Wicked Game

Chapter Fifteen

I watch as the fire begins to dim and the crowd starts to disperse. It’s late and I should rest, there is so much to do, but the licking flames and billowing smoke have energized me.

No one has recognized me, though I’ve seen some who are familiar to me.

Rebecca…

Ah, yes…

Did you feel me here? Did you know that I observed you?

But she left, taken away by one of the others.

I followed their trail, caught a glimpse of her sliding into the passenger side of a little blue car…her vehicle, though he drove it.

Now the night closes in around me and I start back to my own vehicle when I sense it, that special scent, the one that propels me. It’s faint, barely discernible over the odors of charred wood, burned plaster, and smoke, but it hangs briefly on the air. Luring me. Making me nauseous.

I close my eyes, concentrate.

Inside I quiver…anxious.

It’s been so long…

But as surely as the tide changes with the moon, the time is near.

My mission is at hand.

Soon…soon…

Mac stood by his car, doused by dull, sprinkling rain, and stared at the rubble that had so recently been a restaurant and bar. Puddles had formed from the water from fire hoses and the ever-falling precipitation. The drama was all but over; the fire no more than foul-smelling steam. Standing water gleaming beneath the parking lot sodium vapor lights as drifting smoke hovered thick in the air.

The place had an almost vacant feel to it, even though the firefighters were still wrapping up their hoses and the trucks stood by, engines thrumming. Any looky-loos had left and Gia Stafford had been driven home by someone, thank God. The only person Mac still recognized was Scott Pascal, who sat on a wet curb and stared through red-rimmed eyes to the black, sodden hulk of Blue Note. Mac, who was rarely known for flights of fancy, had a sudden, sharp vision of a trumpet player squealing out some impossibly high note that ended in an echo of sadness. Blue note, indeed.

Pascal half turned. “Did you talk to Gia?”

He gazed at Pascal’s profile, noting the deep weariness etched in his face. One thing Mac had discovered from his years of interviewing people was that you never knew what they might say in times of deep stress. He’d found it beneficial to keep his mouth shut. Ask a few tight questions, but just wait for it, something Gretchen had yet to learn, if she ever would.

“Accident or arson?” Mac posed.

Pascal went quite still. “Who’s saying arson?”

“Maybe no one. It’s always a question, though, in a case like this.”

“A case like what? They’re not telling me anything.” He shot a vituperative glare at the departing firemen. Belligerence uglied his face.

“Come on, Pascal. You were bleeding money.”

“You went through my financials?” He half rose from the curb.

“More like a guess. Your employees weren’t exactly shy about saying how long they felt the restaurant would hang on.”

He thought about that and sat back down. “Nice,” he said sourly, then lifted an eyebrow. “How much time did they give us?” he asked with a touch of irony.

“A week or two. Maybe a month.”

“You know Blue Ocean is taking off. Everyone said we’d never make it at the beach, but you’d be surprised.”

“At the coast?” Mac reiterated, thinking of the oyster shell, the fact that Jessie Brentwood had been hitchhiking along the road leading from the coast soon before she disappeared.

“Yeah, Lincoln City.”

Quite a bit south from where the Brentwoods had once owned a cabin.

Pascal said, “It’s been a problem getting it going, sure, but it’s a great location, and we lucked out with this chef who doesn’t know how damn good he is, which is absolutely unheard of. Glenn, damn him…” He swallowed hard. “He never really knew what we had. He just used it as a place to escape from his wife.” He barked out a bitter laugh. “Guess he finally achieved his goal.”

“Their marriage in trouble?”

“Everything was trouble for Glenn.”

“Yeah.”

Pascal ran his hands through what was left of his hair and sighed. “Man, he was a pain in the ass.”

Mac smiled faintly. This was as honest as Scott Pascal had ever been with him. All the barriers were down. He almost hated to send them flying upward again, but that was his job.

