“There’s a wealth of evidence to support what Terry said at the end.”
Samuels stalked back to Ralph and stood looking down at him. “It was his fucking DNA in the semen sample, and DNA trumps everything. Terry killed him. I don’t know how he set up the rest, but he did.”
“Did you come here to convince me or yourself?”
“I don’t need any convincing. I only came to tell you that we now know who originally stole that white Econoline van.”
“At this point does it make any difference?” Ralph asked, but Samuels at last detected a gleam of interest in the man’s eyes.
“If you’re asking if it casts any light on this mess, no. But it’s fascinating. Do you want to hear or not?”
“Sure.”
“It was stolen by a twelve-year-old boy.”
“Twelve? Are you kidding me?”
“Nope, and he was on the road for months. Made it all the way to El Paso before a cop bagged him in a Walmart parking lot, sleeping in a stolen Buick. He stole four vehicles in all, but the van was the first. He drove it as far as Ohio before he ditched it and switched to another one. Left the ignition key in it, just the way we thought.” He said this with some pride, and Ralph supposed he had a right; it was nice that at least one of their theories going in had proved correct.
“But we still don’t know how it got down here, do we?” Ralph asked. Something was nagging him, though. Some small detail.
“No,” Samuels said. “It’s just a loose thread that isn’t loose anymore. I thought you’d like to know.”
“And now I do.”
Samuels drank a swallow of beer, then set the can on the picnic table. “I’m not running for re-election.”
“No?”
“No. Let that lazy asshole Richmond have the job, and see how people like him when he refuses to prosecute eighty per cent of the cases that land on his desk. I told your wife, and she didn’t exactly overwhelm me with sympathy.”
“If you think I’ve been telling her this is all your fault, Bill, you’re wrong. I haven’t said a word against you. Why would I? Arresting him at that fucking ballgame was my idea, and when I talk to the IA shooflies on Friday, I’ll make that clear.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
“But as I may have already mentioned, you didn’t exactly try to talk me out of it.”
“We believed him guilty. I still believe him guilty, dying declaration or no dying declaration. We didn’t check for an alibi because he knows everyone in the goddam town and we were afraid of spooking him—”
“Also we didn’t see the point, and boy, were we wrong about tha—”
“Yes, okay, your fucking point is fucking taken. We also believed he was extremely dangerous, especially to young boys, and on last Saturday night he was surrounded by them.”
“When we got to the courthouse, we should have taken him around back,” Ralph said. “I should have insisted on it.”
Samuels shook his head vehemently enough to cause the cowlick to come loose and spring to attention. “Don’t take that on yourself. Transfer from county jail to the courthouse is the sheriff’s purview. Not the city’s.”
“Doolin would’ve listened to me.” Ralph dropped his empty can back into the cooler and looked directly at Samuels. “And he would have listened to you. I think you know that.”
“Water over the dam. Or under the bridge. Or whatever the hell that saying is. We’re done. I guess the case might technically stay in the open file, but—”
“The technical term is OBI, open but inactive. It will stay that way even if Marcy Maitland brings a civil suit against the department, claiming her husband was killed as a result of negligence. And that’s a suit she could win.”
“Is she talking about doing that?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t scraped up enough nerve to speak to her yet. Howie might give you an idea of what she’s thinking.”
“Maybe I’ll talk to him. Try to pour a little oil on troubled waters.”
“You’re a fountain of wise sayings this evening, counselor.”
Samuels picked up his can of beer, then put it back with a small grimace. He saw Jeannie Anderson at the kitchen window, looking out at them. Just standing there, her face unreadable. “My mother used to subscribe to Fate.”
“Me too,” Ralph said moodily, “but after what happened to Terry, I’m not so sure. That Peterson kid came right out of nowhere. Nowhere.”
Samuels smiled a little. “I’m not talking about predestination, just a little digest-sized magazine full of stories about ghosts and crop circles and UFOs and God knows what else. Mom used to read me some of them when I was a kid. There was one in particular that fascinated me. ‘Footsteps in the Sand,’ it was called. It was about a newly married couple that went on their honeymoon in the Mojave Desert. Camping, you know. Well, one night they pitched their little tent in a grove of cottonwoods, and when the young bride woke up the next morning, her husband was gone. She walked out of the grove to where the sand started, and saw his tracks. She called to him, but there was no answer.”
Ralph made a horror-movie sound: Ooooo-oooo.
“She followed the tracks over the first dune, then over the second. The tracks kept getting fresher. She followed them over the third . . .”
“And the fourth, and the fifth!” Ralph said in an awed voice. “And she’s still walking to this day! Bill, I hate to cut your campfire story short, but I think I’m going to eat a piece of pie, take a shower, and go to bed.”
“No, listen to me. The third dune was as far as she got. His tracks went halfway down the far side, then stopped. Just stopped, with nothing but acres of sand all around. She never saw him again.”
“And you believe that?”
“No, I’m sure it’s bullshit, but belief isn’t the point. It’s a metaphor.” Samuels tried to soothe the cowlick down. The cowlick refused. “We followed Terry’s tracks, because that’s our job. Our duty, if you like that word better. We followed them until they stopped on Monday morning. Is there a mystery? Yes. Will there always be unanswered questions? Unless some new and amazing piece of information drops into our laps, there will be. Sometimes that happens. It’s why people continue to wonder what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. It’s why people keep trying to figure out what happened to the crew of the Mary Celeste. It’s why people argue about whether or not Oswald acted alone when he shot JFK. Sometimes the tracks just stop, and we have to live with that.”
“One big difference,” Ralph said. “The woman in your story about the footsteps could believe her husband was still alive somewhere. She could go on believing that until she was an old woman instead of a young bride. But when Marcy got to the end of her husband’s tracks, Terry was right there, dead on the sidewalk. She’s burying him tomorrow, according to the obituary in today’s paper. I imagine it’ll just be her and her girls. Along with fifty news vultures outside the fence, that is, yelling questions and snapping pictures.”
Samuels sighed. “Enough. I’m going home. I told you about the kid—Merlin Cassidy’s his name, by the way—and I can see you don’t want to listen to anything else.”