Every Pretty Thing by Chris Mooney

Author:Chris Mooney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2016-12-26T05:00:00+00:00

34

Noel didn’t speak until they were inside the SUV, after he’d shut the door. The front windshield was covered with frost, and their breath plumed in the air, fogging up the glass.

‘Well,’ he said, his voice empty, ‘that went pretty much as expected.’

When Darby spoke, her voice was just as empty. ‘Surprised he didn’t ask for his loaner back.’

‘What, you think he wants to be stuck in a car with us right now, playing chauffer?’

‘Given how pissed off he is, I think he’d want us to hand over our jackets and shoes and socks before making us walk back to the hotel.’

Noel nodded, either in agreement or because he felt the need to do something. Their empty words had nothing to do with the sheriff and everything to do with what happened inside the bedroom. Someone had hacked the baby monitor and listened in on them.

Noel turned the key in the ignition. ‘The way that guy screamed in the woods,’ he said.

Darby could hear it now, roaring inside her ears, that howl of outrage.

‘We have no way of knowing if the man we heard was, in fact, the Red Ryder,’ she said.

Noel leaned back against his seat and folded his arms across his chest as the car warmed up. ‘We also don’t have any proof it wasn’t him,’ he said. ‘Then again, what are the chances that it was someone else besides him?’

Unlikely, Darby thought.

Before calling Powers, they had discussed whether or not to share the information on Karen Decker, her letter and her belief that she’d found the Red Ryder here in Fort Jefferson. In the end, Noel had made the decision to keep the matter confidential until they came across some piece of evidence or some thread to follow. Right now, it was best to keep the matter contained as much as possible.

‘That place we found, the killing chamber,’ Noel began.

‘Those girls weren’t killed in there. If they were, the decomposition – the odours would have permeated through the walls and into the house. Someone would have complained.’

‘Not if you were the one who’d killed them and you lived there alone.’

‘True. But, given what I could see’ – she hadn’t entered the chamber, not wanting to disturb any evidence – ‘I couldn’t see the usual staining and such as you’d see with decomposition. That chamber, room, whatever, it’s … a sacred space. My guess is he took each of them someplace quiet and private – where he knew for certain no one would ever be able to hear them scream, and where no one would smell them when they decomposed. After nature had taken its course – when they were practically mummified – he brought them to this house.’

‘His house,’ Noel said.

‘We’ve already discussed this.’

Noel waved his hands. ‘I know, I know, we don’t know for certain the Red Ryder lived there at one point in time – at least not yet,’ he said. ‘But, Jesus, how many other people in Fort Jefferson do you think have a secret room behind a bookcase that leads to a room containing two dead bodies?’

‘I hear you.

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