Chapter 8
1
Holly’s flight to Iowa City on May 23rd is scheduled early and leaves late. It’s not the way she would run the world if she were in charge, but pretty much SOP for a puddle-jumper like Midwest Air Service. She doesn’t mind; it gives her time to speak to Jerome before the flight leaves.
He doesn’t pick up until the fifth ring, and sounds muzzy. “Hey, Holly. What time is it?”
“Quarter past seven.”
“Are you kidding? That isn’t even a real hour.”
“I’ve been up since four-thirty.”
“Good for you, but most of the world doesn’t run on Holly Time. Where are you? I hear planes.”
“The airport. I’m going to Iowa City.”
“Are you kidding?” Jerome sounds a little more awake now. “ Nobody goes to Iowa City. At least not of their own free will.”
Holly explains why she’s traveling. Jerome is impressed.
“Bodyguard duty for a woman who was on the cover of Time ! A new page in your résumé. Very nice, big props to my homegirl, but why are you calling me?”
“It has to stay confidential. You can talk to your sister if you want to, but otherwise, keep it totally quiet. There may be a serial killer at work in the city.”
“Let me stop you right there,” Jerome says. “Might your serial killer be responsible for a woman killed on the Buckeye Trail and a couple of homeless dudes whacked behind a washateria? Names in their hands? Possibly the names of jurors in the Duffrey trial?”
Holly’s heart sinks. Not on her account, but on Izzy’s. “Where did you get it? Not the paper, I already looked.”
“Three guesses and the first two don’t count.”
“Buckeye Brandon.”
“Correctamundo,” Jerome says.
“Where did he get it?”
“No clue.”
“Izzy was afraid this might happen. What about a man found murdered in Tapperville?”
“That is in the paper, victim unnamed pending notification of next of kin, but if it’s related to the three others, no one has made the connection yet. Including Brandon. What’s your part in this, Holly?”
It’s been months, maybe even a year, since he called her Hollyberry, and she kind of misses it.
She tells Jerome about Izzy showing her the original note from the man calling himself Bill Wilson, and how she, Holly, spoke to John Ackerly. How it was John who found the body of Michael Rafferty, aka Big Book Mike.
“John found him and now you’re consulting with the police!” Jerome says gleefully. “Holly’s Sherlock Holmes and Izzy’s Inspector Lestrade! Totally cool!”
“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Holly says… although really, what other way is there to put it? “The night Rafferty was murdered, he was supposed to meet someone named Briggs. Izzy took a picture of Rafferty’s appointment book calendar. If I sent you the picture, would you show it to John? Ask him if he knows the name? He might; if it’s a first name, it’s a little on the odd side.”
“Happy to.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt your work—”
“No interruption about it. I have done hit a wall on the new book.”
“When you hit a wall, break through it. Old Chinese saying.”
“Bullshit. I know an old Holly Gibney saying when I hear one.”
“Good advice, either way,” she says, putting on her prim voice.
“No problem. I’ve been wanting a distraction. I think maybe I was cut out to be a one-book author.”
“Now that’s bullpoop,” Holly says.
“Maybe yes, maybe no. Either way, a break will do me good. Izzy’s Lestrade, you’re Sherlock, I’m just a lowly Baker Street Irregular.”
Still in her prim voice, Holly says, “I think you’re very regular, Jerome.”
“Thanks. Hollyberry.” And he ends the call before she can make a token protest.
2
There’s no Wi-Fi on the plane (of course not), but her phone bings with a text while she’s going down the air-stairs to a hot spring Iowa morning. It’s from Izzy.
Our pal Bill W. got another one. Call me.
Once she’s inside the terminal, Holly calls Isabelle, who tells her the latest victim was a young man named Fred Sinclair, a native of New Haven, Connecticut, his reason for being in the rural town of Treemore, outside Treemore Village, on Route 29-B so far undetermined. Shot four times. A troop of Boy Scouts were camping a little way into John Glenn State Park. One of them walked down the trail just after dawn to use a Porta-John, and got an unpleasant surprise when he opened the door. One he’ll probably be telling a psychiatrist about in another fifteen or twenty years. “Primal scene, honeychild,” Izzy says. “I read about those in Intro to Psychology.”
