“That’s quite all-”
“The only other time I heard my father talk like that was when I dropped his first-edition copy of Brideshead Revisited in the bathtub and-”
“Is there some significance to this, Darcy?”
He had no answer. I could tell something was bothering him. But the cranial computer hadn’t quite lined up all the data yet.
“Don’t sweat it, Darcy. You’ve been brilliant enough for one day. I can’t believe you know so much about toxicology.”
“Do you think that I know a lot of things? My dad says I know more stuff than an encyclopedia, but it doesn’t matter because I don’t have the sense to know what to do with it.”
“That’s okay, my friend,” I said, linking my arm around his. “Because I do. Let’s go to the next crime scene.”
Did I make her happy I think maybe I made her happy and she looked happy but I remember sometimes Mommy looked happy and it turned out she wasn’t. She made me go to those places I didn’t like and Susan brought me to this place I didn’t like but it’s okay if it makes Susan happy. I found out that Susan is not married anymore and if she’s not married then she could marry me and we could have babies. She doesn’t have any babies but she could I know she could and that would be even better than the day care center. An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. I don’t know why it made her so happy all I told her was what was obvious but her voice was faster and higher and she touched my arm so I think that means she was happy so I’m happy too. I wonder if my dad will be happy. I wonder if he will let me go out more. Maybe he would even let me be a policeman. He thinks I don’t want to be a policeman, but I do. I want to make him happy. I just don’t understand why people do all these things they do. People always think I act crazy but I think the things other people do are crazier and I don’t understand them.
Maybe Susan can explain it to me. I would like that.
Even as I drove him out to the second crime scene at McCarran, I knew I had no right whatsoever to expect Darcy to come up with more breakthroughs, or to spark new ideas in me, or whatever it was he was doing. But I couldn’t help hoping, just the same. I wonder if that’s why God stopped with the miracles after the New Testament days. People are never satisfied. They always want more.
I asked one of the patrolmen to give Darcy access to the crime scene, then let the boy do as he pleased. Far be it for me to direct him. He spent almost an hour just wandering in and around the plane. He crouched down where the body had lain, looking at it from all angles, his head tilted with that uncanny android expression on his face. He paced the perimeter of the entire pavilion where the retired planes were stored. But he always came back to the place where the body had been found. He crouched down on all fours and pressed his face to the floor, his butt sticking up in the air. He looked like a bird dog sniffing for a scent. I could see one of the techs watching him out of the corner of his eye, laughing. I gave him the finger and told him to get to work. Asshole.
“The criminalists have been all over this site,” I told Darcy, just to hear myself talk. “They didn’t find much. No useful stains or residue. No blood. A few bits of carpet lint on the body.”
Darcy’s head rose, as if he had detected a new scent. “Carpet? Or rug?”
“Whatever. Something from her home or his that-”
“I think maybe it was a rug. Do you think maybe it was a rug?”
I paused. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I see the-”
“Did you know that murderers sometimes wrap bodies in rugs to make them easier to carry? During the 1934 torso murders in Cleveland, the killer-”
“But if the killer brought the corpse in a rug, where is it?”
“I think maybe he must’ve taken it home with him.”
I considered. “No. The body couldn’t have been wrapped, and he must’ve dragged it part of the way. There was dirt on the body.”
Darcy crouched down low again. “There’s a lot of dirt on the floor of the plane. Why would there be dirt on the floor of the plane?”
“I… guess the door blew open and-” Right. We were in a sea of concrete. “He brought the body from somewhere else. Probably got tired at some point and dragged it. It got dirty.”
“I didn’t see the body,” Darcy said. “Was it all scraped up?”
“Well, no. Actually, it seemed well cared for, even washed. Almost like he really cared about her.”
Darcy brushed his hands off and stood. “I think that maybe he brought this one here in a rug.”
And damn it all, I knew he was right. “But where did the dirt come from?”
“I think that maybe he brought that, too.”
“But why? For what reason?” I asked, but I realized that brilliant as he was, Darcy could never deduce the answers to these teleological questions. Because that required someone who understood the wild and wooly ways of people. Perhaps someone blessed with hyper-empathy. Yours truly. I thought a moment…
Because this was a burial, that’s why. At least in his deranged mind, this was a burial, so he’d brought dirt. Why hadn’t I seen it before?
I knew the answer to that question, too.
Because I hadn’t had Darcy before.
I put my arm around his neck and gave him a squeeze. He pulled away but not too hard. “Darcy, my friend, I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
He smiled cautiously, eyes up but chin tucked. “Did I-did I do something good?”
“You hit the ball out of the park, slugger.” Bizarre as it sounds, being with Darcy, working with him-if you can call it that-made me feel… better. Stronger. Like maybe I really could still do this.
“Does this mean that we could go for custard later? I like to eat frozen custard. Custard is my favorite thing because I know whenever I have custard it’s going to be a Very Excellent Day. On Wednesdays, my favorite is vanilla toffee, but my dad likes the bubble gum flavor-”
“Your dad likes bubble gum custard? Get out of here.”
“Sometimes he gets Oreo Cookie Mash. If we went now I think my dad wouldn’t mind and it would be okay and I don’t think it would spoil our dinner, do you?” He grinned that goofy grin again. Irresistible.
From a landing bay outside the Arrivals deck, he watched the crime technicians work through high-powered binoculars. His hand still hurt from the bite, but he had cleaned and dressed it and all his fingers were functional, if a bit weak. He was wearing his uniform, which was not the same as those of airport security but was more than enough to keep people from interfering with him. When a man in a uniform went to the airport, no one messed with him, especially these days.