Gingerbread Man (13 page)

Ernie Graycloud nodded. "I thought so, too.
She's been doing so much better since I started seeing her when she
first moved out here. But Doris called me about two weeks ago. She
said Holly had been talking in her sleep, saying her sister's name,
stuff like that. I've been trying to talk Holly into coming in for
a checkup, but you know how stubborn she can be. She says she's
fine."

"She's not fine," Marty said. He took another
swig of beer. "She's far from fine, and getting worse by the
day."

"Wait a minute. Did you say Doris called you
two weeks ago, Ernie?" Jim asked sharply.

Ernie nodded.

"Odd," Jim mused, rubbing his chin. "That's
before O'Mally ever set foot in this town." He looked across the
table at his friend. "What else could have triggered all this,
Ernie?"

He replied with a shrug, "Anything. She could
have seen a report about the missing children in Syracuse and that
could have done it. Or any number of other things. I've seen people
with post-traumatic stress have flashbacks triggered by nothing
more than a smell that reminded them of the past event."

"So, something reminded Holly of her sister's
kidnapping before this joker arrived in Dilmun?" Marty asked.

"Apparently so."

Jim shook his head slowly. "Maybe she's
starting to remember something. She never was able to recall much
at all, as I understand it." He looked to the doctor for
confirmation.

"It's possible. Her memory about the
abduction has always been spotty at best. Maybe it's starting to
clear up now."

"If she was starting to remember. Doc, would
that be a good thing for her?" Marty asked.

"Could be good. Could be devastating," Ernie
replied. "There's just no way to know for sure, until and unless it
happens."

Marty snorted. "Then, I think the best thing
for all concerned would be for Vince O'Mally to get his ass back to
Syracuse where he belongs, and stay the hell away from my niece,
and my sister-in-law."

"I have to agree with you there," Ernie said.
"You know, even though it was Holly with the symptoms, Doris went
through hell, too. They've been doing well up to now. I'd hate to
see anything undo all the progress they've made."

"They've really put it back together since
they moved out here," Marty added. "And Jen loves having them so
close. It's been good for them."

"I agree," Chief Mallory said. "Look, I'll
have a talk with O'Mally. See if I can make him see reason. For
what it's worth, Doris still doesn't know his real reason for being
in town. I'd prefer to keep it that way."

"And what about Holly?" Ernie asked. "Does
she know?"

"Yeah. Found out last night," Jim told
them.

"Son of a—"

Ernie clapped Marty on the shoulder. "Don't
worry. We'll help her through this."

Marty nodded, clasped his beer bottle by its
neck and took another long pull. Then he wiped his mouth with the
back of his hand. "Thanks for keeping us informed, Jim."

"It's the least I could do. You're her uncle,
Marty. The closest thing she has to a dad. Ernie's her doctor, and
I'm her employer—and in love with her mother, besides. It's up to
us to protect those two, the way I see it. This meeting stays
between us. Agreed?"

"Agreed," the other two said in unison.

Jim nodded. "Good. Good."

***

HOLLY SLEPT ONLY sporadically, even though
she knew Vince's theory was so much hot air, without a shred of
truth to it, she couldn't stop thinking about it. What if, somehow,
he was right? What if the man who'd confessed to killing Ivy had
been lying?

But why? Why would anyone admit to murder if
he hadn't done it? Who did something like that?

If there was even the slightest chance
...

But, no. There was no motive. No way. Now
that he knew his theory was an impossibility, Vince would pack up
his envelope full of information about her and the darkest night of
her soul, and go on back to the city.

She wondered why that thought brought with it
a twinge of what felt like regret. Maybe, she told herself, it was
simply that she sensed in him a man who didn't look at her the way
everyone else in her life looked at her. He didn't see her as weak
or fragile. He'd told her as much. And there was something else
about him, too. Something that tugged at her. She was drawn to him
in spite of herself, though it irked her to admit her mother had
seen it before she had. She knew it when she woke up, rolled over
in her bed, and found her face near his jacket, smelling his scent.
He'd left it hanging on the bedpost. It made something tighten and
yearn deep in the pit of her belly.

