Page 143 of Never Flinch

“Sometimes I wish I still was,” Pete says. “I’ll give you a call if anything occurs.”

“Thanks, Pete. I miss you.”

“Miss you, too, Hols.”

She ends the call, peeks her head out into the corridor, and sees the DO NOT DISTURB sign still hanging on Kate’s door. Holly’s sure she’s up, but guesses she might be taking a quick shower.

5

5 PM.

There’s a minor traffic jam near Dingley Park, people already headed for the ballfield, but Trig honks his way through, fixated on getting to the Holman Rink before the McKay woman. A yellow flier for the charity game lies on the passenger seat, seeming to mock him. Everything has to go off on time, and not just the game. If McKay is early getting to the rink, it could spoil everything.Wouldspoil everything. Once he’s on Service Road A, the crowds streaming to the field on the other side of the park are left behind. He parks the Transit van, grabs his grocery bag, and uses the Plumber’s Code to let himself in. He trots across the lobby and into the arena to make sure his prisoners are still his prisoners. He relaxes when he sees them. There’s plenty of gaffer tape in his bag, but there’s no room for his next expected guest in the penalty box, so he’ll have to secure her to the bleachers. Assuming she’s tractable. He would like to kill all four of them at once—five, counting himself—but if McKay makes a fuss, she’ll have to go right away. If he makes that clear, self-interest may ensure hercooperation. He touches the Taurus in the pocket of his sportcoat, making sure it’s still there.

Across town, John Ackerly is standing in front of Happy, looking natty in his own sportcoat and tailored slacks. Jerome swings to the curb and John climbs in. “Exciting times, bro,” John says, and Jerome gives him a fist-bump.

With the connivance of the manager, Kate gets an Uber at the Garden City Plaza’s utility-and-supplies exit behind the hotel. Her ride is also stuck in Dingley Park traffic, the driver inching ahead by fits and starts while Kate’s phone seems to be racing past 5:05 to 5:10 and then to 5:15. If she can’t get to the abandoned hockey building before five-thirty, will Stewart make good on his threat to kill Corrie? Kate thinks the chances of that are good. Too good.

“Can’t you get around these people?” she asks, sitting forward. The driver lifts his hands in a Gallic gesture that says,You see the situation as well as I. Kate has her phone in her hand and her handbag slung over her shoulder. As the time on her phone changes from 5:15 to 5:16, she dips into the bag, brings out three tens, and flings them into the front seat. She gets out, cuts through the crowd to the sidewalk, and calls up the Maps app on her phone. She sees her destination is twenty minutes away if she’s walking, so she doesn’t walk. She runs.

6

5:17 PM.

Holly pokes her head out of her room again and sees the DO NOT DISTURB card still hanging from the doorknob of Kate’s suite. This is a little worrying. What’s perhaps more worrying is that there’s still no sign of Corrie, who is—like Holly herself—a compulsive early bird. Before she can decide if she should use the key cards she has to check their rooms, her phone rings. It’s Pete. She considers dismissing the call, then takes it.

“I knew I remembered something about packy-derms. The Calloway Family Circus was in town. Few years ago, this was. Rinky-dink outfit, just one ring instead of three, next door to fly-by-night, gonenow. The Calloway had a trio of packy-derms they called Mama, Papa, and Baby. You know, like in ‘Goldilocks’? If the girl had found a house in the woods where elephants lived instead of bears, that is. Which is ridiculous, but is it more ridiculous than a bears’ house with beds and a stove? Probably also a fucking TV, pardon myfrançaise? I think not.”

Get to the point, Holly restrains herself from saying. She pokes her head out again, hoping the DO NOT DISTURB sign will be gone from Kate’s door, but it’s still there. Also no sign of Corrie, burdened with shopping bags, hurrying down the hall from the elevator.

“Anyhoo,” Pete says (after another brief coughing fit), “the Calloway Circus, in every town they went to they’d do some free advertising by inviting all the grammar school kiddos to a local venue so they could see some of the acts, and actually pet Baby’s trunk. In Buckeye City, the kids got to see some of the show—and Baby—at the Mingo. What I remembered was a picture of Baby onstage, wearing a little sunhat.”

Holly has been standing in the doorway. Now she staggers back a step as if physically struck. She realizes what has been troubling her, what was too big to miss… only shedidmiss it, didn’t she? The phone sags away from her ear and she hears Pete say, tinny and distant, “Holly? Are you there?”

She says, “I have to go, Pete,” and ends the call before Pete can reply.

Last night at the Mingo. Pulling up beside a white Transit van in the employees’ parking lot. Two men waiting for her outside, one in a Sista Bessie tee, the other in a sportcoat and tie. The former was Sista Bessie’s tour manager. The latter…

Hello, Ms. Gibney. I’m Donald Gibson.

Donald Gibson, the Mingo’s Program Director.

Donald Gibson, who was also on the jury that convicted Alan Duffrey.

Can’t be him. Can’t be.

Only what if it is?

Holly’s first impulse is to call Izzy. Her finger is hovering over the favorites button when she reconsiders, and not just because her call will almost certainly go to voicemail if Izzy is on the softball field, getting ready for the game that starts in less than two hours. She told Pete it was Izzy’s case, but it no longer is. The Surrogate Juror Murders now belong to the State Police.

She should get in touch with SP Detective Ralph Ganzinger, but won’t. She’s already made one embarrassing mistake by telling Izzy that she thought Russell Grinsted, Alan Duffrey’s lawyer, was Trig. Calling Ganzinger could be another, even bigger mistake. Is she supposed to tell Ganzinger, who she doesn’t know from Adam, that she thinks the killer is Donald Gibson because he once said something about elephant shit?Mighthave said? That he might have said it at an AA meeting, and the alias the killer’s using is Bill Wilson, the founder of AA? That he calls himself not Briggs but Trig? Would anyone but her follow that winding train of logic? Would it matter if she said,I know it, I feel it? It would to the late Bill Hodges, and it might to Izzy, but to anyone else? No. And what if it’s like her brainwave about Grinsted? What if she’s wrong again?

The mother who lives in her head speaks up:Of course you’re wrong, Holly. Why, you couldn’t even remember your library book when you got off the schoolbus!

She looks at her watch and sees it’s 5:22. First things first; it’s time to collect her famous employer and go to the Mingo. In fact they’ll have to beat feet not to be late.Kateis her job, not Bill Wilson, aka Trig (and possibly aka Donald Gibson). Also—and this idea causes a wave of relief to wash through her—she can ask Kate whatshethinks.A woman who believes in herself, Holly thinks.One not cursed with terminal insecurity.

The mother in her head is telling her she’s passing the buck and only weak people do that, but Holly ignores her. She goes next door and uses the key card to let herself into Kate’s suite.

“Kate? Where are you? We have to go!”

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