Chapter 22
1
4 PM.
Trig’s office is on the second floor of the Mingo Auditorium. The dressing rooms are on the third. Talking to Kate McKay on the phone was all well and good, but with Sista Bessie, facetime would be better. He needs to think about it, and very carefully.
He decides a little shock therapy might be in order.
2
4:05 PM.
Holly has called Jerome and asked him if cleaning up elephant poop at ten AM means anything to him. Jerome said it didn’t. She tried Barbara to ask the same question and her call went straight to voicemail. Holly guessed she was either in the shower or practicing her dance moves as an honorary Dixie Crystal.
She decides to take advantage of a no–press conference day by lying down and having her own power nap, but she’s too wired to even doze. She missed something that should be too big and obvious to miss… and yet she is missing it.
An idea comes to her, maybe brilliant. She sits up, grabs her phone, and calls a person who probably knows as much about Buckeye City as anyone: her recently retired partner, Pete Huntley.
3
4:10 PM.
There’s a star decaled onto the door of Sista Bessie’s dressing room, and a taped sign that says, KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING. Trig simply barges in. The woman is sprawled on the pull-out couch and fast asleep. Dressed in her slop-around clothes, she doesn’t look famous, and lying still instead of doing various rock-and-soul moves around the stage, mic in hand, she looks ginormous.
She hears him come in and sits up, first rubbing her eyes and then looking at her watch—not a Patek Philippe or even a Rolex, but a plain old Swatch. “I told Alberta I could sleep until four-thirty, but since you’re here—”
She starts to get up. Trig advances two steps, puts his spread fingers into the top-swell of one breast, and pushes her back down on her fat ass. This gives him surprising pleasure. He’s seen a lot of famous people come and go, and in his heart of hearts, he’s always wanted to do that. They all think they are God’s anointed because they can attract a crowd, but they put their pants on one leg at a time just like anyone else.
Meanwhile, time is fleeting and the puck is flying. Too late to turn around. Too late to flinch.
She stares at him from the edge of the couch. “What in the hail do you think you’re doin, Mr. Gibson?”
He pulls over the chair in front of the makeup mirror and sits on it backwards, cowboy-style. “Making sure you’re fully awake and aware. Listen to me, Sista whatever-your-real-name-is. Very closely.”
“Name’s Betty Brady.” She is fully awake and aware now, and looking at him with narrowed eyes. “But since you seen fit to push me, why don’t you go on and call me ma’am.”
He has to smile at that. She’s got some sand. She makes him think of Belinda “just call me Bunny” Jones in the jury room. She had some sand, too. Once Lowry gave in, Bunny was the last holdout. But he wore her down, didn’t he?
He says, “Okay, ma’am, that’s fine with me. You’ll be leaving here soon, I understand you’re planning to go back to the hotel and change clothes for your appearance at Dingley Park, and I won’t stop you from doing that. With me so far?”
“With you, yes I am. Cain’t wait to see where this is goin.” Sounding almost pleasant, but also sounding more southern, and looking at him with those same narrowed eyes.
“Once you leave, you can do whatever you want, it’s your decision, but you should look at this before you make it.”
He holds up Barbara Robinson’s phone and shows Sista Bessie—his ma’am—the picture of Barbara bound to one of the penalty box poles.
Betty puts her hand to the wattles below her throat. “Mother of God, what… what—”
“My partner has a gun on her.” Trig produces this lie smoothly. “If you tell the cops, if you tell anybody , she’s going to die. Got it?”
Betty says nothing, but her expression of dismay is all Trig could have hoped for. The singer has been a weak point all along. (Well, there are actually lots of weak points, it’s an extremely rickety plan, but this is one of the weakest.) How much does this woman, this star , care for her new friend? He listens; keeps his ear to the ground , as they say. So, for that matter, does Maisie, who is all about famous people. They’ve heard enough to know Sista Bessie has taken the girl under her wing. Enough to always keep the girl’s book of poems close and to have included her in the band, at least for this first gig. Enough—this to Trig’s mind is the convincer—to have adapted one of the girl’s poems into a song important enough to be the show closer.
Enough for him to take the chance.
“If you’ve got it… ma’am… give me a nod.”