That part of this situation would best be set
aside for now, she decided. She had more than enough to contend
with.

The one thing that kept standing out was
Vince's cockeyed theory that the wrong man was doing time for Ivy's
murder. She couldn't just dismiss it. She had to know.

Holly sat up in bed. She had to know.

It was Sunday morning, clear and cold. No
alarm clock went off on Sunday mornings. Its routine was different,
though every bit as predictable. Holly and Doris slept as late as
they wanted to on Sundays, then sipped coffee in the sunroom in
their nightclothes, lounging lazily and catching up. After that,
and only after that, they would shower and dress. At that point,
the rest of Holly's routine was done with military precision. Lay
out the clothes, shower, shave her legs, shampoo, always in the
same order. She took more time with herself on Sundays, pampering
her skin and doing her nails.

This morning she did none of those
things.

Holly got out of bed, showered, and dressed
immediately, even though it meant skipping several parts of the
usual routine. It made her uneasy, gave her an insecure feeling,
like walking on thin ice. But she had to see Vince before he left
town. She had to get to the truth. Because if there was even the
slightest chance that the man who'd murdered her baby sister was
still free, then all the routines in the world were not going to do
Holly one bit of good.

She had to know it wasn't true. That it was
impossible, just as she had insisted it was.

She left her mom a hastily scrawled note on
top of the coffee pot, and walked along the lakefront road to
Vince's cabin. It was cool this morning. Only in the high forties,
she guessed, as she hugged her jacket around her body, Vince's
clasped in her arms, and gave thanks that she'd worn a woolly
sweater underneath. She should have added a hat. But the sky was
clear, promising a warmer day later on. A few leaves skittered over
the gravel and the wind was sharp and biting. It felt good on her
face. Woke her up with a smack of autumn.

The lake was dancing again with whitecaps and
froth, dark water looking as secretive and sullen as Vince
O'Mally's eyes. She tromped up the porch steps, and thumped the
door of Vince's cabin without hesitating. If she stopped to think
about this, she would change her mind and go back home.

Vince opened the door. He was wearing the
same jeans he'd been wearing the night before, but with a black
T-shirt and an unsnapped faded denim shirt over it He hadn't
shaved. As she looked up at him and her eyes slid over the dark
stubble on his face, she got a little hitch in her breathing. He
opened the screen door for her. "C'mon in."

"You don't even seem surprised to see me,"
she said, walking inside. She held out his jacket. He took it with
a nod of thanks. The place was totally transformed from the last
time she'd seen it. He had a laptop computer on the coffee table, a
fax machine on the kitchen counter, what looked like a scanner on a
spare kitchen chair, a portable copy machine on the floor, and
stacks of papers and file folders everywhere. So many wires and
cables connected the mess together it looked like a snake pit.

He closed the door behind her. "I'm glad to
see you. Not surprised though. I had a feeling you had more moxy
than you were letting on."

"I don't see what that has to do with my
coming out here."

"It has everything to do with your coming out
here. You're ready to face this thing. Up to now, it's been in
charge; but you're taking over, as of today. It's a big scary step,
Red, but I had a feeling you were up for it."

She turned toward the fireplace on the
pretense of warming her hands. But in reality she was uncomfortable
that he read her so easily and so well. "Don't be so sure I won't
turn and run back home if this gets to me, Vince."

He spoke from close beside her, making her
jump. "I know it's hard." He handed her a mug filled with freshly
made coffee.

"Hard? You're talking about resurrecting my
worst nightmares. It's more than hard." She took the mug, noticed
that her hand was shaking.

"And you're up to the task."

"Maybe I am. I have a condition first."

"Name it."

"You need to give me one reason why Hubert H.
Welles would have confessed to killing my sister if he didn't do
it. And it needs to be a good one."

He sipped his coffee. "I finished reading the
files last night, and I think I can do that."

She blinked up at him. "You can?"

"Yeah, I've been poring over that bastard's
case history all night long trying to give myself that very same
answer. A reasonable doubt. Anything."

"And you found one?"

