“What’s that?”
“He will disappear.”
“Ridiculous. He can be tracked, the same way that Timothy tracked him.”
“No, not necessarily. That was dogged persistence and more than a little damn fool luck. And this guy won’t make the same mistake a second time. He will vanish. It can be done; I would wager he’s prepared to do just that. Actually, it’s not that hard. So, count on one thing: Whatever happens to Timothy tonight, if the man who killed his uncle is still alive in the next few hours, he will be long gone.”
The room silenced again. Susan could hear breathing. She added softly, “And that’s assuming whoever we try to send gets there in time.”
“We need to call someone,” the dentist said.
Another pause. It was like the Redeemer One regulars’ sudden silences were weighted, heavy, iron. People were sorting through possibilities.
“What,” said Fred the engineer, “if you go?”
“He had the opportunity to include me.” Susan shook her head. “Didn’t take it. In fact, kicked me out of whatever he was planning.” She thought that was mostly honest. But the word forming in her head at the same time was coward. She suspected that would be an accurate description of her behavior by the end of the night. Irony encapsulated her. The best outcome for her depended on her doing nothing. It would give her excuses, deniability, which were crucial if she was going to rescue her own career and her own future. There were felonies littering her world-and starting to avoid them was her priority. Of course, she understood, that might mean someone was dying that night.
“So what? We should protect him-even if we’re protecting him from himself. That’s what we try to do here, right?”
There was a murmur of assent.
“What if we all go?”
“Too late for that,” Susan said.
Another silence. Then the philosophy professor said, in a cold, very hard voice:
“What is it that it is not too late to do?”
Susan hesitated. “I think,” Susan spoke out slowly, “we should trust Timothy to do what is right.”
She did not offer a definition of what is right for any of the people gathered at Redeemer One. For a second, she thought she might be able to walk away at that moment, but before she could move, another wave of furious obscenities and outrage surged through the room.
Moth sat across from the killer. An ironic thought pressed through him: This is like sitting across from Uncle Ed. Same age. Same stakes. The gun in his hand seemed to be heavier than he recalled its being earlier in the evening. He knew he’d completed the first phase of murder-now he had to move quickly to the next step.
“Andy,” he said, trying to maintain toughness and determination in his voice, “why don’t you give this place a bit of a search, see what you can find.”
“Okay,” she said.
Student #5 smiled at her. Teacher and struggling student. “Don’t touch anything,” he said with a helpful tone.
She stopped, looked hard at him, as if she didn’t understand what he’d said.
“Fingerprints,” he continued. “Are you sweating? That would leave a little DNA behind. Should be wearing latex gloves. I notice you are wearing that most attractive floppy stay-out-of-the-sun hat. No, no, don’t take it off. It might pull out a stray hair. You don’t want to leave a hair anywhere, because that can be traced to you…”
He turned back to Moth. “Those bottles… made you seem like just another Key West drunk sleeping it off in the bushes-I liked that touch. Clever. Showed enterprise. But fingerprints? Did you think of that? And what about the moist ground of the plant area-did you leave a shoe print in there? Whoa, that would be bad, too. Cops can identify the tread styles of almost any pair of shoes, and I bet yours are pretty common. And did you know that the dirt here in Key West has a different composition than other places? So a forensic scientist examining the soles of your shoes might be able to link you to that exact spot.”
This last bit, Student #5 knew, was a stretch. Probably a lie, but it sure sounded good, and he was pleased with it. He assumed that most of what The Nephew and The Girlfriend knew about murder and subsequent investigations had been gleaned from television shows not known for their accuracy.
Andy Candy stole a glance down at her hands. She felt like a soldier walking through a minefield. She wondered if she would betray herself and Moth simply by allowing a droplet of sweat to fall to the floor. She didn’t know what part of her body, or Moth’s, might ruin their lives. No fear is worse than the fear associated with sudden recognition that one is treading in dangerous black waters far over one’s head. Fear can create exhaustion, confusion, and doubt. All of these things flooded Andy at that moment, and she wanted to scream.
Moth didn’t know why he said it right at that moment, but he did, very calmly: “Andy, don’t worry. It’ll be okay. He’s just talking and it doesn’t mean anything. Just take a look around.”
Moth’s voice helped her. She wasn’t sure whether he was actually in charge, but it sounded like he was. “Okay,” she said, stifling the desire to scream. “Give me a minute or two.”
“So, we’re just going to sit here and wait?” Student #5 asked sardonically. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Why not?” Moth answered. “Are you in a rush to die?”
50
Student #5 understood completely that he was in the midst of a deadly game, but it was one he was well trained for. Murder is psychology at its most elemental, as complex as chess, as simple as checkers. It has undercurrents of emotion at every stage, right up through the actual act. It can be sudden, and it can be sophisticated. It can be rash and impulsive, or cautiously planned. It can be driven by psychosis or post-traumatic stress disorder. It has as many variations as there are people and angers. This was a lesson he’d learned both as a killer and as a student of psychiatry.
Student #5 knew that he had to outplay the budding historian seated across from him. Sometimes people stare at a gun barrel and know it is inevitable-there is no dodging that bullet. Not this night. He thought: This night: One death. Probably two, when I kill The Girlfriend as well.
In his mind’s eye, he could see the struggle and see the gun flying free. He imagined the sudden feel of it in his hand and the explosive jerk upward as he pulled the trigger: a happy and familiar memory. Then he would take his time-two hands on the handle, shooter’s stance-and finish the night. His belief, his instinct, and his desire would all have led to the scenario he absolutely knew would play out.
He was already formulating an exit.
Leave everything behind except death. Say goodbye to Stephen Lewis, just as you did to Blair Munroe. Fast drive north. Flight from Miami. Go someplace different and unexpected, Cleveland or Minneapolis, then take another flight. Phoenix? Seattle? Hang in a hotel for a day or two. See some sights and have more than one good meal before heading back east in a leisurely way to Manhattan. Get swallowed up in New York City. Immediately begin work on a new set of backup identities. Start anew. I think California might be nice. San Francisco, not LA.
Moth’s imagination was ricocheting wildly, uncontrollably. It was as if his thoughts were quivering. He was afraid his body would twitch, so he placed his index finger against the trigger guard of the.357 Magnum. He didn’t want to fire the gun accidentally. His finger seemed stiff anyway, like a broken piece of machinery, and he doubted that it would work. His muscles had turned rubbery and useless. For so many days, miles, and obsessions, all his focus had been on first identifying the man who killed his uncle, then finding him, then finding him again, then getting the drop on him, like in some Old West dry-gulch ambush.