Never Flinch (Holly Gibney #4)

Chapter 7

1

May 22nd. The day after the Des Moines disaster.

Corrie lets herself into Kate’s mini-suite with a key card that works for both rooms. She comes bearing coffee, croissants, and the morning paper. Kate is looking out the window. There’s nothing to see out there but the parking lot, Corrie knows because she has the same view, but Kate doesn’t look around when the door closes. Her iPad is open on the table next to the window.

“Maybe I should cancel the rest of the tour,” Kate says to the window. “Ever since Reno, if it wasn’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all.”

Hey, I’m here, too , Corrie thinks. Been here from the jump. And you weren’t the one who got Clorox thrown in her face. Not the one who could have inhaled anthrax. That was me, Kate. That was me .

As if hearing her thought (and Corrie believes such things are possible), Kate turns from the window and gives her a smile. There’s not much wattage in it. “So are you the Jonah, or is that me?”

“Neither of us. You’re not seriously thinking of canceling the tour, are you?”

Kate pours a cup of coffee. “Actually, after last night, I am. Have you seen this morning’s paper?”

“No, have you? You left it outside your door. I picked it up.” A bear for her news, is Kate McKay. Ordinarily.

“Got it on my iPad. Didn’t even have to cough up to get past the paywall. First five articles free, such a deal. I’m on the front page. My photo right next to one of a woman screaming in pain.”

“If you cancel the tour, your people— our people—will call you a coward. Their people will gloat. You’re a loser either way. The only way you win is if you keep on keeping on.”

Kate looks at her fixedly. Corrie, unaccustomed to such close and protracted scrutiny, looks down and starts spreading jam on a croissant.

“What do your parents say, Corrie?”

“I haven’t called them. Don’t need to.” Because she knows what they’d say. At this point, even her father might tell her it was time to cut her losses.

Kate gives a humorless laugh. “Either the last few days have changed you, or you were tougher than I thought all along. When we started out, I thought you wouldn’t say boo to a goose.”

Corrie thinks, That’s one of the reasons you picked me. Isn’t it? A new insight, and not a particularly welcome one.

“So which is it, Cor?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a little of both.”

Corrie can feel a blush heating her cheeks, but Kate doesn’t see it. She’s turned back to the window, hands clasped at the small of her back. She makes Corrie think of a general surveying a battlefield that’s been contended for and lost. That might be overblown, but in the current case maybe not. What happened last night after the gig was an authentic horror show.

She glances at Kate’s iPad, which shows the front page of The Des Moines Register . Looking at the juxtaposition of the two women shown there makes Corrie wince. Kate on the right, smiling brilliantly (not to say sexily), the screaming, disheveled woman on the left, wearing a Woman Power tee.

Looking out the window, Kate says, “Who knew there was so much fucking Iowa?”

“The Iowans,” Corrie says. She’s still looking at the screaming woman. Disheveled or not, she looks like a librarian. The kind who’d stand up to would-be book-banners politely but firmly.

“It was a good gig, wasn’t it, Cor?”

“It was.” Nothing but the truth.

“Until it wasn’t.”

Also nothing but the truth.

2

The usual scrum was waiting for them outside the stage door; women who wanted selfies, women who wanted autographs, speculators with rarities they wanted signed, women who wanted to show off their Woman Power tats, women who just wanted to shout I love you, Kate!

Their security guy in Des Moines was no Ham Wilts. Sergeant Elmore Packer was young, strong, alert. And after what happened in Omaha, he was taking no chances. Which turned out to be a problem.

Packer saw what appeared to be the barrel of a gun poking out from the crowd of jostling, excited women, and didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the supposed gun barrel, not registering in his amped-up state that it was glass rather than steel. The woman on the other end came with it, either too shocked to let go or afraid someone was trying to steal the rather expensive present she had brought for her idol. Packer grabbed her, whirled her around, and fractured her arm in so doing. The bottle she was carrying fell to the pavement and exploded, spraying a crowd of screaming, horrified women with Dom Pérignon 2015, a very good year. Three dozen cell phones recorded the moment for posterity.

The woman with the broken arm is Cynthia Herron, not a librarian but the assistant superintendent of the Polk County DMV. An authentic Good Person, she does charity work in her church and volunteers at a city animal shelter. She suffers from type-2 diabetes and osteoporosis. The caption beneath her screaming face reads: I just wanted to bring her something nice .

