The Last Dead Girl (18 page)

Before long he would come to the end of the trail. It might be wise to break off the pursuit. He hadn't forgotten that Lanik might have a gun.

Still, he was reluctant to let Lanik go.

K's car was parked on Clinton Drive. He assumed that Lanik would have one too. Did it make sense to try to keep following the man?

Suppose they wound up on a lonely road somewhere. A road with sharp curves. That might be something K could work with, especially if the rain kept falling. Simon Lanik murders Jana Fletcher, then dies in a car wreck. Would that be plausible?

It might be worth trying. K jogged along the path. He felt a current of night wind. He had let Lanik get too far ahead. The path twisted among dead beech trees. K came to the trailhead by the ball field in Cypress Park. He stopped at the wood's edge. Saw his car in the distance. He spotted another—a sports coupe with a spoiler on the back—that could have belonged to Lanik. K couldn't tell if there was anyone inside.

He waited for the lights of the coupe to come on, for the vehicle to pull away. Nothing happened. Could Lanik have left on foot? There was no sign of him on the street. Was it possible that K had gotten ahead of him—had passed him in the woods without realizing it?

K listened to the rain. It was falling more steadily. He heard a subtle change in its sound. He turned very slowly, knowing what he would see—and there stood Simon Lanik in his tan coat. Lanik had his left arm extended and a gun in his fist, inches from K's face. The rain pattered his sleeve.

Lanik said, “You are not as quiet as you think, my friend.”

K stared at the muzzle of the gun and felt afraid. “Oh god,” he cried. “Don't shoot me.”

He could hear the panic in his tone. It sounded quite authentic. But part of him felt calm; part of him was observing and calculating. He could get through this if he handled it right. The panicked voice was good, he thought. Let's have more of that.

“Please,” he said. “I've got money in my wallet. Take it. Whatever you want.”

Lanik stood impassive in the rain. “Who are you? Why were you following me?”

“Following? I wasn't, I swear.” That's good, K thought. More. “I'm looking for my dog,” he said, the lie coming easily. “My wife brings him to the park sometimes and lets him off the leash. She brought him today, and he ran off—”

“So you look for him now,” said Lanik. “At night. In the rain.”

“I swear.”

“With binoculars.”

K had his arms spread at his sides, to show that he was harmless. He had the binoculars in his right hand. He glanced at them as if he had forgotten them.

“I found these in the woods,” he said. “Someone must have dropped them. Look, the strap is broken.”

Simon Lanik held his gun steady. “I don't think you found them. I think maybe you were spying on me.”

K dialed up the panic in his voice. “Spying? Why would I? I don't even know you.”

“Maybe you spy on other people too. Maybe you are
zvrhlík
. A pervert. You look at girls through their windows at night. Yes?”

“No. That's not true. My dog—”

Lanik inched forward. The muzzle of the gun hovered in front of K's forehead. “Maybe it is not enough to look,” Lanik said. “Maybe you kill them too.”

“Jesus, no—”

Lanik moved the muzzle down and pressed it against K's cheek. “Maybe you looked in Jana Fletcher's window. You know who I'm talking about. The girl who died.”

K let the panic drain from his voice until there was nothing left but anguish. “No. I'm just trying to find my dog. I swear.”

What happened next gave K hope. Lanik dragged the muzzle of the gun across his cheek, but he didn't pull the trigger. K watched Lanik's face. He could almost see the man thinking. Lanik didn't believe the story about the dog. That was plain. It was also plain to K that Lanik wanted to shoot him—but was afraid to do it, because someone might hear. There were houses across the street from the park. So Lanik wouldn't shoot. But he wouldn't let K go either.

Lanik made a decision: he moved the gun away from K's cheek. Time slowed and K knew what would come next. Lanik would take his finger off the trigger and adjust his grip on the pistol. He would draw it back and use the butt to hit K hard on the temple, to knock him out. After that, if he wanted, he would be able to finish K off quietly.

K was unafraid. Once Lanik took his finger off the trigger, the gun would be nothing but a blunt instrument. And K had a blunt instrument of his own.

It was happening. K saw it all with an unnatural clarity. Rain on the sleeve of Lanik's coat, and the man's finger moving outside the trigger guard, his arm drawing back. K tightened his hold on the binoculars and swung them up under Lanik's chin.

