Never Flinch (Holly Gibney #4)

Chapter 18

1

Holly watches the video Jerome has sent three times, and can’t stop smiling. Because it was recorded on his iPhone, the sound is blurry and echoey, overwhelming the voices of Sista Bessie singing lead and the Dixie Crystals singing backup, but the images are crisp and clear. Betty Brady is wearing a headwrap, a shapeless muumuu-type dress, and red canvas hightops, but the Crystals—Barbara included—are trying out what Holly assumes are their show clothes: black high-waisted pants and silk-shimmery white shirts. Although she guesses the three original Crystals are three times Barbara’s age (or close to it), Barbara is in perfect step with them, doing the call-and-response to Betty’s lead, adding an in-harmony Ooooo to each Shake it up, baby . Barbara looks like she’s having the time of her life, and Holly—who hated the few press conferences she was forced to attend and could never in her wildest dreams muster the courage to get up onstage herself—is delighted for her.

There’s a knock on her door as she’s starting a fourth viewing of the video. She expects Corrie or Kate, but it’s Jerome, with his man-bag (which Holly gave him last Christmas) slung over one shoulder. She didn’t realize how homesick she was until she sees him, and she’s also still overwhelmed with happiness for Barbara. The two things combine and Holly, ordinarily the least demonstrative of women, throws her arms around Jerome and hugs him tight-tight-tight.

“Whoa, girl, I love you, too.” But he hugs her back, lifting her hundred and fifteen pounds and swinging her from side to side before setting her back on her feet. “You saw the vid, I take it.”

“Yes! It’s wonderful! She looks so… I don’t know… so… so something .”

“Natural? Happy?”

“Yes!”

Jerome grins. “Just hope she doesn’t get stage fright once she’s in front of an audience.”

“Will she?”

“I don’t think so,” Jerome says. “She wants to do this at least once, and she and Betty have really bonded. I mean, they’re tight.”

“Is Barb going on the rest of the tour?”

“Hasn’t said, and she’s drawn to the idea, but I’d guess in the end she’ll probably stay home and stick to writing.”

“Shoemaker, stick to thy last,” Holly murmurs.

“What?”

“Never mind. But it’s exciting, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll be taking care of Ms…. Sista… when she sings the National Anthem at Dingley Park?”

“Yep. That’s exciting, too. I don’t expect problems, because people are crazy about her coming out of retirement.” He lowers his voice. “Speaking of problems, where’s yours?”

Holly hastily assures Jerome that Ms. McKay is no problem (although she guesses Jerome might know better). “Kate’s next door, on the right. She’s got the suite. Corrie Anderson—her assistant—is on the left. Kate likes to swim, and I’ll have to go down to the pool with her pretty soon. Did you have any luck with what I asked you about?”

“Plenty. Research is my métier. You woke me up, Hols. I trashed my novel—”

“Jerome, no!”

“Jerome yes. I’m going to write about these crazy-pants churches instead. The stuff you asked for is just the tip of the iceberg. This is some scary shit. I could tell you some of the things I’ve already found, but that’s for another time. Right now I’ve got the pictures you asked for. One still is from a brief court hearing in Rawcliffe, Pennsylvania, all charges dismissed. The other is from the Macbride in Iowa City. I had them blown up as eight-by-ten glossies.”

He unships his man-bag and removes two pictures. The one from Rawcliffe isn’t great, but good enough for Holly to identify Fallowes, one of the Real Christ Holy deacons, and the young man who has to be Christopher Stewart. In the photo he’s got his head down and his hair, which is long for a churchgoing boy of the fundamentalist sort, is obscuring part of his face.

The picture from the Macbride in Iowa City is far better. He’s in the third row, his hair combed back, his face upturned, his arm raised.

“Looks like he’s having a come-to-Jesus moment,” Jerome says.

“That’s not it,” Holly says. She’s excited. “In the early part of her appearances, Kate asks all the men in the audience to raise their hands, and only keep them up if they’ve had an abortion.”

