by Dan Wells
“Why not?”
“You saw this kitchen when we ate here on Sunday—it was covered with dirty dishes she’d used in cooking. The same when we helped bring back pans and plates from the town meeting. Sara leaves the dishes until after she eats, habitually. So if she’d cooked this meal the kitchen would still be messy. Somebody else cooked it.”
“Or the killer cleaned the kitchen,” said Mills. I glared at him, and he held up his hands. “I’m just saying. Weirder things have happened.”
“Sara loves cooking,” said Nobody. “Why would anyone have to cook for her?”
“Because there’s a meal-share program for the out-of-town police,” said Mills, snapping his fingers. “I saw the sign-up sheet on the wall at the station. Hang on.” He dialed his phone and held it to his ear, waiting while it rang. “Hi! This is Agent Mills again, I believe we spoke earlier today? That’s right. Absolutely charming. Listen, I have one more question about Officer Glassman, if you don’t mind. Who was on the list to feed him last night? Yeah, I can wait.” He looked at us. “She’s checking the chart. Set that down really carefully so they can’t tell we moved it.” I set Officer Glassman’s face back into his plate, trying to match the impression in the food exactly. “Whoa,” said Mills suddenly. “Are you kidding me? What idiot set that up?” Nobody and I looked at each other, then back at him. “Okay, well, my apologies first of all, and second, you’re going to want to send some black-and-whites to pick her up immediately, and then send some more on over to the Glassman residence. That’s right. As soon as you can. And then pack up your desk, because you’re fired—I know I don’t have the authority, and I’m sorry, but the writing’s on the wall after that food chart you put together. Thanks, bye-bye.”
He looked at us, shaking his head. “This casserole came from Brielle Butler, Jessica’s sister.” He shoved his phone into his pocket and walked back out toward the porch. “Effing eff.”
21
Brielle was at home when the police arrived, planning Jessica’s funeral with her parents and little brother. We weren’t there for the arrest, obviously, but we were back in the station by the time they brought her in. They were surprisingly gentle with her. I’d always heard that cops got really rough with people who kill other cops, but I guess they hated traitorous cop pedophiles more, just like Marci had said. They practically treated her like royalty.
Not that this made Brielle any less arrested.
“She looks sad,” said Nobody. I glanced at her warily, studying her face; those kind of dreamy, semilucid statements often marked a change in personality. Had the sight of Brielle brought this one on? Did the nature of the trigger affect which new girl would take over? I looked back at the closed door of the interrogation room, wondering who would be sitting beside me in a moment. Marci again? One of the others? Or someone completely new?
Agent Mills sat down beside us. “The chief’s assistant swears she changed the food rotation at the last minute, precisely because she didn’t want the Butler family making food for the Glassmans—not that she thought they were capable of poisoning anyone, obviously, but because she didn’t want to torture them with the association. Swears up and down she canceled the meal completely. Brielle and her parents insist the same thing.”
I glanced at Nobody again. She was staring intently at her hands. “So who made the food last night?”
“The community volunteer in charge of the food rotation was, you guessed it, Sara Glassman. So we don’t know who she picked in the last-minute switch. We can search her house for a written record as soon as the forensics team is done with it, but barring that, our only chance of tracing the food is if someone can identify the casserole dish.” He leaned back in his chair, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “I miss the days of BTK.”
“You look too young to have worked BTK,” I said. “He was caught years ago.”
“True,” said Mills, “and thank you. But I was in college during that whole final thing, when he came out of retirement and sent new letters and all that stuff with the floppy disk and the DNA. That’s why I went into serial killers in the first place—because that investigation was brilliant. Start to finish. The people involved, the procedures they used, the combination of new technology and old school legwork; that’s what I wanted to do. And so I studied and I graduated and I joined the FBI—and it’s gross and full of dead bodies and sick minds, but it’s awesome, you know? I’ve read your file, I know that’s what got you hooked, too. Looking at a crime and using all those pieces to crawl into someone’s head. Like you did with the Glassmans.”
