Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel (45 page)

Ferrell returned from the hospital and we all watched the video—me, Meltzer, Brolin,
Ferrell, and the tech guy who had cued it up. We saw Raymond in a hospital bed, propped
up, given enough pain meds to take the edge off. He wanted to talk.

“When did you first meet Tracy Davidson?” Ferrell asked him.

“The day I took her,” Raymond said. Beside me, I heard Brolin suck in air. Any doubt
she was harboring had been torn away from her. “But I’d seen her at my sister’s school.
And I don’t know what happened. I swear to God, I don’t know what happened. Something
just snapped in my brain. And then I had her. I couldn’t do anything but keep her
or kill her. I couldn’t let her identify me. I had Robbie to take care of—”

“Yeah, you’re a real hero, Raymond,” I muttered.

Ferrell’s voice was calm, steady, no judgment. “Did you kill Tracy Davison, Mr. Raymond?”

I smiled. She wouldn’t refer to him as detective. Not now, not with the dishonor he’d
shown the department.

“Yes.” Raymond’s big head drooped from pain or shame or exhaustion. “I couldn’t do
it anymore. I couldn’t take care of her.”

“Did Tracy Davidson become pregnant and give birth while you held her?”

“Yes,” Raymond said.

“What happened to the baby?”

“It died,” Raymond answered quietly. “I dropped it down an old well.”

“Did you kill Melinda Cochran and Skylar Barbour?”

“Yes.”

“Did you kill your wife?”

“Yes,” he said. Nothing but resignation in his voice. He was ready to send himself
to death row. “I caught her with someone, another man. I was just going to scare her …”

“God,” Meltzer muttered. Brolin covered her mouth and walked out. I didn’t move. I’d
heard too many statements.
Something just snapped. I don’t know what happened
.

“I don’t get something,” I said, watching the screen. “Why did he look at the picture
of Skylar’s broken finger and throw up?”

“You said it yourself. He’s a psychopath. He’s whatever he needs to be.” Meltzer said
it grimly.

Fluorescent lights buzzed above us, the room still and cold as a cathedral.

“And Luke,” I said. “Why didn’t he spark to Raymond that night?”

“Keye,” Meltzer said gently. “We have him. It’s the only good thing that came out
of this. We have him red-handed and he can’t hurt anyone else. We have his confession.
And when the scene is processed, you know as well as I do that it’s going to lock
in the case against him. Come on, look at you. You’re exhausted. Go home.”

I looked down at my torn-up hands and knees, the blood on my shirt and pants. I hadn’t
even known it was there. I’d lifted Skylar’s sweet head into my lap and I’d apologized
to her. Too late.

“Go,” Meltzer said. “Sleep. You did your job. This is the part we know how to do.”

——

I went back to the hotel and stood under a hot shower, raw skin stinging from the
fall I’d taken in the field. I stood there until the water ran cold, twisted my hair
in a towel, and climbed into bed. It was noon. Brooks and Hayley’s daughter’s body
was in Atlanta now, probably already on an autopsy table at GBI. I thought about Skylar’s
eyes, her blood and tissue clinging to the axe. I thought about the last thirty-seven
hours of her life. And I forced myself to close my own eyes.

I didn’t open them again until six. I made a terrible cup of coffee from a tiny pot
that poured water over a bag, and switched on the television. It was all there, the
sensational news that a local police detective who had worked on the cases had been
arrested for three murders.

“According to the Hitchiti County sheriff,”
Brenda Roberts reported,
“the suspect in custody would have been a uniformed deputy at the time of the first
abduction and murder. Local townspeople are in shock. The detective was a longtime
resident …”

I saw a clip with the sheriff, scruffy and unshaven the way he was when I’d last seen
him. Meltzer gave me full credit for identifying the killer. He didn’t share any other
details regarding the capture or the hours Skylar had endured at the hands of a killer.
The victims were lost in the news reports. They were all about Raymond and his sick
subterfuge, not Skylar, who loved movies and reading and dogs and boys. Not Melinda,
who loved music and art. Not Tracy, who cared for her brother and mother, protected
them. Tracy, who was probably too polite and too cowed by authority not to climb into
his car that day.

