فصل 24 - بخش 11

24

Once they were in the parking lot, Ralph got out. He met Holly coming around the hood of the truck, and this time it was she who hugged him. It was brief but strong. The rental SUV had mostly burned itself out, and the smoke was thinning.

Yune moved – carefully, with several winces and hisses of pain – into the passenger seat. When Ralph leaned in, he said, ‘You’re sure he’s dead?’ Ralph knew it wasn’t Hoskins he was asking about. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. He didn’t exactly melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, but close. When the shit hits the fan out here, they’re going to find nothing but his clothes and maybe a bunch of dead worms.’

‘Worms?’ Yune frowned.

‘Based on how fast they were dying,’ Holly said, ‘I think the worms will decay very rapidly. But there will be DNA on the clothes, and if they should happen to run it against Claude’s, they could get a match.’

‘Or a mix of Claude’s and Terry’s, because his change-over wasn’t complete. You saw that, right?’

Holly nodded.

‘Which would make it worthless. I think Claude is going to be all right.’ Ralph took his cell phone from his pocket and put it in Yune’s good hand. ‘You’ll be okay to make the calls as soon as you start getting some bars?’

‘Claro.’

‘And you know the order of the calls?’

As Yune ticked them off, they heard faint sirens coming from the direction of Tippit. Someone had noticed the smoke after all, it seemed, but the person who saw it hadn’t bothered to come and investigate himself. Which was probably good. ‘DA Bill Samuels. Then your wife. Chief Geller after that. Finishing up with Captain Horace Kinney of the Texas Highway Patrol. All the numbers are in your contacts. The Boltons we talk to in person.’

‘I’ll talk to them,’ Holly said. ‘You’re going to sit still and rest your arm.’

‘Very important Claude and Lovie get on board with the story,’ Ralph said. ‘Now go on. If you’re still here when the fire trucks arrive, you’ll be stuck.’

With the seat and the mirror adjusted to her satisfaction, Holly turned to Yune and to Ralph, still leaning in the passenger door. She looked tired but not exhausted. Her tears had passed. He saw nothing on her face but concentration and purpose.

‘We need to keep this simple,’ she said. ‘As simple and as close to the truth as we can get.’

‘You’ve been through this before,’ Yune said. ‘Or something like it. Haven’t you?’

‘Yes. And they will believe us, even if they’re left with questions that can never be answered. You both know why. Ralph, those sirens are getting closer and we have to go.’

Ralph closed the passenger door and watched them drive away in the dead Flint City detective’s pickup. He considered the hardpan Holly would have to cross in order to avoid the chain, and thought she’d manage it just fine, skirting the worst of the holes and washes in order to spare Yune’s arm. Just when he thought he couldn’t admire her more … he did.

He went to Alec’s body first, because it was the harder one to retrieve. The vehicle fire was almost out, but the heat radiating from it was fierce. Alec’s face and arms had blackened, his head had been burned bald, and as Ralph grabbed him by the belt and began hauling him toward the gift shop, he tried not to think of the crispy bits and melted gobbets that were being left behind. And of how much Alec now looked like the man who had been at the courthouse that day. All he needs is the yellow shirt over his head, Ralph thought, and that was too much. He let go of the belt and managed to stagger twenty paces before bending over, grasping his knees, and throwing up everything in his stomach. When that part was done, he went back and finished what he had started, dragging first Alec and then Howie Gold into the shade of the gift shop.

He rested, getting his breath back, then examined the shop’s door. It was padlocked, but the door itself looked weather-worn and flimsy. The second time he hit it, the hinges gave way. The interior was shadowy and explosively hot. The shelves were not entirely empty; a few souvenir tee-shirts emblazoned with I EXPLORED THE MARYSVILLE HOLE still remained. He took two and shook off the dust as best he could. Outside, the sirens were very close. Ralph thought they wouldn’t want to drive their expensive equipment across the hardpan; they’d stop to cut the chain, instead. He still had a little time.

He knelt and covered the faces of the two men. Good men who had fully expected to have years of life left in front of them. Men with families who would grieve. The only good thing (if there was anything good about it) was that their grief would not become a monster’s meal.

He sat beside them, forearms resting on his knees, chin on his chest. Was he responsible for these deaths, too? Partly, perhaps, because the chain always led back to that catastrophically unwise public arrest of Terry Maitland. But even in his exhaustion, he felt he did not need to own all of what had happened.

They will believe us, Holly had said. And you both know why.

Ralph did. They would believe even a shaky story, because footsteps didn’t just end and there was no way maggots could hatch inside a ripe cantaloupe with its tough skin intact. They would believe because to admit any other possibility was to call reality itself into question. The irony was inescapable: the very thing that had protected the outsider during its long life of murder would now protect them.

No end to the universe, Ralph thought, and waited in the shade of the gift shop for the fire trucks to arrive.