Betty nods without taking her eyes from the picture of Barbara. It’s as if she’s hypnotized by it, the way a bird can supposedly be hypnotized by a snake, and for the first time Trig really believes this rocket will fly.
“For the next three hours or so, can you act as if nothing is wrong? Go through with singing the National Anthem before that game?”
She thinks about it, then says, “Back in the day, I once played Giants Stadium with intestinal flu in front of eighty-two thousand people. Didn’t want to disappoint em, so I wore Depends. Threw up at intermission and nobody but the boys in the band ever knew. I can do it, but only if you convince me you mean to let her go.”
“I mean to let both of you go. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Once you finish the Anthem, I’ll give you a call and tell you where to come and get her. It’s not far.”
She gives him a goggly-eyed look, then laughs. Actually laughs . “You are one crazy white man and you are also one dumb white man.”
“Enlighten me.”
“I sing the song. Not eighty-two thousand watchin me do it, but as many as that park’ll hold. I go back to change my clothes in the little room they got set aside for me, and when I come out, there’s going to be two, maybe three hundred people standin outside and hopin to get my autograph or at least a picture. You think I can just slip away? Shi -yit .”
Trig hasn’t considered this. He expects the other one, McKay, will find a solution, because hotels—the good ones, at least—usually have a way or even two ways by which celebrities can make a quick and quiet escape. But from a makeshift dressing room in the cinderblock equipment building at the softball field? To coin a phrase, that’s a very different ballgame.
But because the plan depends on it, he says what he said to Kate McKay. “Find a way.”
“Let’s say I do. Do you expect me to believe you’re goan let her and me go? I was born at night but it wasn’t last night, and I have an idea who you are. You been killin people in this town, Mr. Gibson. So like I say, convince me.”
Lies work best when the person being lied to wants to believe. They also work best when they are combined with the truth. Trig employs both strategies now.
“I was on the jury that convicted an innocent man named Alan Duffrey. I had help from an ambitious, self-righteous prosecutor and from the man who framed him, but that’s no excuse for what I did, which was browbeating three jurors who felt that Duffrey was telling the truth when he testified in his own defense. If not for me, that jury would have hung. And do you know what happened to Alan Duffrey?”
“Nothing good, I’m guessin.”
“Killed in prison before the truth came out. The load of guilt I’ve been carrying since…”
He shakes his head as if this were actually true, but he no longer believes it is, or ever was. His mother used to say—before she was gone —that popcorn is just an excuse to eat butter. He now believes that the guilt he hoped to load onto his fellow jurors was just an excuse to commit murder.
But she’s giving him a look like she understands. Of course that might be what he thinks of as the Celebrity Sincere Face. Most of them are good at it.
“I’ve decided to show mercy,” he says. “You and the young woman—Barbara—can walk away from this. There’s another pair of women who may not be so lucky. Or perhaps they will be. I haven’t decided.”
He’s decided everything .
“If you show your love for this Barbara by speaking to no one and then showing up at the place I’ll tell you—no matter how difficult getting out unseen may be—I will let you go. That’s my promise to you. If you don’t love her enough to show up, you will still live, but she dies. Do you understand the choice I’m offering you? Ma’am? ”
Betty nods.
Trig gets up from his chair. “I’m leaving now. You have a decision to make. Don’t you?”
Betty nods again.
“Make the right one,” Trig says, and leaves.
When he’s gone, Betty puts her hands over her face and begins to cry. When the tears let up she gets down on her knees, closes her eyes, and asks God what she should do. Either God speaks to her, or her secret heart does. Maybe those things are even the same. She makes a call and asks an old friend if he took the bus to the city.
“You know me, Bets. I don’t like to fly. I would have taken a Greyhound to England that time we went if I could’ve.”
“But that’s not the only reason you take the bus, is it, Red?”
4
4:20 PM.
Alberta Wing said time is tight, but Holly doesn’t know that; she thinks she has at least an hour before Kate will want to go to the Mingo, maybe even longer, so she and Pete spend some time catching up: her cases, his fishing exploits. He tells her again that she should come down to Boca Raton, and she tells him again that she will… and maybe this time she actually means it. God knows she could use some time to unwind once this current job is over.