They found their mark and Lanik's head snapped back. He groaned. His finger fumbled for the trigger of the pistol but he was too slow. K slammed the binoculars against his wrist and the gun dropped to the ground. Lanik took a step backward, but before he had a chance to recover, K charged in and swept the binoculars across his face. The blow connected with the side of Lanik's nose, and K heard the sound of cartilage cracking.

From there something primal took over. Lanik stumbled—K remembered that. He remembered the rain going silent and the dark wood turning to inky black. The blackness went on for a long time. When it passed, K was kneeling on the ground. His muscles ached. His fingers were tangled in Lanik's greasy hair. He was pushing the man's face into a pile of wet leaves.

The rain had soaked through the back of K's shirt. He let go of Lanik's hair. Lanik didn't move. The binoculars lay on the ground nearby. K picked them up and realized they were slick with blood.

He got to his feet and turned in a dazed circle. Saw Lanik's gun lying at the base of a tree. He reached for it. It felt solid in his hand, and light. He slipped it into his pocket.

He stood over Lanik's body and thought: You shouldn't leave him here. You should take him away. Hide him.

He stepped to the edge of the woods and looked out. At the lights glowing in the windows of the houses across the street. How many people were still awake? How many potential witnesses? There was his car, on the other side of the park. If he wanted to take Lanik's body, he would have to drag it all the way across the ball field. Without anyone seeing.

He knew better than to try.

He checked Lanik's pulse before he left. The man was dead. Call it a win, K thought. He spent a minute going through Lanik's pockets. Nothing of any value except a wallet. K took it.

A cold wind followed him across the field to his car. He tossed the binoculars on the passenger seat, started the engine. He switched on the wipers and sat with his hands on the steering wheel. A shiver ran through him. He thought about the rain. He could make it stop, if he really wanted to. All he had to do was concentrate.

He turned the car's heater on as he pulled away—heading south, toward home. He let the rain fall.

A
fter my talk with Simon Lanik, as I watched him disappear into the woods, I thought about dialing 911. He was a murder suspect, after all. A solid citizen would have made the call. But I think it would have felt like a betrayal. Not because I cared so much about Simon, but because I thought I owed something to his grandmother, who had given me a place to live.

So I left my phone in my pocket. I stayed outside, looking up at the clouds and the moon behind them. Even after I felt the first of the rain, I didn't go in. I was listening to the crickets and thinking about Jana.

My clothes were wet through by the time I went inside. I got out of them and took a warm shower and went to bed.

The next morning, when I heard about Lanik's death, I wondered what might have happened if I'd done things differently—if I'd made that call to the police. I wondered if it could have saved him.

•   •   •

I
t was a jogger who discovered Lanik's body, a man who lived on Clinton Drive and regularly ran through the woods next to Cypress Park. He found Simon around seven a.m., long after the weather had cleared.

The local news outlets got wind of the story shortly after the police were called to the scene. I heard about it first on the radio Jana kept in the kitchen, and that sent me looking for the spare TV I'd brought over from the old apartment. I found it and set it up on the kitchen counter, and soon I was watching reports shot from the basketball court in the park—which was as close as the TV crews were able to get to the body.

By ten a.m. there was a news van on the street outside and I was looking at live video of the duplex—as a backdrop for a correspondent with a microphone. The news people knocked on Agnes Lanik's door and she ignored them, and they came over and knocked on mine and I did the same.

Frank Moretti turned up around eleven, and the correspondent shouted a question at him as he went by. He didn't say anything. Agnes let him in and he spent an hour with her, and when he left he went by the back way and came onto my patio. I saw him through the window in the back door. He waved.

“That woman makes me tired,” he said as I let him in.

“Have a seat then,” I said. “Do you want coffee? It's already brewed.”

He nodded and I poured him a cup and refreshed my own. He didn't sit down right away. He went over and looked at my boots by the front door.

I put out cream and sugar and switched off the TV. Both of us settled in at the table.

“I know she speaks English,” Moretti said. “But if she doesn't like the question, she'll pretend to be confused. She'll rattle on in Czech. I got her to admit that her grandson visited her last night. But I still don't know where he was staying for the last week and a half, or who might have been helping him. We found his car on Clinton Drive near the park. For all I know, he's been leaving it there every night and coming here to sleep. Do you have any insight on that?”

I stirred my coffee. “I'm afraid not.”

He frowned. “Are you going to start talking Czech to me?”