“ Breitbart didn’t waste any time,” Kate says. “You know what they call me, right?”

Corrie knows: RJ, for ratchet-jaw.

“They say, and I quote, ‘RJ is against police brutality except when the brutality in question is employed to protect her precious butt.’ Nice, huh?”

Corrie says nothing, so Kate employs her chick telepathy. “Okay, the pity party’s over. You’re right, the show must go on, so how do we handle this? I have a couple of ideas, but I want yours.”

“Start with a statement. There’s a ton of press downstairs. Something along the lines of how everyone’s on edge after what happened in Reno and Omaha.”

“What else? Show me how much you’ve learned.”

Corrie is simultaneously amused and resentful. It crosses her mind that by the end of August, which is how long the tour is supposed to last, she might actually dislike Kate. If they were together until Christmas ( please no , she thinks reflexively), dislike might become outright loathing. Is it always that way with famous people, or only famous people who are totally fixated on their causes?

“I’m waiting,” Kate says.

“We need to go straight to the hospital and visit Ms. Herron. If she’ll see us, that is.”

“She will,” Kate says with utter confidence.

And she does.

3

Kate gives Cynthia Herron a signed Woman Power shirt. (“To make up for the one that got champagne stains on it.”) One reporter and an accompanying photographer are present, and in tomorrow’s Register there will be a photo of Herron not screaming in pain but holding Kate’s hand and looking up at her with starry eyes.

Kate answers a few more questions in the hospital lobby. Then they’re back in the truck and bound for Iowa City. No bustling metropolis, maybe, but Kate’s motto is “when you go small, you get big rewards.”

“I think that went all right,” she says.

Corrie nods. “It did.”

“I want you to get on your iPad, hon. Research the next stops on our tour. We need somebody watching out for us, you were right about that, but no more men. Packer meant well, but the big strong man protecting the damsel in distress…” Kate shakes her head. “Wrong look. You agree?”

Corrie does.

“No more men,” Kate says, “and no more cops.”

“Who does that leave?”

“Fifty per cent of the population. You figure it out.”

And before they get to Iowa City, Corrie thinks she has.

4

While Kate and Corrie are on their way to the Athens of the Midwest, Holly, Izzy, and Barbara Robinson are having lunch in Dingley Park. Barbara regales them with stories of Sista Bessie’s rehearsals at the Sam’s Club and tells them about how she and Betty are actually collaborating on turning Barbara’s poem “Lowtown Jazz” into a song.

“Except she just wants to call it ‘Jazz,’?” Barbara says. “She says that when she plays the Mingo, starting the thirty-first, she’ll sing ‘Jazz, jazz, that razzmatazz, play that Lowtown jazz.’ But when she’s in Cleveland—”

“It’ll be that Hough jazz,” Izzy says. “And in New York, that Harlem jazz. The personal touch. I like it.”

“That’s not all,” Barbara says. “One of Betty’s roadies had a heart attack, not too bad but he’s got to take it easy for awhile. I talked to Acey Felton, he’s in charge of the crew, and asked if I could take Batty’s place.”

“Batty,” Holly says, and chomps into her Chicago dog. “That’s quite a handle.”

“His real name is Curtis James, but the story is that when he was on a Black Sabbath tour, he… never mind, it’s just that roadies have the best nicknames and the best stories. I’m writing them down in a notebook. Might do something with them, I don’t know what. Anyhow, Acey made me roll one of the monitors and lift it, and when he saw I could, he hired me! I think Betty—you know, Sista—thinks having a poet move trusses and roll amps is sort of funny.”

This is all very interesting, but Holly can no longer rein in her curiosity. “What do you know about the man who was murdered out in Tapperville, Izzy? Was he Bill W.’s work?”

Izzy gives a meaningful look at Barbara.

“I think you can trust Barb,” Holly says. “She was offered a lot of money to contribute to Buckeye Brandon’s House of Horrors podcast about the Harrises, and turned it down.” Nor is that all. Barbara once saw something in the elevator of Holly’s building that was beyond all rationality, and has never said a word about it… unless you count the title poem of her book, which is of course about the nightmare who went (in Buckeye City, at least) by the name of Chet Ondowsky.

