, she supposed she should’ve seen it coming.

She loosened the cuffs of her worn chambray shirt. “Go home, Shep.”

“Aren’t you meeting with the ME first thing in the morning? Christ, Rainie, this is a murder investigation. What are you doing running around till the small hours of the morning?”

“I believe I’m acting as primary on the case. Now get the hell off my back deck.”

Shep pretended not to hear her. He set down his beer and stood authoritatively, as if he was still acting sheriff. The fact that he swayed on his feet didn’t help. Rainie shook her head.

“We gotta talk about this case.”

“You’re drunk, you’re not thinking straight, and if anyone sees you here, George Walker will have even more ammunition to take to the five o’clock news. Suspect’s father cavorting with police.”

“Danny didn’t do it!”

“We got his prints on the casings, Shep.”

“Not all of them.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Oh, Sanders didn’t tell you, did he?” Shep got a smug glow in his eyes. He pounded his chest. “I got my own contact at the state crime lab. When I talked to him this afternoon, he told me they’d found prints on the shell casings from the .38 and the .22—except for one .38 casing. A single casing with no smudges, no dirt, no prints. In other words, wiped clean. And get this, there’s something odd about the shell casing. My contact couldn’t tell me what, but he’d sent it out for further analysis. So there you go. Something’s odd about the evidence, Rainie. Something else went down in those halls, and this proves it.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Shep. Not all shell casings will yield prints and you know it. Now, for the last time, go home.”

“One casing wiped clean, Rainie! I’m telling you, someone else was at that scene. This proves it. Maybe Danny helped. Okay, okay? I can see that much. He got the guns, maybe he thought that he was helping a friend. But someone else pulled the trigger. You gotta help me with this, Rainie. You gotta believe me.”

“I don’t have to do any such thing.”

“What does that mean?”

Rainie looked her boss in the eye. She said crisply, “First you appoint me primary, Shep. Not even at the school yet, and you already know something’s up. Then there’s that whole confrontation with Danny. You get me to discharge my sidearm. You manage to get your prints all over the guns. Thirty seconds later most of the physical evidence is destroyed. And you made sure everyone knew it. Officer Conner screwed up the case. Danny will walk away scot-free. What the hell went down in that hallway, Shep? You want me to help you, you tell me what was really going on that afternoon.”

“Rainie, I swear to you—”

“Bullshit! Cut the crap.”
Her temper went. She was suddenly bone-weary and deeply resentful of Shep. He’d made her part of this tragedy. And now he was on her back deck, begging for her help, after playing her like a fool. How dare he do that to her? Especially when she’d considered him a friend.

“You knew what was going on, Shep. You suspected Danny.
Why?
”

“Don’t you yell at me, Lorraine Conner. I may not be on active duty, but I’m still sheriff of this town!”

“What the fuck happened, Shep? What did you do?”

“This is no way to treat me! Didn’t I help you out all those years ago? All those questions I could’ve asked. All those questions that have still never been answered about what went down that day. I never followed up. I let sleeping dogs lie. Now it’s your turn to do the same.”

“Get off my property!”

“He’s my son! Goddammit, Rainie, he’s my son. . . .”

Shep’s shoulders suddenly convulsed. He stood on her porch, surrounded by half a dozen empty beer bottles, and wept into his hands for his child.

Jesus Christ. Rainie went into her house. She fetched two fresh bottles of beer from the fridge. Back outside, she wordlessly handed one to Shep. The other she cradled in her hands, waiting for that feeling of power, of control. It didn’t happen tonight. Jesus Christ.

After a moment Shep pulled himself together. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt. He twisted off the cap of the bottle and downed half the contents in a single swallow. Then he downed the other half.

“How’d you get here, Shep?”

“Drove.”

“You’re not driving home.”

“I know.”