I thought it over and said, “I saw Simon last night as he was leaving—around eleven-thirty. We talked. He might have come here other times, but I don't know.”

“What did you talk about?”

“He told me he didn't kill Jana Fletcher.”

“Naturally.”

“I tried to persuade him to turn himself in. Sort things out.”

“That was good of you,” Moretti said dryly. “To try persuasion.”

“There wasn't much else I could do,” I said. “He had a gun.”

“Really?”

“He claimed he did. I didn't see it. Did you find a gun on his body?”

Moretti tasted his coffee without taking his eyes off me. “Maybe you could let me ask another question,” he said, “before we get to yours. Did you go into the woods last night?”

“No,” I said. “But you already knew that. You've inspected my boots.”

Moretti shrugged. “You might've worn a different pair.”

“Do I need to call my lawyer?”

“If you do, I might start to think you're guilty.” He took a moment to rub his eyes. “As it happens, Agnes backs you up. She watched you talking to her grandson last night, and she says you stayed out on the lawn afterward. You didn't follow him into the woods. That was the one useful piece of information I got from her. She says you were out there for ten or fifteen minutes after Simon left. You stayed out even after the rain started. She thought it was odd.”

“It probably was,” I said.

“Why did you do it?”

“I guess the rain felt good.”

Moretti turned quiet for a moment. Then he asked, “How convinced are you that Lanik had a gun?”

“I can't be sure,” I said. “But I think he did. He said it was Russian. A Makarov. Ask Agnes. Maybe she can tell you.”

“I don't expect her to tell me anything,” he said, tapping a finger against his coffee cup. “We didn't find a gun. And if he had one, you have to wonder why he didn't use it to defend himself.”

“Maybe he never got a chance.”

“Maybe. It's also possible there was no gun.” Moretti hesitated, then decided to share something with me. “All we really know so far is that someone beat him to death—using a fairly heavy object. Whatever it was, the attacker took it away with him. He took Lanik's wallet too. So it could've been a robbery that went too far.”

“A robbery?”

“Sure. There've been a dozen robberies and assaults in or around Cypress Park over the past year. And those are only the ones that got reported. It's not a place you want to hang around at night.”

I studied Moretti's face, trying to tell if he was serious. “You don't really believe that, do you? That Simon Lanik ran into a robber in the woods?”

“What's your alternative?” he asked. “What should I believe?”

“What if someone was looking for him,” I said, “waiting in the woods, watching his grandmother's house?”

“And who would that be?”

“Whoever killed Jana Fletcher.”

Moretti let out an impatient breath. “You know my view about that—Simon Lanik killed Jana Fletcher.”

“I know that's your theory. I think you need to reconsider it.”

He planted his elbows on the table. “You need to give me a reason. You want me to believe that some unknown person killed Jana, and the same person was hiding in the woods last night, hoping for a chance to kill Simon Lanik. What's his motive?”

“He's been watching the news,” I said. “He knows Lanik is your suspect. If Lanik's dead, you're less likely to keep working on Jana's case. The real killer can stop worrying.”

“If that's what he wanted, he could've done nothing. I would've gone on suspecting Lanik, and he would be in the clear.”

“Maybe he's impatient. Maybe he doesn't have much self-control.”

“You're making up a story about him,” Moretti said. “That's fine, but I can't just make things up. I need evidence.”

He was right. “What about footprints?” I said. “If someone was watching the house, he would have seen Lanik here and then followed him through the woods. There'd be a trail.”

Moretti nodded. “There would be. Ideally. I'll tell you about the footprints we found. There are three recent sets of prints crossing the baseball field in the park. They show up clearest in the dirt of the infield. There's one set leading toward the woods that belongs to Simon Lanik. Another set belongs to the jogger who found the body. The third probably belongs to the killer. His prints lead toward the woods and then away from them again.”

He paused to sip his coffee. “Once you get into the woods, things are different. The ground there is covered in layers of old leaves. It's just about impossible to make out distinct footprints. I doubt if we'll be able to tell for sure if someone was following Lanik.”

