Murder Road (26 page)

Are we lost?” I asked.

Eddie had taken over the driving for the trip home, but we hadn’t left Coldlake Falls yet. Instead of taking the turn for the road back to the interstate, we were driving through a neighborhood I didn’t recognize.

“We’re not lost,” Eddie replied. “Not this time. There’s something I want to see first.”

The houses were larger on this street, newer, the lawns trim and green. This was a well-to-do neighborhood for Coldlake Falls, removed from the strip malls and corner hair salons of downtown. It wasn’t far, I thought, from the Snell house. “What are we looking for?” I asked.

“An address I got. We won’t go in. I just want to see it once before we go.”

I frowned at him, but Eddie didn’t look troubled. He looked
sure and confident as he drove, as if he knew exactly where he was going.

“All right, keep your mysteries,” I said. “I’ll follow along.”

“You’ll find it interesting. I promise.”

I had no idea who we knew, besides the Snell sisters, who would live in one of these houses. Then I saw a man standing in his front yard, and I understood.

Detective Quentin had a Saturday off. He wore dark blue jeans and a white tee with a blue button-down over it, unbuttoned. He even wore sneakers, which were brand-new and blindingly clean. There was a line of tied-up leaf bags along the edge of his lawn, and he was unlooping a garden hose to start watering.

“I just wanted to see where he lived,” Eddie said as we slowed the car. “I’m curious about him. Now I know.”

Quentin caught sight of us almost instantly, his blue eyes fixing on Eddie and me. He put down the hose and motioned to us to pull the car in. We’d been busted. Eddie pulled up to the curb and rolled his window down, putting the car in park but not turning it off.

“Nice day, isn’t it?” Quentin said as he walked toward us. Behind him, I saw children’s toys lined up against the garage, a basketball and a bike. I had never pictured Detective Quentin with children.

“Very nice,” Eddie said easily, as if he hadn’t just been caught scoping out the man’s house like a potential burglar.

“It’s good to see you, Mr. Carter.” Quentin also spoke like we were neighbors passing the time of day. “I trust your arm is healing nicely.”

“It is, thanks,” Eddie said.

“Have you satisfied your curiosity? My wife took the children grocery shopping. I’m to have the yard done by the time they get back. It’s my assignment.”

“You have a very nice home,” I said politely, trying to smooth over the awkwardness.

Quentin blinked at me. “It’s nice to see you, too, Mrs. Carter, and you needn’t feel strange. I always thought you two would come back at least once. There’s still unfinished business between us.”

He was right. There were questions that had never been answered, things I still didn’t understand about what had happened. I leaned toward Eddie’s window and looked into those icy blue eyes, which were so much more relaxed than I’d ever seen them. Was it an act? Or was the chilly, heartless way he’d treated us before an act? Neither? Both?

“Are you ever going to tell us the truth?” I asked him.

“About what?” Quentin asked.

“About why you were so focused on us in your murder investigation, even after you knew we didn’t kill anyone.”

I expected the cold rudeness he’d shown us before, but Quentin stepped forward and leaned a forearm on Eddie’s open window. “I’ll tell you a story,” he said.

My breath paused. Eddie went still.

“Once upon a time, a man was dying,” Quentin said. “I won’t tell you the year, the location, or the man’s name. The man had brain cancer, and he was in hospice care. In the last hours of his life, he confessed to a murder.”

We were silent, listening.

“The man told the attending nurse that he’d picked up a hitchhiker outside of Coldlake Falls one night—a young man. The
dying man had been to a family barbecue out of town, and he had a cooler in the back of his car that had had ice in it. It also had an ice pick in it, brought with him so that he could break up the ice at the barbecue. The man told the hitchhiker that he needed to pull over for a moment. Then he took the ice pick from the cooler. When the hitchhiker got out of the car and tried to run, the man killed him with it.”

I fixated on Quentin’s strangely handsome face, his words hitting me like bricks. “Tom Monahan,” I breathed. “Killed in 1982.”

“The dying man told the nurse that he had forgotten about the murder until that very moment, when he was dying,” Quentin said, ignoring me. “As his life ended, he suddenly had a rush of memories. In my opinion, deathbed confessions are a gift to law enforcement—a case gets closed, there’s no expense of a trial, and the guilty party leaves this world without our having to decide his punishment. The problem with this particular confession was that the dying man also spoke of a lot of memories he could not possibly have had—memories that simply could not be real, like recalling being pregnant and giving birth to a son. So the obvious lies colored the truth of the murder confession.”

Somewhere down the street, a dog barked and a child laughed. It sounded like it was a world away.

“Still,” Quentin continued, “lies or not, the nurse reported the confession to the police. The man was dead by then, of course, and his likely delirium meant the information was of low value. Still, the report wound its way through various law enforcement agencies, and eventually, it came to me. So I came to Coldlake Falls.”

“Why you?” Eddie asked.

“You ask a lot of questions, both of you. I’m not going to tell
you everything—you need to accept that. Suffice it to say that the report did come to me, and I came here. I found the murder the man was referring to. The dates matched up, as did the murder weapon, which was very specific. But this man couldn’t have done any of the other murders that came after on Atticus Line, because he was dead. As I investigated, I began to see that something was at work that I didn’t fully understand—that maybe I couldn’t possibly understand. Still, it was at work here. So I stayed here, waiting for it to show itself in a way I could comprehend so I could stop it. I have a great deal of patience. I solved other cases and did my job. But always, I waited.”

“You knew,” I said. “About the Lost Girl. The entire time, you knew.”