“And then they saddled you with me,” I said.
Mills smiled thinly. “And nothing ever made sense again.” He pointed at the closed interrogation room, where Brielle was waiting in hopeless terror. “She would have made sense: angry sister wreaks horrible vengeance. The narrative works. You know what they found when they picked her up? That cop with the mustache, right there by the desk, he told me the whole story. She kept saying ‘How did you read my journal? How did you read my journal?’ So they found the journal, and there was the whole plan: she hated Glassman and she wanted to kill him. She even laid out the poisoning thing, all right there in ink on paper. And yet the chief’s assistant canceled the meal, and the family spent the entire afternoon and evening at the church cleanup with dozens of witnesses. She has the perfect motive but the perfect alibi.” He sighed. “And not a speck of curry powder in the kitchen. We have a tiny town with five murders in under a week, and none of them make sense, and the best suspects end up as victims, and nothing makes sense. I’m literally starting to wonder if there’s a gas leak in town, because everyone’s crazy.”
“No, I’m not,” said Brooke’s body. She looked mostly asleep.
“Everybody move,” said a voice, and we looked up at the crowd of cops and detectives and secretaries, which were no longer milling or arguing, but moving in a single direction. Mills and I stood up.
“What’s going on?” asked Mills.
“Town meeting,” said the cop with the mustache. “Davis wants to talk to everyone again, tell ’em to stop taking matters into their own hands and let us work.”
I pointed at the interrogation room. “What about Brielle?”
“Released to her home,” said the cop. “Too much evidence in her favor.”
I watched him turn and walk out the door, then looked back at Brooke. “You awake?”
“Huh?” she looked up.
I took one of her cuffed hands, both to help her to her feet and to help her feel at ease for my next question. “Who are you?”
“The one and only,” she smiled. “Original flavor.”
“Welcome back,” I said, pulling her up. I was relieved to have Brooke again, but couldn’t help but feel a pang of loss that she wasn’t Marci. Would Marci ever come back? Or had I finally lost her for good? The thought made me feel awful, like I’d just killed a puppy. It was Brooke’s body, and it should be Brooke in charge of it. I was a horrible person for even thinking about anything else, let alone wishing for it. I kept my voice even and changed the subject. “Do you remember Agent Mills?”
Brooke looked at him, pursing her lips. “Iowa?”
“One license plate,” said Mills. “Come on, I’ll drive us to the meeting.”
“Take off her cuffs first,” I said. “No more demon, no more cuffs.”
Mills stared at us a moment, then sighed and pulled out his little silver key. “Just three days, you said. Just give us three days.” He pulled the cuffs away and slipped them in his pocket. “Now I’m screwing with crime scenes and untying a demon.”
“I’m not a demon,” said Brooke, rubbing her wrists. She stopped suddenly, cocking her head to the side. “Was I Nobody again?”
“You’re always yourself,” I said calmly, leading her to the door. “Deep inside, you’re always you.”
22
With the church burned down the meeting was held in the local school, wh
ich had a large gym for basketball games but no efficient way to cool it in the summer. Brooke and Mills and I pitched in pulling out bleachers and setting up chairs as the townspeople slowly heard the news and started trickling in. None of them were happy, and many of them were terrified. A lot of the people I’d seen with families last time were now here alone, having left their kids and spouses at home. No one wanted to be outside. Ingrid had to drag Beth practically kicking and screaming. Almost a full hour after we arrived the meeting began, and Officer Davis stood in the center of the basketball court to speak.
“Thank you all for coming to another meeting,” he said. “I assume most of you have heard the news about the latest deaths, but I wanted to make sure you heard it from me, as an official, credible source. No gossip and no backbiting. At approximately 10:30 this morning the Glassman family, Sara and her brother Luke, were found dead in Sara’s home. They appear to have died sometime last night. Some form of poison appears to be involved, but I want to stress that it is too early for me to speculate on exactly what happened, or how, or why. I urge you to show the same restraint.”
