I'd have to come back here to testify, and there really wasn't any more concrete evidence than there had been.
"No," I said. "Is Almand talking?"
"He's not saying one damn word," Klavin said. "He was actually pretty shocked about his son, I think, but he kind of shook it off and said the boy had always been weak."
"That's someone else's influence," I said. "Someone else's words."
"I think so, too," Stuart told us. He turned his back to us to look out over the acre of land that had yielded such a strange crop. "He's not going to talk in case he might trip up and expose his fuck buddy."
I was a little startled at Stuart going crude on us. But if I'd looked at those bodies and examined the inside of that shack as often as Stuart had, I might be pretty deeply upset…well, even more upset than I was already.
I wasn't sure why I was here. There were no ghosts, there were no souls, there was nothing left of the bones of the eight young men who had been put in the ground here. There was only the cold air, the gusting wind, and the two angry men who'd spent too much time observing too closely what horrors people could wreak on each other.
"What will you do with the shack?" I asked. Tolliver turned to look at it, along with Stuart.
"We'll have to dismantle it completely and remove it," Klavin said. "Otherwise, souvenir hunters will rip it to shreds. You can see the lab techs have removed the most heavily bloodstained areas for the lab's use. And all the instruments that were in there—the manacles, the branding iron, the pincers, the sex toys—they've gone to the lab, too. We brought a bunch of people up here."
Tolliver's mouth twisted in disgust. "How could he look in the mirror?" Tolliver said. It was rare for Tolliver to speak when we were in a professional situation like this. But men are less used to the idea of being raped than women are, and it strikes them with a fresh horror. With women, that horror comes right along with the female genitals.
"Because he was enjoying himself," I said. "It's easy to look in the mirror when life is fun."
Stuart turned to look at me, surprised. "Yes," he said. "He was probably happy every morning. Tom Almand pulled the wool over the eyes of almost every member of this community, for years. He's surely been pleased with himself every day of that time. The only person he couldn't fool, eventually, was his own son."
"So, he fooled everyone else?" I asked.
Tolliver gripped my hand. I squeezed his.
"His colleagues who have worked with him at the mental health center all say they've gotten along with him fine, that he was always on time, conscientious about keeping his appointments, fairly intelligent with his recommendations and referrals, and had only minor complaints by patients in the eight years he's been here."
I was impressed that they'd gotten together that much information in the limited time they'd had. I wondered if he'd been under suspicion from the beginning. Perhaps they'd gotten a head start on him, from a profile or something similar.
"But what about close friends?" I asked.
"He didn't seem to have any close friends," Stuart said. "Oh, he's been on the Hospital Expansion Board for the past six years; and so have Len Thomason and Barney Simpson, which makes sense. They're all health-care professionals, though from different aspects of the field. That minister got elected to the board last year, the one that conducted the memorial service. They've tried to get matching grants, federal money, private money, worked on fund drives, that kind of thing. Knott County really does need a new hospital, as you may have noticed."
All roads seemed to lead to the hospital. No matter what direction I started out in, I ended up at the front doors of Knott County Memorial.
"Has the boy spoken yet?" I asked, aware that pretty soon Stuart and Klavin would decide not to answer any more questions, just because.
"Not yet."
"And I know you've got him under very heavy, very careful guard?"
Klavin said, "You can believe that. Nothing will happen to that boy."
"His family come forward?"
"Oh, yes, they'd reported him missing the night before. And we found his car on the side of the road about a mile from the Almand house. He had a flat tire, and no spare."
"Well, that explains that. Considering the weather, he'd be glad to get a ride, no matter how nervous he was."
"Kids never think anything can happen to them," Stuart said grimly.
He'd found out different. He'd never be the same.
"Would you consider putting a guard on Manfred Bernardo?" I asked.
"He's older than the other boys," Stuart said.
"But he's part of the case."
"He's an adult, and he's in the hospital with plenty of people watching him," Klavin said gruffly. "Our budget's shot to hell."
"It's been interesting talking to you," I said. "Thanks."
"Did you know they were there?" Tolliver asked as we drove back to Doraville.
"No, I had no idea. I just wanted to look at the site again when it was clean."
"Clean?"
"No bodies. Just dirt and trees."
We drove in silence for a few minutes. Then I said, "Tolliver, if you knew you were going to be accused of murder in the next, say, three or four days—you weren't sure when, but you knew it was coming—what would you do?"
"I'd run," Tolliver said.
"What if you weren't quite sure?"
"If I thought there was a chance I wouldn't be picked out of the lineup, or whatever?"
I nodded.
"If I thought there was a chance I could hold on to my life, I think I'd try to stay around," Tolliver said, deep in thought. "Running is getting harder and harder with the rise of computers and the use of debit and credit cards. Cash isn't common, and people who use it are remembered. You have to show your driver's license for almost everything. It's hard to stay invisible in the United States, and it's hard to cross a border without a passport. If you're not a career criminal, it would be almost impossible to do either one."
"I don't think we're dealing with a career criminal here. I think we're dealing with an enthusiastic amateur."
Tolliver said, "Let's get out of here."
He was at the end of indulging me.
We'd had fights before, but they'd never had this element of the personal. But now we were more than manager and talent, more than brother and sister, more than survivors of a common hell.
And he was right. We had no business doing what the police were supposed to do, and God knows there were police enough to do it. But every time I thought of Chuck Almand, dead at thirteen because he wanted to lead me to discover what his life had been like, living with a man who tortured other boys for a pastime…. Then I told myself, He succeeded. He got you there, and all the law enforcement people, which was what he surely intended. Let them take the weight of this now.
"All right," I said. "Let's go."
Tolliver's shoulders relaxed. Up to that moment I hadn't realized how tense he'd been.
He was right.
We had to go to the police station to give our statements, and since there were still plenty of news crews around, we phoned ahead on the cell and asked if we could come in the back. We were denied permission. "It's already too crowded back there," the dispatcher said. "The state boys all have cars there, and a couple of the forensic guys, plus we have deputies working extra shifts. Park in the front, and we'll have someone watching out for you."