“Did any of the Scouts hear the shots?”
“Their campsite was a mile deeper into the park. The kids were all singing around the campfire or asleep, I assume. One of the adults with them—I guess the Scoutmaster—said he thought he heard a car backfiring. That could have been gunshots. Probably was.”
“You found a name in Mr. Sinclair’s hand, I take it.”
“Well, not me personally. The State Police who responded to the Scoutmaster’s 911 call found it on the floor of the Porta-John. Fell out of his hand. Steven Furst. Another juror.”
“Same gun used?”
“Too early for the forensics, but based on the pictures the Staties sent me, Sinclair got it with a small-caliber weapon, almost certainly the same .22 he used on the others. The guy in Tapperville, Rafferty, was shot with a different gun, larger caliber, probably a .38. The county cops are still investigating it as a robbery-murder. In which case, their Briggs and our Bill W. aren’t the same man.”
“It is, though,” Holly says, almost absently. “Briggs brought a different gun to use on Rafferty, that’s all. Tried to make it look like a robbery. Total premeditation. This guy is smart, Iz. The question is why, since he didn’t leave a juror’s name.”
“I know.” Izzy sighs. “Then there’s Buckeye Brandon.”
“Jerome told me.”
Buckeye Brandon, who sometimes refers to himself as the Great BB, or the Outlaw Podcaster, mostly specializes in gossip, political dirt, and whoop-de-do scandals on his blog and podcast. He favors the moneyed class living in Sugar Heights or The Oaks. He also dishes on crime.
“He’s calling it the Surrogate Juror Murders, and I’m afraid it’s going to catch on.”
“Does he know about Fred Sinclair?”
“Oh yes. Bad news travels fast. Not about the note with Furst’s name on it, at least not yet, but he’s already speculating it may be related to the others. If I could find the person leaking this stuff, I’d happily tear him a new asshole.”
“He could have done it himself,” Holly says.
“What? Who?”
“Bill W. Or Briggs, if that’s his real name. He wants people to know. He wants the jurors to know. And the judge. And ADA Allen. He wants them eaten up with guilt. He wrote to your Chief and your lieutenant, announcing what he meant to do beforehand.”
“True enough,” Izzy says, and sighs.
“He could have called BB. I bet he did. The more legitimate news outlets would have a problem giving publicity to a killer.”
“Then why didn’t Brandon say he called him? I’d think that was right up his alley—telling his audience he has a direct line to the killer.”
“Briggs might have told him not to, if he wants him to continue staying in contact.”
“I have to split, Holly. Tom and I are going out to Glenn Park. It’s technically out of our jurisdiction, but the Staties want to make sure we’re holding this baby, too. Let me know if Jerome and Ackerly come up with anything.”
“Absolutely.”
“Are you in Iowa City?”
“Yes.”
“Go, you,” Izzy says.
“Thank you.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I know,” Holly says. “Would I be belaboring the obvious to say that Bill W. is speeding up?”
“You would indeed be belaboring it.”
“Catch him as fast as you can, Izzy, because he really means to carry through with his plan. Which he probably thinks of as his mission . He’s dangerous because he thinks he’s sane.” She pauses. “To belabor something else that’s obvious, he’s not.”
3
Holly totes her carry-on bag to the luggage carousel and sits down to wait. Her phone rings again. This time it’s Barbara. She also wants to know if Holly is in Iowa City. It seems to be the question of the day.
“I am. Go, me.”
“Jerome is going to talk to your bartender friend on his lunch break,” Barbara says. “I would have gone along, but we’re moving a bunch of band gear from the old Sam’s Club to the Mingo.”
“Don’t strain your back,” Holly says. “Lift with your legs, not your—”
Barbara laughs. “I love you, Holly. How do you get involved in these things? Hartsfield, Morris Bellamy, the Harrises…” She pauses, then adds, “Ondowsky.”