“Not exactly a trick question,” Jerome says, “but I guess that’d be the point.”

Kate gives a courtesy knock and pokes her head in. She’s wearing a hotel robe over her red bathing suit. “Time to swim, Holly. And who, pray tell, is this handsome hunk of man?”

“My Finders Keepers associate, Jerome Robinson,” Holly says, wondering what Kate would think if some man said of her, Who is this good-looking, curvaceous chickadee?

“He found another picture of the man—not a woman but a man—who has almost certainly been stalking you. Christopher Stewart.”

Kate comes into the room. Her robe is open, and Holly sees Jerome give her the sort of quick onceover that she assumes is a heterosexual male reflex… although not the longer, almost clinical inspection that’s become notorious as “the male gaze.”

Kate either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. She bends over the Macbride photo. A smile dawns on her face. “You know what, I actually remember this guy. He forgot to put his hand down with the rest of the men, and I made some crack about him being the XY chromosome version of the Virgin Mary. The audience laughed—with him, not at him—and gave him a hand. He blushed. Now that you know who he is, what are you going to do about him?”

“Tell the police,” Holly says, “but they are otherwise occupied with a serial killer—”

“The Surrogate Juror nut,” Kate says. “He’s all over the news.”

“Yes.” The police in general and Izzy in particular are also occupied with a charity softball game, but that’s so stupid (at least in Holly’s opinion) that she doesn’t like to mention it. “We’re also going to keep our eyes wide, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” Kate says, but she’s got her phone to her ear. “Corrie? Are you still here? Good, can you come to Holly’s room?” She lowers the phone. “She’ll be right in.”

Jerome says, “Can I make a suggestion?”

“Of course,” Kate says to him, and without first glancing at Holly. Which Holly finds irritating, interesting, and amusing… all at the same time.

“I bet Holly already knows,” Jerome says, which Holly considers très galant.

Holly does. “We need to check all the hotels and motels for a Christopher Stewart, either reserved or already here. Including this one.”

“I’ll ask Tom Atta,” Jerome says. “He’s only a sub in the big game tomorrow, claims he’s got a hamstring pull, so he should be able to do it.”

“What game?” Kate asks, but before Jerome can answer, Corrie comes in with her head bent over her laptop.

“There’s a problem with Cincinnati, Kate, but I’m handling it. Elmira is okay, the weather isn’t going to be a problem after all. I have to go in to the Mingo tomorrow at noon to sign some dumb insurance papers—”

“Never mind all that for now, look at this picture from Iowa City,” Kate says. “It’s a lot better than the one in the Florida paper. Is this the female impersonator from Reno?”

“I told you, I only got a glimpse—”

There’s a Sharpie in the side pocket of Corrie’s slacks, perfect for signing autographs, and also perfect for drawing on glossy photos. Holly plucks it out and draws bangs on the upturned face of the man who was sitting in the third row of the Macbride a week ago.

Corrie looks long and hard. Then she turns to Holly. “That’s him. Her. Whatever. I’m almost positive.”

Holly says, “As well as the police, we need to make sure the press knows about this guy. And social media. The Macbride picture is good. We might not be able to get it in the print edition of the paper tomorrow, but on Twitter and Facebook, in the online edition of the—”

Kate clamps down her shoulder, and hard. “Are you crazy?”

“What do you mean?” Holly is bewildered.

“Bad enough you want to tell the cops. I guess I have to allow that because the guy might be a threat to others, but no press, no Twitter. They canceled me in Toledo. If you give the politicians an excuse to cancel me here, they’ll take it.”

Holly grips Kate’s hand and detaches it—gently—from her shoulder. Later she’ll see the bruises of Kate’s fingers there. “This man wants to kill you, Kate. Do you understand that?”

“Every time I go onstage someone wants to kill me, and it’s probably just a matter of time before someone tries it. Do you understand that ?” Kate’s smile is positively feral. Holly is speechless. So is Corrie.

