by Jim Heskett
“The important part is this advert for a free sunset yoga class at the Om Retreat Center, but the date is wrong.”
“What do you mean it’s wrong?”
“The event was scheduled and happened a couple years before Lukas moved back.”
“Maybe he liked to collect old flyers?”
“I don’t think so,” Harry said. “They’re pretty good about pulling down things soon after their date. Unless he was here years ago, it’s not likely he added this flyer to this box. This could destroy our timeline.”
“Maybe the shoebox belonged to a previous occupant. Honestly, the argument seems pretty thin.”
Harry flipped through the hand drawn pages again until he found one with a small sketch in the corner. He held it up and tapped on the sketch. “Normally, I’d agree with you. But I now know this is a symbol associated with the New Day Church of the Sinner. There are five or six of these drawings, and they’re littered throughout all of the pages. Everything in this shoebox is—was—probably Lukas’.”
Serena stood and dusted off her hands. “Okay, so what do you want to do with this information?”
Harry thumbed through the pages, playing them like a sketchbook animation. “Lukas’ mother was extremely upset the first time I talked to her. Maybe she got some dates wrong, and he moved back earlier than she’d said. That’s the most simple explanation I can think of.”
“If that’s true, it could change a lot of things.”
Harry groaned as he stood. His right knee felt a little sore today. “It sure could. Let’s go talk to her again.”
42
When Harry parked outside Opal Maslow’s house, Serena moved to open the passenger door, but Harry held up a hand. She pulled her hand back and stared at him with a raised eyebrow.
“What?” she asked.
“I think I should do this one alone. I’m not too worried about a sixty-something lady attacking me.”
It was clear from her face Serena wasn’t happy with the arrangement. Harry pictured her sitting in the car, getting antsy, then deciding to come inside anyway.
“Maybe you can set up a perimeter outside?”
Her frown evened out. “I can do that.”
“I’ll be okay in there.”
She hesitated for a second, then nodded. “I know you will. I’m just doing my job.”
“I appreciate that. You are very, very good at your job. This last week has been a terrible combination of bad luck and poor decisions by your boss. That guy should lose his job.”
She almost smiled. “I’ll be within earshot if you need anything.”
“Roger that,” he said as he slipped out of the car. He left the briefcase behind. Sometimes, he liked carrying it to seem more professional, sometimes he left it out to seem more personable. At least, he intended to give those impressions. Maybe the presence—or lack of—of a leather rectangle with a handle didn’t give off any impression at all. Harry was still mostly faking it through an extended period of trial and error.
He watched Serena stroll along the sidewalk. She palmed a makeup mirror in one hand, angling it toward the house as she passed by. She turned at the neighborhood intersection and strolled along a side street, still pointing her mirror back toward Opal’s house.
When he knocked on the door, the elder Maslow didn’t seem surprised to see him. The woman had shortish gray hair, messy atop her head. She wore a cardigan held around her like armor, with deep bags under her eyes and a glass of burgundy liquid in her hand. It was definitely too early in the day for drinking, but Harry couldn’t blame her. If his son died, he’d stay drunk for at least this many days, maybe longer.
According to the old saying, no parent should have to outlive their child. Even considering the idea put cold fingers of anxiety on Harry’s spine.
“Come in,” Opal said, then turned on her heels and retreated to her couch. When Harry had interviewed her last living son, Carter, he’d been drunk, too. The older woman carried herself better. She’d probably had a few more decades’ experience operating her body drunk than Carter had.
“I’m not sure what I can tell you I haven’t told you already,” she said. Her head bobbed and weaved as she spoke, her eyes dim.
“I know this is difficult, Ms. Maslow. But the more we talk, the more I learn, the closer we can get to the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m trying to find out the truth for you.”
She smiled. “You were always a good boy, Harry. You didn’t get in trouble like those other kids in town. And I want you to call me Opal. None of this ‘Ms.’ stuff.”
“I can do that. But to be fair, Opal, you only saw me for a couple weeks each summer when I was visiting, so it was probably easy to think I was more well-behaved than I was.”
She shook her head as she sipped her drink. “No. You were always kind to Lukas, even when everyone else teased him. You and Carter are the only ones who ever stood up for him. The only ones who ever treated him like a human being.”
“If my being friends with your son gives you some comfort, then I’m glad for that. I just wish we’d stayed in touch, but you know how it is with kids when they stop seeing each other on a regular basis. Pen pals don’t ever last for long.”
“You said you had some questions. I don’t want to be rude, but I’m very tired, so if we could just get on with it…”
“Sure, sure. I’m a little confused on the timeline of when Lukas moved back to Eureka Springs. You said it wasn’t until recently, but I found something among his possessions that indicated he was here earlier. More than a few months. Maybe he moved back to Arkansas then, or was only visiting, but I’m trying to piece together a solid timeline of his last three or four years. It would really help.”
“How can you piece together anything? No offense, Harry, but the cops around here don’t know shit. The fancy state cops in their suits came by, and they don’t know shit. If the President of the USA knocks on my door tomorrow, I’ll assume he doesn’t know shit, either.”
“I understand, Opal.”
