3 #2
It took a moment before Amy said, “Oh, the people I saw? Um, a woman. Thirties. Really bad hair—maybe a wig. And this guy, kind of average, nothing really distinctive. He’s always wearing a ball cap.
” She hesitated. “I think I might have seen them before. In some pictures River had. But I’m not sure. ”
Jem twisted around to look at Tean.
“I don’t know,” Tean murmured. “It could be them.”
It could be anyone, Jem wanted to say. But he didn’t.
“I tried to take a picture a few times,” Amy said, “but they were never close enough.”
“Why’d you come to us?”
Amy’s next laugh had an edge to it, and she shook her head.
“I don’t know. I mean, I do, obviously. Because I thought you might believe me.
After—” But she stopped herself again, forced herself to start over.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t stop talking about it.
Finally, one of my girlfriends said I needed to see a therapist because I wasn’t processing the trauma of losing River.
That was when I realized they all thought I was crazy.
But it was also when I realized this was exactly what had happened to River. So, I started going through her notes.”
“You have her notes too?” Tean asked.
“Not all of them. But I have the digital ones, the ones she saved in the cloud.”
“Why didn’t you tell somebody?” The words were sharp. “Why didn’t you give them to the police?”
Amy shrank back. “I did. I gave them everything.”
Jem found Tean’s hand and squeezed it. “And what do the notes say?”
“Nothing! There’s nothing in there. That’s what makes the whole thing so crazy!”
“There must be something,” Jem said. “They wouldn’t have gone after River without a reason. The same goes for you.”
“And River thought she knew what it was,” Tean said quietly. “She called and said she wanted to show me.”
No one said the next part: but then they killed her.
“If there’s something in there,” Amy said, “I don’t know what it is. You’re welcome to look—you can have all of it.”
“Pass,” Jem said. “We’re good, thanks.”
“Why wouldn’t the police believe you?” Tean asked. The change of direction threw Jem for a moment. “After what happened to River, I mean. It seems…”
“Stupid?” Jem offered.
“Grossly negligent, at the very least.”
Amy offered a strange smile. “Aside from the fact that I’m a hysterical woman?” She took out her phone and tapped the screen a few times. Then she held it out.
All that reading practice that Tean made Jem do was starting to pay off; the headline, at least, was easy enough.
KILLER CAUGHT IN SNOWSTORM SLAYING
And below that was a picture of Kolen Lodge. In the photo, it looked perfect: the stonework, the timbers, the exact right amount of snow so that it was like something on a postcard. The story continued below it, but the smaller words swam in Jem’s vision.
“Are you kidding me?” Jem said. “What killer? What the fuck are they talking about?”
Tean took the phone and read silently for a moment. Then he said, “A local man, Gene Holfert, was arrested Thursday in connection with the murder of a Utah woman at Kolen Lodge.” He looked up. “Who’s Gene Holfert?”
Amy still wore that strange smile. “A local man.” The words had a mocking edge.
“Sixty years old, a history of substance abuse problems, and from what I can tell, most likely dealing with undiagnosed mental health issues. He’s got a cabin somewhere near the lodge—no running water, no electricity.
Lives up there all year like that, hunting and fishing and staying away from people.
Some of that has to do with him being a sex offender, but the charge is, I don’t know, thirty years old. ”
“They arrested him?” Jem shook his head. “That’s bullshit. I told them—We told them. There were at least three of these guys, and they were wearing those fucking wolf masks.”
Amy took her phone back.
“No cameras,” Tean said. “No other eyewitnesses except two children.”
“But that’s bullshit! What about how they fucked up her car?”
“And whoever’s really in charge up there,” Tean said, “the mayor or the city council or some rich guy who owns a bunch of land, they must have been putting pressure on the sheriff to get an arrest and a conviction. Tourists don’t like unsolved murders.”
Jem fought the urge to say, again, that it was bullshit. Finally, he managed, “Yeah, it must be real fucking bad for business.”
“Did they arrest him for the murder of Rydel Owens?” Tean asked. “And Agent Van Cleave?”
“Those,” Amy said with that same mocking un-smile, “are unrelated.”
