Leah leaned forward. “Tommy told me he didn’t think he was schizophrenic. He said you were, actually.”
Stork smiled. “Common deflection for sufferers. No, I show none of the signs. Sufferers of schizophrenia have difficulty holding jobs, and their long-term memory and attention span both become affected. Even the speed their brain functions at can be impaired.”
“I see.” Her eyes glanced down to the typewriter. “Be hard to write while suffering from bad long-term memory and attention symptoms, eh?”
Still smiling, Stork nodded. “Yes, Detective. Nearly impossible.”
“After doing so much research into it, do you think your son’s diagnosis was right? Aren’t these things sort of hard to diagnose?”
“Again”—he nodded—“yes, because of the spectrum they lie on. Each disorder can take on some of the qualities of another one, depending on situations and even age. As far as Tommy’s diagnosis, I believe it’s good enough. What I mean by that, Detective, is that his diagnosis allows his psychiatrist to prescribe medication that keeps his condition in check. The medication is similar across the spectrum. So even if I see indications in Tommy that his condition might lean toward being dissociative identity disorder, it doesn’t really matter, providing the medication works with those symptoms, too. It’s more the prescription that’s important. Not the name of the disorder. If you understand?”
Leah nodded. “Do you think he actually does lean toward having dissociative identity disorder?”
Noah once again put his right arm up on the davenport’s back. “I think there are traits to his illness that indicate he may suffer at least some symptoms that one is more apt to see in someone with dissociative identity disorder than schizophrenia, yes. But I see the opposite, too. It’s all one big gray area, Detective.”
“I think I read somewhere that these sorts of disorders are genetic. Is that true?”
The question seemed to momentarily flummox Stork. “Some researchers believe the tendency to something like schizophrenia can be transferred through heredity, yes. There has been evidence of the disorder running in families.”
“What about Harry?” Leah asked. “Did he ever show signs of having it? Maybe that’s what happened while he was stationed in—”
Stork cut her off. “No. Not Harry. I told you last time you came here, Harry had PTSD from whatever he went through over there.”
“What about your wife?” For a moment, Leah forgot her name, but managed to remember just in time to add it onto her sentence. “Sally-Anne. Do you think that might’ve—”
“No,” Stork said, again rather abruptly. “No, no, Detective. Not my Sally. She . . . she had other problems. She just couldn’t cope with seeing her boys . . . well, you know.”
“I have a question regarding Harry’s business, Stork Sanitation and Waste Removal?”
Noah brought his arm down and his fingers went to his chin. “Yes?”
“From what I can tell, the company was incorporated in your name. Can you tell me why you did that?”
“It’s pretty simple, really. With Harry’s condition, it just made more sense for me to own the company. We weren’t sure if he was going to get worse or better, and so my wife and I decided it would be best if I handled all the ‘corporate’ items.” He spoke with his hand as he said all of this, finally dropping it into his lap with his other one.
Leah had her pad out and was taking notes. “Thanks. So, obviously, you know a lot about the business.”
“A fair bit, yes.”
“Such as all the contracts with medical institutions around southern Alabama? Going through the records in our files, I found some a couple hours’ drive away. Was it feasible to do work and have to spend that much time drivin’?”
“You’re talking about the big clients. Yes, Detective, they paid quite a bit for Harry’s services. And yes, it took a lot of his time. Sometimes it was too much for just one person. He actually offered a job to Tommy, but, of course, Tommy had no desire to work. He’s been like that all his life. So, I wound up working for Harry kind of”—he lowered his voice as he said the next part—“under the table, if you know what I mean.”
Leah wrote this down on her notepad. “How often would you say you did that?”
Stork looked up at the ceiling. “There were only a few times. Maybe a half dozen. Maybe a little more. I didn’t really keep track.”
“But you did the books.”
He nodded. “I did, but I didn’t keep track of when I helped him. Like I said, I wasn’t ‘officially’ hired.”
Leah nodded and jotted down some more notes.
“Now, I understand that on June twentieth of 1974, your house was broken into?”
His hand moved back to his chin. “Yes. Someone broke the window in Tommy’s bedroom. Made the hole big enough to reach inside and unlock it. I’m assuming after that, he crawled through.”
“Right. I read the statement you made to police. Why do you say you’re ‘assuming’ the vandal crawled through?”
“Because, and this should also be in the report, nothing was taken. At least nothing I could find.”
Leah narrowed her eyes. “I see. So, why do you think someone broke a window and came into your house?”
“I honestly can’t answer that, Detective.”
“Did your insurance cover the window?”
Stork shook his head. “It wasn’t worth involving them for. I got it fixed out of pocket.”
“You’re aware, Mr. Stork, that when the police searched your son Harry’s house, they found a Smith and Wesson Model Ten handgun that matched the murder weapon used on at least two victims and likely on all nine?”
“I am aware that’s what they claim, yes.”
“ ‘That’s what they claim’? Do you contest that claim?”
