"No. I don't think so. That's where I was going when we started talking about Gacy and Dahmer. See, the animals were pretty fresh. But the boys have been vanishing for five years, right? More or less. The animals, well, none of them had been dead for longer than a year, looked like. Warm summers here, lots of bugs."
"So what's the bottom line?"
"Tom's helper wasn't Chuck. It was someone else, someone who's still at large."
Tolliver looked at me with a completely blank face. I had no idea what he was thinking or whether he agreed with me.
I held my hands out, palms up. "What?" I said.
"I'm thinking," he said. He turned on the car while he thought, which was good, because it was feeling pretty chilly. Finally he said, "So, what to do?"
"I have no idea," I said. "I need to run in to tell Manfred his grandmother died on her own. Though there was someone there who didn't do anything about it."
"What?"
"Someone watched her die. Someone didn't call for help. Not that I think it would've done any good. But…" I shook my head. "That's just creepy. She knew someone was standing and watching."
"But not harming her. And not helping."
"No," I said. "Just watching."
"Could it have been Manfred himself?"
I snatched at the idea. That would make sense. Manfred wouldn't necessarily have known Xylda was passing. "No," I said reluctantly, after I'd thought about my connection with Xylda's last moment in the funeral home cooler. "No, it wasn't Manfred. At least, if it was, Xylda was beyond recognizing her own grandson, and I didn't get any sense of that much disorientation from our connection."
Tolliver dropped me off while he went to gas up the car. I strode through the hospital like I worked there, and I got to Manfred's room to find he was by himself. Trying not to look too relieved—Rain was probably a nice woman but she was a lot of work—I went directly to his bedside and touched his hand. Manfred's eyes sprang open, and for a second I thought he was going to yell.
"Oh, thank God it's you," he said when he'd grasped who I was. "What did you find out?"
"Your grandmother died of natural causes," I said. "Ah—do you remember standing in the doorway to her room and looking at her for any length of time?"
"No. I always went right in and sat in the chair right by her bed. Why?"
"At the moment she died, someone was standing in the doorway watching her."
"Did they frighten her?"
"Not necessarily. Surprised her. But that didn't cause her death. She was in the process of dying."
"You're sure." Manfred didn't know what to do about this random piece of information. Neither did I.
"Yes, I am. She died a natural death."
"That's great," he said, much relieved. "Thanks so much, Harper." He took my hand, folded it in his warm one. "You did that for me and it had to be awful. But now we don't need an autopsy, she can rest in peace."
Xylda's resting in peace had nothing to do with whether or not she had an autopsy, but I decided it was best to let the subject die a natural death, as natural as Xylda's.
"Listen to me," I said. His face hardened at my tone, which was serious.
"I'm listening," he said.
"Don't be alone here," I said. "Don't be alone in Doraville."
"But the guy was arrested," Manfred said. "It's done."
"No," I said. "No, I don't think it is. I don't think anyone would actually snatch you from the hospital, but if they let you out, you stick right by your mom all the time."
He could see I was dead serious. He nodded—reluctantly, but he nodded.
And then Manfred's nurse came in the room, and she said it was time for him to get up and walk, aided by her, and I had to go stand out front to wait for Tolliver.
Barney Simpson was on his way to the front of the hospital with a sheaf of papers, and I happened to fall into step beside him.
"I would have thought an administrator would be chained to a desk," I said. "You're all around the hospital."
"If my secretary were well, I would be in my office almost nonstop," Simpson agreed. "But she's off. One of the missing boys was a grandson of hers. And though it's going to be a long time before they get to bury the boy, it just seemed right to let her have a day or two off to be with her daughter."
"I'm real sorry for all the families."
"Well, at least there's one happy family. The folks of that boy that was under the stall should sure be having a good day today."
He gave a nod and veered off into a smaller hall lined with offices. Everyone in Doraville was affected by these crimes, though I guess the severity of the affection was lessened with your emotional distance from ground zero—the killing field above the town.
I felt a little foolish, now that I thought about it. It was nuts, warning Manfred. He was older. But he was small, and attractive, and right now he was vulnerable. He was a stranger, too, and wouldn't be missed as quickly as one of the local boys. It was nuts because if you looked at it logically, there was no way the remaining killer—a killer only I seemed to be worried about—would take another boy. Everyone was watching, everyone was wary, everyone was suspicious. At least, they had been. Now it was another story. The boogeyman was in jail, his tormented son was dead, the last victim was safe in the hospital and going to live. A happy ending for just about everyone. The people I heard talking about it were even not too unhappy about poor Chuck, because he would have been so messed up anyway by his father's death, and all the people assumed he'd had to help his father with the boys and the guilt of it had driven him to sacrifice himself. He'd redeemed himself, maybe.
I thought only part of that was the truth.
But if Chuck were alive, I wouldn't have given a nickel for his life. Because his dad's partner would suspect that Chuck knew his identity, even if the boy hadn't. So someone really was happy Chuck had died, and had good reason for being so.
I thought of all the good things I'd seen in Doraville, and all the nice people I'd met. There was a snake in the grass in this pleasant mountain village, and it was a pretty huge snake. Doraville didn't deserve to be singled out for such horror.
When Tolliver pulled up by me, I got into the car and without saying a word, he drove me up to Davey's old farm, the site of so many cold graves.
Klavin and Stuart were up there, and for once I wasn't displeased to see them. They were measuring the area and making some more pictures of the orientation of the buildings to the road, the surrounding terrain, and whatever else took their fancy. We got out and watched in silence for a few minutes.
They were busy, and disinclined to talk to us. Each couple tried to pretend the other one wasn't there. The wind was blowing up here, and it was chilly, though the beautiful sun took the edge off. I had discarded my heavy coat and put on a blue hoodie, and I pulled the hood up around my face and tucked my hands in my pockets. Tolliver put his arm around me and kissed my cheek.
As if that had been a signal, the two SBI men approached us.
"Have you given your statement at the police station about yesterday?" Klavin said.
"No. We'll do that before we leave town. We just wanted to ask a question, see if you'd answer it," I said. "I suppose it'll be a long time before all the tests are finished on those poor boys."
Stuart nodded. "What were you wanting to know?" he asked. "I figure you're entitled to an answer or two, since you found them."
That was a refreshing point of view, and one with which Klavin didn't necessarily agree.
"I want to know if they were fed and cared for after they were taken," I said. "Or maybe they were sedated. I want to know if their lives were extended."