Pete only has one coughing fit, very brief, so maybe he’s finally overcoming his case of long-haul Covid. When the coughing lets up, he says, “Great talking with you, Hols, but I doubt if you called just to bat the breeze.”
“I did have another reason, but I’m almost embarrassed to tell you. And it’s really Izzy’s case, not mine, but she’s got other priorities this weekend. At least she does tonight.”
“Yeah, the softball game. I keep up on all the hometown doins, especially the ones about the police. After what happened to Emil Crutchfield last year, I hope she beans one of those firemen. Is this about the Surrogate Juror thing? Almost has to be, right?”
“It is. I have reason to think the killer said something at an AA meeting about elephants.”
“Elephants.” Pete sounds bemused. “Packy-derms.”
“Right. What this guy supposedly said was, ‘Have you ever tried to hire someone to clean up elephant shit at ten in the morning.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
Silence.
“Pete? Are you there?”
“I’m here and it rings a bell. Just can’t catch hold of why.”
“I can relate to that,” Holly says.
“Can I call you back?”
Holly checks her watch. It’s going on quarter to five. Kate will be up by now, getting ready to roll. “Yes, but if it’s not in the next twenty or thirty minutes, my phone will be off until nine-thirty or so.”
“Working?”
“Working.”
“Sometimes I wish I still was,” Pete says. “I’ll give you a call if anything occurs.”
“Thanks, Pete. I miss you.”
“Miss you, too, Hols.”
She ends the call, peeks her head out into the corridor, and sees the DO NOT DISTURB sign still hanging on Kate’s door. Holly’s sure she’s up, but guesses she might be taking a quick shower.
5
5 PM.
There’s a minor traffic jam near Dingley Park, people already headed for the ballfield, but Trig honks his way through, fixated on getting to the Holman Rink before the McKay woman. A yellow flier for the charity game lies on the passenger seat, seeming to mock him. Everything has to go off on time, and not just the game. If McKay is early getting to the rink, it could spoil everything. Would spoil everything. Once he’s on Service Road A, the crowds streaming to the field on the other side of the park are left behind. He parks the Transit van, grabs his grocery bag, and uses the Plumber’s Code to let himself in. He trots across the lobby and into the arena to make sure his prisoners are still his prisoners. He relaxes when he sees them. There’s plenty of gaffer tape in his bag, but there’s no room for his next expected guest in the penalty box, so he’ll have to secure her to the bleachers. Assuming she’s tractable. He would like to kill all four of them at once—five, counting himself—but if McKay makes a fuss, she’ll have to go right away. If he makes that clear, self-interest may ensure her cooperation. He touches the Taurus in the pocket of his sportcoat, making sure it’s still there.
Across town, John Ackerly is standing in front of Happy, looking natty in his own sportcoat and tailored slacks. Jerome swings to the curb and John climbs in. “Exciting times, bro,” John says, and Jerome gives him a fist-bump.
With the connivance of the manager, Kate gets an Uber at the Garden City Plaza’s utility-and-supplies exit behind the hotel. Her ride is also stuck in Dingley Park traffic, the driver inching ahead by fits and starts while Kate’s phone seems to be racing past 5:05 to 5:10 and then to 5:15. If she can’t get to the abandoned hockey building before five-thirty, will Stewart make good on his threat to kill Corrie? Kate thinks the chances of that are good. Too good.
“Can’t you get around these people?” she asks, sitting forward. The driver lifts his hands in a Gallic gesture that says, You see the situation as well as I . Kate has her phone in her hand and her handbag slung over her shoulder. As the time on her phone changes from 5:15 to 5:16, she dips into the bag, brings out three tens, and flings them into the front seat. She gets out, cuts through the crowd to the sidewalk, and calls up the Maps app on her phone. She sees her destination is twenty minutes away if she’s walking, so she doesn’t walk. She runs.
6
5:17 PM.
Holly pokes her head out of her room again and sees the DO NOT DISTURB card still hanging from the doorknob of Kate’s suite. This is a little worrying. What’s perhaps more worrying is that there’s still no sign of Corrie, who is—like Holly herself—a compulsive early bird. Before she can decide if she should use the key cards she has to check their rooms, her phone rings. It’s Pete. She considers dismissing the call, then takes it.
