Duck looked down again at the Xerox. “No freakin’ way,” he said slowly. “He’s a dead ringer.” He followed that with a dark laugh. “Sorry. Bad choice of words.”
“Tommy Stork isn’t dead,” Leah said. “He’s alive and well.”
Duck’s eyes narrowed. “What’s your point?”
Leah’s lips again pressed into a line as she thought about how to reply. “I’m just sort of . . . thinkin’ out loud here,” she said at last, “but I can’t help but wonder by your reaction . . . Did you ever meet Harry Stork?”
There was a second’s hesitation as Duck’s eyes quickly cut right—away from Dan and away from Leah. Just enough for Leah to know whatever issued from his mouth next was going to be a lie. “No,” he said. “ ’Course not. I told you. His picture was everywhere. It was just the scar that threw me.”
Dan stared at Leah. She could sense how badly he wanted to say something, but she mentally gave him kudos for staying as silent as he had. She actually wished he could say something without ending the interview. She would welcome the help. Truth was, she was rapidly running out of things to say. She knew Duck wasn’t being honest about meeting Harry, but so what? What did that mean? She had no clue. What difference did it make to the case?
She decided it was time to go for a different tack. “All right, Duck, so the rest of the faces . . . You never saw any of them before?”
“They’re all nobody to me.”
“Except for Stork. You knew Stork.”
“Harry Stork,” he said, then immediately corrected. “I mean . . . I . . . knew what Harry looked like. From all the coverage during the manhunt. I just . . . I thought the picture was Harry.” He looked at it again. “Goddamn freakin’ twins or somethin’.”
“They are,” Leah said.
“What?”
“Twins. They are. Identical twins.”
“Ah. That explains it. Identical except for that goddamn gash up his face. That happen in the joint?”
Leah shared another glance with Dan. “No, in a bar fight.”
Duck’s eyes closed briefly, and he gave her a slight nod. “Broken bottle. Been there. You gotta watch those. They’ll fuck you up for the rest of your life. He’s lucky he didn’t lose that eye.”
Leah flipped through the contents of her folder and read some of the notes she’d made concerning what Chris had given her this morning and what Ethan had told her about Duck being a brief suspect fifteen years ago. “Duck, why didn’t you tell me you used to live in Alvin?” she asked. “I told you I was a detective from there.”
With a grin, Duck replied, “You never asked me. I make it a practice to only answer what I’m asked. It’s done good by me, especially while in here. Giving out answers without bein’ asked can get you messed up, if you know what I mean.”
She didn’t, but she just let that go by.
Duck went on anyway. “Last thing I need is to get shanked in the food line.”
Leah’s voice lowered. “There’s . . . You’re worried about being knifed? In here?”
Duck guffawed, his laughter pealing off the bare white concrete walls. “Lady, there’s shanks everywhere. You know, someone showed me last week how to make one out of a notebook. You know—a motherfuckin’ three-ring notebook? This guy could make a fuckin’ shank out of one. I mean, what kind of freakin’ Martha Stewart home recipe mind even thinks of some shit like that? No, when you’re on the inside, the last thing you need to do is offer information without bein’ asked. You only answer what you’s asked, and then only if the person askin’ has seniority over you.”
“Seniority?”
“You know. If he’s in a better ‘clique’ than you. If he’s some freakin’ lowlife, you don’t give him the time of day. They measure you by those whose questions you answer.” He narrowed his eyes again, this time leveling his gaze at Leah. “Remember that. It might come in handy one day.” Then he cut his gaze to Dan. “There, Pencil Dick. Some advice. You get that one for free.”
“So,” Leah said. “Gettin’ back to Alvin. How long did you live there?”
Duck shook his head. “I dunno. Five years? Maybe? Might’ve been seven. Might’ve been three. I don’t remember shit like that.”
“But you were there in 1974. When the Stick—when Harry Stork was shot.”