There’s someone else as well, one that Holly tries not to think of… but of course Ondowsky makes her think of the outsider who looked like Terry Maitland. Both were vampires who drank pain instead of blood.
“This isn’t my case, Barb. It’s Izzy’s.”
“Keep telling yourself that. You attract weirdos the way a magnet attracts iron filings.” She pauses, then says, “That might have come out wrong.”
“I think it did.” In Holly’s opinion, Barb doesn’t need to know that Holly has already been on the phone with Izzy about the Surrogate Juror Murders… which, give the Outlaw Podcaster his due, is actually a pretty good name. “But I forgive you, because it’s possibly true. No weirdos on this job, though.”
“You hope.”
“Yes. I hope.”
Barbara says, “In a mystery novel, McKay would have ordered one of her dastardly minions to kill those people in order to get her precious lecture date back.”
“That makes no logical sense,” Holly says, “and in any case, life isn’t a mystery novel.” Although sometimes it seems that way. Her life, at least.
The luggage carousel begins to turn, and the first bags appear.
“I have to go, Barb. And remember, lift with the legs , never with the back.”
“Will do. You take good care of yourself, Hol. Guard that woman’s body.”
“True, Boo.” She has picked this expression up from Jerome and uses it when it seems appropriate. She believes it makes her sound hip.
4
Her little gray suitcase—slightly scuffed, the veteran of many trips—appears on the carousel. It’s followed by a piece of luggage she’s never had occasion to use before: a yellow box made of high-impact plastic. Unlocking it requires a four-digit code. Hanging from the handle is a red tag that reads FIREARM UNLOADED . The handgun carry-case was a Christmas present two years ago from Pete, her ex-partner.
Before Holly can put her personal phone back in the jacket pocket of her sensible pants suit, her Finders Keepers phone begins to ring in the jacket’s other pocket. Holly takes it out, aware that she now has a phone in each hand. I am the perfect twenty-first-century woman , she thinks. The screen says BLOCKED NUMBER, but she’s pretty sure she knows who it is.
“Finders Keepers, Holly Gibney speaking. How can I help?”
“It’s Corrie, Ms. Gibney. Corrie Anderson, Kate’s assistant? How was your flight?”
“Fine.” It was actually quite bumpy, as puddle-jumper flights tend to be.
“Kate wants to know if you’d like the hotel to send a car to pick you up.”
“I’ve reserved a rental.” Holly knows from her conversation with McKay that they are driving from city to city, so Holly will drive, too… but not exactly with them. She’ll post up and back, looking for any followers. “I hope to be there in an hour, maybe sooner.”
“We—that is, Kate—wants you onboard as soon as possible. Our secret admirer has been in touch again. Sent a picture of Kate and me with our arms around each other after the Reno gig. One word scrawled across it in red lipstick. Any idea what it was?”
“I’m going to take a wild guess and say it was probably lesbians .”
“Wow, you really are a detective.”
Holly considers saying true, Boo , and doesn’t. Instead she says that one wasn’t particularly tough and tells Corrie she’ll be there as soon as possible… but first she needs a moment to think. To clarify .
Holly sits in the deserted baggage claim area, a small neatly dressed woman wearing sensible shoes. Her hair is stylishly but sensibly cut. Her hands are clasped in her lap. She’s ignored by the remaining passengers, which she also considers her superpower. An unobtrusive investigator who is good at her job can be a great detective, and on several occasions Holly has risen to greatness. She herself would protest that, but Izzy knows. So do Jerome and Barbara Robinson.
Her other superpowers are clarity of thought and the ability to take the time necessary to work out difficult problems. She is sitting quietly, seeming to have no interest in anything but the gray suitcase and yellow box circling on the luggage carousel, but beneath that sensible short haircut, her thoughts are running on two tracks.
One of those tracks has to do with Izzy’s case—the elusive Bill Wilson, who has killed four people at least, and probably five. A huge number in a short time. Using the Wilson name as an alias suggests (to Holly, at least) a certain arrogance. Either that, or a desire—possibly subconscious—to be caught. And Briggs . Because surnames are frowned on in AA and NA, it’s almost certainly a given name or a nickname. If Briggs is in the Program, John really might be able to ID him.