Noah Stork took a deep breath. “Detective, I do not think my son Harry was a serial killer. To the best of my knowledge, Harry didn’t own a gun. Since returning from the war, he actually loathed them. It was a trigger for his PTSD. I cannot tell you where that gun police found in his house came from. I will tell you this, though: I believe Harry was set up. I mean, nobody wants to admit their kid might be a cold-blooded murderer, but this is more than that. In Harry’s condition, he was incapable of performing the atrocities he’s been blamed for.”
“Well, the night your son died, he definitely did have a firearm in his possession. He refused to lower it, and that’s why the detective was forced to fire on him.”
“Your father,” Noah clarified.
Leah swallowed. “My pa, yes. Harry wouldn’t drop his gun. If he had, he’d still be alive.”
“You don’t know that. He’d have gone into the system. Nobody knows what might have happened once he was on the inside.”
“Have you ... You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
“Only the experience of reading, Detective. No, I have no police record. You surprise me, I would think you’d have looked that up.”
Leah smiled. “We only check out the suspicious people, Mr. Stork. Do you, yourself, own a gun?”
“I don’t,” he said, shaking his head. “No.”
“What about your son Tommy?”
“Tommy?” He gave a little laugh. “I highly doubt it. If he did, I wager he’d have hocked it long before now. But he might. You can never tell with Tommy. I don’t pretend to know what goes on in that boy’s head.”
Leah’s eyes cut to the stack of written manuscript pages on the coffee table. But you do seem to know the inside of his head. In fact, you judge him. Or, at least, Joshua does. She made some more notes. “I see. For what reason might Tommy own a gun?”
Stork shrugged. “I can’t answer that. Maybe . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Tommy isn’t one for talking much unless it’s with specific intent, such as for borrowing money or needing a lift somewhere. But I can’t imagine anything good coming of him having a firearm. He’s . . . unpredictable at best.”
/> “He doesn’t drive?” Leah’s eyebrow went up on reflex. She remembered that pomegranate red Ford Fairlane in his yard the day she interviewed him.
Again Stork closed his eyes. “I never know. Sometimes he apparently has a car, other times he mysteriously does not. Again, I do not claim to know what goes on inside the boy’s mind.”
And again, Leah glanced at the upside-down manuscript on the table.
Noah shook his head slowly and continued talking about Tommy. “I can read about his disorders all I want, but that will only allow me to understand the disorder, not him. I do feel he may have elements of dissociative identity disorder, which complicates things dramatically. I only say this because there are days when I do not know the person I am speaking to. It’s like he’s a totally different man.”
“You mean, like multiple personalities?”
Stork shrugged and upturned his right palm. “I don’t know, Detective. Maybe.”
“What was Tommy’s childhood like?”
“The person you should be asking is my wife, but unfortunately, as you know, that’s impossible. But she did most of the job of raising our children. I was away with work much of the time. And we moved around a lot. Georgia, Nebraska, North Carolina, even other parts of Alabama, such as Annistan.”
“What did you do for work that took all your time?”
Noah put his right arm once again up on the back of the davenport. “I was a door-to-door salesman most of my life, Detective. It’s not a job I would recommend for anyone.”
“No?”
“Detective, the general public are boors. Any job that throws you into a public arena—especially one where you’re forced to try to sell them something—is one you want to run away from screaming.”
“How long did you do it for?”
“It felt like a lifetime.” He looked up at the ceiling as he calculated. “Let’s see. I quit when we moved here. That would’ve been 1964.”
“What did you do after that?”
He laughed. “As little as possible. No, I actually worked here in the library for ten years before I retired, which was right around the time I lost my wife. One was the effect of the other, you see. And then, of course, I lost Harry . . .” For a moment, something like anger flashed in his eyes.
“You know,” Leah said, “the detective who shot Harry . . . my pa . . . he gave him many chances to drop his weapon.”
“You mean the weapon that was empty of ammunition?”
“My pa had no idea it was empty. He only knew somebody had a firearm aimed at him.”
“I thought Harry yelled out something about being a set-up patsy?”
“How did . . . ?”
Noah closed his eyes. “It’s a small town, Detective. Secrets don’t keep well in small towns.”
“Well, it wasn’t a secret,” Leah said. “He did yell somethin’ to that effect.”
“Then why was he shot? Obviously, he felt the pressure of being set up. Not a single bone in my body believes Harry brought that gun into his house. Somebody else put it there.”
“Who?”
Stork shrugged.
“My pa had no recourse but to shoot him.”
“In the heart.”
“He was aiming for his arm.”
“Was he? Was he that bad of a shot? Listen, Detective, pretend the man that pulled the trigger that night wasn’t your pa. Pretend it was just some detective you didn’t know. Would you still be defending him like this?”
Leah opened her mouth but said nothing. Closing it again, she flipped through her notes. “I think I’m done here. Thank you.” Her words came out clipped, but that was the best she could do.
“Very well,” Noah said, coming to his feet. He picked up the cup from the coffee table and drank the rest of his tea down. “Now I guess I’ll get back to my book. Good thing Sally-Anne’s not around for this. Writing is an extremely harsh mistress.” He laughed again.
