Page 53 of Never Flinch

Holly sits in the deserted baggage claim area, a small neatly dressed woman wearing sensible shoes. Her hair is stylishly but sensibly cut. Her hands are clasped in her lap. She’s ignored by the remaining passengers, which she also considers her superpower. An unobtrusive investigator who is good at her job can be a great detective, and on several occasions Holly has risen to greatness. She herself would protest that, but Izzy knows. So do Jerome and Barbara Robinson.

Her other superpowers are clarity of thought and the ability to take the time necessary to work out difficult problems. She is sitting quietly, seeming to have no interest in anything but the gray suitcaseand yellow box circling on the luggage carousel, but beneath that sensible short haircut, her thoughts are running on two tracks.

One of those tracks has to do with Izzy’s case—the elusive Bill Wilson, who has killed four people at least, and probably five. A huge number in a short time. Using the Wilson name as an alias suggests (to Holly, at least) a certain arrogance. Either that, or a desire—possibly subconscious—to be caught. AndBriggs. Because surnames are frowned on in AA and NA, it’s almost certainly a given name or a nickname. If Briggs is in the Program, John really might be able to ID him.

She wishes, not for the first time, that this was her case.

The other track has to do with Kate McKay. Her stalker has proved in Reno that she’s not harmless, but the bleach was only a warning. The anthrax was a serious attempt to kill, and to hell with any bystanders who happened to inhale the poison fairy dust. What would come next? A gun seems most likely, which is one reason why Holly has—very reluctantly—brought her own.

Essentials for Bodyguardscontains a list of precautions for keeping controversial people like Kate McKay as safe as possible, although the author, Richard J. Scanlon, warns that no one can be kept entirely safe, not even the President of the United States… as Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley, and Thomas Crooks proved.

Holly wonders how many precautions McKay will be willing to take. She’s guessing the woman won’t like the idea, and wonders if she’ll be able to convince her. Convincing isn’t Holly’s strong point, but she thinks she’ll have to try. Corrie Anderson may help.

She gets her bags and heads for the rental counter. Ordinarily Holly would rent a small car like her Prius. Today she’s asked for something with a lot more oomph. After mulling the options, which aren’t that great in Iowa City, she decides on a Chrysler 300. If she needs extra horses—unlikely but possible—the Chrysler will deliver them. Holly picks up the folder for her car and takes the insurance.Always safe, never sorrywas another of Charlotte’s sayings. Once she’s seated in it—plushy!—she sets her phone’s GPS for the fastest route to the Iowa City Radisson in the suburb of Coralville. The Chrysler has a nav system, but Holly trusts her own gear.

Always.

5

Trig gets to work on time, says hello to Maisie in his outer office, and spends the first hour of his workday making phone calls and putting out small fires. In his business, there are always fires to put out. You just can’t let them grow into big ones.

Like Holly’s, his mind is running on two tracks. On one he’s a professional man doing his professional best—never arguing, always being reasonable, trying to convince, sometimes resorting to base flattery.You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, his mother used to say. Before she wasgone.

On the other track, he’s waiting to be arrested. He doesn’t know if other serial killers (and that’s what he is now, call it what it is) have a sense of invulnerability, but Trig doesn’t. How far is it from St. Luke’s, where the Thursday evening New Horizons group meets, to John Glenn State Park? Not far. What if someone makes the connection? What if there are security cams in the park? He never even checked, but in retrospect it seems logical, especially around those Porta-Johns, where all sorts of drug deals might be going on. And then there’s the Rev’s appointment book. Leaving it seemed so clever at the time, but if he had it to do over again, he would have just taken the fucking thing. Who would have known? The housekeeper? Why would the Rev have had a housekeeper anyway, a little house like that? And how would he have paid her? So far as Trig knows, the Rev’s only job these last few years has been going to meetings and quoting the Big Book from memory.

Trig is fucking up all over the place.

He keeps expecting the cops to come through the door, ignoring Maisie’s protests, one of them reciting his rights in a speed-rap, the other holding up a pair of handcuffs. He’s visualizing Fin Tutuola and Olivia Benson fromLaw & Order, which is crazy. It will be the two that were announced in theRegisteras lead investigators: Atta and the woman, he can’t quite remember her name.

That they will get him eventually seems inevitable, but now that he’s begun down this path, he’d like to finish before they do. If not all of it, as many as possible.Thirteen innocent and one guilty, he thinks.

Murder, it seems, is addictive. He never would have believed it. Oh, maybe for sex-killers like Bundy and Dennis Rader, but he wasn’t like them. There was nojoyin the killing…

Or maybe there was.

If you’re in it too deep to turn around, it’s no good fooling yourself, he thinks. Is that the Daddy-voice? He can’t tell.There’s nothing sexual about it, at least. They just need to know the blood of innocents is on their hands. And if I want to speed up, is that wrong? There’s an end in sight, after all, a day when the guilty one will die and this will be over.

He uses his tablet to go to Buckeye Brandon’s blog. Under the flashing red banner that reads BREAKING NEWS, he finds this:

John Glenn State Park is now the site of another MURDER MOST FOUL! The body of Fred Sinclair, age unknown, was discovered by 12-year-old Matt Fleischer, who will never forget the TRAUMA of opening a porta-potty and discovering a DEAD MAN sitting inside! Is this CRIMSON CRIME related to the Surrogate Juror Murders? Buckeye Brandon’s Magic 8-Ball says YES, but stay tuned. And remember: LISTEN TO MY PODCAST & SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON!!

Trig called the Buckeye Brandon tipline, but he didn’t give the recording the young man’s name—how could he? The Great BB got that some other way. And a twelve-year-old boy found the body? What was a kid doing in a state park, anyway? This is followed by the unlikely yet weirdly persuasive idea that the kid actuallywitnessedthe murder, and when Trig is caught, the kid will point to him and say,That’s him, that’s the guy who dragged the body into—

The intercom buzzes, and Trig almost screams. He has to force himself to answer, imagining Maisie’s puzzled voice saying,There are police here, and they say they need to talk to you.

Instead, Maisie reminds him of his two o’clock dentist’s appointment. Trig thanks her and clicks off. He’s in a cold sweat, and not at the prospect of having three cavities filled. There are so many ways he could be caught!

I need to hurry up, he thinks, and finds that he’s actually looking forward to it.

6

John Ackerly meets Jerome for lunch at the Rocket Diner. They both order the lobster mac (it’s on special), and Arnold Palmers. John tilts a thumb out the window at the Garden City Plaza Hotel across the street. “Royalty staying there, man.”

“Really?”

“Sista Bessie, the seventies and eighties rock-and-soul queen. I can’t wait to see her. Tix for the show on the thirty-first were sold out, but I scored two for the next night.”

“Good for you.” Jerome waits until their drinks have been served, then shows John a photo—courtesy of Izzy and Holly—of Michael Rafferty’s appointment calendar. He taps BRIGGS 7 PM on the square for the 20th of May. “Do you happen to know this guy? Don’t worry about breaking your anonymity vow, or whatever you call it. I’ll tell Holly and she can pass it on to the cops, your name not needed.”

---