“I don’t know what to say. I haven’t seen Lukas in months, and I haven’t seen Carter since he came by for dinner last Friday.”
Harry eyes flicked to a wall calendar hanging in the nearby kitchen. The image showed spring flowers on a Scottish hillside. The calendar below had notes scribbled all over various dates, and all of the notes were written in an indecipherable cursive.
Dinner on Friday? Not Saturday?
According to Opal’s first statement, Carter had come by for dinner on Saturday, the day Lukas had died. Harry tried to keep his face flat. But he scooted a little closer in his chair, clasping his hands together. “You sure it was Friday?”
“I’m sure. I get my check on Fridays, so me and Carter cashed it and then went to the store together.”
“Which store was that?”
“Dollar Tree on Highway 62. Why?”
Harry shrugged, but made a mental note to contact the store. A place like that may or may not have working CCTV. But Harry didn’t worry about that specific detail right now. He was on the verge of something; he could feel it.
“You had dinner with Carter on Friday? Did you see him on Saturday, too?”
She shook her head. “I ain’t seen Carter since Friday. On Saturday, I went to the flea market, then I was home for the rest of the day, by myself. I heard about Lukas on Sunday morning. I know for sure that was on Sunday because I missed church.”
Harry sat for a few beats, thinking through the information. Either Carter had been mistaken, or he’d lied. And maybe, he’d coerced his mother into lying for him. Carter’s alibi for Saturday night have been ripped to pieces by his mother’s drunkenly offhanded comment.
A new lead.
Harry stood and dipped his head. “Thank you for your time, Opal. I’ll let you get back to resting.”
She lifted her glass with a liver-spotted hand and chuckled. “There’s no rest for the wicked, Harry.”
“Yes ma’am
,” he said as he left her house.
43
In the afternoon, Harry and Serena drove to nearby Berryville and parked on Carter Maslow’s street. According to his work schedule, he would be arriving at home at any minute. They sat in silence as they stared at the comings and goings of locals in this neighborhood for a few minutes.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Serena said.
Harry pivoted toward her in his seat. “How can I help?”
“If Carter Maslow lied about his whereabouts on the night his little brother Lukas died, that makes him a suspect, right?”
“Potentially. It makes him someone deserving of another look, for sure. Because the main reason we cleared him before had to do with his mother providing an alibi for him. But if she got the dates wrong and he had dinner with her on Friday, instead of Saturday? That’s something. That means either Carter asked his mother to lie for him, or they’re both bad at reading calendars.”
“But if he was involved in his brother’s killing, then why haven’t we linked him any other way? He has no connections to any of the other threads.”
Harry nodded. “That’s true. He has no links to New Day Church, or to Rourke Mannafort’s landscaping company, and he has no criminal record. He had an alibi and no clear motive. I’ve been trying to keep from casting the net too wide.”
“It wasn’t meant as a criticism, Harry. I just don’t know how we missed it.”
He opened his mouth to answer, then realized it hadn’t been asked as a question. He didn’t know, either. Lack of experience, most likely. In the fury to narrow down the list of suspects to 1 as rapidly as possible, Harry had been forced to look for easy ways to mark names off the list.
Either way, didn’t matter now. They had a lead, and they had a goal.
“Here we go,” Harry said as Carter’s truck pulled into the space behind the shabby house.
He and Serena lowered themselves in their seats, although they were fairly far away. Harry squinted as Carter left his truck and walked along the sidewalk to the next house. A rusted car sat out front, and Carter checked along both ways of the street as he skulked toward the rear of the car. Then, he reached down and plucked a wrapped brown paper bag from the car’s exhaust pipe, and shoved it in his pocket. Then he strolled back along the sidewalk, toward his house.
“That was interesting,” Harry said. “Drugs?”
“Probably. You said he has no rap sheet. Does he have zero drug-related priors at all, maybe including previously expunged cases?”
“Nothing like that, but not everyone who gets high is destined to see the inside of a jail cell. Could be he’s just lucky enough that he never got picked up on any drug charges before.”
Carter entered his house, and the world kept moving as normal. Cars passed by, the afternoon sun hurtled toward the horizon, pedestrians strolled along the sidewalks. Harry noticed an abundance of stray dogs in this town. Maybe the animal control person was on vacation.
Harry sat in silence, watching the quiet residence. Serena sat next to him, her laser-focused eyes continuously darting from one end to the other. Harry used the space to think. It didn’t go well, and he found himself drifting away, pondering anything and everything besides the case.
Five minutes later, Carter left the front door, now with a jacket. He started up his car and after a few failed tries to find first gear, he merged onto the street. Harry turned the key in the ignition, ready to pursue.
Serena reached over and tapped him on the arm. “Wait. Don’t you want to see what’s in the paper bag first? I mean, assuming he just now stashed it under his mattress or in his medicine cabinet.”
“You want to break in?”
She shrugged. “This is why you pay me in cash, Harry. Call me a bureaucratic red-tape cutter, or call me the devil on your shoulder, if you like. But the fastest way to learn about our target is to explore where he lives. Don’t think about the ethics of it. Think about solving the case.”
