Chapter 29
For several seconds, the captive stood blinking in the glare of the flashlight. He was a stranger, Colly saw—a white male in his mid-thirties, broad-shouldered and dark-haired, with the tanned face and pale forehead of a hat-wearing outdoorsman.
“Well, well. Dave Carroway,” Avery said finally. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Colly stared. “Dave Carroway ?”
“Leave me alone—I didn’t do nothing.”
“How’d you get here? Where’s your truck?” Avery demanded.
“Down yonder.” Carroway gestured towards the road. “I just come to leave a note. Read that, and lemme go home.” He turned, but Avery blocked the way.
“Someone broke into this house today, and now you’re snooping around. You’ve got some explaining to do.”
Carroway spat. “Have it your way. I ain’t no burglar. Just get that damn light out of my face.”
They walked back to the farmhouse in silence. The white envelope still lay on the mat. Colly picked it up. In the living room, she sat on the couch. Avery flopped down beside her and pointed Carroway to an armchair.
Colly studied the newcomer. The indoor lighting revealed a pinched, sharp-featured face and arms pocked with blotchy scars—from long-healed meth sores, most likely. The knees of his jeans were dirty and ripped where he’d landed on the gravel outside. She glimpsed blood through the torn place.
“Why’d you run away?” she asked.
Carroway gestured sullenly towards the envelope in her hand. “Just read that.”
Colly tapped it thoughtfully against her palm, then dropped it onto the coffee table. “I’d rather hear it from your own mouth.”
“Aw, hell, read it, will ya? You can ask me questions after.” Though his tone was hostile, Carroway seemed more anxious than angry. He glanced wildly towards the door and leaned forward, ready to bolt.
Beside her, Colly felt Avery shift, preparing to give chase again.
“Relax, David. Everything’s fine,” Colly said. “The sooner you tell me what this is about, the quicker you’re out of here.”
Carroway stared blankly at her for a minute, then ran a hand roughly over his face. “Yeah, okay.”
Colly waited, but he seemed unable to begin.
“Need some water?” Avery sprang up without waiting for an answer and headed for the kitchen, returning momentarily with a glass.
Carroway drank half the water in one long swallow. “Thanks.” He took a deep breath and looked at Colly. “I reckon you know about me?”
“I know you own a farm on Salton Road, and you’ve had a few run-ins with police. And I know my brother-in-law Willis molested you when you were a kid.”
“No, he didn’t.”
Colly wasn’t sure what she’d expected to hear, but it wasn’t this. “Excuse me?”
Carroway reddened. “That’s the story, all right. But Willis Newland never touched me. I kept my mouth shut for thirty years. But when she come by the farm asking questions this morning”—he nodded towards Avery—“it stirred things up.”
Colly stared. “You lied?”
“Yes—no. I don’t know. Not at first.”
Colly held up her hand. “Start from the beginning.”
Carroway shifted uneasily. “My family and the Newlands went to the same church when I was a kid. Willis was seven or eight years older than me, but he was kinda slow, so mentally we weren’t so far apart. I liked him. We used to play together, sometimes.” Carroway took another quick gulp of water. “One day, when I was six, Willis was pushing me on the swing set after church. I needed to take a piss, so he took me inside to find my mom. But we couldn’t find her. I was about to wet my pants, so Willis took me to the bathroom. Nobody else was in there. I had trouble with my zipper, so I asked him for help. My dad walked in just as Willis was unzipping my pants.
“I reckon you can imagine what happened next. My old man didn’t ask questions. He just scooped me up and carried me straight to Willis’s folks. He told them what he saw—what he thought he saw. I think he threatened to call the cops. I was scared and confused. I couldn’t understand why he was so mad.
“That night, Mr. Newland called my father. He made some kind of settlement offer if we’d keep things quiet and leave the courts out of it.” Carroway looked up. “I found this out years later.”
“Your parents never asked you what happened?”
“Sure they did. But I thought they were mad at me, so I didn’t tell the truth for a while. When I finally did, my old man didn’t believe me, just said, ‘I know what I saw.’ And he told me to keep quiet.” Carroway sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know what my folks really thought. But after they died, I found out that the money from the Newlands kept the farm from going bust that year.”
Carroway fell silent, turning the water glass in his hand.
“Why didn’t you clear things up when you got older?” Colly asked.
“I wanted to. But I was afraid the Newlands might sue my folks. Then, after Willis killed that kid and went to prison, I told myself my story didn’t really matter no more.”