But Pascal beat him to the punch. Throwing a look at Mac, he said, “You probably think this has something to do with Jessie. That’s kind of your M.O. Everything that involves my friends has to do with Jessie.”

Mac lifted his palms.

“Go ahead. Ask me all kinds of questions about Jessie. Here I am…I’ve damn near lost everything…maybe the insurance company’ll pull me through, but Glenn’s gone and God knows what’s next…but you…You want to know about Jessie. So ask, Detective McNally. Ask away.”

“I don’t really see how this fire, and Stafford’s apparent death, have anything to do with Jessie,” Mac admitted.

“Well, he got a note from her.”

“Glenn got a note from Jessie?” Mac’s pulse leapt but he frowned at Pascal, not wanting to give too much away. “When?”

“Don’t know, a couple of days ago, I guess. It was that nursery rhyme Jessie used to say.” Scott singsonged the message to Mac in a high, girlish voice that sent icy fingers sliding down his spine. That was the second imaginative thought he’d had this evening and he wondered if he was losing it, just a little.

“Where is this note?”

“Maybe his office. Maybe it’s burned up with him.”

“Don’t suppose it had a return address on it? Postmark?”

“Portland. I caught a glimpse of it. The zip code was somewhere near Sellwood-yeah, I checked.”

This was making no sense whatsoever and Sellwood was across the Willamette River, in southeast Portland.

“Why did Glenn get it?”

“You tell me. He always kind of lusted after Jessie, but he was kinda like that anyway. His tongue hanging out over every pretty girl. It never changed over the years. Jessie had nothing to do with him, though. She wanted Hudson. She’d use a guy to get to Hudson, but that was all it was.”

“You’re talking from experience?”

Scott sighed and looked toward the sky. The rain had ceased completely but the wind was picking up, shaking water from the soot-laden leaves of a nearby tree. “She liked the dark, mysterious ones.”

“Like Jarrett Erikson or maybe Zeke St. John?”

“Zeke was Hudson’s best friend,” he said, as if the thought had just come to him again. “That might have appealed to her. Jessie was”-he looked away, as if searching for the right word-“a little twisted, I guess.”

“Why Glenn, then?” Mac repeated. And how would a dead girl send a note? He was damned near certain Jessie had been dead for twenty years, and no way could she have sent anyone a note.

“She was a tease. It’s what she did.”

“Who else did she sing the rhyme to?”

“Every one of us.” He got to his feet and dusted off the seat of his pants, which were wet and looked cold. As if reading his mind, Pascal shuddered and turned away, toward his vehicle.

“You know, the body we found. We’re pretty sure it’s Jessie Brentwood, so unless she’s a ghost with her own stationery, I don’t think she’s sending anyone any mail, not from Sellwood or anywhere else.”

“I’m just saying Glenn got a note, anonymously, okay? And inside were Jessie’s words.” His gaze was steady. “Maybe someone played a sick prank on him.”

“Someone who knew about the nursery rhyme.”

“We all knew.”

“You think anyone else got notes?” Mac asked, wondering if the jerk was bullshitting him. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Ask ’em,” Scott said, then jogged away through the trees to a parking lot in a strip mall. Once there, he climbed into a dark gray truck and drove off.

“I will,” he said to himself. “I’ll ask every damned one of you.”

“Let’s start over,” Hudson said to Becca. “You saw an image of this note burning and you think it was sent to Glenn.” He was still holding the damning piece of paper in his fist and he was confused as all get-out. So far, it had been one helluva night. First the fire, then Glenn’s death, and now Becca’s visions or whatever you want to call them about a note he’d received just today.

“No, Hudson,” she said, her voice taking on an edge. “I don’t think it. I know it.”

“Fine. Then there were two of them.”

“At least.”

“Yeah, at least.” He wanted to know what this meant. Needed to know.

She’d examined the message and then placed it on her coffee table, shrinking away from it as if it were poisonous. He felt a little repelled himself. Who had sent the note? Jessie? He couldn’t believe that. Wouldn’t.

