“Better,” Grace said. “He looked better. His Play-Doh face was gone.”
“That’s what he looked like before,” Sarah told Ralph. “She said.”
Marcy said, “Sarah, go into the kitchen with Mr. Gold and get everybody a piece of cake, would you do that?”
Sarah looked at Ralph. “Cake even for him? Do we like him now?”
“Cake for everyone,” Marcy said, neatly dodging the question. “It’s called hospitality. Go on, now.”
Sarah got off the couch and crossed the room to Howie. “I’m getting kicked out.”
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer person,” Howie said. “I will join you in purdah.”
“In what?”
“Never mind, kiddo.” They went out to the kitchen together.
“Make this brief, please,” Marcy said to Ralph. “You’re only here because Howie said it was important. That it might have something to do with… you know.”
Ralph nodded without taking his eyes from Grace. “This man who had the Play-Doh face the first time he showed up…”
“And straws for eyes,” Grace said. “They stuck out, like in a cartoon, and the black circles people have in their eyes were holes.”
“Uh-huh.” In his notebook, Ralph wrote, Straws for eyes? “When you say his face looked like Play-Doh, could it have been because he was burned?”
She thought about it. “No. More like he wasn’t done. Not… you know…”
“Not finished?” Marcy asked.
Grace nodded, and put her thumb in her mouth. Ralph thought, This ten-year-old thumb sucker with the wounded face… she’s mine. True, and the seeming clarity of the evidence upon which he had acted would never change that.
“What did he look like today, Grace? The man in your dream.”
“He had short black hair that was sticking up, like a porcupine, and a little beard around his mouth. He had my daddy’s eyes, but they weren’t really his eyes. He had tattoos on his hands and all up his arms. Some were snakes. At first his shirt was green, then it turned to my daddy’s baseball shirt with the golden dragon on it, then it turned into white, like what Mrs. Gerson wears when she does my mom’s hair.”
Ralph glanced at Marcy, who said, “I think she means a smock top.”
“Yes,” Grace said. “That. But then it turned back into the green shirt, so I know it was a dream. Only…” Her mouth trembled, and her eyes filled with tears that spilled down her flushed cheeks. “Only he said mean things. He said he was glad I was sad. He called me a baby.”
She turned her face against her mother’s breasts and wept. Marcy looked at Ralph over the top of her head, for a moment not angry at him but only frightened for her daughter. She knows it was more than a dream, Ralph thought. She sees it means something to me.
When the girl’s crying eased, Ralph said, “This is all good, Grace. Thank you for telling me about your dream. All that’s over now, okay?”
“Yes,” she said in a tear-hoarsened voice. “He’s gone. I did what he said, and he’s gone.”
“We’ll have our cake in here,” Marcy said. “Go help your sister with the plates.”
Grace ran to do it. When they were alone, Marcy said, “It’s been hard on both of them, especially Grace. I’d say that’s all this is, except Howie doesn’t think so, and I don’t think you do, either. Do you?”
“Mrs. Maitland… Marcy… I don’t know what to think. Have you checked Grace’s room?”
“Of course. As soon as she told me why she called Howie.”
“No sign of an intruder?”
“No. The window was shut, the screen was in place, and what Sarah said about the stairs is true. This is an old house, and there’s a creak in every step.”
“What about her bed? Grace said the man was sitting there.”
Marcy gave a distracted laugh. “Who would know, the way she tosses and turns since…” She put a hand to her face. “This is just so awful.”
He got up and went to the couch, only meaning to comfort, but she stiffened and drew away. “Please don’t sit down. And don’t touch me. You’re here on sufferance, Detective. So just maybe my youngest will sleep tonight without screaming the house down.”
Ralph was saved a reply when Howie and the Maitland girls came back in, Grace carefully carrying a plate in each hand. Marcy wiped her eyes, the gesture almost too fast to see, and gave Howie and her daughters a brilliant smile. “Hooray for cake!” she said.
Ralph took his slice and said thank you. He was thinking that he had told Jeannie everything about this fucked-up nightmare of a case, but he wasn’t going to tell her about this little girl’s dream. No, not this.
8
Alec Pelley thought he had the number he wanted in his contacts, but when he made the call, he got an announcement saying the number had been disconnected. He found his old black address book (once a faithful companion that had gone with him everywhere, in this computer age relegated to a desk drawer, and one of the lower ones, at that) and tried a different number.
“Finders Keepers,” said the voice on the other end. Believing that he’d reached an answering machine—a reasonable assumption, considering it was Sunday night—Alec waited for the announcement of office hours, followed by a menu of choices that could be accessed by punching various extensions, and at last the invitation to leave a message after the beep. Instead, sounding a bit querulous, the voice said, “Well? Is anyone there?”
Alec realized that was a voice he knew, although he couldn’t place the name. How long had it been since he’d spoken to the owner of that voice? Two years? Three?
“I’m hanging up n—”
“Don’t. I’m here. My name is Alec Pelley, and I was trying to reach Bill Hodges. I worked with him on a case a few years back, just after I retired from the State Police. There was a bad actor named Oliver Madden who stole an airplane from a Texas oilman named—”
“Dwight Cramm. I remember. And I remember you, Mr. Pelley, although we’ve never met. Mr. Cramm did not pay us promptly, I’m sorry to say. I had to invoice him at least half a dozen times, and then threaten legal action. I hope you did better.”
“It took a little work,” Alec said, smiling at the memory. “The first check he sent me bounced, but the second one went through all right. You’re Holly, aren’t you? I can’t remember the last name, but Bill spoke very highly of you.”
“Holly Gibney,” she said.
“Well, it’s very nice to speak with you again, Ms. Gibney. I tried Bill’s number, but I guess he’s changed it.”
Silence.
“Ms. Gibney? Did I lose you?”
“No,” she said. “I’m here. Bill died two years ago.”
“Oh, Jesus. I’m very sorry to hear that. Was it his heart?” Although Alec had only met Hodges once—they had done most of their business by phone and email—he had been on the heavy side.
“Cancer. Pancreatic. Now I run the company with Peter Huntley. He was Bill’s partner when they were on the force.”
“Well, good for you.”
“No,” she said. “Not good for me. The business is doing quite well, but I would give it up in a minute to have Bill alive and healthy. Cancer is very poopy.”
Alec almost thanked her then and ended the call after renewing his condolences. Later on, he wondered how much things would have changed if he had done that. But he remembered something Bill had said about this woman during the business of retrieving Dwight Cramm’s King Air: She’s eccentric, a little obsessive-compulsive, and she’s not big on personal contact, but she never misses a trick. Holly would have made one hell of a police detective.