He had gotten into drugs to numb the guilt of the lie, he told them, but he was clean now. “I been seeing a shrink in Sweetwater the past couple years. He says I gotta tell the truth to Willis’s family if I want to get free of the past. Today when you knocked, I figured it was a sign. Now or never.”
Carroway gestured towards the envelope on the coffee table. “I’ve had that written a long time.” He met Colly’s eyes. “I heard you were staying out here. Since you ain’t a Newland by birth, I thought...”
“You thought I’d take it better than the rest of the family.”
Carroway blushed. “I figured I could stick that letter in the door and you wouldn’t see it till tomorrow.”
Colly stared hard at him. “How do I know all this is true? Everyone who could corroborate your story is dead.”
Carroway’s eyes flashed. “I got nothing to gain by lying. If you don’t believe me, ask my shrink.”
“I think I will, if you’ll authorize it. What’s his name and address?”
“You serious?”
For answer, Colly pushed the white envelope across the table, along with a pencil. “Write it down.”
Scowling, Carroway consulted the address book on his phone and did as she asked.
When he was done, Colly took back the envelope. “I want you to call him in the morning and give him permission to talk to us. He’ll want you to sign release forms, I’m sure, but hopefully it can be done electronically. Tell him I’d like a face-to-face.”
After Carroway left, Colly checked her watch. It was just past one a.m. She turned to Avery. “What do you think?”
Avery studied her uncertainly. “Does this mean you’re not reporting me or—or having me arrested? I’m still on the case?”
Excellent question , Colly thought. Avery had lied to her from the beginning, which was reason enough to drop her. But Colly had already sidelined Russ for the same reason. There was no one else she could turn to, and the job was too big for one person. I suppose it’s not fair to report Avery and keep quiet about Russ , she thought . Besides, nothing about this is by the book—it’s an informal review . I only need to gather enough to convince the Rangers to reopen the case.
Aloud, she said, “You’ve told me everything? No more surprises?”
“No more surprises, I swear.”
Russ said the same , Colly thought grimly. Hopefully, with Avery, it was true. “I haven’t decided what to do,” she said finally. “Let’s finish the investigation, and we’ll see. Consider yourself on probation, for now. One more screwup and you’re out.”
Avery’s shoulders sagged with relief. She nodded. “What next? You gonna tell Russ about Carroway?”
Colly shook her head. “I’m not tossing that grenade into the family till I verify it.”
“Does it matter now if Willis groped the kid or not? He didn’t kill Adam, and he’s got an alibi for Denny. Once we find the real killer, Willis is in the clear.”
“As long as people around here think he was a pervert, he’ll be suspected, no matter what evidence we bring. Let’s do what we can for him—he deserves that much.”
That night, Colly was reluctant to sleep in her own bedroom after the events of the afternoon. She lay down on the living room sofa, her gun by her side, but couldn’t fall asleep. It wasn’t the fear of an intruder that kept her awake. Her brain churned with the flood of new information in the case, and she couldn’t switch it off.
In a day filled with remarkable revelations, Dave Carroway’s had hit her the hardest. For as long as Colly had been part of the Newland family, Willis had been its most shameful secret—a sexually deviant convicted murderer. Colly herself had only seen him a few times, and not at all since his murder conviction two decades earlier. She remembered him as a podgy, rather quiet young man with straight, flaxen hair and large, very pale blue eyes. Only Iris had wholeheartedly believed in his innocence. After his release, he’d been barred by law from meeting his nieces and nephews or joining in family events. Instead, he’d been banished to the cabin, where his only companion, a monstrous snake, repaid his love by killing him. The town, and most of his family, had been relieved at his death. Colly remembered her own callous reaction—Willis was a pedophile, and the world was better off without him.
But if Dave Carroway was telling the truth, Willis was as much an innocent victim as Adam and Denny. His life had been an unmerited hell. There could be no amends for that.
With these gloomy thoughts roiling in her head, Colly eventually dozed off. She woke, groggy but restless, before the alarm sounded. Showering quickly, she drove to Brenda’s house in the hope of catching them before they left for school.
Satchel was thrilled to see her and babbled happily as she applied the prescription sunblock to his pale skin. When she told him that he was going to spend that night with his cousins at the ranch because Colly and Aunt Brenda had a dinner engagement, he clapped excitedly.