I brushed my teeth, splashed some water on my face, and got dressed. My phone trembled
on its charger at the bed table. I saw Meltzer’s name and reached for it.

“So I’m just thinking, you’re probably leaving soon,” he said. “And I’d like one chance
to have dinner with you when I’m not the sheriff and you’re not the consultant.”

I sat down on the bed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Because you’re afraid,” he said.

“Yes,” I told him. “I’m scared to death of turning my life upside down. And if I ever
decide to do that, I’m not going to do it this way. He’s a good man, Ken.”

“I understand,” he said.

“How’s Robbie doing?”

“He’s with his aunt now. Poor kid. We went through Raymond’s house today and confiscated
the electronics. We matched the printer to the photograph. Haven’t located the original
image. Or any other images. No online storage. Probably deleted whatever he had. But
the case is rock-solid, right down to his prints on the axe handle. And we recovered
evidence from the well.”

I was silent. I couldn’t think of that newborn and Tracy’s suffering.

“You still worried about something?” Meltzer asked.

“Rough week,” I answered. “I keep seeing Skylar. I’ll get there.”

“Want to come outside and say good-bye face-to-face?”

I parted the curtain. He was leaning against his truck. No uniform. A clay-colored
T-shirt and faded jeans, boots. Good Lord, he was gorgeous. He smiled. Held up his
phone, ended the call and dropped it in his back pocket, then waited.

His eyes were that soft brown I’d seen over dinner at his house. A slow smile, a blink,
long lashes, lips full of color. He’d gotten a shave, and the triangle under his lip
was perfect again. “Why’d you have to come here?” I asked as I walked toward him.

“How could I not? It’s one of those ‘what if’ things, you know? I don’t want that
on my shoulders.” He bent and pressed his lips against mine. I felt his hand come
around me, felt him step closer, his body relaxing into me, pulling me nearer. His
mouth was wet and soft and every taste, every movement, every shiver, told me how
much he wanted me. And I knew what my body, my lips, my fingertips, were saying to
him.

“People don’t kiss like that if there’s nothing there, Keye,” he whispered. He’d pulled
back, touched my face lightly with his fingertip.

“I know,” I said.

He smiled and nodded. “Good-bye, Dr. Street. For now. You have to come back for the
court case, don’t forget.”

I watched him get in his Interceptor. “Good-bye, Sheriff,” I said quietly as his taillights
disappeared in the distance.

45

I had dinner alone. I packed my things, bagged the clothing with Skylar’s blood, and
tossed the bag in the hotel dumpster. And then I slumped down on the bed. I wasn’t
ready to go back to my life and my business and my love affair. I wasn’t ready to
be touched by the lover waiting at home. Meltzer’s hands, his mouth, felt burned into
me.

I thought about Skylar in cold storage at the crime lab, and her piercing, sorrowful
scream clawed through my heart.

I curled up and squeezed my eyes shut. Because that’s what I do now when alcohol isn’t
waiting for me on the other side, when the depression settles in and the only thing
that feels right in a dark hotel room is a good cognac warming my throat. It’s the
work. It’s trying as hard as you can and knowing sometimes your best isn’t good enough.
It’s the death. I’d spent four years drinking my way through it. This is how I do
it sober.

And so I slept off the cravings, showered, packed my car, and ate halved figs with
Gorgonzola and balsamic and Greek yogurt as the sun came up at a restaurant on the
lake. I took my time. Nothing to hurry for now. A Sunday morning. The lake was still
and quiet, the mist rising up off it like a spirit. Another sunrise for Hayley and
Brooks Barbour without Skylar, without the routines. I thought
about her diary, the family rituals. The little things, it’s what you miss most.

I looked back at the lake and drank my coffee, ignored the Atlanta paper a waiter
had put on the table for me. I was thinking about driving, just getting in the car
and heading for the coast, for Jekyll Island, for salt air and twisted-up old oaks
with black, sea-smoothed limbs.

My phone vibrated and growled on the table. I glanced at the display.
Heather
, it said. Melinda Cochran’s friend. I’d locked in her number when she’d called me
at the justice complex. I let it ring. I was ready to leave Whisper, leave Melinda
and Tracy and Skylar. The display lit up again a minute later. “Shit,” I growled,
and hit
ANSWER
.

