Believe No One (25 page)

The young woman has done cleaning Harlan Tulk's hand. She shoots Mrs Tulk a sly glance while she finishes up wrapping the bandage around his thumb.

‘Something on your mind, Haley?' Mrs Tulk says.

‘I could keep him,' the younger woman says.

‘He might have something to say on that. Like I
said,
he's not a squirrel to be shot at, nor kept like a pet, either.'

‘No, ma'am.' She blushes. ‘I meant to say I could look after him, just till we find out who he is.'

Red feels a hot flare of alarm, stamps on it – he'll be gone long before they find out who he is.

‘Can I, ma'am?' the young woman says. ‘Can I keep 'im?'

Mrs Tulk looks at Red. ‘Boy, you have put us in a bind. If we keep you here, the authorities might come looking for you and we'd have some explaining to do. If we leave you somewhere – maybe in town – the police will question you and that would bring them here and we'd
still
have some explaining to do.'

‘No, ma'am.' Red feels on more solid ground now – they don't want to be troubled by the law any more than he does. ‘I would not say one word about you. Set me down on the right road, I can make my own way.' But as he says it, a powerful nausea sweeps over him like a wave. He feels weak and hot and sick, and he doesn't know if he can stand up from this chair.

She sets her rocker to rise and fall, staring at him, weighing him up in her mind. Watching her, the porch starts to sway, he leans forward in his chair and pukes on the deck, splashing the chunky brother's shoes.

There are shouts of dismay and the chunky man says, ‘Watch it, you little fucker!'

Fresh tears spring to the boy's eyes and he is humiliated to find he cannot stop them.

Mrs Tulk's right hand shoots out and he flinches from a slap, but her left snakes behind his head, holding him still. She does not slap him, but places her right hand on his forehead; it feels wonderfully cool and soothing.

‘This boy is burning up,' she says. ‘Did you eat something you should not have while you were out in the woods, child?'

‘No, ma'am, I—' He almost said he ate the tacos and a bite of sandwich the night before, but then she might figure his ‘foster parents' live close by.

He swallows, wipes his nose with the back of his hand. ‘I'm sorry, ma'am,' he says, trying to get the whiny note out of his voice. ‘I drunk some water that leaked in the trunk, and I got sick.'

‘Harlan.' She raps out the name like it's an order. ‘What's in that trunk?'

The tall son shrugs. ‘Only a bunch of paper bags and half a sack of blood, fish and bone for the crops.'

‘Lord!' she exclaims. ‘This boy is poisoned and here we are, keeping him talking.' She looks around her as if everyone but her is to blame for it. ‘Haley, take him inside and get him to drink plenty of water.'

The young woman is by Red's side in a second, coaxing him to his feet and cooing soft, foolish words to him.

‘If he throws it back up,' Mrs Tulk says, ‘give him some more till he can hold it down – and put him in the tub and make sure he washes, too.'

Red allows himself to be led into the cool dark of the house, thinking he does not want to die, but feeling like he's standing outside of himself, watching some other boy walk into a strange house amongst bad people that even bad-asses are scared of.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

E
INSTEIN

Incident Command Post, Westfield, Oklahoma

Afternoon, and the Joint Task Force had gathered at the Incident Command Post for a Skype conference. Dr Quint was to deliver her autopsy findings from Tulsa, while Dr Detmeyer's British counterpart, forensic psychologist Professor Varley, would Skype from the University of Nottingham in the UK. Fennimore had worked with the forensic psychologist on a number of cases.

The CSIs presented their findings at the top of the meeting. They'd found duct-tape residue on the headboard of Sharla Jane's bed, but no prints. There were no signs of the rope the killer had used on the other victims – either in Sharla Jane's trailer, or up at Cupke Lake. Designed for a racing-boat rigging, the rope should float, so it was possible the body hadn't been roped and weighted at all.

Dunlap asked the psychologists for their comments.

‘He carefully planned the other killings to reduce the chances of early detection,' Dr Detmeyer said. ‘He went to the same trouble on this occasion, but fell down at the last, failing to dispose of Sharla Jane effectively. He may be devolving.'