Harry sighed. “Okay, then. But you’re not a devil, you’re more like a tiefling.”
“A what?”
“In Dungeons & Dragons, a tiefling is a half-human, half-demon hybrid.”
“Sure. Call me that. Let’s go.”
“You know, if that sounds interesting, you’re always welcome to come by our weekly D&D game…”
“Not going to happen. Come on, we’re burning daylight.”
They left the car and crossed the street quickly, although no one seemed to be watching. Once they were out of sight, they both donned latex gloves. She led him around the back of the house, where she “broke in” by opening the unlocked back door of the house. She hadn’t even tried the handle, but instead gave it a little push to make it drift open.
“See?” she said. “He’s practically inviting us inside.”
Harry held his tongue as they entered a mud room with a washer, no dryer, and shelves lined with outerwear of a particular shade of brown reserved for the working class.
Harry joined the house proper through the kitchen. He’d only seen the tiny living room before, so he pivoted into the tiny bedroom. Empty bottles and cans sat on most of the available horizontal surfaces. It seemed as if Carter was doing his part to keep the local liquor stores in business.
While Serena was poking around in the kitchen, Harry stood in the middle of the room and closed his eyes. He focused on his breathing and letting his other senses explore the space. But there were no smells or sounds to lead him in any certain direction.
“What am I supposed to learn here?”
He stopped at a desk up against a wall, with a single lamp and a pad of paper. Above the desk were a series of printed photographs thumb tacked to the wall. Pictures of Carter with Lukas and their mother, pictures of Carter at various ages, with various friends Harry didn’t recognize.
“Wait a second,” he said as he stared at a spot on the wall. The pictures had been arranged in four loose rows, with three columns below. In theory, with a full array, there should’ve been twelve pictures, but Harry counted ten. There were three rows of three, and the fourth row only had one picture. Two were missing.
He examined the blank rectangle where a picture could have been, and he noted a tiny pinhole in the wall.
“There was a picture here,” Harry mumbled. Then, out into the hall: “I may have something.”
Serena joined him a moment later. “I found the bag from the tailpipe under his couch cushion. It’s about a quarter-pound of marijuana, broken up into smaller bags, definitely with the intent to distribute.”
“Gotcha,” Harry said as he pointed at the two blank spots.
She joined him. “The wall behind that one is lighter.”
Harry compared the two spots. She was right. Where pictures could have been, Harry noted the faint outline of a rectangle, lighter than the surrounding wall. He sniffed. “Carter is a smoker. The walls are yellowed from smoke.”
“Then why is this one lighter?” Serena said as she pointed at the less-yellowed spot. Harry couldn’t tell if she either didn’t know, or if she was testing him.
“Because that picture was taken down recently.” He pointed at the darker spot missing a picture. “This picture was taken down months or years ago. Maybe an ex-girlfriend. But the other one is lighter because a picture was shielding the wall from the yellowing effect until recently.”
Serena nodded. “That’s impressive, Harry. Seriously. And it proves one thing: you’re better at this than you realize.”
He felt his cheeks flush. “Thank you. But it probably won’t help us until we find that picture.”
She nodded and began rifling through possessions in his closet, the only logical place to hide anything. Harry worked on the desk and found drawers full of nothing useful. For the next two minutes, they scooted objects around, checked behind furniture and under items in closets.
Then something occurred to him. “Why are there no trash cans in here? It’s a little messy, but it’s
not that bad. If he’s not dumping it on the floor, where is he putting his trash?”
He returned to the kitchen and crouched to open the cabinet under the sink. There, he found the trash can, obscured behind a pile of cleaning supplies. He checked his gloves to make sure there were no tears, then he pulled it out. It was a clear plastic rubbish bin, dirty and rank from months or years of being a temporary storage for muck.
And Harry saw a smudge of dark red on the edge.
“Got something better,” he called out, and Serena appeared behind him like summoning a ghost.
She kneeled next to the bin and stared at the red mark. “Looks like a fingerprint, but it’s definitely too smudged to scan.”
Harry held his breath as he dug around in the can, then he pulled out two halves of a torn photograph. A picture of Lukas Maslow, Carter Maslow, and Rourke Mannafort standing in front of a trio of ATVs with muddy tires. All beaming, proud of their vehicles.
“There’s your link,” Serena said. “No dots to connect on this one.”
He held the two halves together to make a whole picture, then turned it over to find another smudged and bloody thumbprint.
44
Harry and Serena caught up to Carter Maslow close to Eureka Springs. At first, Harry thought he was driving directly into town, but then he turned north onto Highway 207, which was the quickest way to bypass town. With Eureka’s narrow streets and frequent stop signs, it was often faster to take the longer and more circuitous route around the town than go through it. He kept thinking of the bridge out they’d found days ago, and tried to make sure he wasn’t on a course directly toward it. But Carter was traveling north, and Harry stayed close behind.
“Slow,” Serena said past town, and Harry appreciated the reminder. Tension made his foot want to push, to tell him that he had to catch up to Carter. But there was no imperative to hunt him down or provoke a chase. Harry just wanted to know where he was going, and that could be done at a reasonable distance.