“Why?” he asked.

She shook her head and walked into the kitchen.

He followed her as she heated some water for decaf herbal tea or something equally innocuous in her microwave. Her dog had decided Hudson wasn’t worth the fuss and had settled into a round little bed in the living room. Ringo was now snoring softly.

“There has to be a reason I got one and…Glenn got one.”

“Maybe Jessie wants some of us to know she’s alive,” Becca said.

“You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

“I know, but-” The microwave dinged and she retrieved her cup, then dunked the bag of aromatic non-tea into it. “There has to be a reason. This isn’t just happening all of a sudden, after twenty years. Everything has to hinge on Jessie and those bones at St. Elizabeth’s.”

“So, why me? Why Glenn?”

“Maybe there are more,” she said and stared at him.

He felt it, too. That they were being manipulated. “Someone’s got a sick sense of humor.”

She tossed her tea bag into the trash. “Who?”

He thought of everyone connected even vaguely to Jessie and couldn’t think of a soul. “And why? I’m just not buying that someone’s getting his rocks off by trying to freak us out.”

“Maybe we should go to the police,” she said, testing the hot brew in her cup.

“And tell them what? I got a note and you ‘saw’ one that was meant for Glenn? If the police get involved, they’re not going to accept that you just ‘saw it.’”

“They’ll think I wrote the note,” Becca concluded. She walked back to the couch and sank into the cushions.

Hudson shook his head. “I don’t know what they’ll conclude, but calling McNally now might create more problems than it’s worth. Becca…” He trailed off, sounding uncomfortable.

She glanced up at him.

“Could you have seen that note to Glenn? Somehow. And then just recalled it?”

There it was. His disbelief. She felt a flicker of anger and frustration even though she knew he would feel this way. What did he know of her really? How could he just go on trust? “No.”

“Then you need to make up a story before we go to the police, if we decide to go to the police. Say you saw it on his desk or something.”

“Great. Lie to the police. Like I’ve got something to hide.” Becca clasped her hands together so hard her knuckles hurt. Why had she said anything to Hudson? Trusted him? “Maybe Scott knows about it.”

“You think Glenn showed it to him? Wait. Maybe Scott got one, too. Why should Glenn and I be the only ones?” Hudson was instantly in motion, yanking his cell phone from his pocket and scrolling through numbers. “What about The Third, or Zeke?”

“It’s three in the morning, Hudson.”

He snapped his cell shut, almost in anticipation of her words. “You’re right. I’ll check with them tomorrow.” He gave her a studied look. “Maybe we should go to bed.”

She nodded her head and couldn’t help but grin. “That’s the first good idea you’ve had all night.”

“All morning,” he corrected. “Come on.”

The first thing Becca noticed when she awoke was the smell of smoke. She sat bolt upright but it was only the lingering aroma from the night before. Though she’d changed out of her hastily donned clothes and made love to Hudson until nearly four in the morning, the scent was in her hair and clung to her skin. Ringo had given up his vigil enough to lay his head on his paws, but as soon as Becca stirred he was on his feet. Hudson snorted and rolled over, never even opening his eyes.

She glanced at him, his face unlined and relaxed in sleep, dark lashes lying on his cheeks. God, she loved him. She wondered if she’d ever stopped.

“Quit staring at me.”

“What?” she said, startled. “You’re awake?”

A smile stretched across his stubbled jaw. “I am now.” He reached for her and before she could protest, he’d drawn her close again and began kissing her as if they hadn’t made love all night already.

But she didn’t protest.

Couldn’t.

She was too caught up in the thrill of it all.

Later, once she’d caught her breath again, Becca rolled off the bed, hurried through her shower, and blew her hair dry in record time. She touched on makeup and yanked on her jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt and, in less than twenty minutes, was hurrying down the stairs, trying not to trip over the dog in his haste to be first. “It’s not a race, you know,” she scolded gently, but Ringo was already at the door, waiting to be walked.

