“Oh, she heard me,” he replied. “She’s going straight to hell. That’s how much she heard me.”
Leah gave him a sideways glance. “You know, I’d forgotten just how annoying you really are.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m back for a while, ain’t it?” Dan asked and then smiled with a face full of white teeth.
* * *
During the ride home, Leah radioed back to Chris and told him not to bother working on the impossible any more. Then, once they arrived back at the station, she very carefully put a line through the entry she’d made for June 18, 1974, and June 19, 1974, the dates when Betty-Lou Panders and Andrea Reinhardt claimed to have seen Harry Stork’s work truck parked by the side of the road at the crime scene.
CHAPTER 48
Carry and Jonathon were lined up at the Alvin Tri-Plex Cinema for tickets to see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The movie had been out since May, but they’d never gotten around to seeing it. She didn’t tell Jonathon the truth, that she hadn’t ever gotten around to seeing the first one, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, in the cinema, either. If she was honest, she’d admit she hadn’t actually seen an Indiana Jones movie ever. Somehow she’d managed to dodge that bullet, and look, her life had still managed to turn out okay after all.
She stretched with a big yawn.
It was going to be a long night spent pretending to be all excited to see this newest Indiana Jones installment. In reality, this was the sort of flick Abe and Dewey would’ve made much better dates for Jonathon to go with. Any way Carry sliced it, Indiana Jones was a boy movie.
Carry didn’t like boy movies much.
They got to the theater an hour and a half early. Carry had no idea why. Jonathon had picked her up at five and drove them here without mentioning why they were going so early. The show didn’t start until seven. At first, Carry thought maybe he was planning on taking her for supper somewhere first. But he didn’t. Not that she expected dinner. With Jonathon, she often didn’t know what to expect. All she knew was that, for all intents and purposes, he was pretty near perfect.
The line they were in to get tickets was long, especially for a Monday. Carry figured most of the people weren’t here for Indiana Jones, though. It had been out for a while. The big draws at this time were Lethal Weapon 2 and the new Batman movie starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. Honestly? She’d rather be seeing Batman.
Slowly she and Jonathon inched through the line, going around the turnstile and following the path cordoned off with rope. Carry started to see why they’d come so early. At the rate tickets were being given out, they still might not see the trailers before the movie.
And she had a hunch the trailers might be the best part.
Across the way, four other lines led away from the snack bar, where the popcorn popped that very bright yellow color you could never quite get when you made it at home. The air in here was thick with the smell, and Carry’s stomach gurgled, reminding her that no, Jonathon hadn’t picked her up early to take her for dinner. Just to get in a ridiculous line for tickets to what was currently the fifth best movie in the theaters. At least that was what Carry had read in some magazine she was leafing through a few days ago at the store. She was pretty sure it was Cosmopolitan, although she couldn’t remember seeing a single quiz about sex anywhere within the pages. So it could very well have been something else.
From beside her, Jonathon inhaled a deep breath through his nose. “Man, that popcorn smells good, eh?”
Carry nodded, hoping his next suggestion would involve buying some once they managed to get through the line. Currently, only four people stood ahead of them.
“You want some?” he asked in a teasing tone.
“I always have popcorn when I go to the cinema,” she said. “It’s a ritual. I reckon something really bad would happen if I ever broke it.”
“Like you might go hungry?”
“No, I was thinking more like one of the biblical plagues.”
“Nice,” Jonathon said. “Which one?”
Carry cocked her head and smiled prettily while she looked at the ceiling thinking about it. “I reckon the plague of lice. They’d infest every sandbox from here right across all of Alabama.”
Jonathon laughed. “I see.” He held each palm up in front of him, raising and lowering them as he judged what she said. “Plague of lice, or popcorn with movie . . . Plague of lice . . . Popcorn . . . Popcorn. . . Lice.” He stopped and smiled at her. “I think we’d better get some popcorn. The lice thing’s just too problematic.”
Carry grinned and wrapped her arms around him, drawing her face into his chest.