“I can take a walk over to the softball field, if you want,” Barbara offers.

“No need. If Holly says you can keep quiet, that’s good enough for me.”

“What you hear here, who you see here, when you leave here, let it stay here,” Holly murmurs.

“What’s that?” Izzy asks.

“It’s what they say at the end of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I know about it from my friend John Ackerly.”

Izzy’s eyebrows go up almost all the way to her hairline. “You know the guy who found Rafferty’s body?”

“In a way, I’m responsible for him finding it. Remember I said I knew someone in the Program? That was John. He told me if anyone knew who might want payback for Duffrey’s death, it would be a guy called Big Book Mike, or the Rev. He lost his church because of an opioid habit and John says he pretty much replaced church with AA and NA. Did you find a juror’s name in his hand?”

“Holly, you’re a spook. Always one step ahead of me.”

Barbara says, “She’s got mad skills, all right.”

“No name in the dead guy’s hand. A Tapperville cop and a detective from the County Sheriff’s office responded to your friend’s call. They vibed it as a robbery. Wallet gone, wristwatch gone, clothes knocked off their hangers in the closet, bedside drawers open. They filed a report with us, and I thought of Bill Wilson right away.”

Barbara: “That’s the bad guy?”

“It’s the alias he’s using,” Holly says. And to Izzy: “This Rafferty must have known something, or Bill Wilson thought he did. He was killed to shut him up.” An uncomfortable thought comes to her: If John Ackerly had gone out to Tapperville earlier, he might also have been killed. And I’d be responsible .

Holly leans toward Izzy. She’s not good at invading the space of others (or having hers invaded), but this is important. “Can you make it your case? I know Tapperville is county jurisdiction, but—”

“We get along pretty well with the state cops and the Sheriff’s Department. They’re actually covering for us the night of the Guns and Hoses game because so many of our guys are playing or want to watch. They won’t give us the case, but they’d share, no doubt.”

“Someone needs to go through his house. Bill Wilson killed him for a reason. Maybe the reason is still there.”

“Tom and I will take a run out there this afternoon.” She pauses. “No, make it this evening. I’ve got court this afternoon.”

“And I’ve got a bail jumper to locate. Plus a stolen truck. One of those Cyber thingies. A Musk-mobile.”

“Since we’re sharing secrets, can I tell you one?” Barbara asks.

“Of course,” Holly says.

“The mayor asked Sista—Betty, I mean—to sing the National Anthem at the Guns and Hoses game. And she said yes!”

“Finally some good news about that fucking game,” Izzy says. “Anyone want another hotdog?”

5

Christine’s twin brother, Christopher, is staying in another fleapit motel, this one in Iowa City. The murdering women are of course in a much better place, probably enjoying room service breakfasts and possibly mani-pedis in the spa. There won’t be room service in hell, only doom service.

This makes him laugh.

His room is hot, almost stifling. He turns the air conditioner up to high. It rattles madly but doesn’t cool the room very much. He picked up a manila envelope at Mail Now on Kirkwood Avenue. It helps that the entire tour is on Kate McKay’s website; he and Chrissy can get mail anywhere. The only mail he expects is from Andrew Fallowes, the treasurer of Real Christ Holy in Baraboo Junction, Wisconsin. Do the Real Christ Holy congregants know where a portion of their considerable tithes are going? Chris doesn’t think so, but he thinks most—not all, but most—would approve if they did. Still, Andy Fallowes is right: compartmentalization is the only way this mission can work; if they are caught or killed, the church must not find itself caught in the blowback. Real Christ Holy is already on the FBI and ATF radar.

He opens the envelope. There’s no note, only sixty twenty-dollar bills in Saran Wrap. There will be more, probably in Madison or Toledo. He puts a few of the twenties in his wallet, the rest in his shaving bag. He’s traveling with two good-sized suitcases, one pink and one blue.

Chris goes into the bathroom and examines his face in the mirror. Looking haggard, Christopher . Yes. He is. Chrissy can wear makeup and is quite good-looking. Not a stunner, but she won’t crack any mirrors, either.

He thinks, They have been warned. We gave them a chance to back off.

