“Caught me tying,” Ridley said.
“Tying what?”
“I’m going vertical this weekend. Getting everything ready now. Shitty day, why not, right?” He lifted a neat loop of black rope off an old recliner and set it on the floor, then indicated that Mark should take the chair.
“Going vertical?”
“In a cave, man.”
“I don’t follow.”
“People who haven’t been underground, they always think a cave is like a bunch of tunnels. You just walk or crawl or whatever. But they develop in layers, right? Layers of time and stone. That means you’re not just moving horizontally, you’re moving vertically.”
“Got you.” Mark sat down and looked at all the rope and tried to estimate how many feet were laid out. At least two hundred. Maybe more. Ropes of different sizes, from thick static lines to paracord, hung nearby. Along the far wall was a row of shelves covered with what looked like more climbing gear: Harnesses and carabiners and bolts. Several battered helmets with lamps mounted on them. On a low shelf, there were also face masks and oxygen tanks.
“You’re a diver,” Mark said.
“Not a diver. Still a caver.”
“You use that gear inside of caves?”
“Sure. Water carves the caves. It’s still carving them. Got to be willing to go through the water to find out what’s there.”
“I suppose so,” Mark said. “But I’m not here to talk about caving. I’ve got to make a decision about this case. Whether it’s the right fit for us. To know if—”
“Novak!” Ridley barked the name the way a furious coach might call out a player who’d just screwed up. Mark raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.
“You’re the one!” Ridley said. “I read about you. The investigator biographies, I read each of them, and you... with you, I knew. You had to be the one.”
“Why’s that?” Mark said. He’d gotten his first uneasy chill from Ridley, the first indication that this man’s cylinders didn’t fire in the standard patterns.
“You noticed the date, didn’t you?” Ridley’s eyes sparkled.
“What date?”
“I knew you would. Right there on your website it says that your work is dedicated to the memory of that girl, you know, and—”
“That girl,” Mark said, “was my wife.”
“Of course. But did you notice the dates? She was killed the same day that Sarah Martin went missing. Different years, of course, but the same day.”
Mark had not noticed the dates. He hadn’t had a chance to look at much more than Ridley’s letter, in fact, because he’d been shuffled out of town in such a hurry. Time had been short, and Mark’s information about Sarah Martin was so minimal, it would have been embarrassing if he’d actually cared about the case. He’d done no preliminary research, just proceeded with the one-page abstract and Ridley’s proposal letter. That why-bother approach was based on the knowledge that he was only marking time here until Jeff called him back, but now the lack of preparation was catching up with him.
“Is that so,” he said, his voice hollow.
“Absolutely. I noted it in my letter when I requested you, but maybe they didn’t show you that one?”
Frost spread through Mark’s veins. “You requested me?”
“Sure did. There were two letters. I guess they only showed you the one? But somebody must have agreed with me when I said that you were the right person for this.”
Mark felt an old tug, an instinct he’d thought was gone, one he’d tried so, so hard to put away: the urge to punch and keep on punching, swing until he could see the bones of his own hand through torn skin. He wasn’t thinking of punching Ridley Barnes, though; it was Jeff London’s face that he saw.
There are unsolved cases beyond Lauren’s, London had said. You’re going to need to prove you can continue to work them. Show me that you can still care about another case, Markus. If you can’t, then tell me.
Mark had insisted that he could and said that he understood Jeff’s point — Lauren’s case belonged to police investigators and not to him and if he didn’t accept that, he’d drown in it. All understood, check, check, check. But still Jeff sent him to Indiana to deal with this lunatic and, what, have some moment of clarity? It was a pathetic ploy, and an infuriating one.
“The date is irrelevant,” Mark said. “My only interest here is Sarah Martin. I’ve had a preliminary visit with the police, and that’s what I’m hoping to have with you. Explain what it is that I do, and what I don’t do, and—”
“Do you know what your name means?”
Mark tilted his head and stared at Ridley. “Excuse me?”
“The origin of your own name. Are you familiar with it?”
Mark took a deep breath and decided to indulge him. “My full first name is Markus. Markus means different things in different cultures. ‘Warring’ in one. ‘Hammer’ in another.”
“Mars was the god of war, you’re correct, but I mean your surname.”
“No idea. It’s Czech.”
“Excellent! Then you’re the new man, the stranger.” Ridley smiled. “Novak is the term for a newcomer in town. A stranger arriving.”
“Then it suits my family well,” Mark said. “But if we could get back to your story, I’d—”
“You want my notes? Hang on.” Barnes left the room, stepping through the ropes with an athlete’s grace that his weathered appearance didn’t hint at, disappeared down a short hallway, then returned with a stack of overflowing accordion folders. “Just take the files. I know it all inside out. Read it many, many times.” He pushed his shaggy hair back and said, “Trying to remember, you know. Trying to remember.”
“You do understand that if we undertake any investigation, the results could be damaging to you?”
“Obviously. But somebody needs to undertake it.” If Ridley Barnes was nervous about the idea, he didn’t show it. All that came off him was enthusiasm. There was something alarming about that.
“There’s a surveillance video in there,” Ridley said. “That one is a head-scratcher. Shows the cave entrance. Shows them go in and him come out. Shows the police going in and police coming out. And then... then me.” He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head violently. “Ah, damn.” A deep breath. “Someone needs to speak for her, you know. That’s why I went looking for people like you guys.”
“Yes,” Mark said. “Someone does need to speak for her.” He was looking at Barnes and wondering if this was a game to him, as Blankenship had suggested, if he’d killed the girl and gotten bored after the detectives went away and the years passed. If he wanted them back to play some more.
“Did you retain anyone to investigate on your behalf previously?”
“No.”
“Why now?”
Ridley shook his head, and he looked distressed, a patient who wanted a cure but didn’t want to have to describe his embarrassing symptoms.
“Ah, man, you know... patience was the thing. I’m struggling with that now. I’ll be honest with you. I’m struggling with it.”
“Clarify that.”
“Hard thing to clarify. What she wanted from me was patience. Maybe what she still wants from me. I have the promise, you know? She’ll tell me in time. I’ve tried to accept that, but, brother, it gets hard. The not-knowing? It gets hard.”
Mark had interviewed countless people with disturbed minds, including four in mental institutions, but he’d never felt as uncomfortable with any of them as he did with Ridley Barnes.