He quickly pushed her away. Before the complaint she had made it to her lips, she realized why he’d broken the hug. The cashier behind the desk was waiting for them. They’d actually made it to the front of the line.
Jonathon proceeded to purchase tickets from a girl not much older than Carry who wore a black Batman shirt with a gold “bat signal” symbol on the front. Her long brown hair fell straight down on both sides of her shoulders. She looked a little Goth, with dark eye makeup and very light face paint. Carry figured that was about the closest you could get to being Goth and still keep your job at the Tri-Plex. The girl had a brass name tag that read STEPHANIE. Below that were the words Die Hard, a movie that came out last year.
“Why does your name badge say Die Hard?” Carry asked.
“We’re supposed to put our favorite movie,” the semi-Goth girl apparently named Stephanie said.
“Die Hard’s your favorite movie?” Carry asked skeptically. She didn’t mean to make it sound like the movie sucked; she had actually (surprisingly) enjoyed it. She just didn’t think it would be the all-time greatest and most favorite flick for a girl who, Carry guessed, was even far more Goth when she wasn’t slinging movie tickets at the Tri-Plex.
Stephanie gave Carry a sort of thin-lipped half smile. “Nah, not really. I just needed to come up with something quick. Die Hard was like killin’ in sales back then. So I just said Die Hard. Doesn’t really matter. It’s just for here. It’s not like it’s my life or anything.” The smile grew a bit.
“What’s your real favorite movie?” Jonathon asked. “Or is that a secret?”
Carry glanced to his face, admitting to herself that he could be funny sometimes. When he really tried. Mostly, though, he came off a bit corny or campy.
Stephanie leaned forward, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “The Breakfast Club,” she said. “But don’t tell anyone. I just adore Ally Sheedy. I also like Some Kind of Wonderful, but only because Mary Stuart Masterson is so hot in it.”
Jonathon blinked. “I . . . um, I see. Okay. Haven’t seen the second one, and I fell asleep during the first. Isn’t that the one where the kids are in detention and suddenly, like halfway through the film, they just break out in weird dance moves for no apparent reason?”
Now Carry gave him her I’m perturbed look. In her periphery, she noticed Stephanie casting him the same sort of glare.
“What?” he asked, with a laugh and a shrug.
“They were bonding,” Stephanie said.
“You obviously didn’t get the movie,” Carry said.
Jonathon took the tickets from Stephanie. “Obviously not,” he said.
Stephanie forced a smile. “Enjoy Indiana Jones.” She glanced to Carry. “Such a boy movie.”
“Okay . . .” Jonathon said.
As he headed for the concession stand, Carry leaned forward and whispered to Stephanie. “Don’t worry, I get it. And I loved Some Kind of Wonderful. It made me cry.”
She doubted she’d get very emotional today, watching Harrison Ford running away from snakes and fleeing giant balls rolling through tunnels.
Jonathon finished buying them food. He slid his wallet into his pocket and turned around, a massive bag of popcorn in one hand, a humongous Coke in the other.
“Are you worried about us having to live in a storm shelter or somethin’?
” Carry asked.
“Look at their prices. The next size down is like half of these and it’s only fifty cents’ difference. Only an idiot wouldn’t buy the extra-large sizes.”
“But we’re not goin’ to eat more than half of what you’ve got. You can barely carry it.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“No, you’re not,” Carry said, watching a small trail of popcorn scatter the floor behind them. The heaping contents of the bag were slowly jumping ship. Carry wrestled the popcorn from his left hand. “Let me take this. You just worry about the Coke. I don’t know what the hell you were thinkin’,” she said. “I’ll be doing nothin’ but gettin’ up for the toilet if I start drinking that much Coke.”
“I was thinking about how much of a bargain I got.”
“Why do I suddenly feel like I’m trapped in an Abe and Dewey conversation?” She stared at him a second before adding, “Guess which one you are. And here’s a hint: You’re not Abe.”
Jonathon ignored her as he grabbed a handful of napkins and pulled two straws from a dispenser, punching them both through the plastic top on the Coke container.