At last, Jerome says, “What about circulating the picture to the Mingo personnel as well as to the cops?”

“And to the other venues we’ll be at,” Corrie adds.

Kate nods. To Holly she says, “ Will the cops try to cancel me?”

Holly gives Kate her own smile, not feral—she can’t do feral—but thin and without humor. “I don’t think so,” she says. “If any of them can be spared from their charity softball game, I think they’ll see you as bait.”

2

Jerome buzzes off to Staples, where he makes two hundred copies of the picture from the Macbride audience-cam. He takes four dozen to Dingley Park and gives them to Tom Atta, who looks huge and athletic in his blue shorts and tee. Except for the elastic bandage wrapped around one knee and calf, that is.

“So it’s not bad enough that we’ve got a serial killer on the loose while the cops are practicing to play softball,” Tom says. “Now we’ve got to be on the lookout for this cuckoo-bird, too.”

“Will you pass those out? Here and to the radio cars?”

“Sure. Guy looks like a normal American.”

“So did Ted Bundy. What about checking hotels and motels?”

“Do you think this guy will have checked in under his own name?” Tom asks, then answers himself before Jerome has time to. “He might, if he doesn’t know we’re onto him.”

Jerome likes that we .

Tom says, “The Surrogate Juror nut is now a State Police case, guy named Ganzinger. That makes the Chief happy, but I’d love it if the home team could take down at least one bad guy. So yeah, I’ll have Dispatch call around. And speaking of the home team…”

He nods at the field, where Izzy is walking to the pitcher’s mound, looking impossibly long-legged in her police team shorts. Her catcher, a squat fireplug with COSLAW on the back of his shirt, walks beside her. On the third-base side, the Hoses squad comes alive, giving whistles, catcalls, and a sarcastic cheer.

“Gonna light you up, Red!” one of them yells. He’s a tall drink of water, with knees almost up to his chin. “Light you up like a Roman candle!”

“That’s the guy that talked trash to Iz at the softball press conference,” Tom says. “They kind of got into it.”

Izzy stows the softball she’s been holding in the pocket of her glove so she can give him the finger.

Tom nods at the tall Hoses player. “His name, oh so appropriate, is Pill.”

“Got into it for real or for show?”

“It was supposed to be for show, but he got under her skin, so she got under his.”

Coslaw crouches behind home plate and pounds his catcher’s mitt. Izzy does a herky-jerky windup, bends, and throws. The ball arcs over the catcher, bounces off the top of the backstop, and comes down on Coslaw’s head. The Hoses players howl. One is laughing so hard he falls off the bench, kicking his legs at the bright blue sky.

“ You tryin to hit the Skylab? ” George Pill bellows.

The catcher picks up the ball and flicks it back to Izzy. Even from Jerome’s place on the bench next to Tom, he can see Izzy’s cheeks have gone bright red.

“She ain’t even supposed to be pitching,” Tom says. “Got drafted because she pitched in college back in the day. Our regular guy got in a bar fight and broke his stupid hand.”

“SKYLAB, SKYLAB!” The Hoses players seem to like that one, although that particular object fell out of orbit decades ago. “REDHEAD’S TRYIN TO HIT THE SKYYYLAB!”

Izzy’s next pitch falls short, plopping into the dirt in front of home plate. The Hoses players are killing themselves now, trash-talking up a storm.

“Um, she could have a problem,” Jerome says.

“Izzy’ll get it together,” Tom says, although he doesn’t sound altogether convinced. “You should take some of those pictures to the Mingo, where Holly’s lady is going to speak. Give them out to the ushers and such.”

“That’s my next stop,” Jerome says.

“And pass them out to any hotels or motels you pass along the way.”

On the mound, Izzy is throwing more smoothly now, although Jerome hopes she’ll be able to put a little more mustard on her pitches when the actual game starts. Right now she’s throwing batting practice stuff, every pitch begging clobber me .