She wishes, not for the first time, that this was her case.
The other track has to do with Kate McKay. Her stalker has proved in Reno that she’s not harmless, but the bleach was only a warning. The anthrax was a serious attempt to kill, and to hell with any bystanders who happened to inhale the poison fairy dust. What would come next? A gun seems most likely, which is one reason why Holly has—very reluctantly—brought her own.
Essentials for Bodyguards contains a list of precautions for keeping controversial people like Kate McKay as safe as possible, although the author, Richard J. Scanlon, warns that no one can be kept entirely safe, not even the President of the United States… as Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley, and Thomas Crooks proved.
Holly wonders how many precautions McKay will be willing to take. She’s guessing the woman won’t like the idea, and wonders if she’ll be able to convince her. Convincing isn’t Holly’s strong point, but she thinks she’ll have to try. Corrie Anderson may help.
She gets her bags and heads for the rental counter. Ordinarily Holly would rent a small car like her Prius. Today she’s asked for something with a lot more oomph. After mulling the options, which aren’t that great in Iowa City, she decides on a Chrysler 300. If she needs extra horses—unlikely but possible—the Chrysler will deliver them. Holly picks up the folder for her car and takes the insurance. Always safe, never sorry was another of Charlotte’s sayings. Once she’s seated in it—plushy!—she sets her phone’s GPS for the fastest route to the Iowa City Radisson in the suburb of Coralville. The Chrysler has a nav system, but Holly trusts her own gear.
Always.
5
Trig gets to work on time, says hello to Maisie in his outer office, and spends the first hour of his workday making phone calls and putting out small fires. In his business, there are always fires to put out. You just can’t let them grow into big ones.
Like Holly’s, his mind is running on two tracks. On one he’s a professional man doing his professional best—never arguing, always being reasonable, trying to convince, sometimes resorting to base flattery. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar , his mother used to say. Before she was gone .
On the other track, he’s waiting to be arrested. He doesn’t know if other serial killers (and that’s what he is now, call it what it is) have a sense of invulnerability, but Trig doesn’t. How far is it from St. Luke’s, where the Thursday evening New Horizons group meets, to John Glenn State Park? Not far. What if someone makes the connection? What if there are security cams in the park? He never even checked, but in retrospect it seems logical, especially around those Porta-Johns, where all sorts of drug deals might be going on. And then there’s the Rev’s appointment book. Leaving it seemed so clever at the time, but if he had it to do over again, he would have just taken the fucking thing. Who would have known? The housekeeper? Why would the Rev have had a housekeeper anyway, a little house like that? And how would he have paid her? So far as Trig knows, the Rev’s only job these last few years has been going to meetings and quoting the Big Book from memory.
Trig is fucking up all over the place.
He keeps expecting the cops to come through the door, ignoring Maisie’s protests, one of them reciting his rights in a speed-rap, the other holding up a pair of handcuffs. He’s visualizing Fin Tutuola and Olivia Benson from Law & Order , which is crazy. It will be the two that were announced in the Register as lead investigators: Atta and the woman, he can’t quite remember her name.
That they will get him eventually seems inevitable, but now that he’s begun down this path, he’d like to finish before they do. If not all of it, as many as possible. Thirteen innocent and one guilty , he thinks.
Murder, it seems, is addictive. He never would have believed it. Oh, maybe for sex-killers like Bundy and Dennis Rader, but he wasn’t like them. There was no joy in the killing…
Or maybe there was.
If you’re in it too deep to turn around, it’s no good fooling yourself , he thinks. Is that the Daddy-voice? He can’t tell. There’s nothing sexual about it, at least. They just need to know the blood of innocents is on their hands. And if I want to speed up, is that wrong? There’s an end in sight, after all, a day when the guilty one will die and this will be over.