“Why two?” Carry asked.
“I dunno. I always get two.”
“You can’t use the bargain excuse here. Straws are free.”
“I like having two straws. Besides, we’re sharing.”
Carry hesitated. “And you’re worried about sharin’ a straw with me? What do I have, girl cooties?”
“No.” He smiled. “It’s not that, it’s . . .”
She waited for the rest but it never came. “It’s . . .” She slowly upturned her hand as she spoke. “It’s what?”
“I just like having two GD straws, okay? Deal with it.”
Carry laughed and tossed her blond curls behind her. “You’re funny sometimes.”
“I know,” he said.
“I don’t mean in the ‘amusing, ha-ha’ sort of way.”
“I know.”
Almost dropping the napkins and the Coke, Jonathon awkwardly managed to pull their tickets from the front pocket of his jeans and hand them to the ticket taker stationed at the lectern at the beginning of a long and wide hallway.
“Cinema three,” he said, ripping the tickets in half and holding out the stubs for Jonathon to keep.
Carry watched Jonathon again juggling with the napkins and the four-hundred-gallon Coke he’d bought. Casually, she reached out with her hand that wasn’t holding the popcorn and took the ticket stubs. “I apologize for my boyfriend,” Carry said with a smile and a snide glance Jonathon’s way. “He’s incapable of passing up a bargain. I’m just glad you didn’t have a ultra-huge size that was only another fifty cents more, or we’d have had to use a dolly.”
The ticket taker laughed.
Carry and Jonathon began walking down the hall to cinema three. “There are starving people in Biafra, you know,” Carry said. “Maybe we should send some of our concession goodies over to them.”
“Biafra hasn’t been Biafra for twenty years.”
“You understand my point, though.”
Jonathon stopped walking. “It was fifty cents. For twice as much.”
“More isn’t always better, you know.”
His eyes narrowed, and his mind obviously whirled her point around his brain for a brief moment. “In most cases, more actually is better,” he said at last.
Carry and the popcorn resumed walking, stepping ahead of Jonathon. “Not when it comes to plagues,” she called out, not looking back. “Remember that. You don’t want to up-size when it comes to plagues.”
CHAPTER 49
The day drew on, and without even glancing at the clock, Leah knew she’d been sitting at her desk long enough that the kids would’ve already made themselves some sort of supper. Then she remembered Jonathon and Caroline were going to a movie tonight. Her eyes rose to the clock. Damn. It was going on five o’clock, much later than she’d thought.
She reached for her phone to call home and make sure Abe actually did fix himself something. Knowing Caroline, she’d probably make Jonathon pick her up early and take her out somewhere for supper.
Leah’s fingers had just reached the receiver when the phone rang, scaring her so much her hand jerked back as though she had just touched a hot branding iron.
“Jumpy?” Dan asked from where he sat at Chris’s desk beside her. Chris had left for dinner about twenty minutes or so ago. She figured he was likely meeting his momma somewhere, so Leah didn’t expect him back soon.
The phones rang again.
“You gonna answer that or what?” Dan asked.
Leah lifted the receiver to her ear. “Alvin Police, Detective Teal,” Leah said.
“Detective Teal? This is Terrance from down here in Mobile?”
“Ah, one of my forensics guys.”
“Right. You sent us this blood sample? On this leaf?”
“Yes,” Leah said.
“Well, I can tell you it came back zero percent exclusive from DNA we got from your victim. Unfortunately, CODIS came back without a hit, too.”
“CODIS?”
“Combined DNA Index System. It’s a database just recently assembled with DNA profile information, sort of like we do for fingerprints. It’s pretty new, so there’s still a chance the individual who left this blood sample has a record of some sort and just, for whatever reason, didn’t have his DNA recorded.”
Leah tried to make sense of what Terrance was telling her. “What are some reasons?”
“Well, if he got out of the system ten or more years ago, it’s highly likely his DNA profile wouldn’t have made it into the database.”
Something struck her. “Terrance? Is Harry Stork’s DNA in the database?”