Duck gave a quick nod. “I was there. I mean, I wasn’t where Stork went down, but I was in Alvin.”
“What line of work were you in at the time?”
“Lady, if you know I lived in Alvin, you already know the answer to that.”
It was true. From what she got from Chris and Ethan, Duck—Stanley Bishop—was mostly unemployed. He had inherited a house from his pa, who passed away in 1972 in Alvin, but sold it a year and a half later and bought a smaller house down in what was now Blue Jay Maples—not far from where Noah Stork lived. That was also when he purchased his yellow ’68 Dodge Charger, the car matching the description of the witnesses, something Ethan had stressed was nothing more than a coincidence.
And, like usual, the moment Leah heard the word coincidence was the moment she immediately became suspect of the whole thing. Coincidences always disturbed her and, almost always, turned out not to be coincidences at all.
“Did you know Noah Stork?” she asked Duck.
At first, it looked like Duck was going to stumble with another look away, but if he was, he recovered well this time. “No, I thought we just went through that. And I thought you said his name was Tommy or some bullshit like that.”
“No,” Leah said. “Not the man from the photo. His and Harry’s pa, Noah Stork. You moved into his neighborhood after you sold your pa’s house.”
“Seems to me, you already know the answers to most of what you’re askin’ me,” Duck said. “But no, never heard of nobody named Noah Stork.”
“Hmm,” Leah mused out loud.
“What the fuck is hmm?” Duck asked.
“Just reckonin’,” she said. “You must’ve been almost neighbors.”
“Lady, like avoidin’ questions, I also avoid my neighbors. I never ‘known’ any of ’em. At least not on purpose. The last thing anyone wants to do is get to know their neighbors.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because you and I might be smart enough not to shit where we eat, but sure as hell there’s always somebody who doesn’t freakin’ abide by that rule. And those people’ll take you down faster than a coon tryin’ to cross the alley in front of your headlights. And just like that coon, there’s a good chance you’ll smash up your own car tryin’ to avoid the collision.”
Leah didn’t quite understand the metaphor, but she let it slip by. “Something else confuses me, Duck,” she said.
Duck looked at Dan. “I thought you were the one always confused, Pencil Dick. I guess it’s just cops in general.” He laughed, a low, almost forced laugh.
“From the old reports, I discovered the police actually questioned you ’bout the old Stickman murders.”
Duck had obviously been waiting for this one. His answer came almost immediately. “Yeah? So what? Like I said, you never asked me ’bout it, so I didn’t answer. ’Sides, I figured you already knew. That sort of thing had to be in the reports. Looks like I figured right.”
“And back then, you denied having anythin’ to do with the Stickman, correct?” Leah asked.
Duck’s grin grew. “Same as I do now. Wow. Ain’t that unbelievable? Maybe there’s somethin’ to that you oughta think ’bout.”
Leah stayed quiet a second before responding. “Problem I’m having, Duck, is that you’re sitting here with inside information about a crime you were actually questioned about fifteen years ago. Your car at the time, a—what was it?”
“I’m sure it’s in your report there,” Duck said. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Leah pretended to read it from the file in front of her. “A yellow sixty-eight Dodge Charger, right? The exact car was described by eyewitnesses as being seen at the crime scene.
In fact, the tire imprints matched those found at more than one scene.”
Duck shrugged, his smile unwavering. “And just like back then, I’ll tell you why that was: just one big coincidence. The eyewitnesses couldn’t even agree when it was they’d seen ‘my’ car. Nor did the police have any idea if those ‘tracks’ you’re talkin’ ’bout were from the time the Stickman hammered that wooden stick through his victims. I’d say everythin’ ’bout those ‘facts’ is pretty unreliable.” Duck appeared to hold back a laugh. His smile grew. Leah wanted to slap it from his face. She was amazed Dan was still managing not to talk.
“I’m not laughin’, Duck,” Leah said.
