An Ice Cold Grave

Stuart turned to look at me, surprised. "Yes," he said. "He was probably happy every morning. Tom Almand pulled the wool over the eyes of almost every member of this community, for years. He's surely been pleased with himself every day of that time. The only person he couldn't fool, eventually, was his own son."



"So, he fooled everyone else?" I asked.



Tolliver gripped my hand. I squeezed his.



"His colleagues who have worked with him at the mental health center all say they've gotten along with him fine, that he was always on time, conscientious about keeping his appointments, fairly intelligent with his recommendations and referrals, and had only minor complaints by patients in the eight years he's been here."



I was impressed that they'd gotten together that much information in the limited time they'd had. I wondered if he'd been under suspicion from the beginning. Perhaps they'd gotten a head start on him, from a profile or something similar.



"But what about close friends?" I asked.



"He didn't seem to have any close friends," Stuart said. "Oh, he's been on the Hospital Expansion Board for the past six years; and so have Len Thomason and Barney Simpson, which makes sense. They're all health-care professionals, though from different aspects of the field. That minister got elected to the board last year, the one that conducted the memorial service. They've tried to get matching grants, federal money, private money, worked on fund drives, that kind of thing. Knott County really does need a new hospital, as you may have noticed."



All roads seemed to lead to the hospital. No matter what direction I started out in, I ended up at the front doors of Knott County Memorial.



"Has the boy spoken yet?" I asked, aware that pretty soon Stuart and Klavin would decide not to answer any more questions, just because.



"Not yet."



"And I know you've got him under very heavy, very careful guard?"



Klavin said, "You can believe that. Nothing will happen to that boy."



"His family come forward?"



"Oh, yes, they'd reported him missing the night before. And we found his car on the side of the road about a mile from the Almand house. He had a flat tire, and no spare."



"Well, that explains that. Considering the weather, he'd be glad to get a ride, no matter how nervous he was."



"Kids never think anything can happen to them," Stuart said grimly.



He'd found out different. He'd never be the same.



"Would you consider putting a guard on Manfred Bernardo?" I asked.



"He's older than the other boys," Stuart said.



"But he's part of the case."



"He's an adult, and he's in the hospital with plenty of people watching him," Klavin said gruffly. "Our budget's shot to hell."



"It's been interesting talking to you," I said. "Thanks."



"Did you know they were there?" Tolliver asked as we drove back to Doraville.



"No, I had no idea. I just wanted to look at the site again when it was clean."



"Clean?"



"No bodies. Just dirt and trees."



We drove in silence for a few minutes. Then I said, "Tolliver, if you knew you were going to be accused of murder in the next, say, three or four days - you weren't sure when, but you knew it was coming - what would you do?"



"I'd run," Tolliver said.



"What if you weren't quite sure?"



"If I thought there was a chance I wouldn't be picked out of the lineup, or whatever?"



I nodded.



"If I thought there was a chance I could hold on to my life, I think I'd try to stay around," Tolliver said, deep in thought. "Running is getting harder and harder with the rise of computers and the use of debit and credit cards. Cash isn't common, and people who use it are remembered. You have to show your driver's license for almost everything. It's hard to stay invisible in the United States, and it's hard to cross a border without a passport. If you're not a career criminal, it would be almost impossible to do either one."



"I don't think we're dealing with a career criminal here. I think we're dealing with an enthusiastic amateur."



Tolliver said, "Let's get out of here."



He was at the end of indulging me.



We'd had fights before, but they'd never had this element of the personal. But now we were more than manager and talent, more than brother and sister, more than survivors of a common hell.



And he was right. We had no business doing what the police were supposed to do, and God knows there were police enough to do it. But every time I thought of Chuck Almand, dead at thirteen because he wanted to lead me to discover what his life had been like, living with a man who tortured other boys for a pastime.... Then I told myself, He succeeded. He got you there, and all the law enforcement people, which was what he surely intended. Let them take the weight of this now.



"All right," I said. "Let's go."



Tolliver's shoulders relaxed. Up to that moment I hadn't realized how tense he'd been.



He was right.



We had to go to the police station to give our statements, and since there were still plenty of news crews around, we phoned ahead on the cell and asked if we could come in the back. We were denied permission. "It's already too crowded back there," the dispatcher said. "The state boys all have cars there, and a couple of the forensic guys, plus we have deputies working extra shifts. Park in the front, and we'll have someone watching out for you."



We had to park down the street from the station because of all the media, and we walked briskly through them, looking neither to the right nor the left. Luckily, we'd almost made it to the door by the time we were recognized. As the voices rose in questions I wouldn't answer, I focused on the door. I hoped it would be the last time we'd ever walk into that particular building. Deputy Rob Tidmarsh was standing there ready to swing the door open. He escorted us to what had been an interrogation room. In fact, it was the same one where we'd been such unwilling guests. It was now set up with a laptop computer and a young man who was ready to extract information from us. We gave him our accounts of the happenings in the barn, and he printed them out, and we signed them. All this took about an hour and a half, maybe twice as long as we'd estimated, and we saw Sandra Rockwell pass by about six times, but she didn't feel the need to speak to us.



There must be a lot to do, I thought as Tolliver talked to the young man, who was about our age. Chronologically. In a case of mass murder, there must be a million details to collect and put in order. I couldn't imagine being in charge of that. And then to have other people brought in over my head, people coming into my town and in front of my own employees taking the case away from me, or at least important aspects of it.... No wonder Rockwell didn't have time to stop to talk to us. Building a case against the man who'd killed eight boys and tried to kill another was way more important than stroking the ego of a woman who'd done her job and been paid for it.