‘Devolving?' Varley said, his voice sharp, impatient. The team looked towards the screen, which displayed the Skype Conference link. Professor Varley was a pale, lean man, with a long, narrow face and receding hairline. ‘Ah, you mean
decompensating
.'

Detmeyer considered the correction in the way that Fennimore might examine a mark at a crime scene: weighing up its usefulness dispassionately but with intense interest. After a few moments, he said, ‘I
mean
he could be losing psychological control due to stress; “devolving” is the merely technical term I chose to express that concept.'

Varley raised an eyebrow. ‘I see … Might we, for the sake of clarity,
avoid
technical terms,' he said, managing to sound both plaintive and bored.

Kate Simms slid Fennimore an amused look from across the table; more than once, Simms herself had needed a layperson's translation of Professor Varley's psychological advice.

‘All right,' Detmeyer said. ‘We agree that recently he has made mistakes, shown an uncharacteristic lack of control. It's also worth noting that Sharla Jane is the second victim to turn up in Williams County in the space of a month. That could mean he's becoming more impulsive,' he went on. ‘Or Williams is familiar territory, perhaps.'

‘Maybe, possibly, could be, perhaps,'
Launer said.

‘There are no absolutes in predicting human behaviour, Sheriff,' Detmeyer said.

‘Common sense tells you the why of it,' Launer said. ‘He meant to dump the body across the county line, like he always does, but he heard on the radio we were onto him. He dumped her fast 'cos he had to, because he never had an interstate task force on his tail before.'

Fennimore had to admit he had a point.

Copies of the photographs were stacked at every place at the conference table. Fennimore shuffled through them: pictures of Sharla Jane on her front porch, smiling and proud of her new home; pictures of her alone; some of her with Riley. Interior shots, mostly, though there was one of Riley standing next to a smoking barbecue under the trees near their house. He was wearing a man-size chef's apron and holding a burger in a set of barbecue tongs.

‘Did the pictures yield anything useful?' Fennimore asked.

Roper, the quick, restless CSI, picked up that question. ‘They were printed on an inkjet printer – we found it at the house. No fingermarks on the photographs, or the printer, and, before you ask, Professor Fennimore, we checked that barbecue drum inside
and
out. He must've wiped the place down.'

‘Sharla Jane had a guy living there for months,' Launer said. ‘You must have found him
somewhere
around the place.'

‘We got small flecks of blood in the bathroom and kitchen,' the CSI said. ‘Nothing to suggest a violent attack. Kitchen, bathroom …' He lifted one shoulder as if no further explanation was necessary. ‘But with luck, we'll find his DNA in there.'

‘So, you got zip,' Launer said, showing his teeth.

‘We did find a partial footwear mark on the kitchen vinyl, probably a boot, size twelve,' CSI Roper said.

‘The Sheriff's deputies trod dirt all over the place.' Detective Ellis again, looking hot and bad-tempered. ‘Could be from any one of them.'

‘Who said anything about dirt?' the CSI said.

Fennimore looked up from his scrutiny of the photographs. ‘If it wasn't dirt, then …' he considered. ‘Urine, perhaps?'

CSI Roper nodded. ‘We found a dried pool just inside the master-bedroom door. Someone – probably a large male – stepped in it. The first print on the kitchen vinyl was too overloaded to get a clear impression, but we dusted the probable position of his next two steps – got a real nice one.'

‘Which is why you should
always
let the CSIs do their stuff first,' Fennimore said to nobody in particular. ‘I'd hazard a guess that Williams County deputies have fairly good bladder control. So, I'm thinking terrified nine-year-old.'

Launer scowled at Fennimore and Detective Dunlap intervened, addressing the CSI: ‘Anything we can use?'

Roper strode to the front and clicked a memory stick into one of the computer's USB ports. He zipped through images of the trailer's interior, stopping at a footwear mark. ‘We got a good impression of the sole pattern – we can trace that back to the manufacturer. This shoe's had more wear on the inner edge – suggests pronation – the wearer's foot rolls inward at the ankle.' He studied the image. ‘And here, here and here—' he pointed to nicks and gouges in the pattern ‘—you can see damage defects.'

Fennimore nodded approval; it was good work. ‘Did you—?'