“I knew I remembered something about packy-derms. The Calloway Family Circus was in town. Few years ago, this was. Rinky-dink outfit, just one ring instead of three, next door to fly-by-night, gone now. The Calloway had a trio of packy-derms they called Mama, Papa, and Baby. You know, like in ‘Goldilocks’? If the girl had found a house in the woods where elephants lived instead of bears, that is. Which is ridiculous, but is it more ridiculous than a bears’ house with beds and a stove? Probably also a fucking TV, pardon my francaise ? I think not.”
Get to the point , Holly restrains herself from saying. She pokes her head out again, hoping the DO NOT DISTURB sign will be gone from Kate’s door, but it’s still there. Also no sign of Corrie, burdened with shopping bags, hurrying down the hall from the elevator.
“Anyhoo,” Pete says (after another brief coughing fit), “the Calloway Circus, in every town they went to they’d do some free advertising by inviting all the grammar school kiddos to a local venue so they could see some of the acts, and actually pet Baby’s trunk. In Buckeye City, the kids got to see some of the show—and Baby—at the Mingo. What I remembered was a picture of Baby onstage, wearing a little sunhat.”
Holly has been standing in the doorway. Now she staggers back a step as if physically struck. She realizes what has been troubling her, what was too big to miss… only she did miss it, didn’t she? The phone sags away from her ear and she hears Pete say, tinny and distant, “Holly? Are you there?”
She says, “I have to go, Pete,” and ends the call before Pete can reply.
Last night at the Mingo. Pulling up beside a white Transit van in the employees’ parking lot. Two men waiting for her outside, one in a Sista Bessie tee, the other in a sportcoat and tie. The former was Sista Bessie’s tour manager. The latter…
Hello, Ms. Gibney. I’m Donald Gibson.
Donald Gibson, the Mingo’s Program Director.
Donald Gibson, who was also on the jury that convicted Alan Duffrey.
Can’t be him. Can’t be.
Only what if it is?
Holly’s first impulse is to call Izzy. Her finger is hovering over the favorites button when she reconsiders, and not just because her call will almost certainly go to voicemail if Izzy is on the softball field, getting ready for the game that starts in less than two hours. She told Pete it was Izzy’s case, but it no longer is. The Surrogate Juror Murders now belong to the State Police.
She should get in touch with SP Detective Ralph Ganzinger, but won’t. She’s already made one embarrassing mistake by telling Izzy that she thought Russell Grinsted, Alan Duffrey’s lawyer, was Trig. Calling Ganzinger could be another, even bigger mistake. Is she supposed to tell Ganzinger, who she doesn’t know from Adam, that she thinks the killer is Donald Gibson because he once said something about elephant shit? Might have said? That he might have said it at an AA meeting, and the alias the killer’s using is Bill Wilson, the founder of AA? That he calls himself not Briggs but Trig? Would anyone but her follow that winding train of logic? Would it matter if she said, I know it, I feel it ? It would to the late Bill Hodges, and it might to Izzy, but to anyone else? No. And what if it’s like her brainwave about Grinsted? What if she’s wrong again?
The mother who lives in her head speaks up: Of course you’re wrong, Holly. Why, you couldn’t even remember your library book when you got off the schoolbus!
She looks at her watch and sees it’s 5:22. First things first; it’s time to collect her famous employer and go to the Mingo. In fact they’ll have to beat feet not to be late. Kate is her job, not Bill Wilson, aka Trig (and possibly aka Donald Gibson). Also—and this idea causes a wave of relief to wash through her—she can ask Kate what she thinks. A woman who believes in herself , Holly thinks. One not cursed with terminal insecurity .
The mother in her head is telling her she’s passing the buck and only weak people do that, but Holly ignores her. She goes next door and uses the key card to let herself into Kate’s suite.
“Kate? Where are you? We have to go!”
No answer. The bedroom door is closed. There’s a note. Holly pulls it off the door and reads it.
7
5:23 PM.
Jerome and John Ackerly park near the service entrance behind the Mingo. Jerome says, “I hope she won’t be embarrassed to ride to the hotel in a Subaru.”
