“Well… you come on in anytime. Wind might kick up strong after midnight. Back door’ll be locked, but the key’s under that olla de barro.” She pointed at the old clay pot, then crossed her hands above her admirable bosom and did a little bow. “You are fine folks, and I thank you for coming here and trying to do right by my boy.” With that, she rolled away. The six of them sat a little longer.
“That’s a good woman,” Alec said.
“Yes,” Holly said. “She is.”
Claude lit a Tiparillo. “Cops on my side,” he said. “That’s a new experience. I like it.”
Holly said, “Is there a Walmart in Plainville, Mr. Bolton? I need to do some shopping, and I love Walmarts.”
“Nope, and a good thing, because Ma does, too, and I’d never get her out of it. Closest thing to it we got in these parts is the Home Depot in Tippit.”
“That should do,” she said, and stood up. “We’ll clean those dishes so Lovie doesn’t have to in the morning, and then we’ll be on our way. We’ll be back tomorrow to pick up Lieutenant Sablo, then leave for home. I think we’ve done all we can do here. Do you agree, Ralph?”
Her eyes told him what to say, and he said it. “Sure.”
“Mr. Gold? Mr. Pelley?”
“I think we’re fine,” Howie said.
Alec went along. “Pretty well done here.”
13
Although they returned to the house only fifteen minutes or so after Lovie had taken her leave, they could already hear rough snores coming from her bedroom. Yune filled the sink with suds, rolled up his sleeves, and began to wash the few things they had used. Ralph dried; Holly put away. The evening light was still strong, and Claude was out back with Howie and Alec, touring the property and looking for any signs of the previous night’s intruder… if there had been one.
“I’d’ve been all right even if I’d left my sidearm home,” Yune said. “I had to go through Mrs. Bolton’s bedroom to get into her bathroom where she keeps her oxygen, and she’s well gunned up. Got a Ruger American ten-plus-one on the dresser, extra clip right beside it, and a Remington twelve-gauge leaning in the corner, right next to her Electrolux. Don’t know what old Claudie’s got, but I’m sure he’s got something.”
“Isn’t he a convicted felon?” Holly asked.
“He is,” Ralph agreed, “but this is Texas. And he seems rehabilitated to me.”
“Yes,” she said. “He does, doesn’t he?”
“I think so, too,” Yune said. “Seems like he’s turned his life around. I’ve seen it before when people get into AA or NA. When it works, it’s like a miracle. Still, this outsider couldn’t have picked a better face to hide behind, wouldn’t you say? Given his history of drug sales and service, not to mention a gang background with Satan’s Seven, who’d believe him if he said he was being framed for something?”
“No one believed Terry Maitland,” Ralph said heavily, “and Terry was immaculate.”
14
It was dusk when they got to the Home Depot, and after nine o’clock when they arrived back at the Indian Motel (observed by Jack Hoskins, once more peering through the drapes in his room and rubbing obsessively at the back of his neck).
They carried their purchases into Ralph’s room and laid them out on the bed: five short-barreled UV flashlights (with extra batteries) and five yellow hardhats.
Howie picked up one of the flashlights and winced at the bright purple glare. “This thing will really pick up his trail? His spoor?”
“It will if it’s there,” Holly said.
“Huh.” Howie dropped the flashlight back on the bed, put on one of the hardhats, and went to the mirror over the dresser to inspect himself. “I look ridiculous,” he said.
No one disagreed.
“We’re really going to do this? Try to, at least? That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way. It’s me trying to get my head around it as an actual fact.”
“I think we’d have a hard job convincing the Texas Highway Patrol to pitch in,” Alec said mildly. “What exactly would we tell them? That we think there’s a monster hiding in the Marysville Hole?”
“If we don’t do it,” Holly said, “he’ll kill more children. It’s how he lives.”
Howie turned to her, almost accusingly. “How are we going to get in? The old lady said it’s buttoned up tighter than a nun’s underwear. And even if we do, where’s the rope? Doesn’t Home Depot sell rope? They must sell rope.”
“We shouldn’t need any,” she said quietly. “If he’s in there—and I’m almost sure he is—he won’t have gone deep. For one thing, he’d be afraid of getting lost himself, or of being caught in a cave-in. For another, I think he’s weak. He should be in the hibernation part of his cycle, but instead he’s been exerting himself.”
“By projecting?” Ralph asked. “That’s what you believe.”
“Yes. What Grace Maitland saw, what your wife saw… I believe those were projections. I think a small part of his physical self was there, that’s why there were traces in your living room, why he could move the chair and turn on the stove light, but not even enough to leave impressions on the new carpet. Doing that has to tire him out. I think he might have shown up wholly in the flesh only a single time, at the courthouse on the day Terry Maitland was shot. Because he was hungry, and knew there would be a lot to eat.”
“He was there in the flesh but didn’t show up on any of the TV videotape?” Howie asked. “Like a vampire who doesn’t cast a reflection in mirrors?”
He spoke as if expecting her to deny this, but she didn’t. “Exactly.”
“Then you think he’s supernatural. A supernatural being.”
“I don’t know what he is.”
Howie took off the hardhat and tossed it onto the bed. “Guesswork. That’s all you’ve got.”
Holly looked wounded by this, and at a loss for how to reply. Nor did she seem to realize what Ralph saw, and was sure Alec saw, as welclass="underline" Howard Gold was frightened. If this thing went sideways, there was no judge to whom he could object. He could not ask for a mistrial.
Ralph said, “It’s still hard for me to accept all this stuff about El Cuco or shape-shifters, but there was an outsider, that I do accept now. Because of the Ohio connection, and because Terry Maitland simply couldn’t have been in two places at the same time.”
“The outsider screwed up there,” Alec said. “He didn’t know Terry was going to be at that convention in Cap City. Most of his chosen scapegoats would be like Heath Holmes, with alibis like cheesecloth.”
“That doesn’t follow,” Ralph said.
Alec raised his eyebrows.
“If he got Terry’s… I don’t know how to say it. Memories, sure, but not just memories. A sort of…”
“A sort of terrain map of his consciousness,” Holly said quietly.
“Okay, call it that,” Ralph said. “I can accept that there’s stuff he could have missed, the way speed readers miss stuff while they’re zipping along, but that convention would have been a big deal to Terry.”
“Then why would the cuco still—” Alec began.
“Maybe he had to.” Holly had picked up one of the UV flashlights and was shining it on the wall, where it picked up a ghostly handprint from some previous resident. It was a thing Ralph could have done without seeing. “Maybe he was too hungry to wait for a better time.”
“Or maybe he didn’t care,” Ralph said. “Serials often get to that point, usually just before they get caught. Bundy, Speck, Gacy… eventually they all started to believe they were a law unto themselves. Godlike. They got arrogant and overreached. And this outsider didn’t overreach by all that much, did he? Think about it. We were going to arraign Terry and see him put on trial for the murder of Frank Peterson in spite of everything we knew. We were sure his alibi had to be bogus, no matter how strong it was.”