Chapter 26

‘It looks to me as if they’ve been lying out there for the best part of a fortnight. We’ve had a cooler than normal spell of weather out here in Arkansas that’s helped slow down decomposition, but they were still well gone. There aren’t too many insects around at the present, Hunter, but if it was the height of summer, I don’t think there’d be much more than bones left.’

Rink had left to check on his mom, with the intention of picking up McTeer and Velasquez on his return trip to Lake Chabot. So it was down to me to take the call when Harvey rang with news of his shocking discovery. I had placed a silent bet that the man behind the murders had to be Charles Peterson’s son, Nicolas, but apparently I’d lost my stake.

‘Two weeks, but you could still identify them?’

‘OK, we can’t be positive until the cops get through with all their tests, but, yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s Nicolas and his mother. The fact that Nicolas was carrying his driving licence in his wallet helped me identify his remains.’

‘You called the cops?’

‘No. I didn’t think that would be a good idea. I’d have had a problem explaining to them why I was looking for Nicolas, and it would have come back on you guys down the line somewhere. I’ve left them as I found them. They’ve been out there for a couple weeks already, another few days won’t make that much of a difference.’

‘You think it was our guy that killed them?’

‘I discovered that Nick Peterson wasn’t the most law-abiding guy going. He had a rap sheet for various offences the length of my arm: small-time stuff really, theft, assault, but he was also a known drug dealer. There’s always the chance that he upset one of his clients or suppliers, but I don’t think so. Reading the scene, the main target was his mom, and Nicolas tried to protect her.’

‘Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all,’ I said cynically.

‘The way it looked to me was someone turned up at their house but was allowed inside without any fuss. The front door was undamaged, so was the living room. I noticed that the door to Michaela’s room had been kicked open, and I’m guessing that Nicolas had taken refuge in the room and tried to keep the killer out. He was shot in the gut and the killer had grabbed his mom and thrown her down on the bed. He shot her point-blank, Hunter, three times, and must have been straddling her at the time. I think Nicolas must have tried to drag the killer off his mom and was shot again, this time through the chest. The way it looked was as if the killer was holding him up close at the time, put the gun to him and blasted him to death. It was kind of personal, up close stuff, if you ask me.’

‘And the likelihood is that he knew his victims, huh? You said he was allowed inside the house and the fight didn’t start until the killer approached the bedroom. If Nicolas had a criminal record he was likely as suspicious and paranoid as every other small-time crook we’ve ever met.’

‘That’s what I was thinking. There are no guarantees, of course. The killer could have come in disguise, maybe posing as an official, and, gained access that way.’

‘Yeah, but what are the chances, Harve?’

‘Slim. I’m only playing devil’s advocate.’

‘So what else have you been considering?’

‘Heading out your way. Trouble is I’m still tied up with this damn job for the next couple days.’

‘You’ve done your bit for us, we both appreciate it.’

‘Good. You shouldn’t complain when you get my bill for a new pair of shoes.’ Harvey laughed to himself. ‘Seriously though, I wish I was there with you guys. There’s little excitement here in Little Rock now that Petoskey’s no longer around.’

I grunted out a laugh of my own. I killed Sigmund Petoskey a few months ago, kicked him out of a helicopter piloted by Harvey after the bastard kidnapped and tortured Rink. Petoskey was only a small cog in a plot to find and murder my brother John, but he’d got everything he deserved.

‘You don’t think discovering a couple of murdered people rates as exciting?’

‘The smell kind of dampens my enthusiasm.’

I knew what he meant. I’ve been around corpses for most of my adult life, but you never get used to the stench of human decomposition. Maybe it’s an inherent trait, an instinct programmed at birth, that we all find it abhorrent. It’s a reminder of our mortality and that we all end up as fertiliser at the end of our lives.

‘I’m at a loss here, Harve. I was full sure that Nicolas was our man, but now I’m back to square one.’

‘Not exactly. We still know that everything goes back to what Rink’s dad and his friends did to Charles Peterson. Either someone who was there is involved or someone has learned what happened and wasn’t happy about what they discovered. My guess is that’s the reason why Michaela was targeted. She knew that Charles was snatched out of the trailer, but she didn’t report it to the cops.’

‘She didn’t?’ The news took me by surprise. I’d automatically accepted that she had reported Peterson’s disappearance and that the police had discovered his remains. Yukiko had never made it clear either way: I’d gone and bloody assumed it again.

‘There was never a police report made. As far as I can tell, Peterson’s still buried out there in that cellar because Michaela chose to keep quiet about him going missing. Reading between the lines, she was best shot of him, and maybe she decided the same thing. The way my mind’s working is that the killer found out about that and went to show her how mad that made him. Nicolas, I’m guessing, was just unlucky to be home when the guy showed up at their door.’

‘So what else are you thinking, Harve? It’s obvious you’ve come up with another theory…’

‘I got to thinking that the killer must have an individual stake in all this. He’s either being paid by someone who has, or he has a very personal reason for killing everyone involved in Charles’s death. He’d have to be a very good friend of Charles to do this, or he has to be family. I don’t see why any other person would go to these extremes otherwise.’

‘Any friends of Charles Peterson would be old by now, the guy I saw running from Takumi’s house was only in his forties. I’m guessing it has to be the latter. It might also explain why he managed to get inside Michaela’s house without any problem. C’mon, Harve, what aren’t you telling me?’

Harvey chuckled. ‘Michaela Douchard was Charles Peterson’s third wife. Both previous relationships were reputedly childless, but that wasn’t so. Charles’s second wife was carrying his baby when he ran off to shack up with Michaela. It was a boy, Hunter. Born after the divorce came through, and named after his mother. His name is Markus Colby.’

The revelation came like a punch to my gut. It had to be him.

‘Where is he now, Harve?’

‘We’ve a slight problem there, Hunter. I’ve been unable to trace him beyond his high-school years. Markus Colby has dropped off the face of the earth, the way his dad did all those years ago.’

‘Maybe you’ve been looking for records under the wrong name. By the sound of things, the killer hasn’t accepted that his father deserved what happened to him. It’s not unusual for a kid to sanctify an absent father, and form some sort of fantasy image of him. Maybe that’s what set off this rampage: he discovered his dad was a piece of shit and has rebelled against it. Maybe that’s why he has to kill everyone involved; not out of vengeance, but to protect the image he has built of Charles in his own mind. Go back and look again, Harve. But, this time, look for him under his dad’s surname. Look for Markus Peterson.’

Загрузка...