Another pause. Moretti let out a long breath. “To be honest,” he said, “if I thought someone followed Lanik, I'd be inclined to think it was you. But Agnes gives you an alibi. It should have taken Lanik about ten minutes to walk through the woods, and you were in the backyard all that time. Apart from that, I've got the third set of footprints in the baseball field. I know they're not yours—they're not the right size. So you didn't kill him.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Which means I need to find another explanation,” Moretti said. “And it seems to me the likeliest one might be the one I've been suggesting: Lanik ran into someone who was lurking around the park—someone who tried to rob him and wound up killing him.”

I shook my head. “I don't believe it.”

“You don't have to. But it fits the evidence I have right now.”

“I don't believe that Simon Lanik killed Jana either.”

Moretti showed me his palms. “We could argue about that as much as you like,” he said. “But the fact remains that Lanik knew Jana, and he had a history of preying on women. I can't reject him as a suspect in her murder just because you have a different theory.”

He looked sincere, I thought. A careworn cop in a dark gray suit. Those tired eyes, steady on mine. But I couldn't be sure of him. And after all, that was the question: whether Frank Moretti was sincere.

“It's more than a theory,” I said. “It's a fact that Jana was trying to exonerate Gary Dean Pruett—trying to prove he didn't kill his wife. Which means that whoever did kill her would have a reason to want to silence Jana. You know all about the Pruett case. You were the lead detective.”

I half expected a denial. I didn't get one.

“Yes, I was,” Moretti said.

“You never told me that,” I said. “I had to find out from Gary Pruett.”

He looked unfazed. “I think we've been over this, Mr. Malone. I don't answer to you.”

“Pruett told me something else. He said Jana intended to talk to you about the case. Did she?”

“Yes, she did. I talked to her back in March.”

“So you knew from the start that there could be a connection between Jana's murder and Cathy Pruett's.”

“The only way there's a connection is if Cathy Pruett's murderer is running around free,” Moretti said patiently. “I happen to know he's in a cell in Dannemora.”

“What if he's not? What if Gary Pruett is innocent?”

“He's guilty. That's what I told Jana Fletcher, and that's what I'm telling you.”

“And if you're wrong?”

“I'm not wrong. But why don't you go ahead and tell me who you think I should be looking for.”

I traced the rim of my coffee cup. “Let me ask you something first. Jana had a file of notes on the Pruett case. I saw it in her desk before she died, but now it's gone. Did you take it?”

“No, I didn't take any files.”

“Then her killer must've taken it.”

“I can think of other possibilities,” Moretti said. “She moved it. She threw it away.”

“Let me ask you something else. When you talked to her in March, did she mention Luke and Eli Daw?”

He showed me an indulgent smile, as if he'd been waiting for me to bring up the Daws. “Yes,” he said. “Jana thought they might have killed Cathy Pruett. She got the idea from Gary Pruett.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“I told her Gary Pruett is bound to try to sell that idea to anyone who'll listen. He tried to sell it to his lawyer, who tried to sell it to me. I didn't buy it.”

“Why not?”

“Because there's nothing to connect the Daws to Cathy Pruett, other than the fact that they were once students at her high school. Forget about the Daws.”

“I can't,” I said. “I think Luke Daw killed Jana. You asked me who you should be looking for. That's my answer.”

“Well, unfortunately, he's long gone.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “Maybe he was in the woods last night.”

Moretti pushed his chair back from the table and stood. I did the same. I watched him rub his brow as if it ached. Heard him sigh.

“Luke Daw hasn't been seen for a year and a half, not since he shot his cousin Eli,” he said. “But you want me to believe that he killed Jana Fletcher, and Jolene Halliwell, and Simon Lanik. Why should I?”

I thought of the wooden cube on the fireplace mantel. “Popsicle sticks,” I said.

“Oh, for god's sake,” said Moretti. “Don't start in again about popsicle sticks.”

“When Luke shot his cousin and disappeared—that was your case too. You investigated. So you must've gone into Luke's trailer. You must've seen his models. So when I told you I found a popsicle stick in the woods, you must've thought of Luke Daw.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Not even for a moment?”

“Maybe for a moment,” Moretti said. “And then it occurred to me that there might've been a child in the woods with a popsicle. Look, you need to think about whether you're taking this too far. You're living in a dead girl's apartment, and apparently you've been talking to convicts and snooping around trailers and who knows what else. Maybe I can't stop you, but I don't have to follow your lead. You're not going to convince me that Luke Daw was involved in Jana Fletcher's death, because there's no reason to think he was anywhere near her on the day she died. Never mind killing her—there's no reason to think he ever heard of her.”