After putting her notepad back in her pocket, Leah walked outside to the porch. She then made her way down the driveway to her car out on the street. Part of her hated Noah Stork at that moment, but another part shared his perplexity about his son’s death. He had made her wonder if what he’d said was right. If it had been another man, other than her pa, reporting that Harry didn’t drop his weapon while hollering about his innocence, would she have questioned it? She didn’t know.
That thought turned rancid in her stomach.
CHAPTER 53
Leah’s day turned into a hard one as she drove back to the station. Ever since last night, she couldn’t keep bad thoughts from cycling in her head. She finally managed to let go of what Noah Stork had told her, about how if it hadn’t been her pa she wouldn’t have been so quick to wash him of any guilt. With that gone, now her mind settled on Samantha Hughes and how the girl had been dumped less than a city block from where she’d been. Right inside her search area of the Anikawa. So close, she actually saw the dust of the vehicle pulling away.
But not the vehicle.
Any other day—if it had still been raining, even—there wouldn’t have been near enough dust kicked up to hide the getaway car completely. Or truck. She didn’t even know that much.
It wasn’t something she could just let go. It was too painful. Because of her, the Stickman was still out there and, in due time, because of her he would kill again. That part of the equation didn’t change. One thing Leah was sure of: He had to be stopped. It didn’t matter if this was the same Stickman from fifteen years ago or not. It didn’t matter that her pa might’ve killed an innocent man. None of these things mattered.
The only thing that really mattered was that she put an end to it all.
Tommy Stork.
The Stickman.
The Strangler.
Were those all the pieces of the puzzle? If so, why did that leave so many questions? How had the Stickman known that Ethan would happen to drop in to the station on the Fourth to place a bet with his bookie? How could anyone have known that? Was he somehow watching the station? Did he have the phones bugged?
All those notions felt slightly ridiculous.
She tried to think of something else, so her mind moved on to Dan. She remembered the night she thought she’d fallen in love with Dan Truitt. New Year’s Eve of last year. She wondered now, sometimes, how strong that love really was. Could she love him forever? When Billy died, she had felt he was her soul mate and that she would never feel the same way about anyone else.
And she never had.
Not even about Dan Truitt. But what she was feeling for Dan was something like love, only different from the love she had had for Billy. At that moment she realized that you could never love two people the same way. It wouldn’t work. Everyone deserved a unique type of love, tailor-made for them. With that fact came the realization that she very well could continue to love Dan Truitt forever.
Dan didn’t replace Billy, but he augmented a space in Leah’s life where Billy had been. And her feelings grew from the role he played as her lover.
It was good. It was the way Leah suspected nature had intended it.
Her thoughts went back to the Stickman murders.
Deep down, she knew the truth. There was too much evidence not to accept it. Whoever was killing folk now was most likely also responsible for the other nine people fifteen years ago. And for all the Cahaba River Strangler victims. Leah had known the truth for some time now, only she hadn’t wanted to face it. And now, for the first time, she did.
Her pa had shot the wrong man.
His legacy, his biggest case, as reported by the Alvin Examiner, was a fraud. He’d screwed it up. He got caught up in the wrong evidence, like the gun they found in Harry Stork’s house. Leah had no question about it anymore. That gun was planted. The only big questions now were: Why was Harry Stork set up? Who set him up? And how, exactly, was he set up?
Was it all Tommy’s doing? Did he pay off Betty-Lou Panders and Andrea Reinhardt? If so, how could Betty-Lou no
t have remembered that scar on his face?
Thinking all this just frustrated Leah. The answers didn’t light up the way they were supposed to.
Leah pulled up to the curb in front of the station and got out of her car. Dan was already there. She knew this because she had to park behind his green Nova.
She walked to the station door going over the conversation she and Dan had yesterday about Tommy Stork. She was pretty sure when Mobile called this evening, they would be telling her the blood sample matched against Harry Stork. If so, there wasn’t much, other than evidence, between pinning Tommy as the Stickman and the Strangler and putting him away for life. Or, she supposed, for death. That would be a decision made by twelve of his peers.
She laughed at that thought. Like any of them would be as stupid as Tommy came off.
But her stomach didn’t like it. She didn’t know why, but something still ate at her. There were so many questions—not big questions, just unanswered questions. Outstanding things that even putting Tommy in the killer’s seat didn’t answer or fix.
But they had to. Tommy was the killer. She was sure of it. Dan was sure of it.
Throughout all her pa’s reports and statements and notes was one constant theme. One constant question. Where was the primary crime scene? The slaughterhouse? Find the primary crime scene and everything would tumble into place. He had intimated—no, even more than that. Insisted—that the primary crime scene was the key to unlocking the whole case.
But he’d never found it.
Now Leah’s thoughts about Tommy Stork brought with them the memory of that old abandoned barn across the street from his house and two fields away, a hulking husk of a building that, in her mind’s eye, appeared openmouthed, hollow, and still. Waiting for a second chance, as though it were a hyena that had just caught the taste of death for the first time.
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