"Maybe. Hubey Welles was originally arrested
in connection with the abduction of a fourteen-year-old boy. When
they found him, the boy's body was still in the trunk of Welles's
car. They had him dead to rights. There was no doubt of a
conviction, and the death penalty had just been reinstated in New
York State."

"So?"

"So why is he languishing in a prison cell
instead of a cemetery? A death sentence should have been a given in
a case like that. So why wasn't it?"

She shrugged.

"I'll tell you what I think. I think he made
a deal. He provided information on some other cases of missing
children in exchange for his life."

Holly's jaw dropped when she realized where
Vince was going. "Are you saying you think he made it up? Just to
avoid the death penalty?"

"I'm saying his confession might have saved
his life. To my way of thinking, that gives him a pretty damn good
motive for lying."

"He gave them details of the crime. He led
the police into the mountains to search for my sister's body."
Holly's knees suddenly felt like jelly.

"Yeah. But they never found it."

Holly teetered and sank down onto the nearest
chair. "Oh, my God."

"Look don't take this as gospel, not yet.
It's a theory. That's all. It could be nothing. The first thing
we've got to do is talk to the D. A., see what kind of deal he made
with Welles, and then—"

"I have to see him."

"Who? The D.A.?”

"Welles. I have to see Welles."

"No." He said it quickly and firmly. "No.
Welles is a snake. I don't want you within a hundred miles of
him."

She tipped her head to one side, and searched
his face. "I thought you said I was strong, deep down. That I could
deal with this. This is me, dealing. I need to see him."

He hesitated, his jaw tight as he studied
her. Then he shook his head, as if reaching a decision once and for
all. "No. No way. We can get all the information we need without—"
He broke off there, cut off midsentence by the bleat of his cell
phone. He took the call, called the chief by name, and spoke
briefly. But before he hung up the fax had come to life, churning
out documents, and then the cell phone rang again.

Finally, he sighed. "We're not going to be
able to talk in here."

She shook her head distractedly. "It doesn't
matter. I... I need to digest all of this."

"Holly...

"Just..." She bit her lip, and as the phone
began shrilling again, turned, and left.

***

A HALF HOUR later, Doris Newman called Vince,
asking if he had seen her daughter.

Vince frowned at the phone. "She was here a
while ago, but she left. She didn't come home?"

"She came home—but only for a few minutes.
Vince, I— She would be furious with me for telling you this, but
I'm worried about her."

"Why?"

She didn't answer right away. He could almost
see her mulling it over. Then she continued. "She said she would
probably be gone all day. But she wouldn't say where she was going.
She took the car. She seemed agitated, Vince, and ... well, my gun
is missing."

Vince damn near dropped the phone. "You have
a gun, Mrs. Newman?"

"It's legal. I have a license. I bought it
for... protection."

"In a town where you don't even bother
locking your doors?"

"Oh, God, no. I bought it before we ever
moved down here. To tell you the truth, it's been packed away in my
closet for so long I'd nearly forgotten I had it. But after Holly
left, I noticed the closet door ajar, and when I looked it was
obvious someone had gone through it. The box I kept the gun in was
empty."

"All right. Listen, I don't want you to
worry. I'm gonna go find Holly for you," he told Doris.

"Do you have any idea where she's gone,
Vince? What's going on with her?"

He did. He had a solid idea, and he hoped he
was wrong. But he couldn't burden her mother with his gut feeling.
"I'm not sure. I'll call you when I know, okay?"

"All right. Thank you, Vince. I...
thanks."

"You're welcome." He hung up, pushed a hand
through his hair, and took a breath. He was ninety-nine percent
sure Holly Newman was on her way to see a convicted murderer, a
confessed pedophile. Hubey Welles. Vince entertained the thought
that someone should have blown the bastard's head off years ago,
and then he shook it off and got his ass in gear. It didn't take
long to gather up the papers scattered around, the faxes that had
come through, his file on Holly Newman, and his laptop. He took all
those things with him to his Jeep and locked up the cabin. Then he
started driving, while unfolding a road map on the passenger seat
and following his finger to the maximum security correctional
facility at Auburn, New York.