He stands up and hollers, “Bring it, Iz!”

She gives him a smile and touches the brim of her cap.

3

Kate is turning laps in the Garden City Plaza pool. Holly is once again sitting poolside with a towel at the ready, but she also has her tablet and phone. She uses PeopleFinders to get Andrew Fallowes’s phone numbers—there are two of them. Being an experienced investigator, Holly deduces that one is probably his church office and one is his home. It’s two-thirty PM in Wisconsin, so Holly tries the church number first. A robot wishes her a blessed day, and gives her five choices. Holly pushes the one for Administrative Services, wondering how rich a church in northern Wisconsin must be to have five choices.

After two rings, she gets an actual human being. “This is Lois, and God loves you!” the actual human being almost sings. “How may I help you?”

“My name is Holly Gibney, and I’d like to speak with Mr. Fallowes.”

“May I ask how Deacon Fallowes can help you today, Holly?”

Holly has a dislike for people who use her first name on short notice; they usually want to sell her something. Insurance, maybe. “It’s of a personal nature,” she says. “Be sure to tell him my name.” Which may mean nothing to him, or a great deal.

“I’ll just put you on hold for a moment, Holly, if I may.”

“You may,” Holly says.

She waits. Back and forth Kate goes in the pool; red suit, blue water.

After thirty seconds or so, a rich baritone voice says, “This is Deacon Fallowes, Miss Gibley. How may I help?”

Sometimes, when she least expects it, Holly finds herself capable of an almost divine sensitivity, flashes of subconscious understanding she calls, with her usual (and seemingly intractable) self-deprecation, “my crazy intuitions.” She has such a flash now. Fallowes hasn’t misheard her name; he has deliberately mispronounced it. He knows who she is, and if he knows that, he almost certainly knows the mentally unstable person who has been stalking Kate McKay. Does he know what Stewart is doing? Holly isn’t sure, but she thinks he very well might.

“I’m calling about one of your parishioners,” she says. “A young man named Christopher Stewart.”

After the minutest pause, Fallowes says, “Oh, I know Chris. Know him very well. Harold’s boy. Fine young man. What about him, Miss Gibley?” He pauses a bit longer, then adds: “And where are you calling from?”

You know very well where I’m calling from , Holly thinks, but here’s a question: Did you wind Stewart up and set him on this course, or did he do it himself?

“Mr. Fallowes… Deacon… I have reason to believe that Christopher Stewart has been stalking my employer, a woman named Kate McKay. I’m guessing you know that name, as well.”

“Of course I do.” A chill has entered Fallowes’s voice. “The baby killer.”

“You can call her whatever you want,” Holly says. “Stewart threw bleach in her assistant’s face, thinking it was Ms. McKay. That’s assault. He delivered a deadly poison backstage at one of Ms. McKay’s lectures. That’s assault with intent to kill. I have reason to believe—”

“You believe . Do you have any proof?”

“He has attended several of her lectures, maybe all of them. I have a clear picture of him from Iowa City. He was in the third row with his hand up. I think he’s in this city or soon will be. He is a danger to others and also to himself.”

“I reject your premise and have no idea where Chris might be,” Fallowes says, and she knows he’s lying about either one. Probably both.

“For your sake and the sake of your church, Deacon Fallowes, I hope that’s true. Because if he hurts Kate, or someone close to her, or even some innocent bystander or bystanders, the results will be grave. In a phrase I’m sure you’re familiar with, there will be hell to pay.”

“I resent your insinuations, Miss Gibney. They are accusatory.”

Finally got my name right, didn’t you?

In the pool, Kate is finally slowing down. Soon she’ll want her towel. Holly will give it to her, well satisfied with her progress.

“Mr. Fallowes? Deacon?”

Silence… but he’s listening.

“If you know where he is, call him off. Because the trail will lead back to your church. And to you.”

“I’ve heard quite enough,” Fallowes says, and ends the call.

Kate swims to the side of the pool. “Press conference dead ahead. Towel?”