“Okay, okay, a short one.” She snapped on his leash, slipped into mules, and tossed on a jacket, taking him for his morning constitutional as the gray light of dawn cut through the streets and alleys and cars whipped by, tossing up water from standing puddles. High clouds blocked the sun, and it was cold enough that Becca’s breath fogged, but at least, thank the weather gods, it wasn’t raining.

They returned, opened the door to the warm scent of coffee and Hudson walking out of the downstairs bath. His hair was wet from the shower, his jaw still dark with beard shadow, jeans from the night before hanging low on his hips. He was tossing on his shirt as Becca closed the door and hung up Ringo’s leash. “Mornin’, sunshine,” he drawled as she slid out of her jacket.

“Good morning…I guess.” She shuddered. “I’m still sick about Glenn.”

“Me, too. I’ve already got a couple of calls in to the rest of the guys.”

“And?”

“You were right. The Third downplayed it, but he got a note.”

“He did?” Becca stood still.

“Zeke didn’t. Not yet, anyway. And I haven’t got a hold of Jarrett or Mitch. Or Scott, for that matter. I was going to see them this morning.”

“I want to go with you,” she said and poured two cups of coffee from the pot on the counter. “I want to see the other notes.”

Hudson hesitated as she handed him one of the mugs. “I’d like to know more before we take this to the police.”

“If Glenn got a note, do you think it might be at his house?”

“I thought you said it burned.”

“It did…at least in my vision.”

He nodded but she sensed he was having some trouble with the whole vision thing. “Do you want to ask his wife? Gia?” he asked.

Becca grimaced as she tried to imagine what Gia Stafford must be feeling this morning. Last night at the fire, Gia had been sobbing wildly and clinging to everyone within range. She wouldn’t want people descending on her with their own agendas. Then again, she might be interested in anything connected with her husband’s death. “It’s hard to say how she’ll react. If it were me, I’d want to know every scrap of information that might help explain how the person I loved was suddenly taken from me.” There was a pause and Becca asked, “Why Glenn? Was it an accident? Arson? How do these notes fit in?”

“What if the fire was set on purpose?” Hudson suggested, staring into his coffee mug. “Maybe to get rid of Glenn? He was drinking himself into a stupor and no one was around. It was a perfect opportunity.”

“Well, they were really lucky to just happen to have their firestarter arsenal with them-the night Glenn decides to tie one on?”

“Maybe he tied one on a lot.”

Ringo was dancing at her feet, whining and trying to catch her attention. “Oh, buddy. Sorry.” Opening the pantry door, she found the bag of dog food and measured a ration into his bowl. The dog was on it in an instant.

“Maybe it was planned in advance,” Hudson said as she closed the pantry door. “By someone who knew Glenn’s habits and waited for the right moment. And last night was it.”

“Who are you thinking of? Gia?” Becca asked.

“I can’t picture her planning anything so detailed,” he admitted.

“And the notes?”

“We don’t know for certain that Glenn got one,” Hudson said carefully.

Becca knew he was right, but she was inclined to believe in her vision. “Maybe we should ask Gia.”

He reached for his cell phone without hesitation. “She might not be up to a visit.”

“Let’s go see.”

“Where are you going?” Gretchen demanded as Mac grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and made for the nearest exit of the police station.

Her hair was pulled back severely, causing pressure at her temples and straining her eyes so she had a Siamese cat appearance. It looked uncomfortable and he figured it wasn’t going to help her temperament. He’d tried to be absent when she arrived at the station this morning, but he’d gotten caught up in the case and suddenly it was eight-thirty and Gretchen was there with a box of doughnuts.

“Home to bed,” he told her. “Pulled an all-nighter.”

“Doing what?”

“There was a fire. Glenn Stafford and Scott Pascal’s restaurant. Looks like Stafford’s dead.”

“Are you for real?”

He nodded, slid his sidearm into his shoulder holster, and grabbed his jacket.

“Why wasn’t I called?”

