The two figures had been put in transparent garment bags, and the bags hung with baling wire from a rafter. The weight had stretched the bags into the shape and wispy texture of cocoons. One of the figures was a woman. Her hair was pressed in a bloody tangle against the plastic. She was probably dead when she went into the bag. The other figure was a man. His wrists were crisscrossed behind him with duct tape. One eye was half-lidded, the other popping from the socket. His mouth was attached to the plastic like a suction cup.
Clete walked to the corner of the basement and retched, his big arms propped against the wall, hiding his face from me, the smell of whiskey rising from the concrete.
The rain shower had already stopped when the first sheriff’s cruiser arrived, followed by the paramedics, the crime scene techs, the coroner, the sheriff, and the FBI special agent I’d had words with earlier, James Martini. He went down in the basement for five minutes. When he came back, his tie was pulled loose and his face had a winded look, although he was a trim, muscular man in his late thirties who probably worked out regularly. He seemed unsure of what he wanted to say. “Who got sick down there?” he asked.
“My friend Clete Purcel.”
He nodded, looking around, his gaze focused on nothing. “You ever work one like this before? Down in Louisiana?”
“Not exactly.”
“Why is Surrette prowling this ridge?” he asked.
“Part of it has to do with Albert Hollister.”
“The writer?”
“He owns a ranch just down the road. He was Asa Surrette’s creative writing professor at Wichita State University in 1979. Surrette has a grievance against him, something about an objectionable short story he turned in.”
“That’s a new one.”
“A guy like this doesn’t need much of an excuse.”
“Your daughter interviewed Surrette in prison and got him stoked up?”
“That’s close enough. Right now I’d like to keep her alive.”
“You don’t think we’re doing our job?”
“He means to kill her if he can. Surrette should have been gutted, salted, and tacked to a fence post years ago. That didn’t happen.”
“The Bureau is at fault?” he said.
“One time I pulled over a drunk driver, then let him go because he had no priors and was two blocks from his house. Three hours later, he killed his wife.”
“The Bureau had limited reach on Surrette’s crimes in Kansas,” he replied.
He was a company man and he wasn’t going to concede a point. I didn’t blame him for it. I had a feeling he wasn’t dealing well with the scene in the basement. No normal person would. The day you are not bothered by certain things you witness as a police officer is the day you need to turn in your shield. Martini removed a notebook from his coat pocket and opened it. He was a nice-looking man, with high cheekbones and a flush to his cheeks and a crew cut that had started to recede. He seemed to study the notebook, then gave up the pretense.
“I don’t blame you for your feelings,” he said. “I have a teenage daughter. I don’t think I could handle it if she were abducted by a predator. I don’t know how any parent does.”
“You’re sure the two girls are with him?” I said.
“The older one, Kate, was scheduled to be at work at Dairy Queen at six. She didn’t show up. Lavern was supposed to go to a birthday party this evening. There’re some messages for her on the phone. Truth is, we don’t have a clue about this guy’s whereabouts. Why do you think he didn’t kill the girls inside, when he had the chance?”
“A friend of mine thinks he’s going into meltdown and planning to take it out on the girls.”
“Why’s he going into meltdown?”
“Felicity Louviere is stronger than he is, and he knows it.”
Clete Purcel was talking to a sheriff’s detective by a cruiser. The agent watched him curiously. “I think you guys are operating as vigilantes, Detective Robicheaux,” he said. “I think you plan to cool out Surrette.”
“That’s news to me.”
“A guy with the AG’s office in New Orleans says Clete Purcel may have poured liquid Drano down a Nazi war criminal’s throat.”
“I wouldn’t believe everything I hear down there,” I replied.
“The guy says you were probably there when it happened.”
“Some days I think I have Alzheimer’s.”
“Maybe you ought to see a doc. Take Purcel with you.”
“What for?”
“There’s blood in his barf,” he said. “Maybe he drank some of that Drano himself.”
At eight-fifteen that evening, Gretchen Horowitz went up to Alafair’s bedroom. Alafair was working at her desk, wearing jeans and loafers without socks and a man’s long-sleeved khaki shirt. Shadows had already started to fall on the pasture and the barn, and the crests of the hills had taken on a golden glow in the sunset. “I was wondering where you were,” Alafair said.
Gretchen sat down on the edge of the bed. “I had a visit with Caspian Younger.”
“Did Dave tell you what happened at the house up the road?”
“Clete told me. I need to talk to you about something.”
“You know about the abduction of the two girls? They used to feed carrots to Albert’s horses.”
“Yeah, I heard all about it, Alafair. Did you hear what I said? I’ve got to talk with you.”
Alafair set down the sheet she had been working on and took off her glasses. “You need to rein it in, Gretchen.”
“I did a beat-down on Caspian Younger and that ex-detective Jack Boyd.”
“Clete already tore them up.”
“I thought a second helping wouldn’t hurt. My head is bursting. Will you please listen to me?”
“Yes, please tell me, whatever it is.”
“You don’t have to get bent out of shape. Rhonda Fayhee told me she was kept in a basement of some kind. She could hear water lapping against a boat or a dock or a beach. She also heard an airplane taking off and landing, but it was below the level of the window. She heard wind through a lot of trees close by. Here’s the last part: Not far away, people were singing a hymn of some kind. Rhonda remembered the words ‘Life is like a mountain railroad, with an engineer that’s brave.’ ”
“Those details don’t go together very well,” Alafair said. “The plane was beneath the level of the window?”
“She could hear water chucking at the same time.”
“She was on a hillside by a lake, one big enough for an amphibian?”
“That’s what I would think,” Gretchen said. “A lake that has a lot of trees on the shore.”
“There are lakes all over this area. Over in Idaho, too.”
“She said the wind made a rushing sound in the trees, like they grew everywhere and were thick with leaves.”
“An orchard?” Alafair said.
“Yeah, an orchard,” Gretchen said. “It’s cherry-picking season. Where would that put us?”
“Flathead Lake?” Alafair said.
“I’m glad you said that.”
“Why?”
“Because Caspian was bragging about his contacts in Vegas. He said he could have Clete shredded into fish chum. He said there would be nothing left of Clete except a bloody skim floating on Flathead Lake. What does Flathead Lake have to do with Vegas?”
“He had the lake associated with Surrette’s previous involvement with the casinos?”
“It’s a possibility,” Gretchen said.
“It’s more than that,” Alafair said.
“There’s something else. Caspian Younger told Bertha Phelps where his father was.”