“Well, I am. I had nothin’ to do with no murders then, and—in case you haven’t noticed”—he looked at the concrete walls around the room—“it’d be kinda hard to be in on anythin’ now. You’ve noticed my silver bracelets?”
Leah looked to Dan and could tell he wanted to talk so badly. She almost felt sorry for him. “I got a little problem with all these ‘unreliable facts,’ Duck,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“They all seem so coincidental. Fact is, I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“Then you’re right,” Duck replied. “You do got yourself a problem.” He let out a quiet little laugh. Leah wanted to bludgeon him with her chair.
The dam holding back Dan’s words finally burst. “No, you little fuck,” he said at last. “You got yourself a problem. I’m goin’ to put my foot up your ass so far you’re goin’ to have to hire a fuckin’ survey crew to pull it out. Do you understand me?”
Duck and Dan stared at each other without blinking as seconds ticked by. Leah kept looking between them, wondering who would crack first. Finally, Duck broke the silence with a shrill whistle echoing loudly through the small room.
“Guard!” he hollered. “Guard! We’re done in here!”
CHAPTER 44
My mother got home from work quite late. The sky had already turned that purple-orange color it does when the sun drops below the horizon and the first few stars of the evening twinkle overhead. I had expected her home at least an hour ago, but she told me a large part of her day was spent driving with Dan to some place in Talladega and back.
Normally, her being late didn’t bother me, but today I had something exciting to show her—the blood we found that might belong to the Stickman. I also wanted to get past the part where I had to tell her I’d been reading her reports and that me and Dewey actually went to the crime scene. The quicker I got that all off my chest, the better, I reckoned.
She had barely got in the door and hadn’t even taken off her boots when I started trying to tell her. Of course, I had come up with a million different ways to approach it, only now that I was doing it for real, I forgot every one.
“Okay, okay,” she said, as though I was about to show her something I’d spent my day building out of Legos or something. “Just let me get in the door, for cryin’ out loud.”
“But this is important,” I said. “Really important. At least I think so.”
I followed her into the kitchen. “Okay, what is it?” she asked, taking a seat at the table. “Why don’t you sit down before you start? You seem awfully excited.”
Excited wasn’t the word. Nervous probably fit better. I took a breath and couldn’t think of how to start explaining everything to her. I wished I knew what her reaction was going to be before I began. I knew it wouldn’t be happy, even if we did find a really important clue at the scene.
“You know the person who the Stickman killed all them weeks ago?” I asked her, my words spilling quickly from my mouth. “The one who turned up by Leeland Swamp?”
“Yes,” she replied suspiciously. “Although I don’t reckon you need to be thinkin’ about that. How do you even know where it was? Did those kids talk to you and Dewey again?”
I hesitated, deciding to just ignore her question rather to lie yet again. “Remember the forensics laboratory kit thing you bought me for my birthday?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “You’ve been reading the book for weeks. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? I’m glad you finally pulled it out and actually opened the box and took a look at it.”
“I did more than that,” I said. “Me and Dewey set up a forensics lab in my bedroom.”
“Yes, that didn’t go by unnoticed, either,” she said. “Just remember, I’ll want my table back come Thanksgiving. With Dan and Jonathon in the picture now, I reckon we’ll be needin’ it.”
I took a deep breath. She was happy right now. I wished there was any way I could move on in this conversation that would keep her this way. I looked over at the stack of her folders from the Stickman case, still stacked the way I last put them days ago when I finally came to the last one.
“You know those folders?” I asked.
She looked back at them. “Yeah?” she asked slowly with suspicion leaking into her voice.
“I . . . I sorta . . .” My words were coming out awkwardly. I didn’t want to admit what I’d done. She was going to be mad. “I . . . I kinda went through and read ’em all.”