But did he think they would? Chrissy might have—she’s very much her mother’s daughter—but not him. The McKay bitch is as much of a crusader as those knights who wanted to liberate Jerusalem in the eleventh century. He can admire that; he is also a crusader. So, in her slightly gentler way, is Chrissy. Zealots, some would say. And really, wasn’t Reno a chance to end it without bloodshed?

He’s not stupid, knows perfectly well that Andy Fallowes has sent them on what’s probably a suicide mission, but that’s okay. He means to follow through. Chrissy will, too. Perhaps once the job is done and the leader of the abortion murder cult is no more, they can make an end to this miserable divided life he and his sister have been leading.

He undresses slowly. Shirt, shoes, pants, socks. In the other room, the air conditioner rattles and rattles. He thinks about the bunk bed, of course he does. The hand hanging down in a beam of morning sun dancing with motes of golden dust. That dead hand. He tells himself to stop, that she’s not dead— never died, never died —but that memory torments him. He can erase the rest, but never the hand in the sunlight, hanging down from the upper bunk.

Our secret , Mama said. Our secret .

“This is God’s work, God’s will, and God’s will be done,” he says to his reflection in the mirror. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Exodus 22, verse 18.”

Our secret, our secret .

Will he go to hell after killing McKay, or will God welcome him in with a Well done, thou good and faithful servant ? He doesn’t know, but he knows it will make an end to his torment.

Our secret.

In the other room, the air conditioner rattles and rattles.

6

At three-thirty that afternoon, Holly is on the phone with her ex-partner, Pete Huntley. Pete is extolling the virtues of retirement in Boca Raton, and each time she thinks he’s reached the end of his encomiums, he comes up with another one. It’s a relief when the office line rings.

“Pete, I have to get that.”

“Sure, duty calls. But if it stops calling, you should get your skinny butt down here for a visit. Boca’s fantastic!”

“I will,” Holly says, although she probably won’t. She’s afraid of hurricanes. “You take care, now.”

She ends the call and goes to the office phone. “Finders Keepers, Holly Gibney speaking. How can I help?”

“Hello, Ms. Gibney. My name is Corrie Anderson. I work for Kate McKay. Do you happen to know who she is?”

“I certainly do,” Holly says. “I was hoping to attend her lecture at the Mingo Auditorium here, but I understand it’s been postponed.”

“It has, but we’re still coming. Actually hoping to attend one of the Sista Bessie concerts.” A pause. “We’ve had some trouble along the way, Ms. Gibney.”

“So I understand.” In her spare time Holly has mostly been fixated on Izzy’s case (and wishing it was hers), but she’s been following the Kate McKay news as well. She’s curious about where this is going. Also excited. If McKay’s PA is calling, meeting the woman, up close and personal, isn’t out of the question. “There was a bleach-throwing incident in Las Vegas, I understand. Were you the one that got it in the face?”

“It was Reno, not Vegas, but yes, it was me. Kate was the actual target. It was raining, and I happened to be wearing her hat.”

Corrie goes on to tell Holly about the anthrax in Omaha. That one Holly knew about, but not about the champagne fiasco in Des Moines. Then Corrie cuts to the chase, asking Holly if she does bodyguard work.

“I never have. I’m sure you could get an off-duty police person to do that, and for a fee considerably less than I would—”

“That’s just what we… Kate, I mean… doesn’t want. She wants a woman who’s not associated with the police.”

“I see.”

She does. Those who oppose the things Kate McKay stands for will be having a field day with a big male cop breaking a woman’s arm or shoulder or whatever it was, although some of those same people cheer when a cop shoots an obstreperous suspect.

“Can you hold on? I need to look at my schedule.”

“Fine. This is a big deal for Kate. And, you know, for me.”

Of course it is , Holly thinks. You’re the one who got the bleach shower . “Hold on.”

Holly checks her appointment book, knowing she’s going to find a lot of white space. There’s that female bail jumper she needs to locate (probably with her family, that’s where the gals usually go), and there’s the stolen Tesla Cybertruck she’s been hired to find, but maybe Barbara’s brother, Jerome, could be persuaded to look for it. Otherwise, she’s free. And new things can be good things. New things are almost always a chance to learn.

“Ms. Anderson? Are you still—”

“Yes,” Corrie says.