“Don’t be an ass,” John says.
Jerome uses the code his sister gave him to open the door, and they hurry through the little kitchen.
“Her dressing room is on the third floor,” Jerome says, but Sista Bessie is waiting for them in the break room, reading from Barbara’s book of poems. Jerome is struck by how much she looks like his Aunt Gertrude. This leads to a second thought, which should be elementary but somehow isn’t: this is just another human being. A fellow rider on the journey from cradle to coffin. That leads to a third thought, which he will try to hold onto: unless and until it’s used, talent is just an illusion.
Sista Bessie stands up and smiles. It looks strained to Jerome, and he wonders if she feels a little off, maybe coming down with something. “Young Man Jerome,” she says. “Thank you for the ride.”
“You’re more than welcome,” he says, and takes her outstretched hand. “This is my friend, John Ackerly.”
Although that’s his cue, John doesn’t immediately turn to Sista. He’s staring at a line of framed pictures on the wall below a message to the staff that reads, REMEMBER YOU ARE DEALING WITH THE PUBLIC, SO SMILE!
“John?”
He seems to wake up and turns to his friend and the elderly woman. “Big fan,” he says. “Can’t wait to hear you sing.”
“Thank you, son. I think we better get going. Don’t want to be late.”
“Yes,” Jerome says, but John walks to the framed pictures below the REMEMBER TO SMILE memo. He’s looking at the photo of a smiling bearded man.
8
Holly: Christopher Stewart has taken Corrie. He says that if anyone tells the police, he will kill her. I believe him. If you call your cop friend and Corrie dies, it will be your fault. I got her into this. I’m going to get her out of it. K.
Hardly aware of what she’s doing, Holly crumples the note in her fist and strikes herself in the forehead twice, and hard. She feels like a woman who has run up to the edge of a precipice and almost fallen over. If she had called Izzy, as she first intended, or got in touch with the State Police detective, she could have been signing Corrie Anderson’s death warrant… and possibly Kate’s, as well.
And what is she supposed to do now? Just what the frack is she supposed to do?
The GPS tracker on her truck!
She picks up the phone, calls the front desk, and after what seems like an eternity is connected with the parking garage. She identifies herself as Kate’s security woman and the attendant tells her that Kate’s F-150 is still parked in the garage. Holly’s heart sinks. She’s about to hang up when the attendant says, “She took an Uber. Went out the utility exit. Just like Lady Gaga did when she played the Mingo.”
Holly thanks him and sinks down on the sofa, Kate’s note still crumpled in her hand. Much later, she’ll see the bloody crescents her fingernails have cut into her palm.
What now? What the hell am I supposed to do now?
Her phone rings. She grabs it out of her pocket, hoping it’s Kate. It’s John Ackerly.
“John, I can’t talk to you now. I’ve got a situation here, and I need to think.”
“Okay, but wait one. I’m coming to the hotel with Jerome and Sista Bessie, but I thought you’d want to know this right away. I think I know who Trig is! The guy I saw at the Buell Street Straight Circle meeting! This was years ago and he had a beard then. Now he’s clean-shaven and wears glasses! His picture is on the wall at the Mingo! He’s the Program Director!”
“Donald Gibson,” Holly says.
“Ah, dookie,” John says. “You already knew. Do I call the cops, or what?”
“No!”
“Are you sure?”
She’s not sure, that’s the pure hell of it; Holly is rarely sure about anything. But she’s close to sure. Kate thinks Christopher Stewart has Corrie, but logic suggests Kate is wrong. How could Stewart have taken Corrie, when his name and picture are everywhere? Gibson, on the other hand, could have taken her easily, because she was going to the Mingo to sign— supposedly sign—insurance papers.
“I’m sure. You have to keep it to yourself, John. Promise me.”
“All right. You know best.”
If only , Holly thinks. What can I do? Depend on Kate to rescue Corrie?
It would be nice if she could even half-believe that, but she keeps thinking of how Kate froze when the man with the bat came at her. This is no pundits’ forum on CNN or MSNBC; this is a crazy man who is luring her in. If Kate had taken her truck, Holly might be able to track her to wherever Corrie was being held, but she didn’t take her truck.