He uses his tablet to go to Buckeye Brandon’s blog. Under the flashing red banner that reads brEAKING NEWS, he finds this:
John Glenn State Park is now the site of another MURDER MOST FOUL! The body of Fred Sinclair, age unknown, was discovered by 12-year-old Matt Fleischer, who will never forget the TRAUMA of opening a porta-potty and discovering a DEAD MAN sitting inside! Is this CRIMSON CRIME related to the Surrogate Juror Murders? Buckeye Brandon’s Magic 8-Ball says YES, but stay tuned. And remember: LISTEN TO MY PODCAST & SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON!!
Trig called the Buckeye Brandon tipline, but he didn’t give the recording the young man’s name—how could he? The Great BB got that some other way. And a twelve-year-old boy found the body? What was a kid doing in a state park, anyway? This is followed by the unlikely yet weirdly persuasive idea that the kid actually witnessed the murder, and when Trig is caught, the kid will point to him and say, That’s him, that’s the guy who dragged the body into—
The intercom buzzes, and Trig almost screams. He has to force himself to answer, imagining Maisie’s puzzled voice saying, There are police here, and they say they need to talk to you .
Instead, Maisie reminds him of his two o’clock dentist’s appointment. Trig thanks her and clicks off. He’s in a cold sweat, and not at the prospect of having three cavities filled. There are so many ways he could be caught!
I need to hurry up , he thinks, and finds that he’s actually looking forward to it.
6
John Ackerly meets Jerome for lunch at the Rocket Diner. They both order the lobster mac (it’s on special), and Arnold Palmers. John tilts a thumb out the window at the Garden City Plaza Hotel across the street. “Royalty staying there, man.”
“Really?”
“Sista Bessie, the seventies and eighties rock-and-soul queen. I can’t wait to see her. Tix for the show on the thirty-first were sold out, but I scored two for the next night.”
“Good for you.” Jerome waits until their drinks have been served, then shows John a photo—courtesy of Izzy and Holly—of Michael Rafferty’s appointment calendar. He taps brIGGS 7 PM on the square for the 20th of May. “Do you happen to know this guy? Don’t worry about breaking your anonymity vow, or whatever you call it. I’ll tell Holly and she can pass it on to the cops, your name not needed.”
“The cops already know my name,” John says. “I found the body.”
“Oh. Yeah. Holly told me that.” Jerome feels like a doofus. “What do you think? Ring a bell?”
John’s reply comes with disheartening speed. “Nope.” He taps the square for May 4th. Printed in the Rev’s neat block letters is CATHY 2-T. “I know her. Seen her at meetings off and on for a couple of years now. Had one side of her hair dyed red, the other side green. People started calling her Cathy 2-Tone, and eventually she started IDing herself that way at meetings. These other names could be almost anybody. Do you know how many AA and NA meetings there are in the metro area?”
Jerome shakes his head.
“Three dozen is what I told your boss, but when I checked the meeting book, I found out it’s almost triple that, if you put in Overeaters Anonymous and DDA, which is Dual Diagnosis Anonymous. Once you add the burbs, you’re over four hundred groups.”
“Holly’s not my boss,” Jerome says. “She’s my friend.”
“Mine, too. Holly’s a skate.”
“What does that mean?”
John grins and slides his hand palm down above the table. “She’s smooth , man.”
“Got that right. How long have you known her?”
John calculates while the waitress brings them lunch. “Long time, man. It was around the time her friend died, the ex-cop—”
“Bill Hodges.”
“If you say so. I guess they were tight.”
“They were.”
“She was struggling to keep the agency open, too,” John says, “but she managed to keep it afloat, and good for her.”
Jerome doesn’t tell him about the inheritance she got from her late mother. That’s not his information to share, and besides, by the time Charlotte Gibney died, Finders Keepers was in the black.
“How did you meet her?” Jerome asks. He’s never thought of Holly as a drinking-establishment habitué, let alone a barfly.
John laughs. “That’s a good story, man. You want to hear?”
“Sure.”