Her expression changed to one that was a combination of worry and anger. “You did what, Abe? You know damn well better than to touch things that aren’t yours. Why would you do such a thing?” Then she started almost talking to herself. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought them home. I should have figured you’d—”
“Mom,” I said, “listen. It’s okay. That’s not what I wanted—”
“It’s not okay, Abe. You had no right to look through them, nor are you even close to being old enough to read about things like that.” She shook her head, completely off-tangent from what I wanted to tell her. “I have no idea what goes through your mind sometimes, you know that? I . . . I don’t even know what—”
“Mom!” I said again, only this time she actually heard me.
“What? What the hell did you think I would say about you goin’ through my personal stuff? Police stuff, yet. You know, between you and your sister, I—”
“Mom!” I said again, hearing the whine in my own voice.
“What?” she snapped.
“That’s not the part that’s important.”
“It is. It is very important. I can’t trust you, and that is a huge thing, Abe. I—”
Now I started feeling real bad. She never said she couldn’t trust me before. “Listen,” I said, on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry I went through your stuff. But—”
“But what?” I still saw anger in her eyes.
“But there’s more.”
“Oh, Christ, how much more do I need to stand? What else did you do? Question suspects?” She laughed an angry laugh I’d never heard from her before. “Let me guess, you and Dewey did somethin’ stupid like visit the crime scene or—”
I nodded and she stopped talking.
“What the hell are you noddin’ about?”
“We did,” I said.
“You did what?” Still her anger was there. In her words and in her eyes. My stomach was sour. I hated disappointing her.
“Me and Dewey. We visited the crime scene.”
“Abe!” she hollered, so loud I was happy Carry wasn’t home. “Tell me you’re kiddin’ around. Do you have any idea how easily corruptible some—”
“We didn’t go into the scene!” I quickly said. “We stayed outside of the tape. I’m not dumb.”
She laughed that angry laugh again, making me feel even worse. “Oh, do not tell me how ‘not dumb’ you are after saying something like that. I—”
“We found somethin’,” I said, now wishing I hadn’t decided to tell her. “Somethin’ I reckon might be important.”
She stopped and just stared at me for a second. I could tell she was trying to think of what to do or say next.
So I didn’t let her decide and just took the lead. “We found some blood. On a leaf. We also saw that the killer didn’t leave the wheelbarrow carryin’ the body where you—or
, I should say, Officer Chris—figured he had in the reports. He pushed it through some bushes. Some of them were prickly, and it was on those bushes we found the blood.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What makes you think he went that way with the wheelbarrow?” she asked.
“On account of me and Dewey make paths like that all the time. We know what they look like. The first time you do it, the bushes pretty much spring back to exactly the way they were before, but there are small things that we’ve noticed that—”
“You really found blood?” she asked.
I nodded quickly. “And it’s real blood,” I said. “I tested it.”
“How did you test it?”
“With my forensics kit. What do you think I was learnin’ ’bout all that time I was readin’?”
“Show me,” she said.
I led her to my room, where the Tupperware container with the leaf and the bloodstain sat on top of the folding table beside one of the microscopes.
“You used my Tupperware for this?”
“Sorry,” I said, looking down at the floor.
She examined the leaf. “This small tear—that where you took the sample you tested?”
I nodded, still feeling bad about her saying I’d disappointed her.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said.
“I’m sorry I read your files,” I said.
She paused and said, “You should be. Those were private and not your business. What have I told you over and over about your business?”
“That I should mind my own and no one else’s?”
“Yeah,” she said with a deep sigh. “Something like that.”
“Whatcha goin’ to do with the leaf?” I asked.
Another sigh came from her lips. “I s’pose I better send it down to Mobile to have it examined. Too late today. I’ll get Chris to courier it down first thing in the mornin’. Don’t s’pose you found anythin’ else?”
“Um, maybe,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“We think the killer left the wheelbarrow in the prickle bushes and then carried Abilene Williams to where he left her by the tree. We think he didn’t show footprints on account of he stepped on rocks and boulders most of the way there. We found a partial . . . Is that what you call it?”
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