“But that’s bullshit!”
Scipio raised his head to glance at Jem.
“I’m sorry.” Jem held up his hands. “I know I need to stop saying it. But it’s not right. Those guys followed River up to the lodge. They killed her. And now they’re going to get away with it because the sheriff doesn’t want the tourist industry getting butt hurt?”
“It always sounded like a stretch,” Tean said.
“Even when it was happening, it seemed…unreal that they could have followed her there, that we could be tangled up with them again. Of course the local authorities would prefer to dismiss it. Even the agents investigating Rydel’s death were uncomfortable with the idea that we were dealing with— I don’t even know what to call them. A pack of serial killers?”
The strange smile had faded from Amy’s face, and she sat forward now, her expression animated.
“That’s because they’re buying into the stereotype.
Hollywood. TV. They love the sexually motivated serial killer, the loner, the genius who has a maze in his basement and has all the free time in the world to chop up bodies and never has to go to work. ”
“Sexually motivated killers aren’t a Hollywood invention, though,” Tean said. “The BTK Killer, for example. Ted Bundy. There are more.”
“I’m saying that’s not the only kind. And they’re not all loners.
There are people who kill together. Or as a team.
Charles Manson, the Chicago Rippers, the Hillside Stranglers.
You get these people with strong personalities, and they surround themselves with people who are either scared of them or in love with them or, usually, both.
They buy into the fantasy or the mission or whatever it is. ”
“They’re definitely not all geniuses,” Jem said. “Or billionaires who don’t have to go to work. I met these guys, and they’re all short a few spoons. They were running an alien campground, for fuck’s sake.”
“But they’ve managed to evade the police,” Tean said.
Outside, a car drove past, and headlights swept the curtains. Scipio groaned and stretched, paws extending as far as he could reach before he curled up into a bean again at Jem’s feet. Jem was starting to get a headache, and he wanted to close his eyes.
Amy broke the silence, her voice tight again. “When I went home tonight, someone was in my house.”
“What?” Jem said.
“You’re sure?” Tean asked.
“It’s a small house. A light was on in back.
I know I didn’t leave it on. I never leave the lights on.
I was about to park when I noticed it; instead, I kept driving and went around the block.
I didn’t see anything strange. There weren’t any unfamiliar cars.
I didn’t see a beat-up black truck.” She stopped, shook her head, and raised her eyes like she was trying not to let tears fall. “Do you ever just know?”
Jem nodded.
“I was going to call the police, but—but I told you how they’ve been.
Like I’m this Victorian maiden who thinks she saw a ghost or something.
I’m at the point where I’m starting to believe it too.
As I was driving around the block, I kept telling myself that I was imagining things, that I’d made a mistake, that somehow I’d forgotten to turn off a lamp. ”
“You listened to your gut,” Jem said. “That was smart.”
She shook her head and blinked rapidly again.
“I was thinking about all of it—about that bogus arrest, and about how nobody believed me, and how I couldn’t even go home.
And all of a sudden, I thought of you. And I thought—” She broke off and gave a short laugh.
“I honestly don’t know. I thought you could do something, I guess.
I don’t have any idea what.” She sat forward, and Scipio opened one sleepy eye. “I’m sorry for bothering you.”
“Give us a minute,” Jem said.
He had to ease his feet out from under Scipio’s head, and then he and Tean moved down the hallway. The lights were off here, and the shadows turned Tean’s face into a sketch: that crazy hair, his nose, the line of his chin.
“Do you think she’s telling the truth?” Tean said.
“Oh yeah. She’s scared shitless.”
Tean took a deep breath.
“I know,” Jem said.
It felt like a long time before Tean said, “I want this to be over.”
“I know,” Jem said softly.
“You want to check out her house.”
Jem smiled; he wasn’t sure if the doc could see it in the dark, but some of it must have made its way into his voice. “See? We really are soulmates.”
But Tean didn’t respond.
“You don’t have to come,” Jem said. “I just don’t want to send her back there without, you know, making sure it’s okay.”
The furnace whumped. Seconds ticked past.
And then Tean said, “Okay. Let’s go.”