34

Gordon Pryne himself had shouted the clue at me, amidst ugly invectives and proclamations of innocence—all of which I’d roundly dismissed at the time. Ask the rats, he’d yelled. Ask the rats. I’d let the remark pass, of course, without seeing it for what it was. But the rats had taken me straight to John Mulvaney’s office. I knew I’d been led there. By whom, I wasn’t sure. Peter Terry, perhaps. I was certain now that he’d been in on this thing from the beginning.

I tossed in my bed most of the night, listening to the rats behind my walls, thinking about John Mulvaney. John’s legendary social ineptitude had doomed him to a life without human companionship. He’d settled instead for a spurious form of stimulation that involved the humiliation of women—not uncommon for social misfits like him, who tend to blame women for their own stunning inability to relate to the opposite sex. I’d seen hints of that the year before when John had gotten so angry at me for having no interest in him socially.

If John’s frustration were ever to escalate to the point of violence, I was certain it would be quick but gory, just as Drew’s murder had been. A single blow to kill quickly and avoid the fight. And multiple blows following, indicating panic, rage—all sorts of complicated, powerful emotions, which he would be unable or unwilling to contain once the dam had broken.

Even the ax made sense. John would have chosen a weapon like that. They’re common as dirt. If Helene owns one, just about everyone does, I was betting. Maybe he’d left the ax on my porch in a panic—not to implicate me, but get rid of it while drawing me into his drama. Or maybe to frighten me. The stalker note I’d received was a taunt, obviously. A jab to remind me he was out there. Watching.

It did dawn on me briefly that I could be jumping to a conclusion. Perhaps John had been connected to the murder, but had not actually committed it. It was possible he had witnessed it, I decided. But if so, why hadn’t he come forward? What motivation would he have to keep silent?

I got up, put on my bathrobe and fluffy slippers, and let Melissa out of her hutch. It was three thirty—time to get up anyway. I’d surely hear from Peter Terry soon, with all the activity going on. He loves this kind of stuff.

I paced the kitchen and put the kettle on for tea, pausing to stare at Drew’s photo on the refrigerator as I reached for a carton of milk.

“What’s the answer?” I said out loud.

She looked back at me silently, her eight-year-old self freckled and wan, with her shaggy hairdo and her crooked smile.

I dug through my notebooks until I found Brigid’s photo and stuck it on the refrigerator next to Drew’s. The daughter was an unblemished, more confident version of the mother, a version of woman that I suspected Brigid had never been and could never hope to be. Perhaps Drew’s anger, rooted in that free-spirited third-grader, had saved her, ultimately, from the strange, half-truth fate Brigid seemed to have found, lying to herself and anyone who would pay her to tell them what they wanted to hear. Drew had a hard life, but she had lived it on her terms. Defiant until the end. Small consolation.

I shut the refrigerator and squinted at the photos. The water began to boil on the other side of the kitchen. I tuned out the whistle of the kettle and focused on the pictures.

Drew’s eyes were green, her hair a messy black fringe of neglect over eyes that seemed somehow aware of her destiny. She was the lost girl, collar askew, hating every moment of being photographed. Submitting to it out of…what? Not fear, certainly Condescension, perhaps. Had she known that there was no winning? Had the odds, stacked so ominously against her, somehow impressed her, even in that tender, ignorant moment before it all came slamming down around her feet?

Melissa scratched at my ankle urgently, as if to nudge me toward the stove to quiet the kettle, which was screaming now for attention.

My feet stayed rooted by the refrigerator door, my eyes locked on to Drew Sturdivant’s.

“What’s the answer?” I asked again.

As my eyes moved back to Brigid’s photo, the steam popped the top off the kettle and the whistle fell silent. I walked across the kitchen, turned off the stove, and poured the boiling water into the sink. I picked Melissa up and tucked her into her hutch with some raw, organic carrots, got dressed, and grabbed my keys.

If I hurried, I could make it to Shreveport by sunrise.