“What I knew, Mrs. Carter, was that there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in my philosophy. When a single killer is ruled out in a series of murders, the only answer is that there are multiple killers. What would make multiple people in a small town commit murder and never get caught? What indeed? And then you two came along.” He looked from me to Eddie. “You were the only ones to find a victim and speak to her before she died. You were almost witnesses—you probably missed the attack by mere minutes. When you weren’t sure how you got here, Mr. Carter, going in the wrong direction from where you needed to be, then I knew you had been called here. For what purpose, I needed to understand.”

Eddie bit his lip and looked away from Quentin.

“I looked at all of the possibilities,” Quentin said. “It was possible, Mr. Carter, that you had killed Katharine O’Connor while on leave and had no memory of it. The dates lined up. It was also possible
that you had been called back here, that both of you had killed Rhonda Jean Breckwith and had no memory of that, either. I had to work with what I’d been given, as crazy as it was, so I did. I looked into your medical records for brain cancer. Because I was looking for a pattern.” He leveled his blue gaze back at me. “When I could find nothing about you, Mrs. Carter, I became even more concerned. Until I looked at the recent phone records from Mrs. Jones’s phone line and saw an unusual long-distance call.”

“Jesus,” Eddie breathed.

“Then,” Quentin said, “the two of you requested a meeting with me and you handed over the answer, complete with Shannon Haller’s name and her photo. I knew then that she had never been willing to reveal herself to me, no matter how hard I tried. She was only willing to reveal herself to you. Because I’d kept you in Coldlake Falls, you’d followed her trail and done all of the work for me.”

“You told us you didn’t believe us,” I said. “You said we had no evidence, that what we brought you was worthless. You told us to leave town.”

“Because I was done with you,” Quentin said. “I had no use for you anymore. I still have no use for you. I have moved on to other methods.”

“Like what?”

“You’ve talked to the Snell sisters, I assume? They’re likely part of the reason you came to town today.”

Eddie and I both stared at him, shocked.

Quentin looked smug. “Of course I know about the Snell sisters. I knew from the first day Gracie Snell took photocopies from the file room at the local police station. They’re not in trouble, at least from me. For a while, I hoped they’d come to a solution I couldn’t
see, but they didn’t. They are just two teenage girls who are smart and difficult to predict. I should get the FBI to recruit them when they’re old enough, though I have no idea if they’ll say yes. I’d rather have them working for our government than against it.”

Beatrice and Gracie as FBI agents. It was possible. It was also possible they’d laugh at the idea and never think about it again.

“The Snell sisters probably told you about Max Shandler,” Quentin said. “He is in a private facility, guarded by security—dying, as it happens, of brain cancer. He has no memory of killing Rhonda Jean, a fact that he has repeated over and over again, and which I believe. I will be alerted when his final hours are near, and I will go to him. I will watch his memories come back. I will record every single one. And before Max Shandler dies, I believe I’ll finally have the chance to interview Shannon Haller.”

“Oh my God,” I murmured.

Quentin was looking at Eddie. “I don’t often break rules, Mr. Carter, but given the extraordinary circumstances, I could make an exception. It’s possible I can get you to Max Shandler’s bedside with me before he dies. I’ll do it if you want, but if I’m being honest, I don’t recommend it. I have a lot of questions for Shannon, and none of them will be pretty.”

Eddie shook his head. “I don’t want to be there. The killer—that isn’t her. I don’t want to meet that version of her. The Shannon that was my mother—I’ll never get to see her again. I’ve come to terms with that.”

Quentin’s voice was gentle, almost sympathetic. “I understand. Is there anything you want me to ask her when I get the chance?”

What could Eddie ask her?
Did you love me? Did I matter to you? Would you have come back for me if you’d lived?
He already knew the
answers. He shook his head. “Just tell her . . . tell her I’m okay, if you can. Tell her it worked out for me in the end. Tell her I’ll be just fine.”

“All right,” Quentin said.

“And give her a message for me. Tell her to leave Trish alone.”

Quentin’s blue eyes lit with cold curiosity. “Who is Trish? What does that mean?”

“If you want to know, you can ask Shannon,” Eddie said. “But it’s important. She needs to leave Trish alone.”

The detective wasn’t going to drop it without questions. I wondered if he would figure out who Trish might be and why she mattered. But the thought of Trish dying like the others when she hadn’t killed anyone made me sick. It was my fault, even though I hadn’t intended it. Eddie was right. Shannon needed to leave Trish alone.

“Fine,” Quentin said, his voice returning to its usual cold tone. “No one will ever believe this. If you repeat anything I’ve told you, no one will believe you, either. But I’ll know. Before Max Shandler dies, I’ll know everything. You can count on that.” He tapped his fingers against the car doorframe. “As you leave town, Mr. and Mrs. Carter, you should drive down Atticus Line. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

“Is she gone?” Eddie’s voice was hoarse. “I didn’t feel anything as we came to town. I haven’t felt anything, being here. Nothing at all. Is she gone?”

“I believe so,” Quentin said. “Though of course, should I be wrong, I’ll be here waiting. If for some reason she comes back, I’ll be here. You won’t see her on Atticus Line, but you’ll see something else—the other, final part of my investigation.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“There have to be more bodies. Don’t you agree? I don’t think we found them all. But soon, I’ll know for sure.” Quentin stood up. “My family will be home soon. Goodbye, Mr. and Mrs. Carter. Have a good life.” He turned and walked into the house.

We didn’t speak. Eddie put the car in gear. Detective Quentin didn’t come back out of the house as we pulled away.

Twenty minutes later, we were parked on the shoulder of Atticus Line, looking at the sign that had been placed at the side of the road.

“I can’t believe it,” Eddie said. “This seems like a bad idea.”

“Terrible,” I agreed.

A car passed us, and then another. There was traffic here now. The breeze blew in the trees on an innocent weekend afternoon. Atticus Line was peaceful, bucolic. No longer haunted. There were no lights or strange winds, no sudden thunderstorms. In fact, it was beautiful.