Bad Men

“So, why now? Why should it be so strong now?”

“A convergence of circumstances, maybe. A new factor on the island that we don’t recognize, or haven’t noticed.”

“You’re thinking it’s dangerous?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you think it’s-” Dupree paused, uncertain that he wanted to use the word that came to mind, then relented.

“Do you think it’s evil?”

“Evil, that’s a moral concept, a human concept,” said Amerling. “It could be that whatever is on this island has got no concept of morality and no need for it. It just wants what it wants.”

“Which is?”

“I don’t know that. If I knew it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“I’m not sure I even want to be having this conversation as it is.”

The postmaster gri

“Anyone else apart from us three was here, they’d say we were two foolish old men and a giant driven simple by what was ailing him.” Larry Amerling was never one to sugarcoat his words, but Dupree felt as if the older man had been reading his thoughts.

Jack interrupted.

“I heard from her father that there was some question about the Lauter girl’s death,” he said.

“Yeah, I heard that too,” said Amerling, “although I heard it from you.” He cocked an eyebrow at the painter.

“I just thought you might like to know,” said Jack. “Hell, you know just about everything else. I figure a gap in your knowledge would bug you more than most folks.”

Dupree didn’t answer immediately. He wasn’t sure that he should, but then both men already seemed to know as much as he did, or more.

“They found insect matter in her mouth, and beneath her fingernails,” he said. “It came from a moth, a tomato hornworm. They’re big and ugly and they’re all dead by September, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever even seen one on this island until recently.”

“I saw one on a tree in the cemetery, when they were laying Sylvie Lauter down,” said Jack. “I took it home, looked it up in a book, then pi

“Paint it badly,” said Amerling. “You’d have to stick a note on it so folks would know what it was.”

“I’m not that bad,” said Jack.

“Yes, you are.”

“You came to my exhibition at the Lions Club.”

“There was free food.”

“I hope it poisoned you.”

“Nope, it was pretty good, unlike what was on the walls.”

Dupree interrupted them.

“Gentlemen! You’re like two old dogs fighting. It’s embarrassing.”

He picked up his cap and flicked at some dust.

“I was out at Doug Newton’s place. There was a moth there too, same type. I saw it on the curtains in his mother’s bedroom.”

But he wasn’t talking to the two older men as much as to himself. He ran his hands through his hair, then placed his cap carefully on his head. Moths. Why moths? Moths were attracted to flames, to light. Was that what it was, some form of attraction toward Sylvie Lauter and the old Newton woman? What did they have in common?

The answer came to him immediately.

Dying, that was what they had in common.

“How long have we got?” asked Dupree.

“Not long,” said Amerling. “I go outside, it’s like I can hear the island humming. The birds were the last sign. It’s bad news when even the birds fear to fly.”

“So what do we do?” asked Dupree.

“We wait, I guess. We lock our doors. We don’t go wandering near the Site at night. It’s coming soon, whatever it is. Then we’ll know. For good or bad, then we’ll know for sure.”

Chapter Seven

Moloch allowed them to rest for the remainder of the day, choosing to travel north under cover of darkness. Later that morning, Powell and Shepherd headed down to Marie’s Home Cooking and bought enough takeout for the day. On the way back to Perry Avenue, they stopped off at Big Gary’s Liquor Store and picked up two bottles of Wild Turkey to keep out the cold. Dexter and Braun took an opportunity to rest, once they had finished conversing softly with Shepherd in Karen Meyer’s kitchen.

Moloch had learned enough about Meyer from their past dealings to know that she was the kind of woman who would have few visitors. Her house was the last on the street, sheltered by trees and not overlooked by any of her neighbors. He didn’t know if she had a lover, but there were no photographs on the refrigerator, no little tokens of love on the shelf by the cookbooks. He went through her studio, heedless of the fingerprints that he left behind. If they found him, they already had more than enough evidence to justify the taking of his life. It mattered little to him if they added Karen Meyer’s name to the final tally.

The studio was neat and her computer was password protected. Moloch guessed that anyone trying to gain access to it without the password would probably have just two or three chances before the computer automatically commenced erasing its memory. He searched her bedroom and found a shoe box on the top shelf of her closet. It contained a collection of letters from a woman named Jessica, most of them expressions of love except for the most recent, dated October 1997, which detailed her reasons for ending the relationship. Jessica had met someone else, apparently. Moloch found it curious that Karen Meyer had retained the breakup letter. It seemed to suggest to him an element of emotional masochism in the forger’s personality. Perhaps some part of her might even have enjoyed what Willard and Leonie had done to her in the basement, although he somehow doubted it.

Her body still lay on the basement floor. She had resisted for longer than he expected, which surprised him. He had always thought of Meyer as a pragmatist. She must have known that she would have to tell him what she knew eventually, but something had made her hold out for so long that he feared she would die before she revealed the location of his wife and son. She had feelings for them. Moloch wondered if Meyer and his wife had been lovers. The possibility angered, and aroused, him.

Maria

Marian became Maria

His son was now named Da

Moloch didn’t much care what happened to the boy. He might take him with him when he left the island, or he might leave him. He might kill him, or he might corrupt him. He hadn’t decided yet. All he knew was that he felt no paternal instincts whatsoever toward him, but his wife would understand before she died that it was within his power to do whatever he chose with his son.

He overturned the shoe box and watched as a jumble of photographs fell on Karen Meyer’s unmade bed. He went through them with his fingertips, turning over those that had landed facedown, until he found the one that he had suspected-even hoped-might be among them. She was a little different now: her hair was darker and she seemed to be downplaying her natural good looks. When he had met her first in Biloxi, she had used makeup with a delicacy that had impressed him, his experience of casino waitresses having led him to expect all of them to resemble the brides of Mary Kay. Now her face was completely unadorned, her hair lank. Her face was very pale and the photograph, taken in a photo booth, suggested that she had not slept well in a very long time. A perceptive man might look twice at her and begin to see something of the beauty that she was trying to disguise, and a very unusual man might suspect something of the history of pain and abuse that had led her to take such steps. The boy was on her lap, his finger raised to the camera, a birthday crown upon his head.