“You’re supposed to be keeping us safe!” shouted a man in the front row. The crowd was restless, some muttering, some shaking their heads. Their terror was quickly turning to anger, now that Officer Davis was making himself a focal point.
“That’s what I want to talk about next,” said Davis, shouting over the low rumble of voices. “Just stay calm, stay calm. Let me talk.” The room quieted. “That’s exactly what I want to talk about next.”
“I’m sweltering,” Brooke whispered, fanning herself.
“Just listen.” I wiped the sweat from my forehead and watched Officer Davis carefully.
“As you know,” he said, “this town has had five deaths in less than a week. We have no clear evidence linking any of them to each other, and one of them might even have been an accident, but the fact remains that this volume of deaths has very few precedents. The nature of those precedents suggests two courses of action, and I’m afraid you’re not going to like either of them.”
“It’s too damn hot in here!” shouted a frail voice behind me. The crowd looked over, and I turned to see Beth standing in the back row, shaking her cane. Ingrid tried to pull her back into her seat.
“Well,” said Ingrid, laughing drily, “everyone’s thinking it.”
The crowd laughed with her, some of the tension broken, and Beth eventually started laughing too. I looked back at Davis and hoped the laughter would ease the blow of whatever he said next.
“Number one,” said Officer Davis. “The presence of a possible spree killer, or even a mass murderer, has garnered national attention. This is good because it means the cavalry is coming: within the next twenty-four hours we will have national guard, active army, and the police SWAT team in from Oklahoma City. Do any of you remember the manhunt for the Boston bombers? That’s the kind of protection we’re talking about—dozens, if not hundreds, of boots on the ground, patrolling your city and rooting out this killer. You’ll be as safe as we can make you.”
“Dammit,” I whispered. “We’re going to get another Fort Bruce.”
“Boston was a lockdown,” said a woman in the crowd. “Are you going to trap us all in our homes?”
“That’s the bad news,” said Officer Davis. “There are only two ways to keep you safe in a situation like this, and if we evacuate you, we’d just be letting the killer slip out with you. We have to keep you here and, for your own safety, we have to keep you under lockdown.”
“No one’s told me about this yet,” whispered Mills, pulling out his phone. “Excuse me.” He got up and walked to the door, holding the phone to his ear.
“This is going to get ugly,” said Brooke. By the murmurs in the crowd I could tell they had similar thoughts. Even Beth was cursing under her breath, more harshly than I’d have expected.
“I know you’re not happy about this,” said Officer Davis, “but please remain calm. We will be bringing in food and water and other emergency services. While you remain—”
“What about our jobs?” a man asked.
“You get a day off,” said Davis.
“You can’t call in sick to a farm,” growled another man.
“I understand that this is difficult,” said Officer Davis. “But what do you want us to do? Martial law will give us the breathing room to catch this killer before any more of you die. We’re doing this to protect you.”
“You’re doing this to control us!” shouted Beth, and the crowd shouted in agreement. A mob was forming, and she was their voice.
“We have leads we are following as we speak,” shouted Officer Davis. “Chemical samples from the Glassman’s house. Footprints and weapon marks from the attack on Jessica Butler. Forensic data from the truck that crashed into Corey Diamond’s bedroom.”
“What’s to stop another truck from crashing through my window?” shouted a man in the back. “You can’t even keep us safe in our homes!”
“If anyone is on the street they will be seen,” Davis shouted. “If anyone starts a truck or walks through an alley or even picks up a weapon, they will be seen.” He pounded his fist as he talked. “Do what we tell you and no one will get hurt. And for the love of God, do not take the law into your own hands. Don’t open your doors for anyone but my men, but don’t shoot anyone, either. I know you all have guns and I want you to be able to protect yourselves, but if people start shooting each other through their windows I will come down on you like the hammer of heaven. Stay in your homes, enjoy your vacation—mandatory as it may be—and let us do your jobs. The army gets here tomorrow, but martial law begins in one hour. Meeting adjourned.”