Think , she tells herself. Think, you stupid ineffectual bitch , think! But the only thing that comes to mind is a thing Bill Hodges used to say: Sometimes the universe throws you a rope .
If ever she needed a rope, it’s now.
9
5:30 PM.
Kate sprints through a small lot for park employees, past a white Transit van, and up a cracked and frost-heaved sidewalk to an old wooden building with faded hockey players flanking the double doors. She’s breathing hard, but not gasping; years of swimming have conditioned her for this hard run from Dingley Boulevard, which skirts the park, to Service Road A. One hand is in her purse, gripping the can of pepper spray.
As she reaches the doors, she risks a glance at her watch and sees it’s 5:31. What if she’s too late?
She hammers on the door with her free hand. “I’m here! I’m here, goddammit, don’t you kill her, Stewart! Don’t you— ”
The door opens. Trig’s right arm is cocked back like a rifle bolt, his right hand fisted. Before Kate can get her hand out of her purse, he punches her in the face. There’s a crunch as her nose breaks. The pain is enormous. A red mist, not blood but shock, clouds her vision as she stumbles backward and goes down on her butt. She holds onto the cannister of spray in her purse while she’s falling, but when she lands, her hand is jarred loose. The strap of her purse slides down to her elbow.
Trig bends, trying to shake the pain out of his hand. He grabs her forearm, yanks her to her feet, punches her in the face again. Kate is distantly aware that warmth is flooding over her mouth and chin. Blood , she thinks, that’s my bl—
“ NO! ” someone shouts. “NO, SHE’S MINE!”
The hand gripping her arm lets go. There’s a gunshot, and Kate is vaguely aware of something buzzing close by her ear. She plunges her hand back into her purse as someone—a woman with dark hair—rushes at the man who’s grabbed her. The woman has a pistol in her hand, but before she can level it for a second shot, the man grabs her wrist and twists it. The woman screams. The man pulls her, turns her, and uses her forward momentum to hurl her into Kate, who is still struggling to get the pepper spray out of her purse. They both go down, the woman on top of Kate.
This close, face to face like lovers in bed, Kate can see speckles of stubble on the woman’s face, and realizes it’s a man. The one in the picture Holly showed her. Christopher Stewart.
The man in the sportcoat bends over Stewart and grabs his head in both hands. He twists it, and Kate hears a muffled crack as Stewart’s neck fractures, or—oh God—actually breaks. Kate finally gets the can out of her purse.
“Hey, you fucking piece of shit.”
The sportcoat man looks at her and Kate gives him a faceful of Sabre Red Pepper. He screams and claps his hands to his eyes. Kate struggles to get out from beneath Stewart’s dead weight. She looks around for somebody, anybody , and sees no one. On the far side of the park there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people, but nobody here. Not a soul. She can hear John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” blaring from the softball field’s speakers, the sound tinny with distance.
“Help!” she tries to scream, but all that comes out is a wheezy whisper. It’s not the run; it’s the shock of being punched, then having Christopher Stewart land on top of her.
She struggles to her knees, but before she can get away, a hand closes around her ankle. It’s Stewart. Foam is drizzling from his mouth, his wig has come askew, and he seems to be grinning. He gasps, “Baby… killer.”
Kate kicks him in the throat. Stewart’s hand loosens, then lets go. Kate staggers to her feet, only to be knocked sprawling again by a hard blow to the center of her back. She turns her head and sees the man in the sportcoat. His eyes are fiery red and spouting tears, but he’s seeing her. She tries to get to her feet again and he kicks her. There’s a flare of pain as something in her left side breaks.
The man in the sportcoat stumbles over Stewart, flails for balance, gets it, and grabs her arm. He jerks her to her feet again, backs up, and falls over Stewart, who is spasming weakly. Kate lands on top of the sportcoat man and rams her forehead into his mouth.
“Ow! Fuck, that hurts! Stop it, bitch!”
She rams down again, and feels Mr. Sportcoat’s lips squash against his teeth. Before she can do it a third time, something clubs her on the temple. The red mist returns. Then darkens to black.
10
5:33 PM.