Holly gives her a smile. “Right here.” And holds it out.

4

Chris is walking to the lot where he left his car when his phone rings. It’s Deacon Fallowes. “Do you have another phone?”

Meaning does he have a burner. He has several, but they’re all in the Kia, under the back compartment where the temporary tire is kept. He starts to tell Andy that, but he interrupts.

“Call me on another one. Get rid of yours.” With that he hangs up.

So it’s serious. Chris’s plan to check out the Mingo will have to wait until he finds out what bee Deacon Andy has in his bonnet.

When he gets to the parking lot, he changes phones and calls back. The news is about as bad as it can be.

“They know who you are.” Andy’s voice is as rich and mellow as ever, but Chris is an expert when it comes to fear, he’s felt plenty since the morning he woke up and saw his sister’s dangling hand, and he senses panic just below the surface of Deacon Andy’s mellow-fellow voice. “You have to break off and come back.”

Chris walks to the edge of the lot and stares at the traffic on Buckeye Avenue. Just another Thursday afternoon in the Second Mistake on the Lake. People with their own piddling concerns. Chris has his own concerns, and they aren’t piddling.

“No.”

“What?”

“I’m not breaking off. I’m going to get her, and I’m going to get her here . Enough tiptoeing around.”

“Christopher, as your deacon and a church elder, I’m ordering you to come back. If you continue, you’ll be doing the church irreparable harm.”

You mean I’ll be doing you irreparable harm , Chris thinks. Suppressed resentment rises inside him, like a hot spring that means to break free one way or the other.

“If I’m caught, I’ll tell them I did it on my own.” He has no intention of being caught. At least not alive.

“Christopher, listen to me. They won’t believe that. We’re on the deep state’s radar, have been for years. Just like Waco. And Ruby Ridge.”

Chris tries to set aside the resentment. And the anger. It’s hard. Would he be in this position—this fix —if it wasn’t for the church? Only his mother understood his pain, but except for her ultimatum about Chrissy, she was too gentle to stand against the church’s iron Old Testament beliefs.

“They have your picture from the McKay woman’s lecture in Iowa City. It will be circulated to every policeman in the city. If it hasn’t been already.”

“They are going to be otherwise occupied.” On his walk from the hotel, Chris has seen Guns and Hoses fliers on just about every building and power pole. “They have a serial killer and a big charity game to deal with. Looking for the McKay woman’s stalker will be a very low priority.”

Fallowes seems not to have heard. “Every hotel and motel, too. Including yours .”

It’s something he hasn’t thought of, and it sets him back on his heels.

“Come home, Christopher. We can work this out as long as they can’t identify you from Reno or Omaha.”

I don’t think they can. I was Chrissy in both places. That gives him an idea. If he can get back to his hotel without being spotted as McKay’s stalker, everything may still be well.

“I need you to help me,” Chris says. “I need you to find me a place where my sister can stay unseen until McKay goes onstage tomorrow night at seven. Go on the internet and search for abandoned buildings close to the Garden City Plaza Hotel.”

“Christopher, I won’t do that.”

The anger bursts free. “You will, though. You better. If you don’t, I’ll tell them all this was your idea. Yours and Pastor Jim’s.”

Fallowes makes a sound that’s half sigh and half moan. “If you did that, you would kill this church, son.”

“I’m not your son,” Chris says. Then, without knowing he means to do it, he screams, “ She can’t kill babies! Bad enough that God can! ”

He looks around to see if anyone heard, but the parking lot is his alone under the beating-down afternoon sun.

“Dammit, son… Chris, I mean…”

“Find me a place where I can disappear, Deacon Andy.”

“Any abandoned buildings I find will be locked—”

“I’ll get in.” At least as long as it’s not alarmed .

“Chris—”

“I’ll get rid of my phone and hold onto this burner until you call. After, I’ll get rid of this one, too. I want at least four abandoned buildings, so I have a choice. No, make that five.”