“This is terrible,” said Ingrid.
“It’s a necessary evil,” I said. “Go home and get Beth home and just do what they say.”
“Are you coming?” asked Ingrid.
“Maybe just to stop by for our clothes,” I said. “I’m sorry I don’t have time to explain.”
“Marci?” asked Ingrid, looking at Brooke.
“Not anymore,” said Brooke.
Ingrid frowned, confused by the response, but took Beth’s hand and joined the crowd walking slowly toward the door.
“This is our chance,” said Brooke. “Mills is gone, so we can hide and get away from him.”
“We need him,” I said. “He’s our only way out of this town.”
“You want to leave?”
“I want to kill Attina,” I said. “But first I want to get you out of here.”
“No,” said Brooke.
“No arguments,” I said. “Getting you out is the number-one priority. There he is.” I grabbed Brooke’s wrist and pulled her toward Mills, who was talking to one of the local men.
“… don’t take the law into their own hands,” the man muttered as we came up behind him. I recognized him from somewhere. The church, maybe? Of course: it was Randy, the man in love with Sara. He seemed practically red with rage. “What do you think that Butler girl was doing?” he demanded. “Someone oughta pour some Drano down her throat, see how she likes it.”
“Agent Mills,” I said, “can we speak to you in private?”
Mills gratefully excused himself from the conversation, leaving Randy to rant at the next person who came by, and walked with us toward the nearest door. “Do you have something?”
“You were right,” I said. “Everyone in Dillon is crazy.”
“What?” asked Brooke.
“Not real crazy,” I said. “Gas-leak crazy.” I glanced at the other people and police still filling the room, too close for me to say my true suspicions out loud. “In a manner of speaking.”
Mills hesitated a moment, then leaned in as well. “You think the Withered is making people crazy?”
“The one we’re hunting is named Attina,” I said. “Brooke doesn’t remember his powers, and we’ve been wracking our brains trying to figure them out based on the killings, but what if Attina’s not doing any
of it personally? What if he’s making other people do it?”
Mills nodded. “So we can’t find a unifying theory that ties together all five deaths, plus the arson, and you think maybe that’s because there are multiple killers and thus no consistent reason or method. Or, I suppose, the alleged craziness is the consistent reason.”
“It makes everything work.”
“Only in the barest sense,” said Mills. “You tell any cop in the country that their murder case is caused by ‘everyone just going crazy all at once,’ and they’ll laugh in your face. It’s not evidence. It’s not even circumstantial evidence.”
“A gas leak would be evidence,” I said, “if you could find one. Maybe Attina is a supernatural gas leak. He sits here in the town, minding his own business, but then something sets him off and he starts … leaking ‘crazy.’ He starts emitting violent tendencies into the air, like a psychic broadcasting station, and people just start hurting each other.”
“And Glassman’s bigfoot?”
“A lie to cover himself,” I said. “He’s probably the one that killed Jessica, overcome by Attina’s influence, and when he snapped out of it he made up that story to explain it.”
“Maybe he was hallucinating while he did it,” said Brooke. “Maybe he thought Jessica was a monster and that’s why he killed her.”
Mills looked around the room. “So who is it?”
“If it works the way I’m thinking,” I whispered, “it may as well be all of them.”
Mills clenched his teeth, looking around the room, then looking back at the closed interrogation room. “It’s not enough.”
“You have to get Brooke out of here,” I said.
“No,” said Brooke again.
Mills looked at me through narrowed eyes. “You want to leave? I thought you were going to posit some brilliant method of catching the Withered.”
“We’re in a town where random people are killing each other for random reasons,” I said. “This is not a town we want to be in.”
“But you’re supposed to be the idiot who runs into the mouth of hell every time it opens,” said Mills. “Your psych profile’s pretty clear about that: you don’t abandon people while a Withered picks them off.”