“If I take this on, my rates are six hundred dollars a day, three-day minimum. Plus expenses, which I track by Microsoft Excel. I take Visa, Master, or a personal—”

“Could you join us in Iowa City? Tomorrow? I know that’s short notice, but I’ve had problems finding someone who meets Kate’s needs. I know you can’t get here in time for her lecture tonight, but we’ll have a police escort both to and from. Kate kicked about that, but I insisted.”

Good for you , Holly thinks.

Corrie continues, clearly worried. “No one at the venue, though— she insisted on that . You’d be with us for quite awhile. Before we get to your city, we’ve got Davenport, Madison, Chicago—that’s a big one—and Toledo. We have a break in your town because of the Sista Bessie concert.”

Holly says, “I’m supposed to go to that with a friend. She actually knows Ms. Brady.”

“Kate has half a dozen front-row seats, if that’s any inducement. The venue’s manager comped us. I think it was a make-up call for us not making a big fuss about getting bumped from our original date.”

Holly is doing the math in her head and realizing this could be a good payday. Check that, an excellent payday. Thanks to an inheritance from her mother, the agency is in good financial shape, but Holly believes the only real money that matters is earned money. Payday aside, joining one of the most influential feminists now working and writing in America is a big inducement. Her curiosity has always been strong, and this would be a chance to see what the woman is really like. With her shoes off and her hair down, so to speak. She’s also curious about McKay’s assistant, this Corrie Anderson. She sounds very young for such a responsible position. So, all in all…

Then the Holly who lives inside her even now—the young one, the scared one, the girl who always got cold sores and acne outbreaks before a big test—holds up a big red stop sign.

What if this person who threw the bleach and sent the anthrax gets McKay anyway? You know anybody can kill anybody, as long as they’re willing to give themselves up to do it. Then you’d have your own publicity problem, wouldn’t you? You’d be the woman who let Kate McKay get maimed or killed on your watch. It would destroy the agency .

Never mind the agency , Holly thinks. It would destroy me. With guilt. And what do I know about being a bodyguard, anyway?

Not much, that’s true, but she knows how to keep her eyes and ears open. Her nose, too—she’s gotten quite good at smelling danger. Plus, somebody has to watch out for those women, and since McKay insists on a female who’s not police, she might be a good choice.

“Ms. Gibney?”

“My schedule is fairly clear, and I’m inclined to do this, but I’d like to speak to Ms. McKay before coming to a final decision. Can you put her on the phone?”

“I’ll get with her and call you back in ten minutes. No, five!”

“That will be fine.”

Holly ends the call. Inclined to do this? Nonsense. She’s going to do it, assuming Kate McKay doesn’t come across as an arrogant poophead. That’s always possible, but the woman didn’t get to where she is without putting on the charm.

It will be something new and out of the ordinary , she thinks.

To which the mother who, dead or not, will always live on in Holly’s head responds, Oh, Holly. Only you could think of a trip to Iowa City as something out of the ordinary.

Holly leans back in her office chair, hands clasped above her small bosom, and laughs.

7

Izzy and Tom are escorted into Reverend Michael Rafferty’s Tapperville house by a County Sheriff’s detective named Mo Elderson. He says, “Have a look around, then I’ll show you something interesting.”

They skirt the chalked outline of the body, mostly out of superstition, and pass through the living room. The door of the bedroom closet has been pulled free of its tracks and hangs agape. The clothes are scattered on the floor.

“Guy might have been looking for a safe,” Tom says.

Izzy goes to the half-open drawer on the nightstand, using a handkerchief to pull it open all the way. She doesn’t want fingerprint powder on her hands. It’s nasty stuff, hard to get out from under the fingernails.

She sees a Bible, some recovery-type books, and a bunch of medallions. These have also been dusted for prints. She picks one up, handling it by the edges. On the front are the co-founders of AA. Below them is the Roman numeral IX. On the back is an AA motto: Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path .

“Tom.” He comes over. Izzy shows him the medallions. “A regular thief might have taken these, thinking they could be worth something. A person in AA or NA would know better.”

“And this Rafferty guy was AAed up the ying-yang,” Tom says. “Did you see the pictures in the living room? And those sofa pillows?”

From the doorway, Mo Elderson says, “One of those pillows was used to smother him when the bullet didn’t do the job. You could say that he got AA literally crammed down his throat.”