They stood in silence. Rainie looked up at the night sky. It was clear following this afternoon’s rain. The stars were like pinpricks of silver against black velvet. She loved this kind of night. Perfect for sitting on her deck, listening to the owls and imagining the waves crashing against the rocky shore. The inside of her house might hold all the bad memories of her childhood, but the outside held the few precious things that had been good. The land and the trees and the sky. The knowledge that no matter what happened, she was only a small part of it in the end and the stars would be here long after she was gone and the last tears had dried.

Maybe other people were overwhelmed to think of their tiny size in relation to the cosmos. She was comforted by it.

“I gave Danny the combination for the gun safe,” Shep said quietly. “He asked for it two weeks ago, and I gave it to him.”

“You went to all the trouble to get a state-of-the-art gun safe and then you gave your child the combination?”

“Sandy’s gonna kill me.”

“Shep, you’re in such a world of hurt.”

“I didn’t know! Danny said he wanted practice breaking down handguns since he’d already mastered his rifle. Hell, I was happy he was interested. You gotta understand, Rainie, guns are about all Danny and I have left. I tried football—he’s just no good. I tried basketball, baseball, soccer. The boy has no athletic ability. He just wants to read or surf the Web or some such garbage. . . . You don’t know what it’s like to be a father, Rainie, and realize one day that you got the son you always wanted and, somehow, he turned out to be his mother.”

“Did you know the pistols were missing?”

Shep was silent, which was answer enough.

“Jesus, how can you be so smart and yet so dumb?”

“Don’t you think I just got punished enough?”

“No, I think George Walker got punished enough. I think Alice Bensen’s parents got punished enough. Dammit!”

“I didn’t
know,
Rainie. Three days ago I checked the safe for the pistols. They still weren’t there. So I asked Danny about it. He said he hadn’t gotten them back together yet, that was all. The minute he reassembled them, he’d put them in the safe. I didn’t think about it again.”

“Until you got the call.”

“But Danny didn’t do it! I swear to you, Rainie, that boy doesn’t have a single aggressive bone in his body. Hell, if he was more like me maybe I could imagine it. But he’s his mother’s son. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“What did you find when you got to the school, Shep?”

“It’s just like I said in my report. When I arrived, the building was already evacuated. Someone said they saw the shooter run from the building. Someone else said there were still wounded kids inside. So I went in. And in the computer lab I found Danny holding the revolver and semiauto—”

“Holding them? Not picking them up. Holding them.”

“He’d just picked them up—”

“Shep!”

“All right! He was holding them, dammit. Holding both guns and looking faint. The minute I said his name, he pointed them at my head.”

“And that doesn’t tell you anything?”

“He was panicked, Rainie! Frightened and, ah hell, he’d been crying. I swear to you, there were tears on his cheeks. For chrissakes, this is Danny. Danny who used to wear your deputy’s badge. Danny who liked to play under the desks. Danny who always wanted to sit by you at dinner—”

“Shut up! I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

Rainie walked away from him. She stood at the edge of her deck, her arms wrapped tight around her middle for warmth. In the distance, she saw a flicker of light, as if the moon had caught a piece of glass. It troubled her, and she was trying to focus in on the source, when the trees rustled abruptly and a large bird took flight.

“If Danny’s involved,” Shep said from behind her, “it’s only because someone else got him into it. He’s been . . . troubled lately. And maybe he’s impressionable. At thirteen all young boys are impressionable.”

“We know about the lockers, Shep. And we know about Charlie Kenyon. The Danny in my mind is a sweet little boy, and just yesterday morning I would’ve agreed with you, but I’m not sure anymore. There is a lot more to him than meets the eye. And these kids . . . they’re always somebody’s sons, Shep. They’re always somebody’s children.”

Shep’s head fell forward. Rainie had told him the truth with the best of intentions, but she couldn’t stand to see him look so defeated.

She offered quietly, “We’re trying to learn more from the school computers. Maybe if we can find a record of him talking to someone on-line . . . hooking up with an outside influence . . . I don’t know.”

“Good, good.” Shep’s voice had picked up. “That’s the thing. Find out who really did all this.”

