I force myself to call.
“Hello?” Her voice is tremulous, tentative.
“Hey.”
“What are you doing in Las Vegas, Alex? Are you gambling?”
“I’m following a lead that Shoffler suggested.”
“Really? He’s not even connected to the case anymore.”
“He didn’t ask to be transferred. He continues to take an interest.”
“What lead?”
My mind spins. I’m not going to tell her anything about the Gabler twins, that’s for sure. I doubt the connection anyway, and what happened to the women is too gruesome to raise with Liz. “A bad lead. It didn’t go anywhere.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be in Vegas. My dad’s been thinking about it. You should be canvassing the houses near Shade Valley Road. That’s the most likely-”
“Liz. The police checked those homes. Over and over.”
“My dad’s convinced!” Her voice is shrill, out of control. We go on for a while. The tone continues to deteriorate. “I’m still expecting my spousal support,” she says. “Whether you have a job or not. I’m not supporting trips to Las Vegas. I mean it, Alex: The check better be on time.”
I tell myself this sour bitch isn’t really Liz. She doesn’t want to feel the loss and terror, so she’s sticking with anger.
“Liz.”
“I mean it, Alex. Don’t ask me to cut you any slack. Just don’t even try.”
I wish I could say the perfect thing, something to comfort and buoy her, something to give her hope. But the descent of my wife into this petty bitterness makes me so sad I’m afraid if I open my mouth, I might break down. I hang up.
She calls back four times. The escalating level of fury and vitriol will be recorded on my voice mail.
CHAPTER 24
At his suggestion, I meet Barry Chisworth at Rumjungle, an elaborate bar-restaurant in the lower level of Mandalay Bay. Like most of the other restaurants I passed on my way (the French Bistro, Red Square, etc.), this one has a theme. I’m just not sure what it is. Sheets of water cascade down the walls. Flames dance from an open pit. A safari fantasy, I guess. With water elements.
Chisworth is a stocky guy in his fifties, with the overdeveloped shoulders of a weight lifter. He has one of those little tufts of hair between his lower lip and his chin. “Thanks for giving me an excuse to get out of the house,” he says, with a crunching handshake. “I live alone, of course, but still…” He laughs at his own joke and I join him. “Try a mojito,” he suggests, holding up a tall glass. “Hemingway’s fave. Slammin’ little drink.”
I usually stick to beer, but I get the feeling Chisworth will be disappointed if I reject his suggestion. “Why not?”
“Two more of these bad boys,” he tells the bartender, and then turns back to me. “So… you want to know about the Gabler girls.” He leans toward me. “I want to make it clear that I won’t go on the record. Whatever I say – it’s strictly background.”
“You got it.”
“Well, it was some case. I see a lot of stuff – but that one was… definitely something.”
He fingers the tuft of hair, which he does often, as if it reassures him. It reminds me of the way Sean used to touch his blanket.
Sean. When I think of one of the boys in this incidental way – and this happens dozens of times a day – it’s like a trapdoor opens in my mind. And at first, I fell through it, fell into a kind of tumbling despair. But over the past couple of weeks, the thought of my sons, the fact that they’re missing – it doesn’t hit me the same way. I almost have to work at it, concentrate on my loss to feel it. And it occurs to me that somewhere deep inside, I’m getting used to it.
The waiter serves up the two mojitos, and Chisworth checks his glass toward mine. “Cheers.”
“You know,” he says, “I always figured the guy who did those two girls was more than a one-shot wonder, so to speak. You find anything yet?”
“My interest is more specific.” I explain who I am.
He does a double take. “I thought you looked familiar.” He fingers the tuft. “But… Jesus, how can there be a link between your sons and the Gablers?”
I shrug. “Identical twins.”
“Twins, yeah, but… not the same kind of twins. I mean, these were showgirls. Nice girls, maybe, but working a topless show, all the same. It’s hard to figure how the same psycho who snatched them would have any interest in… what?… male first-graders.”
I shrug.
“Well, for what it’s worth… a couple of things bugged the hell out of me.”
“Really.”
He leans toward me. “You’ve got this girl. Cut in two. Now the animals had been at her wounds for two weeks, so that wiped out any chance of establishing what kind of implement was used to sever her torso. You can conclude it was something sharp, probably metallic, but that’s about it. On the stand, and therefore in print, you can only present evidence and conclusions. In this case” – he shakes his head – “the soft tissues were really tattered. Even the bone had been nibbled on.”
My heart lurches.
“Metal fragments from wounds of that magnitude would normally be present. And they would help narrow down the type of weapon. With Clara Gabler, animals consumed those fragments. Any spatter evidence was also compromised by insects and wildlife.”
“Two weeks is a long time.”
“Any other climate, actually, and the remains would have been pudding – so in that sense, the remains told me quite a bit. Now, keep in mind that I’ve seen a lot of wounds. Hell, I’ve made a lot of wounds. And while I couldn’t testify to this, I’d say beyond my reasonable doubt that Clara Gabler was cut in two by a power rotary blade – a sweep from left to right across the torso. Good-sized blade. Maybe like so.” He puts down his mojito for a moment and holds his hands about a foot and a half apart in the air. “Fine kerf and hard enough to cut through bone without making too much of a mess. I say that because there wasn’t much splintering.”
“And these saws, saws like this would be… available? You could buy them?”
“Oh, sure. We’re just talking about a table saw. You could get it at Home Depot. But the thing is, to use a big table saw like that in the wilderness, you’d need a generator. Either that or an old-fashioned takeoff from a vehicle driveshaft to run the thing. And a platform to work on. And you’d have to get all that gear up there, way up past Icebox Canyon. A few ATVs, maybe one good off-road vehicle like a Land Rover, and you could do it. They’re illegal in the area where the bodies were found, but hey, it’s not like the Mojave is fenced in. And there’s a relatively easy way in from the direction of Death Valley. We found tracks, but that’s the thing – we found lots of tracks.
“But here’s the thing that got to me about it: Why bother schlepping a rotary saw and a generator and some kind of table up there? Why call attention to yourself by breaking the law with ATVs and so on if you’re going to commit murder? That’s what I couldn’t figure. I mean if you’re going to mutilate someone – a chain saw would be very efficient.”
I see what he means. “So – why would someone go to all that trouble? In your opinion.”
“I just couldn’t get my head around it.” He shrugs, takes another sip of his mojito. “Of course, whoever murdered the Gablers is obviously a whack job, so I guess there’s no reason the method should make sense.”