Tom laughs. Izzy doesn’t. She asks, “What did you want to show us?”

“Maybe the killer’s name. Can’t say for sure, but confidence is high.”

Elderson leads them into the kitchen and shows them the appointment book. Neatly printed in caps on May 20th is brIGGS 7 PM. “Can’t be sure, but we think most of these names are for counseling sessions.” He thumbs back to April, where there are three other names and times—BILLY F., JAMIE, and TELESCOPE. None in March, but four in February and two in January. Izzy takes some pictures with her phone.

“Somebody named Telescope?” Tom asks. “Really?”

“Probably a nickname,” Izzy says. “And Billy F. to differentiate him from some other Billy.”

Elderson: “We feel like if we find this guy Briggs, we find the killer. The problem is the goddam anonymity shit.”

“I might be able to do something about that,” Izzy says. Or Holly can.

8

Kate McKay was—on the phone, at least—every bit as charming as Holly thought she might be, and that night Holly is packing for Iowa City and points east. She’s quite excited and has downloaded a book called Essentials for Bodyguards to her Kindle. Flipping through the chapters, she thinks it could have been called Bodyguarding for Dummies .

She’s debating on whether to pack another pants suit or a pair of jeans when her phone rings. It’s Izzy. She tells Holly about the visit she and Tom made to the Rafferty house. “I don’t want you to go breaking anyone’s anonymity, Hols, but can you meet with this John Ackerly? Ask him if he knows someone in the Program named Briggs?”

“Can’t. I’m leaving town tomorrow. It’s nuts, but it looks like I’m going to be doing bodyguarding duty. For Kate McKay.”

“Shut up !”

Holly doesn’t. She tells Izzy how it happened and why it happened, which is basically political.

“Her PA, Corrie Anderson, read up on me a little, and decided I might be the right woman for the job. Woman being the main requirement. I talked to Ms. McKay—Kate—and she seems pleasant enough.”

“Ordinarily you don’t get to be famous by being pleasant, Holly.”

“I know that,” Holly says. “I can put up with a little attitude, because the payday is a good one.”

“As if you need it.”

“It’s also a change,” Holly says defensively. “It will be interesting.”

“Yes, especially if the woman stalking her shoots her.”

“That would be a drawback,” Holly says.

“Maybe you could at least give John Ackerly a call?”

Holly is better at saying no than she used to be. Not much, but a little. And she doesn’t want to get dragged any deeper into police business. “I’m kind of out straight, Izzy. Can’t you—”

“Interview him? The County Mounties already have, because he found the body. Tom and I could re-interview, but it’s technically a county case. And then there’s the anonymity issue. I thought he might be more willing to talk to you.”

“I have an idea. Jerome knows him. I introduced them. They hit it off. John went to Jerome’s book launch party. He gave Jerome a fake tommy gun he got on eBay. You just want to know if John’s been to meetings with somebody calling himself Bill W., or somebody named Briggs, correct?”

“We believe Briggs is Bill W. The county detective in charge of the case asked Ackerly about the name, but he said it didn’t ring any bells.”

“You think if Jerome asked John, he might be more willing to share?”

“Unlikely, I’d rather it was you, but possible. The problem is this thing about first names only in recovery meetings. Or nicknames, in some cases.”

“Briggs is more commonly a last name,” Holly muses. “Of course, there was Briggs Cunningham. He was a captain in the America’s Cup race. Also a race car driver.”

“Only you would know that, Gibney.”

“I’m a crossword puzzle junkie. Would you like Jerome to drop by the bar where John works? I could call Jerome tomorrow on my way to the airport.”

“Ackerly works in a bar ?”

“I told you. He says it doesn’t bother him.”

“Okay, ask Jerome to talk to me, then Ackerly. Now both Robinson sibs know about my case. Oy vey.”

“They’ll keep it quiet.”

“I hope so. Good luck with Kate McKay, Hols. Send me a picture of you and her. I’ve read all her books. She rocks. And don’t let her get killed.”

“That’s the plan,” Holly says.