‘We took a section of vinyl,' Roper said, anticipating the question. ‘And we will try to get it enhanced.'

Launer scratched a mosquito bite on his elbow. ‘Those're probably thirty-dollar work boots he bought at Walmart. We got anything to match this boot print to?'

The CSI said, ‘Not as yet.'

‘Nothing from
any
of the other victims?'

‘No, but—'

‘So what
good
is it?'

‘Wear patterns are unique,' Fennimore said. ‘Find this shoe, and we can prove it belonged to this one person and no other.'

‘Do I
look
like Prince Charming?' Launer said. ‘Find me something I could run through AFIS, I'd be really impressed.'

CSI Roper shrugged. ‘Like I said, we dusted everywhere; he wiped down.'

While the discussions went on around him, Fennimore looked again at the family snapshots, propping each one against the monitor of his laptop: Sharla Jane and the boy by the kitchen window, greenish light filtering in through gingham curtains; Sharla Jane framed by the same window on her own, looking pretty and shy; Sharla Jane in a nightgown, with bed-hair, a hand in front of her face to block the shot; the boy sitting at the kitchen counter, his head haloed by gold light, chewing on a burger and mugging, cross-eyed for the camera.

He felt a thud of realization. ‘These photographs
are
all taken inside Sharla Jane's trailer in Lambert Woods Park?'

‘Sure,' Roper said, blinking from the interruption to his presentational flow. ‘What made you think different?'

‘The window hangings have been changed.' He held up the image of Sharla Jane in front of the green check curtains, and a second snapshot: her son, seated at the counter with plain gold fabric at the window behind him.

‘She changed the drapes,' Launer said. ‘So what?'

‘When I say the
hangings
have been changed, I mean the style of track.' Fennimore struggled for an American equivalent. ‘The
hardware.
Look,' he said. ‘The gingham curtains are threaded on a pole, but in this one of Riley …' He skimmed the snapshot across to the Sheriff. ‘No window pole.'

Heads went down as the team looked at their own copies.

‘They switched from rail to rod,' CSI Roper said. ‘The gingham drapes are up there, now, and they
are
on a rod.'

‘But you said you already dusted for latents,' Launer said.

‘We dusted the rod,' the CSI said, a flush of excitement on his face. ‘But if our guy switched the rail for a rod, that needs a whole new set of fittings. His prints could be on the
reverse
of the brackets.'

‘Not just his prints, and not just on the brackets and rods,' Fennimore said. ‘You need one hand for the brackets, one hand for the screwdriver, so where do you hold the screws?' He felt a spark of excitement, watching them think it through. ‘You pop them in your mouth. And those nice, sharp, self-tapping threads pick up DNA just like a buccal scrape. Then they get screwed in place, protecting the DNA.'

Roper grinned, already gathering up his scene kit. Launer despatched one of his deputies to accompany him, and when the room settled down, Dr Quint, the FME, began her presentation, joining the Skype conference from her office in Tulsa.

She greeted them all, and got straight to business. ‘Sheriff, I'm sending the autopsy pictures through to you.'

While they waited for the images to arrive, she gave a quick summary of the autopsy, reminding them that the body was fresh and animal predation minimal. Sharla Jane was a little underweight, but healthy at time of death. Her eyes were damaged.

‘I thought at first it was the turtles,' Quint said. ‘You know how those critters love eyeballs.'

The Oklahoman contingent murmured agreement.

‘But it wasn't predation.' She looked out at them. ‘Sharla Jane's eyes were deliberately sliced open with a sharp object.'

A few murmurs; someone said, ‘Yeesh!'

Fennimore picked up a pen and began to doodle, sketching a pair of eyes, glaring out of the page.

‘Any ideas on the weapon used?' Dunlap asked.

‘My guess would be something real sharp, like a box cutter; it penetrated the cornea and sliced through the iris, damaged the lenses and suspensory ligaments, but didn't cut all the way back to the retina.' There were no comments, and Quint went on: ‘She was exceptionally pale. There was faint lividity in her upper back and arms. Externally, there was little else to see – a couple of circular marks on the sternum and left side.' She indicated the places on her own chest and left ribcage.