“The internet isn’t reliable, Chris. I may find a building that is supposed to be abandoned, but in reality it might not—”

“That’s why I want a choice,” Chris says, and has to restrain himself from adding what would have been unthinkable when he started on this crusade: You dumbbell.

“Chris—”

He hangs up.

5

Chris walks back to the hotel with his head down and his John Deere cap pulled low. As he approaches he sneaks a look up and sees the assistant, Corrie Anderson, getting out of an Uber. A close one! He waits until she’s inside, and gives her a little extra time to get to the elevators. He has a bad minute passing the doorman, but that goes okay. At least he thinks so. Hopes so.

In Room 919, Chris dons a lavender pants suit—she thinks of it as her Kamala Harris suit—earrings, makeup (including a bright slash of lipstick), and becomes Chrissy. Her purse is in the pink suitcase, along with two wigs. She left on this pilgrimage with three, but got rid of the red one in Reno. One of the remaining wigs is blond, but she doesn’t want to wear that, because her own hair is blond. She dons the black one, fluffs out the bangs, and adds an Alice band that matches the lipstick.

She slings her purse over her shoulder, picks up the pink suitcase, and leaves the room. She’s praying she doesn’t meet the bodyguard from McKay’s party in the elevator or the lobby. She doesn’t know for sure, but thinks the Gibney woman was probably the one who put the fear of God into Andy Fallowes.

The lobby has cleared out for the time being. One of the female desk clerks gives Chrissy a look of casual contempt as she goes out. Chrissy doesn’t understand it at first, then does. The clerk thinks she’s looking at a hooker that’s just finished providing a client with a little afternoon delight.

Outside the hotel she turns right for no other reason than that the doorman is looking left. She has no idea where to go and wait for Andy Fallowes’s call. A block down, she asks a passerby if there’s a place outside in the sunshine where a gal can rest her feet, maybe even get a bite to eat.

“How about Dingley Park?” he says, and points in the direction she’s going. “Six or eight blocks, plenty of benches, plenty of shade, and the food trucks will be open.”

“Isn’t that where the charity game is going to be played tomorrow?”

“Yeah, but that’s way on the other side of the park.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Always a pleasure to help a pretty girl,” the passerby says.

He goes on his way and Chrissy, feeling flattered, goes on hers.

6

Kate does her press conference from four to five in the hotel’s Lake Room. She looks fresh and blooming following her exercise and a quick après -pool shower. Holly stands at the back, unnoticed even though this is her hometown and she’s made a few headlines here herself. Small and graying, rather plain in the face but well-groomed, she has a talent for being slightly dim . She keeps her hand in her purse, touching but not grasping her pepper spray. She recognizes most of the local news people, also national TV news demi-celebs Clarissa Ward, Lauren Simonetti, and Trevor Ault. Corrie got her wish; being shut down in Toledo has turned Kate’s tour into a crusade.

All the reporters have Christopher Stewart’s Iowa City picture; Jerome gave a stack to Holly before buzzing off to talk to Tom Atta at Dingley Park. She asked the hotel’s chief of security to hand them out. Buckeye Brandon, the city’s demi-celeb podcaster, is sitting in the front row wearing his old-fashioned newshawk’s fedora, and with his old-fashioned tape deck slung over his shoulder on a leather strap. He tilts his mic (definitely newfangled) toward himself long enough to ask the first question.

“Ms. McKay, there’s a psycho—the so-called Surrogate Juror Killer—at large in this town, and now a purportedly dangerous stalker is after you. And yet the city police force is pushing ahead with their annual Guns and Hoses softball game tomorrow night.”

Kate says, “Do you have a question, sir, or did you just want to give a sermon?”

There’s a ripple of laughter from the rest of the press pool, but Buckeye Brandon is undeterred. “I was laying down the background, because you’re an outsider in our fair city. The question is how do you justify the risk not only to yourself but to your audience?”