Yes, no matter how connected I felt to the case, it was time for me to go. I'd never stayed as long, or maybe it just hadn't felt as long. I'd never found that many bodies at one event, either. This was a first for all of us.



What I felt like doing was prying open the heads of a few people myself, prying them open and looking inside, trying to locate the guilt I knew was in one of them. My conviction that there was a second murderer remained unshaken. But I couldn't think of a way to discover for sure who it might be, and Tolliver was right. It wasn't my job. I wished, for one deluded minute, that I was telepathic. I could just read a man's mind and fathom his guilt or innocence.



But that wasn't going to happen, and I wouldn't wish telepathy on my worst enemy. If I'd been psychic...well, after seeing the havoc even a mild gift had wreaked in Xylda's life, and seeing how isolated Manfred felt, I didn't want that, either. My own talent was so focused, so specific, that its use was very limited. And I'd passed the limit here in this little foothill town.



When we were through, we left out of the same door we'd entered, but in the meantime the newspeople had spotted our car and camped around it. Tolliver put his arm around me and we bulldozed through them. Even though my arm was in a cast and there was a bandage on my head, it was hard to get them to move aside. Maybe we'd been dodging them too much, and it had made them more determined to "get" us.



I could swear I recognized one newscaster. Then I realized I had seen him on a national news network. "Have you ever found that many bodies in one place before?" he asked. It was such a pertinent question, and exactly what I'd been thinking about, that I said, "No, never. I never want to again."



The others started screaming louder. If I'd answered one question, I might answer more.



But then he made a huge mistake - he asked a "How did it feel?" question.



Those I won't answer. My feelings are my own.



After a few seconds of struggle to get the door open, of falling inside the car, buckling my seat belt, and locking the door, I was safe from more questions, and then Tolliver tumbled in the driver's door and got himself ready to drive. He put the car in gear and the knot of newspeople relaxed and spread apart to allow us to leave.



It was lucky for us they all stayed close to the police station, hoping for more tidbits from the police or the SBI agents. We were able to get to Twyla's house by ourselves. Twyla's car was the only one in the garage. I wondered how long it would be before she got to bury her grandson. And then there'd be the trial and all the surrounding publicity. Jeff McGraw wouldn't get to rest in peace for years, at least in the minds of his family.



Tolliver pulled in behind Twyla's car, left ours in park with the engine on, and scrambled out with the key to the cabin. He didn't say a word. Maybe he was afraid that if he said something, I would, too; I'd change my mind about leaving.



A car pulled in behind us as I waited. After a second, someone knocked on the window. I pressed the button to roll it down. Pastor Doak Garland stood there, as pink and innocent a man as I'd ever seen.



He said, "Hello again, Miss Connelly."



"Hi. I forgot to tell you what a good job you did at the memorial service. I hope you all took up a good bit of money toward the funerals."



"Praise God, I think we got about twelve thousand dollars together now," he said.



"That's great!" I was genuinely impressed. That was a huge amount of money in a poor community like Doraville. Divided among the six local boys, that wasn't much, especially when you considered the cost of an average funeral these days. But it would help.



As if he could read my mind, Doak said, "Three of the boys had burial insurance, so they won't need funds. And we're hoping to bring in at least three thousand more with a raffle. Twyla has very generously offered to match whatever we make for the raffle."



"That is generous."



"She's a great woman. Can I ask you a question just out of sheer curiosity, Miss Connelly?"



"Ah...okay."



"I'm not sure I've ever been in that old barn behind the Almand house. Where was the poor young man?"



"He was in a kind of - oh, wait, I'm not supposed to talk about it. Sorry, the cops made me promise."



"Well, you hear all kinds of things, you know," he said. "I just wanted to get the facts straight. Where's your companion?"



"He's coming right back out in just a second," I said. Suddenly I felt very alone, though I was parked in a driveway on a suburban street. I jumped, pretending I'd felt my phone vibrate. "Hello?" I said, holding it to my ear. "Oh, hi, Sheriff. Yeah, I'm here at Twyla's, talking to Pastor Garland. He's standing right here, do you need him? No? Okay." I made an apologetic face at the minister, and he smiled and waved, and started into the house. I kept up the false conversation until he'd gone in the back door.



Half of me felt like a very big idiot, and the other half was simply relieved that he was gone. Where the hell was Tolliver? What was taking him so long?



I turned in my seat and began to undo my seat belt. I'd go in to find out what he was doing. I was really anxious. I had the uneasy feeling I'd overlooked something big.



Something about the ninth boy, the one who'd lived.



I stopped what I was doing and considered. He'd been identified. He was safe in the hospital in Asheville. He might never speak about what had happened to him, but I thought it was probable he would, when he got used to being safer and felt better physically. When he did begin to talk, he would identify the other killer, if in fact there was another one.



But what if he hadn't ever seen the other killer? What if he'd been kept in the stable because it had been Tom Almand, and Almand alone, who'd abducted him? Maybe it had been the first and only time Almand had made his son help him, and that was what had driven Chuck over the edge. Maybe Tom hadn't had a chance to share before he was discovered. So the accomplice had an even better chance of getting away with it.



And Doak Garland was not the man. He'd just asked me where the boy had been kept. If he'd been the other murderer, he would have known. If he'd just been trying to muddy the waters, he could have simply said nothing. It didn't make any difference what I thought. Why should he make such a point of asking me, unless he genuinely didn't know?



But someone had known, someone I'd talked to very recently. Someone had said the boy had been under the floor in the stall, or something to that effect. Who had it been? We'd seen so many people. Obviously, not Rain or Manfred; not any of the law enforcement people, they'd know and that would be okay. All right, who? Who had I talked to? The funeral home lady, Cleda something. No, not her.