“Grandma Iris and Alice are going to take you to the Rattlesnake Rodeo after supper,” Colly explained as she helped him with his sun-sleeves.
Brenda looked up from packing lunchboxes. “No, that’s off. Alice has a date, and Iris doesn’t want to wrangle three kids at the Rodeo by herself. They’re going to swim and watch movies, instead.” Brenda had promised to take Logan and Minnie to the Rodeo the next afternoon. Satchel was welcome to join them—and Colly, too, if she liked.
Colly shuddered and said she’d think about it.
Reassured by Satchel’s happy mood, Colly hugged him goodbye and drove to the station, where Avery was waiting for her in the parking lot, a Starbucks cup in each hand.
“Triple-shot latte.” Her face bore an abashed, uncertain expression. The coffee was a peace offering after last night’s revelations.
Colly forced a smile. “Triple-shot? I hope you brought a defibrillator.” They got in the car.
“I talked to Carroway a few minutes ago,” Avery said. “His shrink can see us if we’re there before noon.” She latched her seatbelt. “I don’t see why we can’t just call the guy, though.”
“Shrinks are like cops—they’re used to getting information, not giving it. I want to see his face, read between the lines.”
They drove in silence along Market Street. Once on the highway, Avery engaged the cruise control and glanced at Colly. “What are you thinking?”
“This case has me stumped.” Colly leaned against the headrest. “We’ve got two dead boys and two rabbit masks—not counting the ones in Willis’s cabin and Satchel’s suitcase. Before last night, I thought we were probably dealing with a serial killer, and the masks were a signature. But there is no serial killer. So what are the masks about? I can’t make the puzzle pieces fit.”
“Maybe Denny’s murderer’s not a serial killer, but he’s still a psychopath. Last night you said Willis could’ve been so messed up by finding Adam’s body that it triggered some homicidal urge.”
Colly sipped her coffee and grimaced. “You nixed that theory.”
“I said it couldn’t be Willis. But what if someone else found Adam—someone young and impressionable?”
“A budding psychopath with a rabbit fetish?”
“Why not? Whoever posed Adam might’ve been excited by the uproar it caused and wanted more, but this time, he had to kill to get it.” Avery changed lanes and began to edge past a slow-moving cattle truck. “Maybe Earla’s right—the murderer leaves the masks because he wants a cool nickname.”
Colly reached to close the vent as the stench of cow manure filled the car. “Except police never released that detail to the press.”
“Maybe the killer figures it’ll come out eventually. Or maybe he just wants to play catch-me-if-you-can with the cops.”
“That doesn’t feel right. There’s something tender about the way Adam was posed. I think whoever did it cared about him. With Denny, it was different.”
“Twenty years is a long time.” Avery eased back into the right lane. “Maybe the killer changed. Maybe he’s conflicted. Psychopathic criminals are emotionally complicated, right?”
Colly set her cup in the cup holder. “They’re not —that’s the thing. There are smart ones and stupid ones. But I’ve never met one that’s deep. The ones I’ve arrested are like cardboard cutouts of people.”
“Dangerous, though.”
“To a point. They have no feelings for anyone but themselves, so most of them go through life pissing off the people who know them best. They leave a trail a mile wide, if you know what you’re looking for.”
“Then why are serial killers so hard to catch?”
“Because they usually choose their targets at random. And some of them like playing games, which stirs up a lot of publicity. That complicates things. But once you do identify a suspect, it’s not hard to build your case. They don’t talk and act and think like normal people. Interrogate them for five minutes, and you spot it. They’re like bad poker players—they can’t hide their tells.”
“You don’t think we’re dealing with a psychopath here?”
“If we are, it wouldn’t be the worst-case scenario.”
“What would be?”
Colly pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “My opinion? A zealot. Criminal psychopaths trip over their own egos. Zealots don’t. And they’ll justify anything for their cause—they’ll die for it themselves, even. The 9/11 hijackers wiped out more people in one morning than all the serial killers put together, and they felt like heroes doing it.”
“There’s no radical extremists in Crescent Bluff.”
“Don’t be so sure. Nowadays, a lot of them are regular people who got sucked down some internet rabbit hole. They’re gullible, but they can be dangerous.” Colly turned and stared absently out of the window at the green-gray blur of the scrubland rushing by. “They get in their chatrooms and cut themselves off just as much as if they followed Charles Manson into the desert. You hardly notice them till something explodes, and you’re left picking up the pieces and trying to figure out what the hell happened.”