Holly decides she’ll have to call the police after all—there’s no other option. She’s reaching for her phone when she remembers something from Iowa City: Kate holding up the keys to her truck and her seaside home in Carmel. “They need their own bodyguard,” she said. “I’m always losing track of these puppies.”
So Holly, wiser in the ways of computer-assisted living than Kate McKay, had attached an Apple AirTag to Kate’s keyring.
She grabs her phone, drops it (her hands are shaking), snatches it off the carpet, and opens the Find My app on her phone. Please, universe , she thinks. Throw me a rope .
The universe obliges. The app shows her KATE’S KEYS, and locates them in what looks like Dingley Park, 1.8 miles away.
Holly goes back to her room and gets Bill Hodges’s gun out of the safe in the closet. She puts it in her purse and heads for the elevator.
Kate and Corrie.
Her responsibility.
11
Trig looks around with streaming eyes and sees they still have the Holman Rink to themselves. His mouth is throbbing and he keeps swallowing blood. The music continues to blare from the speakers at the softball field. He can actually taste the stuff the bitch sprayed him with, and his sinuses feel like they’re swelling. He needs to flush both eyes and sinuses, but has no idea if the faucets in the restrooms are still working.
Never mind that now.
He grabs the McKay woman by the hair and drags her into the foyer caveman-style. Her feet pedal and she makes a fuzzy protesting sound. He’s tempted to kick her again for what she did to him—God, how his eyes burn ! She wasn’t supposed to fight back!
Never mind, never mind .
Trig grabs the man in the woman’s pants suit—Stewart—and drags him into the foyer. Trig knows this is the guy who has been stalking Kate McKay. Any doubt he might have had on that score was put to rest by what the man screamed as he tried to shoot Trig: She’s mine!
Stewart is trying to talk. His hands are twitching, but he can’t seem to turn his head. A huge lump has arisen on the nape of his neck where some vertebrae have either been dislocated or snapped.
Trig goes back outside. He picks up the black wig the man was wearing, and the can of pepper spray he clouted McKay with, finally knocking her out before the witch could head-butt him again. His lips are swelling.
You deserved it , his dead father says. Trig can see him now through his watering eyes. A wavery ghost. You flinched .
“Did not, Daddy. Never did.”
He goes back in, shuts the doors, and kicks away the gun McKay’s would-be stalker tried to kill him with. He kneels on the floor beside the man in the pants suit. From his pocket he takes the Taurus .22. The would-be stalker rolls his visible eye to look at it.
“I couldn’t put your name on the Mingo signboard, because I didn’t know you’d be here,” Trig says, “but that’s okay. You can be a stand-in for Russell Grinsted. Do you know who that is?”
The would-be stalker makes a rusty gargling sound. It might be Jesus .
“Not Jesus, my friend, Alan Duffrey’s lawyer. I wasn’t going to kill somebody in his name, but since you’re here…”
He puts the Taurus against the man’s temple. Chrissy Stewart makes a few more inarticulate sounds, perhaps the beginning of a plea for mercy, perhaps wanting a word with Jesus, but Trig shoots him before he can get much out.
Trig says, “You can talk to Jesus in person. And as for Grinsted, I’m sure he could have done a better job.”
His eyes still burn and his sinuses still throb, but his vision is clearing. Kate McKay is starting to come around. Trig hauls her to her feet. How many times has he done that? He can’t remember, only knows he’s getting tired of doing it. She’s no lightweight. And they’re not supposed to fight back, dammit.
“Do you want me to hit you again? Knock you out? Maybe fracture your jaw? Or I could shoot you in the gut. Would you like me to shoot you in the gut? You wouldn’t die, at least not for awhile, but it would hurt like hell. Want that?”
Kate shakes her head. Her lower face is covered with blood. Her front teeth, top and bottom, are broken off.
“That’s a good call. Ma’am .” He escorts her, stumble-stepping and dazed, into the rink. “Step over the boards. Wouldn’t want you to trip. Here’s your friend Corrie, and a new friend, Barbara. They can’t say hello, but I’m sure they’re happy to see you. Over here by the bleachers, you troublesome bitch. We have to wait for one more, then we can finish up.”