“Who brought him here?”
“The state. They found him wandering the streets of Jackson in the summer of seventy-four. He seemed to function on the level of about an eight-year-old. Things haven’t changed all that much really.”
She made a sniffling sound and Louis glanced over at her. But she wasn’t crying, just reaching into her purse for a Kleenex so she could blow her nose.
They fell into a silence that was broken only when Alice had to give him some directions. Out here, in the emptiness of the hills and fields, with no streetlights to relieve the darkness, Louis wasn’t quite sure where he was.
The blue and red bubble lights of a cruiser were visible well before they pulled up to the Hidden Lake entrance. Louis produced the pass Dalum had given him, and the two cops at the guardhouse waved him through. Beyond the administration building, he saw a flurry of lights—small jerking ones, like flashlights. The Ardmore Police Department didn’t have any floodlights, so Dalum was waiting for the state to bring some. The few cops here were protecting the scene and walking the grounds.
Louis swung the Impala in next to a cruiser, but didn’t switch off the engine. He turned toward Alice. She was watching the flashlights, the Kleenex balled in her hand.
“It’s going to be hard to go back in there,” she said softly.
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Louis said.
“I have to. I have to finish boxing the records.”
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I won’t be. The superintendent has arranged for extra security.”
“Is there anyone else still working here?” Louis asked.
She shook her head. “It was just Rebecca and me. We were the last ones here. I was packing up the last of the records that were going to the state. She was helping the salvage company.”
“There was a salvage crew here this week?” Louis asked.
“Yes, a foreman and his crew. All the buildings have been locked for months and Rebecca had to take them around so they could do inventory.”
“Who else was around?”
Alice had to think for a moment. “Three security guards, the old fellow at the guardhouse, and two others who were only here at night. One walked the grounds watching for vandals and the other was posted out in the cemetery to keep an eye on the exhumation company’s equipment.”
“Anyone else in and out?”
“Just a few people claiming remains in the last week.” Now Alice had turned toward him. “Why are you asking?”
“No reason,” Louis said.
Alice started to rummage through her purse, pulling out her gloves. “Well, thank you for the ride,” she said.
“No problem.”
Alice opened the door and started to slide out.
“Miss Cooper, wait,” Louis said.
She looked back at him.
“Why do you think Charlie put flowers on Rebecca’s eyes?”
She hesitated. “Chief Dalum asked me the same thing. You talk like a policeman.”
Louis smiled. “I used to be one. It never really goes away.”
“Do you think Charlie did it?” she asked.
“I don’t know enough about him or Rebecca to answer that, Miss Cooper,” Louis said.
She sat back in the seat, looking back out the windshield at the black hulk of the administration building. “Charlie loved Rebecca,” she said. “She was the only one who really paid any attention to him, the only one who worked with him.”
“Worked?” Louis asked. “How?”
“She figured out that he loved it when she read to him, and that he could remember things he had heard and recite them back. It didn’t really matter what she read. Charlie just seemed to like to hear the words.”
A small smile tipped her lips. “She used to read him Shakespeare.” She saw the incredulous look on Louis’s face and her smile grew. “Well, only A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There’s a character in it named Oberon. I guess he was the king of the fairies or something, and Rebecca told Charlie that’s what he was.”
When Louis said nothing, Alice went on. “She didn’t mean it cruelly, and I’m sure Charlie didn’t understand the play. He just knows his name is in it.”
Alice’s smile faded and in the faint lights of the dash, Louis could see her eyes, full of questions.
“He loved her,” she said, more fiercely this time, as if she were trying to convince herself now.
“People sometimes kill the people they love,” Louis said.
She looked away. “That’s what the chief said.”
The heater had fogged the windows, and Louis could barely make out the ghostly play of the flashlights out by E Building. Dalum had told him he didn’t expect to find anything out there tonight. Tomorrow, in the daylight, Dalum and the state police would conduct a more thorough search.
A hundred and eighty acres. He wondered what else they’d find.
“Mr. Kincaid,” Alice said.
“Yes?”
“Do you still want to see Claudia DeFoe’s medical records?”
“Of course I do.”
Alice was still for a moment, head down, her fingers working the Kleenex. “I’m going to make you an offer,” she said. “I will show you the records, even let you copy them, if you’ll do something for me.”
He knew what was coming. And it surprised him that Alice would cross that line. But then he realized that she wasn’t crossing it for him.
“You want me to prove Charlie didn’t do this.”
“Yes,” Alice said. “Or at least prove beyond any doubt he did. So the town knows for sure. So I know for sure.”
For an instant he wondered if she really wanted the truth. He had known other people, family members of accused murderers, who said they wanted to know the truth, but most didn’t really. No one wanted to know that they were close—be it next door or by blood—to a killer. But he suspected Alice was different. She had seen the worst of things here. And in many ways, she had to be stronger than he was. Stronger than most cops he knew.
“You have a deal, Miss Cooper.”
“Call me Alice,” she said.
“When can I see the records?” Louis asked.
“We’re closed now for Thanksgiving weekend,” Alice said. “How about Monday morning? We don’t have much time after that. The hospital will be closed by December thirty-first.”
“Monday’s fine. I’ll be here early.”
Alice pushed open the door against a rush of cold air. She whispered a soft thank-you and she was gone.
Louis waited until she had climbed in her car and he saw the headlights go on before he even backed out. He followed Alice down the narrow drive and through the gate. She turned east, toward Ardmore. He sat for a moment, watching her taillights grow smaller.
His mind was already working on Charlie and Rebecca and the plastic flowers. And he was hearing Charlie’s strange, childlike voice as they stood by the single white shoe in the woods.
I got them from the cemetery.
What were you doing in