9

That night, Trig goes to a meeting in Treemore Village. This is far afield for him, but he doesn’t question why. Not on the surface part of his mind, anyway. A deeper part is aware of the Taurus .22 in the Toyota’s center console. It makes him think of an old AA joke about a magic trick only drunks can do: Recovery Guy is cruising along, headed for a meeting and thinking of nothing in particular, and presto, his car turns into a tavern.

The meeting is in the basement of St. Luke’s and the group is called New Horizons. There are twenty or so in attendance. The subject is “honesty in all our affairs,” and everyone has a chance to share. When it’s Trig’s turn, he says he just wants to listen tonight. There are murmurs of right on and keep coming back, Trig .

After the meeting, most of the alkies stand around the urn in the kitchen, drinking coffee, eating cookies, telling war stories. Trig sees a couple of people he knows from other meetings closer to the city, but doesn’t speak to them, just slips out. A mile down Route 29-B is John Glenn State Park. A young man in a duffle coat is standing under the single streetlight by the side of the road, holding a sign that says WASHINGTON D.C. When he sees Trig slowing down, he grins and flips the sign over to show OR WHEREVER. Trig pulls over and shifts into park so the young man can open the passenger door and get in.

“Thanks, man—where you going?”

Trig holds up a finger in a casual wait a sec gesture and opens the center console. He takes out the gun. The young man sees it. His eyes widen, but he freezes for a lethal two seconds before scrabbling at the doorhandle. Trig shoots him three times. The young man jumps as every bullet enters his body. His back arches, then he slumps forward. As he did with Annette McElroy, Trig places the muzzle of the Taurus against the young man’s temple and fires a fourth time. Smoke drifts up. He can smell burning hair.

What are you doing? he asks himself, and this time it’s not Daddy’s voice but his own. If thoughts could scream, that’s what this one would be doing. You’ll never get all of them if you kill on impulse! Your luck will run out!

Probably true, but it won’t run out tonight. The road is deserted, and although the swing-gate is down across the park’s entrance—it closed at seven PM—he’s able to drive around it. He douses his lights and pulls into a picnic area from which several trails begin, each marked EASY or DIFFICULT or EXPERT.

Trig goes around the hood of his car and opens the passenger door. The young man in the duffle coat spills out onto the gravel. There is no blood in the car, at least that Trig can see. The young man’s heavy coat has caught it all. Trig gets him under the arms and drags him toward the line of Porta-Johns beyond the picnic area. A car comes down the highway. Trig crouches, aware of the dead man’s head lolling between his feet. The car passes without slowing. Red taillights… and gone. Trig resumes dragging.

In the Porta-John he picks, the pink disinfectant disc in the plastic urinal is no match for the smell of shit. The walls are covered with graffiti. It’s a poor tomb for a man who did nothing but try to hitch a ride. Trig feels a moment of regret, then reminds himself that the man’s innocence is exactly the point: he did nothing, just as Alan Duffrey did nothing. Also, Trig has to admit to himself that regret isn’t the same as guilt, of which he feels none. Didn’t he know this might be the way his evening ended, with his car—abracadabra!—turning into a murder scene? Isn’t it why he came to Treemore in the first place? Telling himself to take some time off from killing these innocents was rational. The need to get on with his mission is the exact opposite. It’s so much like the bad old days, telling himself he could stop anytime… just not tonight. The idea that murder might indeed be an addiction freezes him for a moment with the young man partially lifted onto the toilet seat.

If it is, what does it matter? There’s a cure for addiction that’s even better than AA or NA.

When the young man is seated, Trig takes one of his cooling hands and folds it over a slip of paper with the name STEVEN FURST on it. He goes back to the car and inspects the passenger side for bullet holes. He finds none, so all the slugs stayed in the young man’s body. Even the head shot, which could have resulted in a cracked window. Which was good. Lucky. There are a few spots of blood on the seat, but there are tissues in the center console. He wipes up the spots and puts the tissues in his pocket for later disposal.

You only need good luck if you do this impulsively. And sooner or later, luck always turns .

He resolves not to do any more of them according to impulse and knows he may be powerless to stop himself. As when, in the bad days, he would tell himself he would have a sober weekend, that just once he would wake up on Monday morning without a hangover. Only what was a Sunday afternoon football doubleheader without a drink or two? Or five or six?

“Never mind,” he says. “Four down, nine to go. Then the guilty one.”

He drives back to the city. He’s got a call to make.