“Stork? No. That was back in the mid-seventies, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Seventy-four. Do you have his DNA on file?”
“Um,” Terrance muttered, thinking this over. “Yeah. I believe we do. Why?”
“Can you do me a huge favor and see if the sample I sent you matches it?”
Terrance laughed. “You think the blood on this leaf came from a man who’s been dead for fifteen years?”
“He’s got a brother. I’d at least like to see if it’s close.”
“Can’t you get a sample from the brother? That makes more sense.”
“Not really. I don’t have enough for a warrant. I’m pretty much just runnin’ on speculation.”
“Okay, I’ll get back to you . . . How’s tomorrow? Soon enough? I’ll give it to one of my guys to . . . Damn. I forgot, he won’t be in until later tomorrow. You might not get a call until after six. You be around still?”
“I can be.”
“Okay. I’ll make sure Duncan gets it done tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Terrance.”
Leah hung up the phone. Dan spent the call looking at her with growing anticipation. She shook her head. “The blood came up empty. No matches with coitus.”
Dan laughed. “I think you mean CODIS. Combined DNA Index System. Coitus is what we do when the kids are gone for an hour.”
Leah smiled. “Oops.” But Leah’s mind was on other things. One was a question about this DNA database. She wished she knew whom she could exclude as a suspect by knowing whose DNA was on file. For instance, she wouldn’t mind at all knowing whether or not Thomas Kennedy Bradshaw’s DNA profile was there.
* * *
An hour or so later, the phone rang again.
Dan glanced at the clock. “I’m guessing that’s gonna be my forensics guy.”
“Still at work?”
“They work late. There’s two of them, and I’m pretty certain they’re nocturnal. Like vermin. Actually, there’s a lot of similarities between them and vermin, now that I think about it.”
Leah answered the phone after the second ring. Sure enough, the voice on the other end asked to speak with Dan Truitt. Leah put the call on hold. “You’re right. Someone named Erickson?”
Dan punched
the air. “Yes! The whole time you were taking that call, I was sitting here silently praying it was Erickson and not Baker.”
“What’s wrong with Baker?”
Dan shrugged. “He’s just a bit of an asshole.” With a flourish, Dan picked up Chris’s phone and hit the HOLD button.
“Erickson! How the hell are you?” A pause, then, “Yeah? Well, that should be fun. Man, I haven’t been on a road trip for . . . years. What’s that?” Another pause, then a laugh. “Well, not really. I mean, it involved a road, but that’s the only real similar—so, tell me,” Dan said, changing subjects mid-sentence, “what did you come up with from that blood sample? And I already know nothing pinged on CODIS.”
Dan listened for a moment.
“Just because I have mind powers. What did you think?” Dan laughed. “Yeah, Mobile called like two hours ago. Aren’t you guys always saying you’re the fastest team in Dixie? Apparently Mobile’s faster.” Another pause. And then Dan transformed right before Leah’s eyes. He actually grew serious. “Really?” he asked. “You’re not just—” He brought his hand up to his face and leaned his elbow on his desk. “No shit. A hundred, eh? Well, that’s pretty inclusive.” Another pause. “Okay, thanks. I’ll buy you a beer when I get back. Tell Baker I owe him one, too.” Another pause and then, “No, he hasn’t called . . . Why would he be calling me? Oh. Well, that’s great. Sure. Just tell him I already heard it from you. Okay. Thanks again.”
Dan gently hung the receiver back up on its cradle and turned his gaze to Leah, his expression nearly unreadable.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re not goin’ to believe it. I don’t know if I believe it.”
“What?” A small grin came to her lips. She’d never seen this side of Dan before.
“That sample Chris sent up for me on Friday?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s a perfect match for the one we had from one of the Cahaba River Strangler scenes. Our guy—the Stickman and the Strangler—they’re the same guy.”
Leah’s eyes drifted automatically to her timeline. “No shit,” she said.
“And guess what? My lieutenant’s supposed to be calling me to say that now that I have an actual case to solve down here, I’m welcome to stay until that’s all done.”
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