For Kate, this is a fat pitch. “Since the Dobbs versus Jackson Women’s Health decision in June of 2022, over one hundred women’s clinics have closed nationwide. These organizations—”

Buckeye Brandon interrupts with a smile. “Do you have an answer, ma’am, or did you just want to give a sermon?”

This brings more laughter, and for once Kate looks a little off her game. “Those closed centers provided many services other than abortion—pap smears, birth control, mammograms, adoption services. How do you justify that ?”

Buckeye Brandon is unfazed. “You haven’t answered my question.”

Holly expects Kate to challenge this—she’s a woman who likes to have the last word—and is relieved when for once Kate backs off, just saying that the security measures at the Mingo will be sufficient, and to say more would compromise those measures.

The press conference moves on to other subjects, only returning to Christopher Stewart at the end. A reporter from the AP asks Kate if Stewart is connected to any terrorist organization, such as ISIS or the Army of God.

“So far as we know now, he’s only connected to a church in Wisconsin called Real Christ Holy. You’d have to ask them about terrorist ties.”

Deacon Fallowes will be fielding some requests for comment tonight and tomorrow , Holly thinks, and not without satisfaction.

The last question comes from Peter Upfield, of The Western Clarion . It’s delivered in a grating, accusatory voice. “How will you respond, Ms. McKay, if there is an attack by this Stewart person tomorrow, and people are killed?”

Kate gives him a razor-thin smile. “That’s like asking a man if he’s still beating his wife, isn’t it? No matter how that sort of question is answered, it gives the accusation credence. It’s what I’d expect from someone who works for a rag like the Clarion. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”

Kate walks up the center aisle, and when she reaches Holly, a murmur arises from a few of the local reporters, who have finally recognized her. Buckeye Brandon shouts, “How long have you been working for Kate, Holly?”

She doesn’t answer, and doesn’t relax until Kate is safely back in her suite.

7

Corrie is in her room, making calls to local radio stations, spiking the current rumor going around that Sista Bessie is going to introduce Kate tomorrow night. Corrie tells them the Sista will be otherwise engaged, singing the National Anthem at a charity softball game twelve blocks away. Any further questions should be addressed to Sista Bessie’s press representative, and no, Corrie doesn’t know who that would be.

Kate, for the time being at loose ends, asks Holly if she’d like to have a room service dinner with her. Holly agrees and they sit together on the couch, looking over the menu. The prices are terrifying, but Kate tells Holly to knock herself out.

“I only let people order what they want if they save me from getting my brains bashed in.”

While they wait for the food, Izzy calls. Holly excuses herself and takes it in her room. Izzy begins by congratulating Holly on identifying the unstable young man who has been dogging Kate McKay’s tour.

“Way back when this began, I told Lew Warwick that if he wanted an ace detective, he should call you.”

“Izzy, that’s really not—”

“I was righter than I knew. You’re amazing, Holly.”

As always when complimented, Holly wants to change the subject. In the background, she can hear men yelling and the chink of metal bats hitting balls. “You’re at Dingley Park, right?”

“Yes indeed. Have been for most of the day.”

“At Kate’s press conference, Buckeye Brandon asked about why the police were going on with the game when the Surrogate Juror Killer is still on the loose.”

“Yeah, we’ve taken a certain amount of chong from the tong about that.” Before Holly can decide if that’s racist, Izzy pushes on. “I understand and sympathize, but I understand Chief Patmore’s point, too. The game brings in well over a hundred thousand dollars for the Kiner Pedes unit and Muscular Dystrophy. Cancel it, the charities lose and the bad guy wins. Plus, people are apt to be safe in a crowd, and we’re expecting a big one.”

“Are you having any fun?”

“Actually I am. I can still throw a dropball.” She lowers her voice. “Trying to keep it a secret from the firehouse boys.”

“The pitch you threw in the gym, right?”

“Yeah. The softball version of a sinker. If I don’t lose the actual knack when I’m under pressure, I’ll get strikeouts and a lot of ground balls. For the grounders, it’s up to my fielders.”