“You really want to know what happened, Shep, let us talk to Danny. The FBI agent, Quincy, he’s a trained psychologist and an expert in mass murderers. He’ll know how to handle Danny. He’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“No.”

“Shep, you want me to help Danny, but you don’t. Make up your mind.”

“No interviewing him! He’s confused right now. Maybe he even wants to take credit for things—some kids are like that, you know. But I don’t want my kid spending the rest of his life in prison because he felt a need to brag.”

“What about Becky? She might have seen something—”

“The doctors say she’s in shock.”

“Quincy’s an expert.”

“Since when did you start thinking so much of an outsider? Wait a minute. That’s where you’ve been, isn’t it? You went out with the fed!”

“Well, tie stones to my feet and drown me in a river.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Shep, if you want answers, give me some help. At least let Quincy interview Becky.”

“Our lawyer will never go for it.”

“It’s not his call.”

“I can’t. I don’t—I gotta talk to Sandy first. Let me talk to Sandy.”

“Thank you, Shep,” Rainie said seriously. “Sandy has a good head on her shoulders. She’ll do the right thing.”

Shep, however, didn’t look convinced. He said wearily, “I got a son in juvenile detention for murder. I have a daughter sleeping in closets, and I have neighbors spray-painting
Baby Killer
on my garage. The right thing? I don’t know what that is anymore. I already heard from the mayor that we’re not allowed to attend any of the funerals. He thinks it’ll upset people too much. For God’s sake, this is my town, Rainie. I know George Walker. I used to bowl with Alice’s uncle. Now—now it’s come down to
this
.”

Rainie didn’t say anything. She didn’t have the words to comfort him.

“Someone else pulled that trigger,” Shep said tiredly, stubbornly. “Mark my words. And you gotta help me prove it, because a state detective and a federal agent aren’t going to care. They don’t live here. They don’t know Danny the way we do. So it’s just you and me. The way it was fourteen years ago. Just you and me again.”

“You didn’t do me any favors fourteen years ago, Shep.”

Shep’s gaze simply fell to the deck.

Rainie sighed. She moved over to the deck railing and dumped out her bottle of beer. She said what she needed to say, soft, so no one could hear.

Shep didn’t pry. He knew better after all these years.

After a moment she turned back to him. “Come on, Shep. I’ll drive you home.”

CROUCHED BEHIND A DENSE
cover of trees, the man finally released his breath. It had been no good. She always ducked her head when she spoke, so even with the binoculars he couldn’t see clearly enough. Maybe if he brought a video camera one night. He could record her actions, then play them back for someone who specialized in lip-reading. An expert might be able to see enough.

But that would be sharing. He didn’t want to share. Rainie was special. His.

He planned to keep it that way.

The man rocked back on his heels, pursing his lips as he considered his options. His head was buzzing a bit. He’d stayed in the bar long enough to have two beers, even though he shouldn’t have. But Ruddy-Face had still been standing there, looking down at him all stern and tough. It had punched buttons better left alone and he’d found he couldn’t back down. So he’d stayed, drinking down beer he couldn’t taste and feeling that measured, hateful stare.

Then he’d simply started to laugh. The whole thing was too damn funny for words. Old men thinking war would be good for kids. Give ’em a Hitler and they won’t have to kill one another.

The man had started to laugh, and he was still laughing when he left the bar, watching old Ruddy-Face shake his head. Fuck Ruddy-Face. Fuck ’em all. If only they knew . . .

The first time the man had picked a town for one of his projects, he hadn’t been anxious. More like curious about what he could do. He’d had a vision. It started as a dream late at night, a way to pass the hours when he was alone and no one cared. Then it took over his waking hours. It became an obsession, a fierce, burning need gnawing away at his gut.

Show the old man. Show up the old man. Fucking show up the old fucking man. He’d head out to the cemetery, guzzling hundred-dollar bottles of the fucker’s precious brandy and feeling the fury beat like a drum in his veins.
You think I’m weak? You think I’m dumb?