Page 52 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

“Carol used to hate it too.” Arthur smiled. “All I’m saying is, you don’t know what’s relevant until it’s relevant.”

He pushed the coffee closer to her. She relented and drank, then rubbed her tired eyes.

“You and your sister, you’re also chasing a serial killer, right?”

“Could be.”

“Carol used to watch those documentaries on the TV.” Arthur nodded. Sat back in his chair. “Those crime ones. I never got into that stuff. If we were in bed and there was a bump in the night, she’d kick me out to go find out what it was. So I didn’t need to have my head filled up with crazy stories about guys waiting for me on my back porch with a butcher’s knife. But I still picked some things up from all her watching.”

“Where’s this going?” Baby huffed.

“Seems to me, Barbara” — he gave her a warning look — “there’s usually an awful lot of interest on these shows about who the killer was and where he came from. People want to know if he was picked on in high school. If he was ever married. What kind of guy his dad was.”

Baby thought about it. “You don’t know what’s relevant until it’s relevant.”

“Uh-huh.”

Mouse sprang up from the floor as if he’d gotten an electric shock, rushed to the back of the house, and smashed into the screen door, throwing it open. Arthur and Baby followed the dog to the back porch. To the right, across the fences of the neighboring properties, they saw movement. Two houses down, men emerged onto the back porch, pointed at Arthur’s yard, and looked around. Someone flicked on a light. Music with a heavy, grinding bass began to thrum out into the night. It was so loud, Baby could feel the rhythm in her chest.

“Who the hell are those guys?” she asked.

“I don’t know. What I’m wondering is, why’s the power on?” Arthur said. “There hasn’t been power to any of these other houses in months.”

Mouse was barking at the fence on the right side of the yard, the side where the men had appeared. Then he rushed across the overgrown garden to bark at the opposite fence. Baby and Arthur looked. Lights were also coming on in the house on their left side. A man in a hoodie shoved open a window on the second floor, looked out at them, and grinned. There were thick gold chains around his neck and a set of grilles sparkling in his bottom row of teeth. As they watched, the guy took a pistol from his waistband and leaned casually on the windowsill while holding it.

“Well, howdy, neighbors!” he called.

CHAPTER58

THE CONVENIENCE-STORE ATTENDANTand I stood by the slushy stand, watching the night. Beyond the automatic doors, the world was carrying on. A trucker pulled an eighteen-wheeler into a spot by the highway, its brakes hissing loudly. The family with the sleeping kids loaded up and moved on. People queued for the fast-food drive-through. My Chevy sat by the pumps.

“Tell me exactly what you saw,” I said.

“Dude came round the pumps from that side.” The attendant pointed to the darkness beyond the reach of the overhead lights mounted on the store’s awning. “Crouched by your car, then snuck in the back door.”

I was convinced by the alertness of this young man. His name tag saidRAYMOND.

“You ain’t got nobody traveling with you?” Raymond asked, his scalp sweating between his cornrows. I could see his pulse ticking in his neck. “Like, this ain’t a prank?”

“No,” I said. “I’m alone.” I felt a weird rush of emotions — terror, gratitude, rage. My skin crawled, my mind shuttling through a thousand terrible possibilities, all of them beginning with the young store clerknotnoticing a man sneaking into the back seat of my car.

Raymond shook his head. “Fucking tweakers all up and down the highway pullin’ this shit. I’m calling the cops.”

I followed him to the counter, keeping my eyes on my car, watching for movement.

“You think he’s still in the back right now?” I asked.

“Hell yeah, I do.”

I stood quietly wanting to hug the kid as he dialed and explained the situation to the 911 operator.

“Fuck that.” Raymond slammed down the phone. He brought a baseball bat out from behind the counter. “There’s a crash up at the next interchange, about five miles from here, and every cop in the county is tied up with it. We gonna handle this ourselves.”

“No, no, no. Let’s just wait,” I said. I caught up with Raymond and grabbed his T-shirt as he headed out the automatic doors. “Wait.”

“I’m sick of these tweakers stealing my beers, pissin’ on my damn dumpsters, threatening my customers,” he muttered. He kept walking and raised his voice as he approached my car. “Hey! Shithead! Get your junkie ass out of that car right now before I open it up and drag you out!”

I stood by Raymond’s side, frozen by his sudden ferocity. A few yards away, the trucker paused mid-descent from the eighteen-wheeler, one boot still on the step, his head twisted around to us. Nothing in my car moved. It seemed impossibly dark inside, the overhead lights blocking my view into the windows with icy reflections.

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