“Because the fire investigators haven’t labeled it arson, so there’s no homicide. And it’s outside of our jurisdiction.”

“Bullshit. It involves our case.” The wheels were turning in her mind, the box of doughnuts dropped unceremoniously onto the corner of his desk.

Mac headed toward the door, his head full of images from the night before. He intended to do just as he’d told Scott Pascal the night before: he was going to ask the Preppy Pricks about the notes. He’d made a couple of calls already and was on a mission.

Gretchen was hot on his heels, her footfalls short and angry as she followed him outside. “Your attitude sucks, McNally. I’m this close to reporting you.” She held her hand out, so he could see the index finger and thumb separated by only a hairsbreadth.

“To who?” Mac asked at his own personal Jeep. He’d parked the prowler around the back since he was going off duty-at least officially.

“D’Annibal, for starters. The chief if I have to.”

He’d had it with her. “I don’t know what your gripe is, Sandler. You’ve been to a number of interviews. You think the Jessie Brentwood investigation’s a waste of time, my personal white whale. You hate everything about being my partner. Do whatever the hell you want.”

“You should have called me when you decided to go to the fire.”

“Wake you up at two in the morning for something that might not be a crime?”

“It was Pascal and Stafford’s restaurant! That’s critical to our investigation!”

“What investigation?” Mac finally snapped back. “You don’t give a damn. All you want is a fresh body, not a twenty-year-old corpse.”

“Fuck you.”

“Back atcha.” He slammed into his Jeep and drove away, wishing the pavement was gravel so he could peel out and choke her with the dust. He slipped a pair of nearly forgotten sunglasses onto his nose as shafts of rare winter sunbeams slipped through the clouds and bounced off the wet pavement.

Christ, she was a pain. And he didn’t need the headache. Between his obsession with this case, the other cases he was investigating, and his home life, which was centered around his kid, he didn’t have time for Gretchen Sandler’s histrionics. Not for the first time he wondered who she’d slept with to make detective. Worse yet, she had a way of making him lower himself to her level. The fact that he’d just baldly and gleefully lied to her pleased him in a way that defied explanation. Maturity was highly overrated, he concluded as he turned the Jeep away from the direction of his home and toward the garage where Mitch Bellotti spent his days.

Hudson had checked on Glenn’s address and found the house without difficulty. It was a white-pillared colonial with an excruciatingly steep driveway and little ceramic gnome-like creatures hiding in an expansive yard. There was a brown older model Chevrolet sedan parked precariously on that slope. Hudson parked Becca’s Jetta on the street below and they walked up a set of steps that switchbacked through sliding mud and bark dust, courtesy of the nearly incessant precipitation.

An older woman with coiffed gray-white hair answered their knock and looked at them with suspicion. “Yes?”

“We’re high school friends of Glenn’s,” Becca said. “We wondered if we could see Gia.”

“Well, Gia’s sleeping right now. This isn’t a good time. She’s been medicated.” She was brusque and determined.

“I understand. Would you tell her Becca Sutcliff and Hudson Walker came to see her?” Becca added.

“Oh. I think Glenn mentioned you.” She glanced past them to Becca’s car. “I’m Gia’s mother. I don’t think it’s worth your while to stay. She could be out a while and when she’s awake, oh, dear, the medication makes her a little…unclear.”

Becca half expected Mama Bear to slam the door on them when Gia herself appeared on the stairs beyond. Tousled and red-eyed, clutching a bathrobe closed with one hand, she walked barefoot to the entry. “Who’s here?”

Mama Bear kept trying to close the door but Hudson put a palm on the panels and pushed it back open. He received a glittered glare for his troubles but Gia gazed at him with shadowed eyes, full of misery.

“You were there last night…?” she asked, her voice drifting off.

“I’m Hudson Walker. Glenn and I knew each other in high school.”