“This is Keye Street. What’s up, Heather?”

“I didn’t tell you the truth about something,” she said. I looked back at the lake
and listened as it came pouring out of her like an exorcism. I thought about Meltzer
saying, “Nobody comes out clean.” She’d given Melinda to him. They all had. She’d
let him have her as I had, as Meltzer had. She hadn’t meant to. They didn’t know the
thing they were protecting was the thing that would kill her.

“No one knew, Heather. It’s not your fault.” I gathered up my keys and left money
for the check.

“I was glad at first when she was gone,” she confessed, and started to sob again.

I got in my car and mapped out my route, found the highway and headed south. Thirty
minutes later I parked in front of a blue split-level and walked up the sidewalk past
red geraniums and gerbera daises. I picked up the newspaper on the sidewalk and carried
it to the door, knocked lightly.

“Ms. Raymond,” I said. “I’m sorry to disturb you so early. I’m Keye Street.”

“I know who you are,” she said evenly. She’d awoken to a hard truth this morning.
She’d lost a brother. And all the terrible things he’d done had pulled at her mouth
and eyes and aged her.

“Do you think it would be okay if I talked to Robbie for a few minutes?”

She hesitated. “He’s been through so much …”

“Just a few minutes,” I pressed, and she stepped aside and gestured for me to come
in.

“He just woke up,” she said. “I’ll let him know you’re here. Would you like something?
Coffee?”

“No. Thank you. I’ll wait here.”

I stood in the foyer looking through a glass storm door at the manicured lawn, the
neighborhood, middle income and cared for. “Dr. Street.” I turned and looked up at
Robbie’s face. Some of the swelling had gone down and that bruised eye was open now
and clear and blue. “What’s going on?”

“I’m headed out of town. But I wanted to check on you. Feel like taking a walk?”

“Okay, sure.” He slipped long, sockless feet into Nikes. We crossed the lawn together
and walked down the sidewalk, Robbie watching the ground, hands dug into his pockets.
“My dad okay?” he asked, after a while.

“Still in the hospital,” I said. “They’ll move him today. I’ve been thinking a lot
about him.”

“Me too,” Robbie said. “I miss him. You never think about losing your dad.”

“He told me he just wanted to end it his way.” We walked under the water oaks lining
a street warmed with morning light. “He told me that’s why he killed Skylar. Because
he just wanted it to be over.”

“Do we have to talk about this?” The teenager’s voice was distant and aching.

“You remember Tracy, don’t you?” I asked. I stopped and looked at him. He wore jeans
and an untucked blue shirt. He had that slumpy teenage-boy posture. He didn’t take
his hands out of his pockets. It took him a long moment to answer.

“I heard him open the trunk,” he said darkly. “I was sleeping in the car. He didn’t
know I got out and followed him.”

“So you saw her. Did you see him kill her?”

“Yes. Oh God.” He put his hand in front of his mouth. Robbie started to cry. “I couldn’t
tell. He’s my dad. Are they going to keep him a long time?”

“He murdered three women. I think he’ll be convicted on two of them. There’s a lot
of evidence.”

“They told me he killed my mom. So that’s four.”

“But you killed Melinda, Robbie,” I said. His chin came up. No more sadness. No more
grief. His eyes dried almost as quick as he’d whipped up the tears. He said good morning
to a woman who passed us with a yipping, tail-wagging Yorkie. We started to walk again.
“You know, when I got the first note and handed it to your dad, he wiped it down before
he took it to the lab. I realized this morning that wasn’t at all what it looked like.
He was protecting you. Same with Skylar. In his fucked-up logic your father decided
to kill her, to clean up your mess. That’s why he hit you, isn’t it? He was furious
about the photograph. The guy puked when he saw it. And the notes. You very skillfully
planted the seed in my head that your dad had been in town when the letter was delivered.
You took Melinda and Skylar. That’s why there was an escalation in violence, that’s
why Melinda’s body was rolled and not thrown. Because you didn’t know what you were
doing. She fell when you hit her, didn’t she? Was she dead or did you leave her to
die?”