“Well, good luck,” Holly says. “I wish I could be there.”

“Haven’t had any insights on our case, I don’t suppose. Although the Trig catch was brilliant.”

“I’ve thought about it a lot,” Holly says. “No leads?”

“We’ve almost certainly ID’d the car the killer was driving when he killed George Carville—the farmer—as a Toyota Corolla or Avalon, but what good is that?”

“Not much, I suppose. They are very common.”

“And the guy has been very lucky. It’s Ralph Ganzinger’s case, which is probably just as well for us, but if you think of anything, let me know.”

“Are you sure Alan Duffrey had no friends that would take up his cause in this extreme way?”

“Colleagues, but no real friends since he left the Army in 2016.”

“Never married?”

“No, but we—Tom and I, that is—have reason to believe he was about as hetero as they come. A deep dive on his computer turned up a couple of high-end escort services he may have used, credit card receipts tend to verify that, and he was an occasional Pornhub visitor.”

“What kind of Pornhub visits? Young girls? Or boys?”

Izzy laughs. “On Pornhub, most of them look young. Have you never been there? Even for a scouting expedition?”

“No,” Holly says. She has on a few occasions visited a site called Passionate Kisses, but that at least has a wrapping of romance on the sexy stuff. Kind of like the novels of Colleen Hoover, which Holly enjoys.

“Pornhub’s actually a little sad,” Izzy says, “and Duffrey never went for the pretend schoolgirl stuff. Or the schoolboy stuff, once you discount the pix Cary Tolliver slipped onto his computer. Pretty much straight-up boffing. Grinsted pointed that out, and the prosecutor—Allen—countered by saying Duffrey probably erased all the nasty stuff… except for the stuff Duffrey thought was safely hidden. Which, it turns out, he never had anything to do with.”

“But someone cared enough to start this vendetta in Duffrey’s name,” Holly says.

“Tom thinks it’s just a crazy person.”

“I like Tom, but I think he’s wrong. I keep asking myself who cared enough to start killing people as a result of that trial. Who felt guilty enough himself to do that?”

“Well, if you think of anyone, let me know.”

“No friends who might be out for revenge? You’re sure?”

“Not that we know of.”

From outside, Holly hears the rattle of a room service trolley. Kate calls, “Dinner’s here, Holly! Don’t let it get cold!”

“I have to go, Izzy—time to eat. I’m having hundred-dollar lamb chops.”

“What the fuck, are they dusted in gold?”

Holly laughs, ends the call, goes into the suite, and eats her expensive dinner. Kate makes conversation by asking about Holly’s work as an investigator. Holly opens up a little… although not about her more outré cases. She rarely talks about those.

8

After dinner, Holly gets a call from Tom Atta, who is at Dingley but ineligible for the big game because of the hamstring pull. He tells her that he also called the Real Christ Holy Church administrative extension. “Got someone named Lois.”

“Did she sound like she was singing?”

Tom laughs. “Actually, she sorta did. Said Fallowes wasn’t there, and when I asked about Chris Stewart, she got all cagey and said she wasn’t free to divulge the names of parishioners.”

“They know him,” Holly says. “Lois may not know what he’s up to, but I’d bet my house and lot that Fallowes does.”

“Do you have a house and lot, Holly?”

“Actually I don’t, but I do have a condo.”

“After I got bupkes from the church, I called the Baraboo Junction Town Office, which, given the population, is probably the size of a trailer. They were just closing, but I got a clerk willing to chat with an officer of the law. She ID’d Chris Stewart as a member of the Real Christ Holy Church.”

“I already knew—”

“Here’s something you might not know. This chatty clerk said there was some big kerfuffle in the church a few years ago. She told me Chris Stewart was kind of a black sheep in Real Christ Holy because he got caught wearing girls’ clothes as a kid, but this clerk said the church prayed it away.”

“Maybe they didn’t quite succeed,” Holly says.