Chapter Forty-Five
Forty-Five
“I wanna go with you…to that other world.”
“Someone shut that off,” Elsie calls, and Margot moves to the eight-track player.
The silence rings out. The women’s eyes widen as they take in the room.
It looks like some sort of fanatic’s lair. Along one wall there’s a long desk, above which ripped-out newspaper articles have been taped to the paint. On the opposite wall are sketches; Elsie moves to inspect them. “He was planning how to do it.”
Beverley rushes over. Diagrams are sketched in ballpoint pen on the lined pages of an exercise book. They depict the way in which each of the five women was killed.
She raises a hand to touch them. One diagram shows a body swinging on a hook. Parts of the diagram are numbered, small notes scribbled beside them. Should be a cargo hook but can only get a winch hook, one of them reads. She pulls away, her fingers leaving a smear of blood on the paper.
To others, the room might be passed off as a place of investigation, something put together by someone looking into every detail of the crimes. But Beverley, Elsie and Margot can see it for what it is, a place where abhorrence is designed, a place of planning.
It makes Beverley sick, the fact that he was so deliberate, so painstakingly precise, this man she has let into her home. There’s horror in the meticulousness of it all, the ease he must have had with killing.
She realizes then that the pig must have been Roger’s doing, too—not a warning or a taunt, but a means of confusing her, of throwing her off any scent of suspicion that might have lingered around him.
She swoons and grabs her stomach. How could she not have seen it? How could she have let this happen again?
“Seems like he was pretty obsessed with these girls.” Margot picks up a yearbook that has been left open on the desk and holds it out. Sarah Gunn’s picture is immediately recognizable.
“No, he wanted to make it look as if the killer was obsessed with them,” Beverley replies.
“What do you mean?” Elsie asks. Her eyes flick down to Beverley’s palm, which is clasped to the bloody pool on her dress.
“Bev, you look—”
“He wanted to make it appear as if the killer was someone who would naturally target girls fresh out of college, pretty girls, popular girls.”
“Like someone with an axe to grind?” Elsie asks, frowning at Beverley again with concern.
“Like some sad loner, someone odd, someone who’d just been dumped.”
Beverley’s skin is becoming very cold. She touches her cheek with the back of her hand; it has the clamminess of old, abandoned meat.
“He did his research and chose his victims based on who he thought someone like Peter Farrer would target.” She says it through a fog.
“He chose methods that would draw the attention of the press eventually—once he’d decided there were enough victims—making the killings high-profile while also using them as a way to move suspicion toward Peter. ”
“What about the bracelet, then?” Elsie casts her eyes around at the diagrams. “Cheryl Herrera’s. How did that get into Hank’s car?”
Beverley allows her back to lean against the wall. There are flashes of light in front of her eyes.
“Roger used Hank’s garage to get the cars from the precinct fixed up,” she says—that’s what Sharon told them. “He must have seen Peter there. Maybe they chatted. Maybe Peter had his camera with him. Maybe they got to talking about movies…”
“It would make sense for him to presume that Peter and Hank drive the same vehicles,” Margot says. “All he’d need to do was toss the bracelet in.”
“But why the hell did he do it?” Elsie asks.
“Because he wanted to be the best,” Beverley answers. The walls of the room are all leaning in. “He was frustrated at not being promoted after Henry’s arrest. He wanted to be the one to solve the case of the decade, so he created it himself.”
“Jesus—” Elsie whispers, but she is cut off by the sound of barking.