Given the message on Emily Roswell’s hands, should they be considering that their killer might have distinctive tattoos, too?
“You’re at number twenty-eight.”
She spins around in surprise. Christopher Appleton, from number forty-four, bends to retrieve some of the cans on the floor. Images of emaciated plants and a sun-crisp lawn suddenly flash into her mind. She sees placards, closed curtains, hears the blare of the television, feels her skin growing hot.
“Yes,” she says quickly, flustered. She’s learned by now that gut instinct can be a powerful thing, and hers is screaming. “Yes,” she says again as she blinks. “Beverley Edwards. And this is Benjamin, and Audrey.”
“As in Hepburn?” he asks, then shakes his head oddly.
“I guess so,” she replies, and shifts her feet as an awkward silence follows. “Are you settling in okay?” She forces the words out. “It’s a friendly neighborhood once you give it a chance,” she lies.
“Well enough, thank you. I don’t really get out a lot to meet people.”
She remembers the rally, seeing him there—she was so sure it was him. Thoughts of the pig carcass fill her head again, the old-meat smell of it. She’d had to wrap it in a tarpaulin, lift it into the trunk of her car and drive a couple of miles out of town to dispose of it after dark. She’d felt absurd, embarrassed to be sneaking around, guilty at leaving the kids asleep at home. It was only when she’d dragged the body out and stashed it in the foliage at the side of the road that she’d stopped to wonder if her husband had ever found himself in the same position while concealing his morbid crimes.
Christopher Appleton’s eyes, which dart, struggling to meet hers, are small behind thick glasses. He wears a turtleneck with a sweater-vest pulled over the top, even in this heat. He is of average height and slight build, but his hands, Beverley notices, are half-clenched and the fingers are slightly crooked. This man couldn’t really be the person who left the dead body of a pig on her front lawn, could he? She thinksof those twitching curtains, the times she’s seen him watching her. Has he seen Roger leaving her house late at night?
Her gaze cuts to the contents of his cart, and in just a fraction of a second she feels as if the air has been snatched from her lungs. Lined up neatly, as if she has placed them in there herself, are six boxes of cereal. Their red cardboard is as distinctive as the gaudy illustrations, the cartoonish yellow lettering, the leprechaun cartoon. Lucky Charms. Elsie told her about the note that the killer had written on the back of a cereal box, a box of Lucky Charms, and stashed it behind windshield wipers, waited for it to be found.
He clocks her looking, winces. “I’m not so good at taking care of myself anymore,” he begins to explain, but Beverley is already backing away, terror a siren in her head. She mutters an apology. She must get back home. No time to stay and talk. She doesn’t even pay for her groceries, just abandons her cart at the store’s entrance, grabs her children by their hands and flees.
Twenty-Five
“So, Sarah Gunn.”Patti reaches for a photograph on the desk. “If she’s dead, that makes four girls now in just under eight weeks.” She raises an eyebrow and lets out a guarded breath. “She’s a majorette. Twenty-one years old. Her family lives in Berryview. Wealthy parents.”
Both Elsie and Patti were shocked by Detective Bale’s slipup at the bar, but it meant another girl was missing. The police, they have since learned, are labeling her a runaway for now, but as far as Elsie is concerned, there’s no way Sarah is a runaway. She sees the pattern, even if the cops refuse to. She knows another girl is in danger.
“Her college roommates got worried when she didn’t return after her waitressing shift,” Patti continues. “She hasn’t been seen since.”
“Four girls.” Elsie shakes her head. “How many will it take before the police catch this guy?”
There’s something clichéd about the victims this killer is selecting, Elsie has realized. A constant given of the universe—only the pretty, non-average get picked, even for death. Elsie was an average adult and had been an average teenager, with acne, lank hair, a flat chest—nothing remarkable to look at—but the attention Albert lavished upon her had made her feel special, as if there was something within her, something that had nothing to do with her outward appearance, that he found utterly magnetic. To be told she was different, unique,clever—that was more powerful to Elsie than being told she was beautiful. She flinches at the memory, wrestling with the familiar sting of regret. Recently she has been feeling further and further away from that naïve, powerless young girl. She has been looking back with pity at how moldable, dupable,meekshe’d been when she was with Albert. There’s guilt, of course, such profound, excoriating guilt that it makes her fingers tremble. But something’s changed of late, something that leaves her incredulous at her own lack of awareness.
“The cops seem to be distracted by other things.” Patti leans back in her seat, linking her fingers across her stomach. “Maybe that’s why they’re dragging their heels.”
“What do you mean?” Elsie is pleased to move away from thoughts of the past.
“Thanks to our chat with Laurel and Hardy the other night, I did some digging on Cornwell’s surveillance op.”
Patti must have followed Greaves’ lead and looked into the audio technology Cornwell was using to surveil the Kings.
“Guess who owns the company providing all the technology for that op,” Patti says, “and who is getting paid handsomely to do so.”
Elsie cocks her head.
“Broderick Arnold,” Patti responds, eyes wide with satisfaction.
“The department store guy?” Elsie’s heard of him before. In fact, she’s pretty sure he owns the store that Margot works in.
“And guess what Broderick Arnold is,” Patti continues.
“Incredibly wealthy?” Elsie quips.
Patti snorts. “He’s also Tom Cornwell’s brother-in-law.”
Elsie gawps.
“Uh-huh.”
