“Look, please.” I back away from her, farther out to the edge of the covered entryway. A richly appreciated cool wind has picked up and sweeps the Harmses’ aromas clear of me but threatens to blow my capoff. I hold it down with one hand and stare at the screen in the other as an arm with a sweatshirt sleeve pushed up to its elbow reaches down and grabs the object. I take my hand off my cap to rewind the footage and pause on the image. It takes me a few tries and I can feel my cap about to lift off my head, so against my fervent desire I step back into the doorway of Art and Louise’s house, away from the wind and into their noxious atmosphere. It’s marginally preferable to having the cap fly away while I work the phone with both hands.
It takes me five more tries, and Louise won’t stop asking me about my situation. How it feels to be me. What I’m doing to protect myself. What I’m going to confess.
What have you done?
“Please,” I finally say. “I need to concentrate on this for a moment.”
Finally, I manage to stop the video on the frame with the arm stretching down. I enlarge the screen as much as possible and there, in a grainy, blurry image, I make out a blotch of something dark peeking out from under the cloth. A shiver shoots up my spine. “Jackpot,” I whisper to myself, ignoring the Harmses, who are arguing with each other now. Artie tells Louise to be quiet and to leave me alone. Louise insists I’m the one all over the news and they should call law enforcement or a reporter.
A tattoo. It’s only a smudge on the screen and much too faint to make out, but I’m sure Alderson and Greene’s tech guy can figure it out. On the man’s wrist, there’s a bracelet or band.
“I’m going to need to borrow this for a few hours,” I tell Art and Louise right as Alderson and Greene’s black SUV pulls into Jess’s driveway. “And no, I’m not the woman you think I am, but if you spread rumors that I am, you see that black SUV that pulled up?” I point to Alderson and Greene.
Louise’s eyes are huge.
“I will tell them to come have a talk with you both about the consequences of meddling in a law enforcement matter.”
Chapter 36
I tell Jess to stay where she is while I let the agents in. No introductions are necessary because Greene and Alderson have already questioned her extensively, asked her to turn over some samples of her artwork, and had their experts analyze it. No one has cleared her yet, and while I realize they need to be thorough, it’s infuriating to see resources wasted that could be focused elsewhere.
When I give Greene the name of one of the guys I know from the county sheriff’s office who’s good at image analysis, she assures me they have their own guy.
“Well, in case you need someone local.”
They head over to speak with Mr. Johnston across the street and in no time send the video attachment to their own tech, probably someone in Salt Lake City at their field office.
When they come back in, they ask Jess all the same questions I have, tell us that a tech from the Flathead County CSI unit will be by any minute to dust both of our cars for prints and collect samples of the kind of marker that was used. Then Alderson asks me to step outside.
“This vandalism stuff feels personal,” I say before he even tells me why he’s brought me outside alone.
“Yeah, well, that’s a given. We know that it’s not random.”
“No, I mean, it feels even more personal than that. It doesn’t seem like the Confession Artist’s MO. Was there any sign of him leaving messages or anything like that for the others?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean he’s not suddenly changing up the game, adding to it, like with the earrings. It’s a mistake to assume they’ll slavishly follow their scripts. And they could’ve left them for the others and we simply don’t know about it. They can’t exactly tell us now, can they?” His brow furrows and he adds, as if answering himself, “But friends and family members of the victims didn’t report anything to suggest he did, so it seems unlikely.”
“Exactly,” I say. “So why this time? Why bring Jess into it, too? It’s weird. Plus, the grammar—thatyour/you’rebusiness. Would he get that wrong? None of the other messages online have any mistakes.”
Alderson smiles. “Everybody slips up, don’t they? I mean, it was on a windshield.”
“It feels off.”
Louise Harms is out front, holding Malley and watching us with concern.
“Do me a favor,” I say. “Give that woman over there a serious stare.”
Alderson does so without hesitation, and I can see the whites of Louise’s widened eyes. He turns back to me. “What was that about?”
“Just punctuating my threat to her that she shouldn’t call any reporters.”
“Gotcha,” he says. “Pattern or not,” he continues. “And as frightening as it is for your sister, this narrows things down. We’re going to need a crossover list of all the people that you and Jess have in common, have worked with, have socialized with. Anyone remotely who overlaps your two orbits.”
“That’s a lot of people, since she’s my sister. But yeah, I agree. It narrows things considerably. One good place to focus right off the bat: She’s made a number of referrals to me, and I have asked for her company’s help on some of my jobs when I’ve needed to track lineage.”
“Okay, well, we’ll need that immediately. But in the meantime,” Alderson says, “I have something I need to tell you.”
Hell. I don’t need another jolt of bad news.
