“Nothing!There’s nothing in there.That’s what makes the whole thing so crazy!”
“There must be something,” Jem said.“They wouldn’t have gone after River without a reason.The same goes for you.”
“And River thought she knew what it was,” Tean said quietly.“She called and said she wanted to show me.”
No one said the next part:but then they killed her.
“If there’s something in there,” Amy said, “I don’t know what it is.You’re welcome to look—you can have all of it.”
“Pass,” Jem said.“We’re good, thanks.”
“Why wouldn’t the police believe you?”Tean asked.The change of direction threw Jem for a moment.“After what happened to River, I mean.It seems…”
“Stupid?”Jem offered.
“Grossly negligent, at the very least.”
Amy offered a strange smile.“Aside from the fact that I’m a hysterical woman?”She took out her phone and tapped the screen a few times.Then she held it out.
All that reading practice that Tean made Jem do was starting to pay off; the headline, at least, was easy enough.
KILLER CAUGHT IN SNOWSTORM SLAYING
And below that was a picture of Kolen Lodge.In the photo, it looked perfect: the stonework, the timbers, the exact right amount of snow so that it was like something on a postcard.The story continued below it, but the smaller words swam in Jem’s vision.
“Are you kidding me?”Jem said.“What killer?What the fuck are they talking about?”
Tean took the phone and read silently for a moment.Then he said, “A local man, Gene Holfert, was arrested Thursday in connection with the murder of a Utah woman at Kolen Lodge.”He looked up.“Who’s Gene Holfert?”
Amy still wore that strange smile.“A local man.”The words had a mocking edge.“Sixty years old, a history of substance abuse problems, and from what I can tell, most likely dealing with undiagnosed mental health issues.He’s got a cabin somewhere near the lodge—no running water, no electricity.Lives up there all year like that, hunting and fishing and staying away from people.Some of that has to do with him being a sex offender, but the charge is, I don’t know, thirty years old.”
“They arrested him?”Jem shook his head.“That’s bullshit.I told them—Wetold them.There were at least three of these guys, and they were wearing those fucking wolf masks.”
Amy took her phone back.
“No cameras,” Tean said.“No other eyewitnesses except two children.”
“But that’s bullshit!What about how they fucked up her car?”
“And whoever’s really in charge up there,” Tean said, “the mayor or the city council or some rich guy who owns a bunch of land, they must have been putting pressure on the sheriff to get an arrest and a conviction.Tourists don’t like unsolved murders.”
Jem fought the urge to say, again, that it was bullshit.Finally, he managed, “Yeah, it must be real fucking bad for business.”
“Did they arrest him for the murder of Rydel Owens?”Tean asked.“And Agent Van Cleave?”
“Those,” Amy said with that same mocking un-smile, “are unrelated.”
“But that’s bullshit!”
Scipio raised his head to glance at Jem.
“I’m sorry.”Jem held up his hands.“I know I need to stop saying it.But it’s not right.Those guys followed River up to the lodge.They killed her.And now they’re going to get away with it because the sheriff doesn’t want the tourist industry getting butt hurt?”
“It always sounded like a stretch,” Tean said.“Even when it was happening, it seemed…unreal that they could have followed her there, that we could be tangled up with them again.Of course the local authorities would prefer to dismiss it.Even the agents investigating Rydel’s death were uncomfortable with the idea that we were dealing with— I don’t even know what to call them.A pack of serial killers?”
The strange smile had faded from Amy’s face, and she sat forward now, her expression animated.“That’s because they’re buying into the stereotype.Hollywood.TV.They love the sexually motivated serial killer, the loner, the genius who has a maze in his basement and has all the free time in the world to chop up bodies and never has to go to work.”
“Sexually motivated killers aren’t a Hollywood invention, though,” Tean said.“The BTK Killer, for example.Ted Bundy.There are more.”