“She was skip-tracing a guy wanted for all sorts of debt-related shit, including taking a pickup truck on a test drive and ‘forgetting’ to bring it back. I was newly sober. Holly talked to the guy’s mom, who said he was going to look for a guitar at Dusty’s Pawn & Loan, which is just three doors down the street from my bar. So Holly’s pulling into a parking space across from Dusty’s and sees this guy, his name was Benny something, walking from Dusty’s down to Happy with a guitar case in his hand. She follows him in. By then my man Benny’s at the bar, asking for a bourbon-rocks, which I didn’t want to sell him.”
“Why?”
“I’d seen him at meetings. I’m like, ‘Do you really want to do that? Sobriety’s a gift, man.’?”
Jerome can’t wait to hear the punchline.
“This Benny was a big guy, well over six feet and had to go two-seventy. Holly, on the other hand, is five-three and change. She’s put on some weight since then, but back in the day she couldn’t have gone much more than one-oh-five soaking wet, as they say. Benny sees her, okay? Knows who she is because Holly has talked to some of his friends, and the friends have reported back to Benny. So he hauls ass for the door, which she’s standing in front of. I think, holy shit, he’s gonna run her down like a Mack truck. But she never moved a step. She says, ‘If you don’t go to Provident Loan to make a plan, Benny, and bring back that truck, I’ll tell your mother you’re in a bar.’?”
Jerome is too gobsmacked to even laugh. It’s the perfect Holly Gibney story.
“Benny stops two feet in front of her. Towers over her. She has to look up at him, but she still never budged. She says, ‘I’ll trust you on your own, at least this once, because it’ll look better.’ Benny says okay and kind of shuffles out. Holly comes to the bar and orders what she always orders in here, a Diet Coke with two cherries. I tell her I know Benny from the meetings I go to, and I was trying to persuade him not to buy a drink. Or at least not an alcoholic drink. I asked her if she thought Benny would really go to Provident to make a restitution plan, and Holly says probably, because he’s scared to death of his mom. She got that from his friends. She also says, ‘I always like to give a fellow one chance, if I can.’ Then she picks up the guitar case, which Benny left behind on account of he was so foozled, and lifts it over the bar to me and says, ‘Hold my drink.’ I do, and she goes out.”
“To Dusty’s.”
“I guess you know her, all right. Yeah. She comes back five minutes later and tells me Benny actually paid for the axe. With cash. Says when he comes back in, I can give it to him.”
Jerome nods. “That’s Holly.”
“So anyway, we get talking. She gives me her card and the names of four skipjacks and jills she’s looking for. Says if any of them come into the bar, will I give her a call. It was a cash-for-info thing at first, but I got to like her. She’s got a lot of bells and whistles, but like I say, she’s smooth .”
Jerome nods. “Also got a yard of guts.”
“She does.”
“Have you ever seen one of her runners at your meetings?”
“From time to time,” John admits, “but I only tell her if someone she’s hunting comes into Happy. I’m not a bleeding deacon like the Rev—Mike R., I mean—but I support the anonymity rule. Meetings are off-limits. I made an exception this time because if she’s right, that son of a bitch Briggs is a murderer as well as an alcoholic.” He pauses, takes a bite of his lobster mac. Then he says, “Also because it’s her. Holly.”
Jerome nods. “Got that right.” He smiles and holds a fist out over the table. “Always Holly.”
John bumps knuckles with him and repeats it. “Always Holly.”
7
The subject of their discussion pulls her Chrysler—which seems the size of a yacht after her Prius—into the lot of the Radisson. She sees a woman standing in the shade beneath the lobby overhang. She’s tall and looks young. Short sandy hair, jeans and a sleeveless blouse. Tennies on her feet. Holly guesses this is Kate McKay’s assistant. Anxious to meet the new security person and get things rolling. The girl—she looks young enough to still be called a girl—gives a tentative wave, and Holly raises her own hand in return.
In a rented Kia a few slots down, Chrissy Stewart watches this newcomer walk to the hotel’s overhang and shake hands with the Anderson bitch. Wondering, Who is this, now? Not that it matters. Nothing changes. The job is the job. The slaughter of the innocents, on account of politics and by abortion, must be stopped.
At all costs.