“Sure hope not, but that’s not his anyway. Joyce let this clown get her gun off her.”
“Your security people all licensed to carry?”
“Well, not technically. But seeing as how Joyce was the bait, I made a decision to give her one of my—”
“Wait, so that’s your gun this guy had?”
“Yeah. And when you’re done with it, if it’s not too much fucking trouble, I’d like to have it back.”
Duckworth felt blood rushing through his neck.
“What did I say to you this morning? About sending someone with her experience to act as a decoy?”
“If I’m supposed to report to you, it’s news to me,” Duncomb countered. “You don’t sign my paycheck.”
“No, but the college president does, and if he’s got any sense, you’ll be a nursery school crossing guard before the end of the week.”
“I closed more cases working the Boston PD than this town sees in a decade. You can’t talk to me like—”
“I just did. If you say one more thing I’ll cuff you and lock you up for the night. God, what a clusterfuck. Does anyone know who this kid is?”
A member of the security team spoke up. “I’m Phil. Phil Mercer? Uh, I’ve got his wallet here.” He held it up, shined a light on it. “He’s a student here. Well, was. His name is—”
“You’ve touched the body?” Duckworth asked.
“I couldn’t have gotten at his wallet otherwise,” he said, as if he’d just been asked the stupidest question he’d ever heard.
The detective sighed. “Who is he?”
“Hang on; let me look at this license again. Okay, Mason Helt. His student card is here and everything. Here you go.”
And he tossed the wallet in Duckworth’s direction.
The detective, stunned, managed to catch the wallet and still hang on to the flashlight.
He looked at Duncomb. “You must be so proud,” he said.
Duckworth found Joyce Pilgrim sitting on a wooden bench in an empty gymnasium. He dismissed the officer who was standing near her, then parked himself next to her on the bench.
“How are you doing?” he asked after identifying himself.
“I’m okay,” she said, her legs pressed tightly together, her fingers knitted into tight double fist. She was hunched over, her shoulders tight, as if she were trying to close in on herself.
“I’m sorry about what you went through. Have you been seen by the paramedics?”
“I’m not hurt,” Joyce said. She shook her head slowly. “I can’t work for that asshole anymore.”
Duckworth did not have to ask.
“I don’t blame you.”
“I’m not trained for this. I can’t do this kind of thing. I can’t.”
“Duncomb shouldn’t have put you in this position. That was wrong.”
“I have to call my husband. I don’t think I can drive home on my own.”
“Sure.”
“I still can’t believe what he said to me,” Joyce said.
“What did he say to you?”
“Clive didn’t tell you?”
“Why don’t you tell me,” Duckworth said gently.
“When that kid got my gun, he pointed it away from me. Said he was sorry, that he’d never have actually, you know, that he wouldn’t have raped me.”
“Go on.”
“He said it was... what was the word? He said it was a gig. That he was, like, conducting a social experiment.”
“A gig?”
“That was the word. He said that was what ‘he’ wanted. Like another person. Like he was asked to do it, or hired. Does that make any sense?”
It didn’t. It was an entire day of things that hadn’t made sense. The hanging of twenty-three squirrels, three mannequins in a Ferris wheel carriage, a—
Wait a second.
Duckworth closed his eyes for second. Thought back to only an hour ago, as he walked around the base of the Ferris wheel.
All of the carriages were numbered.
The carriage holding those three mannequins had a number stenciled on the side of it. Duckworth closed his eyes, trying to picture it.
The number painted on the side was 23.
The hoodie worn by Mason Helt was emblazoned with the number 23.
And how many squirrels had been found hanging by their necks that morning in the park?
Twenty-three.
It probably meant nothing. But...
“That is one hell of a coincidence,” he said aloud.
“You talking to me?” Joyce Pilgrim asked.
Thirty-three
Since the first person Jack Sturgess had cautioned me against visiting was Bill Gaynor, I decided to see him first. I didn’t know what I’d ask him, but maybe now, some twelve hours after our first encounter, we’d be able to have something approaching a civil conversation.
Maybe, given that I was the one who’d shown up with Matthew, he’d even want to talk to me. Ask questions about how it all happened.
So I parked Mom’s Taurus out front of his Breckonwood house, and made the trip to the front door. You wouldn’t know anything had happened here earlier in the day. No police cruisers, no yellow crime-scene tape, no news vans. Everyone had been and gone.
The street was quiet, and most of the houses were dark, including this one, save for the light over the front door. At the house next door, however, several lights were still on.
I rang the bell.
I could sense steps within the house, someone approaching the door from the other side. The curtain at the window immediately left of the door opened, and I saw Bill Gaynor take a quick peek at me.
“Go away,” he said. Not shouting, but just loud enough for me to hear through the glass.
“Please,” I said.
The light over my head went out.
And that was that. I wasn’t going to ring that bell a second time. Not after what this man had been through.
I could think of only one other place I might drive by this late at night before I went home to bed. A place I’d been thinking about for a while now.
But before I made it back to the car, I heard the door open on the neighboring house that was still lit up. A man I guessed to be in his eighties, thin and elderly, wearing a plaid housecoat, had taken a step outside.
“Something going on out here?” he asked.
I said, “I’d come by to see Mr. Gaynor, but he’s not in the mood for visitors right now.”
“His wife got killed today,” the man said.
“I know. I was here when he found her.”
The man took another step out of his house, squinted in my direction. “I saw you this morning. I was watching from the window. There was a fight on the lawn, a woman with their baby.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“What the hell’s been going on? I asked the police but they didn’t tell me a damn thing. They had plenty of questions, but weren’t interested in answering mine.”
I cut across the lawn and met him at his front step. “What do you want to know?” I asked him. “My name is David, by the way.”
“I’m Terrence,” he said, nodding. “Terrence Rodd. I’ve lived here twenty years. My wife, Hillary, passed away four years ago, so it’s just me here. But I’m not moving out unless I have to. Guess how old I am.”
“I’m not good at ages,” I said. “Sixty-eight.”
“Don’t mess with me,” Terrence said. “Really, how old do you think I am?”
I pondered. “Seventy-nine,” I said. I really thought eighty, but it was like when you put a four-dollar item on sale for three ninety-nine. It looks better.
“Eighty-eight,” Terrence said. He tapped his temple with the tip of his index finger. “But I’m still as sharp up here as I ever was. So you tell me, what happened there?”