But they didn’t sit down.
The stern-looking woman was demonstrating her knowledge in her very being, Teddy figured. No one would act this way if they were ignorant of the situation. She knew exactly why they were here.
A door was cracked open beside the fireplace. Teddy watched Vega give it a slight push with his elbow and moved closer. The room gave way to a short set of steps leading down to an outside door on the back of the house. Boxes were stacked along the wall. Through the window they could see a van parked in the driveway. A man got behind the wheel and drove off. Teddy looked at the floor, noting it was wet from melting snow.
“It’s a little early for deliveries,” Powell said.
Vega nodded. “Maybe their carting the stuff away,” he said. “Maybe we’re interrupting something.”
They traded looks. As Vega closed the door, Teddy noticed a picture on the mantel. It was a photograph of Edward as a young boy sitting on the lawn with his dog. The dog was a mutt and wore a plaster cast on its front leg. Little Edward spawned an off-balance smile and must have been ten years old at the time. He wore shorts and sneakers and a polo shirt. He looked angry and vicious, even then.
Twenty minutes passed before they heard footsteps in the hall. When they entered, Teddy looked at Trisco’s father and knew his termination notice from the firm of Barnett amp; Stokes was in the mail. It was the same man he’d seen in Larry Stokes’s office. The old man who sat on the couch behind his back and listened to Stokes deliver his bullshit lecture on toeing the company line. Obviously, Teddy hadn’t followed instructions. Trisco’s father either knew Stokes or threw business his way in order to have some degree of influence over him. From the grim expression on the old man’s face, Teddy suspected the latter. The man had the look of a reptile.
But there was a younger man with them as well. One with bigger teeth whom Teddy guessed would be doing all the talking. He wore an expensive suit, appeared meticulously groomed, and approached Vega with an outstretched hand and well-practiced smile. He introduced himself as Rick Colestone. The Trisco’s had waited the twenty minutes out until one of their lawyers arrived.
“The Trisco’s haven’t heard from their son for several years,” Colestone said matter-of-factly. “They’re deeply concerned about his whereabouts and will do anything in their power to help.”
That’s why they called you, Teddy thought. Because of their great concern and power and willingness to help. He looked at the Triscos, saw their wooden faces, and noticed no one was making a move to sit down. Colestone’s job was to deliver his prepared statement, and get them out of the house as pleasantly as he could.
Vega narrowed his eyes and appeared undaunted. “We have reason to believe Edward may have information that would shed some light on a missing persons investigation.”
“But you’re from homicide,” Colestone said. “You’re the lead investigator in the Holmes case. What’s your interest in a missing person?”
“The witness who saw Edward leave with the girl used to manage a cafe. Now he’s in the morgue.”
If the goal was to shake up Trisco’s parents, Vega succeeded. Teddy watched them take the jolt, and noticed beads of sweat forming along the attorney’s hairline. Vega had played it perfectly. He’d given them the big picture without saying it. They were looking for Edward because he was a suspect in the murders of twelve women. Harris Carmichael made it thirteen. Rosemary Gibb, they hoped, would still be alive when they found her. It had to remain unsaid. Because of the district attorney, because of Holmes’s confession, Vega had to stir things up carefully. Paint the context in a light wash with watercolors, rather than define it in oils. He was a pro.
“If you’re referring to Edward’s medical history,” Colestone said, “or anything he might have done in the past, let me tell you that the boy was released from the Haverhills facility with a clean bill of health.”
“So I’ve heard,” Vega said. “I haven’t had a chance to pay them a visit, but I understand the Trisco family is responsible for funding the hospital’s new wing and it’s open now.”
Colestone blinked, then caught himself. Obviously, his clients had failed to give him a full briefing.
“The Trisco family has interests in many charitable endeavors,” the attorney said. “Now I think it’s time for you good people to leave.”
They started for the door. Teddy caught Trisco’s father staring at him.
“What happened to the dog?” Teddy said.
The old man’s eyes widened a little. He appeared confused by the question and very irritated. Teddy smiled and pointed at the photograph in the Sterling silver frame on the mantel. When the man saw it, his withered cheeks twitched.
“The dog’s got a broken leg,” Teddy said. “What happened to him?”
“He died,” the old man said through his teeth.
Teddy ignored the man’s fury. He knew his job was lost the moment they’d walked into the room. If the old man had asked for Stokes’s phone number, he would’ve given it to him.
“How did he die?” Teddy asked.
The old man showed his fangs. “Someone fed him rat poison,” he said.
SIXTY
Eddie jabbed the hypodermic needle into his thigh, let out a moan, then pushed the morphine into his leg. The right side of his body was throbbing from head to toe. He checked his watch, calculating that it would take ten to twenty minutes before the pain slipped away.
As he got up off the seat of the john, his image raked across the bathroom mirror and he set the needle down. His face looked like an etching in cuts and scratches. When the kid with gusto fired the shotgun into the car, glass sprayed forward and bounced off the windshield into his face. He’d had enough sense to cover his eyes. He hadn’t been blinded. Still, the experience and pain that went with it was harrowing enough to spawn a series of nightmares. Last night he dreamed he was a beekeeper without a mask. As he collected honey from the nest on orders from his mother, the bees swarmed his face and began stinging him. There were hundreds of them. Thousands of them, clinging to his face in a mask three inches thick. He woke up in a cold sweat, gasping for air and swatting at the insects until he remembered the shattered glass. It was the shards of glass that had disfigured him. The kid with gusto who had transformed his appearance and made him stand out.
He stepped into the bedroom and opened the closet door. As he got dressed, he could hear Rosemary start up again from the basement. He thought she might be hungry. But maybe it was more than that. Since he’d seen the angel painting in the barn, he hadn’t been able to look at Rosemary or get any work done. There was the chance he’d made a horrible mistake with his painting, wasted the entire fucking year on the wrong fucking face. How could he break through and become famous when he’d painted the wrong type of woman? Rosemary wasn’t an angel. None of them had been. Eddie shook it off. He’d deal with it when the pain went away. Try to look at his painting from a fresh perspective and decide if his life was ruined or not.
He walked downstairs into the kitchen, opened the door to the pantry and reached for another can of Chef Boyardee ravioli. Then he descended the stairs into the basement, entering the workroom and listening to his model rant and rave. He unlocked the bathroom door and switched on the light. She was sprawled out on the concrete floor, staring back at him with wild eyes. The house dress he’d given her was partially open and made her look like a whore. She was beginning to smell and needed a shower as well.