“Oh! Yes! Hudson.” Tears filled her eyes and she came flying forward, throwing herself into his arms, bawling like a baby calf. Mama Bear seemed startled by this turn of events, stepped backward, and Becca used the moment to squeeze in behind Hudson. She felt Gia’s pain like a live wire between them, though they weren’t touching. Her grief filled the room and it made Becca feel like a charlatan, given her reasons for being here.

“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Gia was saying over and over as they stood beneath a huge chandelier in the foyer. She was petite and soft, her round body giving her a cherubic look. “We wanted to have a baby. We were planning on it. Now what am I going to do? What am I going to do!” She pulled away from Hudson to the waiting arms of her mother.

Becca heard the word “baby” and her heart lurched. She hadn’t known the circumstances of the Stafford marriage, but this window into their now-unfulfilled hopes and dreams burrowed deeply into her own heartache.

Gia’s mom gave her daughter a hard hug, and Gia’s already red eyes puddled up all over again.

Hudson said gently, “I’m sorry to bother you right now.”

“It’s not a bother. You were friends. Glenn talked about you…all of you.” She swept a hand toward Becca. “I know you were all worried about the dead girl, Jessie.”

“Glenn believed Jessie was dead?” Hudson asked.

“No…I don’t know. I guess I just assumed.” She swallowed once, seemed to think about it some more, then her eyes flooded again. “And now Glenn’s dead, too. Oh, God, oh, God. I’m…sorry…this is all so new…so unexpected. He was my soul mate. We were going to be married forever.” Her voice cracked, but she huddled into the safety of her mother’s arms.

“We hate to bother you, but we wondered if you could answer a question for us.”

“Not now.” Gia’s mother bristled but Gia gazed up at him blankly.

“What?” she asked.

“Did Glenn receive any note recently?”

“What kind of note?” Gia asked emotionlessly.

“A nursery rhyme,” Becca said.

Gia turned to her. “Is that a joke, because it’s not funny.” She slowly released her grip on her mother.

“I think this has gone on long enough,” Mama said.

“I received one,” Hudson said, “so we wondered if Glenn had, too.”

“A nursery rhyme. Let me see it.” Gia stuck out her hand and Hudson, after a brief hesitation, reached into his pocket and handed over the note and the blue envelope.

“It came through the mail.”

Gia shook her head. “Who sent it?”

“We don’t know.”

“You think it was the dead girl,” she said with sudden understanding, and her mother drew in a hiss of breath and looked around as if evil spirits were about to materialize. “Glenn said something about nursery rhymes and that girl. She was a tease.”

“We don’t even know if Glenn’s note exists,” Hudson said. “Another friend, Christopher Delacroix, received one.”

“The Third. I know him. The same as this?” She glanced at the card, her nose wrinkling.

“That’s what I understand. I haven’t seen it yet.”

“And you think Glenn may have got one. Why?”

“It’s a mystery,” Becca said. “We’re trying to figure out who received them, who sent them, and why.”

“Well, if he got one, I never saw it.” After a moment, she said, “Have you told the police? Like maybe that’s why Glenn’s dead…something to do with that Jessie?”

“We haven’t talked to anyone but you,” Hudson said.

“It’s like she killed him,” Gia said suddenly, and her mother shook her head. “That’s what she did, that bitch! She reached right out of the grave and burned him up!” Gia started crying in earnest again, and after a few awkward moments where Becca and Hudson could only stand by while Gia’s mother rocked her daughter in her arms, they expressed their condolences again and took their leave.

“Are we going to see The Third?” Becca asked.

“Next on the list.”

Mitch Bellotti was in overalls that tightened around his bulging middle. He was wiping his hands on a gray rag as Mac slammed the door of his Jeep and crossed the asphalt apron that led to Mike’s Garage, a surprisingly clean establishment where tools hung on the wall in precise rows. An older-model blue Triumph was on a lift and Mitch was conversing with a skinny, sixtyish man whose craggy face practically fell in on itself, it was so lined.

