It seemed late when Crandell stepped into the room, but it was closer to dawn. I hadn’t slept, thinking all night. He checked my restraints and I saw his watch: six a.m. I did the dopey-eyed look, moved slow as my heart beat fast. It had been hours since Miss Gracie had disconnected the IV tube, now running beneath the sheet and cover, dripping not into my blood, but the waste can beside the bed. Yesterday I had felt like a head attached to a rotting log. Now I felt muscles, ligaments, life and motion beneath my neck.
“Figure anything else out, Ryder?” Crandell asked, tapping the half-depleted IV bag, letting his finger trail along the tubing. He started to push aside the sheet and check my shunt.
I snapped my head his way. “This is all a setup, right? A major league piece of sleight of mind. Lucas isn’t a psycho.”
It got his attention. He dropped the sheet and raised an eyebrow.
“You’ve been thinking, Ryder.”
I babbled a free-association of ideas stewing in my head for hours. Anything to keep his eyes on my face.
“Lucas was acting out, a high-strung kid in a family of self-absorbed greed mongers. He may have taken youthful rebellion to the limit, but he wasn’t pathological. The brothers’ problem was Lucas’s brain. If he calmed down, Maylene might think Lucas was the one to hold the reins of the family businesses, not Buckie or Nelson or Racine, a trio of puddingheads.”
Crandell winked. “Those puddingheads are smart enough to call me. Made me a rich man.”
I said, “I know about the DuCaines, about Tree-house Boy. The family precedent for homicidal psychopathology.”
Crandell shrugged. “It was a fucked-up family.”
“Lucas’s brain threatened the brothers. So you or someone killed Frederika Holtkamp. Told Maylene that Lucas did it, that he had an obsession with Freddy’s teacher.”
“If you found out about her killer brother, you know the old gal knew a bit about obsession.”
“When Lucas escaped last month, you killed Taneesha Franklin in case Lucas made his way to Maylene and tried to convince her he wasn’t a maniac.”
Crandell raised an interested eyebrow. “My, aren’t we figuring some things out! Ms. Franklin got wind of some of the dealings, little stuff. She played junior reporter, going to the KEI offices and asking questions. What a dumb bitch. We used one of old Buck Senior’s knives, a family heirloom.”
“Lucas’s prints on it, of course.”
“Easily done. Shuttles got us a picture of the murder weapon from a Forensics report. We showed Mama Kincannon the family knife in a photo on official Alabama Forensics Bureau stationery and she fainted dead away. She truly thinks Luke is the incarnation of Tree-house Boy.”
“You killed Taneesha somewhere else, drove the car to the scene.”
Crandell clapped his big hands and grinned.
“Did it in an ol’ barn. Franklin talked and talked. She didn’t know squat, as it turned out, a waste of time. I made the car look like a robbery, drove it across town on a hauler, waiting for Shuttles to get there and plant the knife with the prints.”
Just like a car hauler had picked up Lucas’s car after he’d been set up for the Holtkamp killing, Pettigrew’s tracks to nowhere. I recalled another discrepancy. The trucker Dell had described the Wookiee figure as apelike, but Leroy Dinkins had described Lucas’s build as tall and slender. Crandell was wide-built, with short and bowed legs. A simian body.
I said, “It wasn’t Lucas the trucker saw.”
Crandell patted at the sides of his head.
“Ten-dollar Halloween wig-and-beard combo. Lucas never shaved in here, more youthful rebellion. When Mama read the police reports, she figured it was her boy indulging himself again.”
“And you’re going to bring him back.”
“It won’t take long. He’ll stay close. Mama’s still talking about keeping him here, putting more locks on the doors or whatever. But no more pussyfooting this time, Ryder.”
“What are you talking about?”
His grin went to a thousand watts. His eyes glittered with the wonder of himself.
“Lucas is going to kill one more time, Ryder. But no more holiday at the Ritz. Mama’s finally gonna allow a complete lobotomy on Lukie-boy. We already got a Mexican doctor to do the digging.”
Disgust roiled in my guts. The three older Kincannon brothers were going to turn Lucas Kincannon into a vegetable, ending the threat of his superior mind.
“Who’s Lucas going to kill?” I said.
Crandell gave it a two-beat pause. He looked carefully into my eyes, loving the moment.
“Buck Kincannon’s girlfriend, Ryder. A pretty little blond newslady. Ever met her?”
Nautilus walked through the door of the Police Academy at eight in the morning. He’d been up until three, then grabbed a few hours of sleep, knowing his head had to be ready for what he might have to create. What was needed was confirmation, a sign that pulled it all together.
These days the academy was run by Major Dominick Purselli. Dom Purselli had been Shuttles’s training officer and might be able to fill in details on the kid, make sense of Logan’s story. Purselli knew Logan, the two were buddies, actually, and had been partners years ago. Like Logan, Purselli was something of an old warhorse, he just had a much better temperament.
Nautilus opened the door to Purselli’s office. A squat woman with wiry hair sat at his desk.
“Hey, Alice, Dom in?”
“He’s on vacation this week.”
“Vacation?”
“Somewhere up in Canada, moose country. Due back in a week. You teaching a class again this year?”
“Trying not to.”
“We’ll get you.” Her face fell suddenly. “Harry, about Carson…”
Nautilus waved her words off.
She said, “I know. Tough to talk about.”
Nautilus jammed his hands in his pockets and walked past the Hall of Heroes, photos of officers who’d died in service to the force. There was a space for the next picture, the hanger already in place. He closed his eyes as he passed by, opened them as he passed twenty feet of displays honoring those who’d made some form of contribution to the Mobile Police Department.
Almost out the door, he snapped his fingers and spun, jogging back to the display case. There were plaques, photos, newspaper clippings. The items were arranged chronologically. When did Shuttles start? Nautilus checked dates, found the most recent. He saw a big wood-and-brass plaque with a photo of Nelson Kincannon mounted on it, the photo and a newspaper clipping coated with acrylic. Kincannon was canted toward the camera, eyes squinted above a big toothy grin.
Nelson Kincannon was shaking hands with Tyree Shuttles.
Feeling sweat prickle on his back, Nautilus read how, a few years back, Tyree Shuttles had been a recipient of the KEI scholarship for law-enforcement excellence, a recognition paying for all his college courses and any living expenses incurred, and granting him a “Merit Endowment” of fifty thousand dollars.
One hand gives…