Lucas Tate shifted his weight back and forth, like he couldn’t figure out whether to stand his ground or come any closer. He said, “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Leo. If this is some kind of joke—you’re … you’re just desperate to wrap up one stupid old case before they turn you out like Wednesday’s trash!”
“Yet you knew exactly which case. I didn’t even have to say it.”
“Of course not!” Tate babbled. “You’ve been going on about the Rathole for months.”
Still calm. Still seated. Still holding the mask, Leo said, “You were there.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “You killed a restaurant full of people, and you buried it. You buried it a real long time—and I don’t know if you got dumber with age or maybe just more paranoid. But if you hadn’t gotten so nervous, it might’ve stayed buried.”
Tate leaned back, just enough to take half a step away from the cop and the mask. “You’ve lost it, Ramsey. They’re right to retire you.”
“I’ve seen it before. Guys who committed crimes they should’ve left in the past. But they get old. And scared. And then they make mistakes.”
“Is that how it works?” He struggled to sound sardonic.
Leo told him, “More often than not. People do stupid shit.” He shook his head. “You did stupid shit. You freaked out when you heard that the Rathole files were coming up for air. You’ve known Dr. Pretorius as long as I have. You know what kind of lawyer he is, and you can guess the kind of teacher he’s become. A room full of law students, eager to examine cases for extra credit—that’s the last thing you wanted. So you asked around and you found out Twitch would do anything for a buck. You paid him to start the fire in the courthouse.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Lucas mumbled.
“Only Twitch started looking like a bad bet. He was a loudmouth and a loser, and I don’t know—maybe he tried to blackmail you. Maybe you heard him mouthing off around town. So you went to Puff and you had Twitch taken care of.”
Lucas said, “No.” More firmly, he repeated himself. “No, that’s not true. None of it’s true. It was Father Squid, you said so yourself. That’s what Puff said. That’s what everybody said, and that’s why you took Squid off to jail, isn’t it? You’ve already got your killer. I’m sorry you don’t like it but—”
“Don’t.” Leo stopped him short. He shook his head. “You’re right. I didn’t like arresting Squid. I’ve trusted him with my life and worse. That’s the last man alive I wanted to cuff and book, much less on my way out the precinct door.”
“Well, that’s why you’re a good cop. You make the tough calls because they’re right.”
“Flattery won’t get you anyplace, Tate. I took Squid to make you think this was all over. So you’d figure it was safe to come for this.” He held up the mask again. “You were wearing this, the night you shot up the Rathole.” The detective looked down at the mask and noticed something in the dim light that he hadn’t seen before. No maker’s marks, no brand. No label. He guessed, “She made it for you, before she died.”
Tate’s voice was almost a squeak now. “She?”
“Ramona Holt, the joker girl who got creamed by Contarini’s car.”
“Contarini’s…?”
“It’s funny,” Leo continued. “Everything I ever learned about the Rathole came back to that damned car. The Sleeper cinched it for me, when I caught up to him. He said that the shooter had come inside, demanding to know who was driving it.”
“Oh, what the fuck would Croyd know, anyway?”
“He was there. He was hiding—he’d just woke up, and the joker-ace trait of the moment made him a human chameleon. He vanished when the kid with the gun joined the party. The kid in this mask.”
Tate shook his head violently. “All this is news to me, Ramsey.”
The detective shrugged. “It must’ve looked like you were free and clear for a while there. They picked up that poor little scavenger shit—another dumb kid, one who stumbled across an open register and a bloody restaurant. Then he got loose, Squid fingered him, and the Oddity pounded him to a pulp, and the whole thing looked shut. In thirty years, nothing new happened in the case. Until you hired Twitch to start a fire at the courthouse, and then I gave it another look.”
“You wasted your time. And now you’re wasting mine.”
“Nope. I’ve wasted some of Squid’s time, and for that I owe him an apology. But you’re the one who set him up, wearing that tentacle mask when you talked to Puff and Angel. I found it in the property room—a real expensive number, looked like one of Lovecraft’s wet dreams. You must’ve worn it, and put another mask over it. The effect would’ve been close enough to draw conclusions. I don’t know how you knew I was looking at Squid, but I know you keep your ears to the ground. And God knows Squid was making himself look guilty as sin.”
“Very funny.”
“Not at all. He was acting guilty about the Rathole because he was feeling guilty about the Rathole. He’d been in love with Lizzie, the counter girl there. She was carrying his little joker baby, and there’s no telling what it would’ve looked like, or if it would’ve lived, but it was his—and I’ve got the DNA paperwork to prove it. Poor guy. All these years he kept it to himself, and no one even guessed it because she died. So he was guilty of something, yes. But not guilty of killing her. I think he would’ve killed to protect her, if it’d come to that. Just like you would’ve killed to protect Ramona.”
Tate stood beneath the bulb. He was sweating now, and the shaky light made him look all the more unsettled. “Stop it.”
“I wish I could. Ramona Holt had been hanging out with the Demon Princes, same as you. She was about your age, hanging in your circle, and I think you fell for her. And when Contarini killed her—in that careless, offhanded hit-and-run—you lost it. Maybe you were there when it happened. Maybe it was your fault, or all this time you’ve felt like it was your fault. Maybe you saw the car, and caught a little bit of the license plate. And maybe, when you were running around a couple weeks later, you saw that car sitting in front of a diner, and you went inside.”
Leo paused.
Tate was so motionless that he might have stopped breathing. “No.”
“Tell me about Ramona, Tate.”
“No.”
“Was she beautiful?”
“No. Yes. I didn’t know her.”
“You did know her, Tate. You killed for her. Had you been drinking? Shooting up? In your book, you were pretty frank about that stuff. You had a problem with it, when you were on the streets.”
“No. Yes. Sometimes, I guess. I had a problem.”
“You must’ve been higher than Denver when you saw that car, and when you went inside that diner. You were wearing this mask,” Leo said again. “Croyd thought it was a hawk mask, at first. But later he told me it was an owl instead. He was right on his second guess.”
“No.”
“Yes, he was.”
Tate mustered enough indignation to say, “I can’t believe you’d take his word over mine.”
The detective said, “I don’t have to take his word. I have your mask.”
“But it doesn’t mean anything!”
“On the contrary. So thirty years go by and you set fire to a courthouse, and have a man killed to cover it,” he said. “And when I got interested in the Rathole again, you pointed me at Esposito. You might not have known him then, but you know him now, and you know a little something about him. He could’ve looked good for it. A button man for Gambione, and somebody who handled a lot of drugs, coming and going—and he even had a tie to two of the victims.”