Hearing Mac’s door slam, Mitch looked his way. There was a moment or two of blankness, then recognition dawned. He didn’t offer to shake hands, just kept wiping his own on the rag as his expression grew grimmer. Mac introduced himself but it wasn’t necessary as Mitch responded with, “I knew you’d come. You’ve talked to everybody else. But God, man, on this day? You know about Glenn, don’t you?”

“I went to the scene last night.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. Especially now.” The smell of oil and grease permeated the air and an old greyhound was lying on a rug near the back door.

Mac realized Mitch was fighting back tears and felt a twinge of pity. He’d never really thought Mitch had anything to do with Jessie’s disappearance, then or now, but he felt he might know something-maybe something he didn’t know he knew. “I’m sorry about Glenn,” Mac said, meaning it.

“You think it has something to do with-Jessie? Is that why you’re here, man?”

“Do you?” Mac asked curiously.

“I guess it could just be a coincidence.” He sounded as doubtful as Mac felt.

“We’ll know more after the fire investigator’s report.”

“Has to be arson, doesn’t it?”

“Why do you say that?”

Mitch gazed at him guilelessly. “Well, things like that don’t just happen. The restaurant just goes up. How? A gas leak? Or a burner on the stove left on near something flammable? Grease fire? Doesn’t sound like it from what I’ve heard.”

“What have you heard? Who called you?”

“Scott. He was freaking, man. Glenn and I were friends, but Scott was his best friend. They were kind of mad at each other, but it was like they were brothers.”

“Scott thinks it’s arson?”

“I don’t know for sure. He just said Glenn was inside and it shouldn’t have happened. He said she cursed us.”

“Jessie?”

“Yeah, Jessie.” His face flushed as if he heard the idiocy of his statement. “Who else?”

“What happened all those years ago, Mitch?” Mac asked quietly. He felt his pulse rush a bit, wondering if this was the moment someone finally opened up to him.

Mitch’s eyes watered as the tears he’d been fighting got the better of him and spilled down his cheeks. “Not a damn thing,” he said wearily. “That’s the problem, man. Nothing happened to her. She just left, but now she’s back even more than she was in high school. Sending notes. Burning down the restaurant. Killing Glenn. If she isn’t alive, then she’s making it happen from the grave. I don’t know how, but she’s behind all of this. She is. Back then some people thought she was weird, y’know. Like she had ESP or somethin’. I thought it was all just crap, but now…who the hell knows?” He reached a hand toward an upper, nonexistent shirt pocket, then dropped it. “I need a smoke,” he said and headed toward the office where he grabbed a pack of cigarettes from a jacket hung on a peg. He shook one out, then pushed through a back door to the rear of the building. Mac followed. The greyhound, long snout grizzled with age, didn’t move.

“What notes?” Mac asked quietly as Mitch cupped his hand over the lighted end of the cigarette and sucked hard on the other. Both of his hands were shaking, and as if noticing Mac’s stare, he clenched one and pulled out the cigarette from his mouth with the other, moving it to hide his tremor.

“‘What are little boys made of? Frogs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails.’” He puffed harder on the cigarette, as if the carcinogenic smoke were giving life, not taking it. Mitch made a half-choked sound. “She used to say it, now she’s writing it down.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s the same damned nursery rhyme she used to taunt us with. She’d say it and she had a way of making it sound dirty. Sexy. And now she’s goddamned sending them to us!”

“You got a nursery rhyme note?” Mac asked carefully.

“That fuckin’ nursery rhyme. The one she used to sing. Yes. I got it. From her.” He was nodding rapidly and took another drag.

“From Jessie.”

“That’s what I said, man.” He was coming visibly undone.

“It came in the mail? Had a return address?”

“Fuck, yeah…I mean, it came in the mail. No return address.” Abruptly he went back inside and yanked a card from another pocket of the same jacket that had held his cigarettes. He handed it to Mac and took a step back, staring at it as if it were poisonous. “You take it. Maybe it’ll help you find her, but when you do, make sure she stays the hell away from me!”