She went to chapter nine of the DVD, the second-to-last. The action picked up with one of the luchadoras—Carlotta—cornering the hooded monk in a deserted warehouse. He tried to escape by way of a convenient ladder. Carlotta grabbed him by the back of his billowing robe and tossed him over her shoulder. He did a midair flip and landed on his backside. The hood flew back, revealing a face that was not a face at all, but a lumpy blank. Carlotta screamed as two glowing prongs emerged from where the eyes should have been. They must have had some kind of mystic repelling power, because Carlotta staggered against the wall and held one hand up in front of her luchadora mask, trying to shield herself.
“Stop it,” Marcy said. “Oh God, please.”
Holly poked her laptop. The image on the screen disappeared, but Ralph could still see it: an optical effect that was prehistoric compared to the CGI stuff you could view in any Cineplex these days, but effective enough if you had heard a certain little girl’s story of the intruder in her bedroom.
“Do you think that’s what your daughter saw, Mrs. Maitland?” Holly asked. “Not exactly, I don’t mean that, but—”
“Yes. Of course. Straws for eyes. That’s what she said. Straws for eyes.”
11
Ralph stood up. His voice was calm and level. “With all due respect, Ms. Gibney, and considering your past . . . uh, exploits . . . I have no doubt that respect is due, there is no supernatural monster named El Cuco who lives on the blood of children. I’d be the first to admit that this case—the two cases, if they’re linked, and it seems more and more certain that they are—has some very strange elements, but this is a false trail you’re leading us down.”
“Let her finish,” Jeannie said. “Before you close your mind entirely, for God’s sake let her have her say.”
He saw that his wife’s anger was now on the edge of fury. He understood why, could even sympathize. By refusing to entertain Gibney’s ridiculous story of El Cuco, Jeannie felt he was also refusing to believe what she herself had seen in their kitchen early this morning. And he wanted to believe her, not just because he loved and respected her, but because the man she described fitted Claude Bolton to a T, and he couldn’t explain that. Still, he said the rest, to all of them and especially to Jeannie. He had to. It was the bedrock truth upon which his whole life stood. Yes, there had been maggots in the cantaloupe, but they had gotten in there by some natural means. Not knowing what it was didn’t change that, or negate it.
He said, “If we believe in monsters, in the supernatural, how do we believe in anything?”
Ralph sat down and tried to take Jeannie’s hand. She pulled it away.
“I understand how you feel,” Holly said. “I get it, believe me, I do. But I’ve seen things, Detective Anderson, that allow me to believe in this. Oh, not the movie, not even the legend behind the movie, exactly. But in every legend there’s a grain of truth. Leave it for now. I would like to show you a timeline I drew up before I left Dayton. May I do that? It won’t take long.”
“You have the floor,” Howie said. He sounded bemused.
Holly opened a file and projected it on the wall. Her printing was small but clear. Ralph thought what she had drawn up would pass muster in any courtroom. That much he had to give her.
“Thursday, April 19th. Merlin Cassidy leaves the van in a Dayton parking lot. I believe it was stolen the same day. We won’t call the thief El Cuco, we’ll just call him the outsider. Detective Anderson will feel more comfortable with that.”
Ralph kept silent, and this time when he tried for Jeannie’s hand, she let him take it, although she did not fold her fingers over his.
“Where did he stash it?” Alec asked. “Any idea?”
“We’ll get to that, but for now, may I stick with the Dayton chronology?”
Alec lifted a hand for her to go on.
“Saturday, April 21st. The Maitlands fly to Dayton and check into their hotel. Heath Holmes—the real one—is in Regis, staying with his mother.
“Monday, April 23rd. Amber and Jolene Howard are killed. The outsider eats of their flesh and drinks of their blood.” She looked at Ralph. “No, I don’t know it. Not for sure. But reading between the lines of the newspaper stories, I’m sure that body parts were missing, and the bodies were bled mostly white. Is that similar to what happened to the Peterson boy?”
Bill Samuels spoke up. “Since the Maitland case is closed and we’re having an informal discussion here, I have no problem telling you that it is. Flesh was missing from Frank Peterson’s neck, right shoulder, right buttock, and left thigh.”
Marcy made a strangled sound. When Jeannie started to go to her, Marcy waved her off. “I’m all right. I mean . . . no, I’m not, but I’m not going to throw up or faint or anything.”
Observing her ashy skin, Ralph was not so sure.
Holly said, “The outsider dumps the panel truck he used to abduct the girls near the Holmes home—” She smiled at that. “—where he can be sure it will be found, and become another part of the evidence against his chosen scapegoat. He leaves the girls’ underwear in the Holmes basement—another brick in the wall.
“Wednesday, April 25th. The bodies of the Howard girls are found in Trotwood, between Dayton and Regis.
“Thursday, April 26th. While Heath Holmes is in Regis, helping his mother around the house and running errands, the outsider shows up at the Heisman Memory Unit. Was he looking for Mr. Maitland specifically, or could it have been anyone? I don’t know for sure, but I think he had Terry Maitland in his sights, because he knew the Maitlands were visiting from another state, far away. The outsider, whether you call him natural or unnatural or supernatural, is like many serial killers in one way. He likes to move around. Mrs. Maitland, could Heath Holmes have known that your husband was planning to visit his father?”
“I guess so,” Marcy said. “The Heisman likes to know in advance when relatives are coming from other parts of the country. They make a special effort in those cases, get the residents haircuts or perms, and arrange off-unit visits, when possible. That wasn’t, in the case of Terry’s dad. His mental problems were too far advanced.” She leaned forward, eyes fixed on Holly. “But if this outsider wasn’t Holmes, even if he looked like Holmes, how could he know?”
“Oh, that’s easy if you accept the basic premise,” Ralph said. “If the guy is replicating Holmes, so to speak, he’d probably have access to all of Holmes’s memories. Have I got it right, Ms. Gibney? Is that how the story goes?”
“Let’s say it is, at least to a degree, but let’s not get hung up on it. I’m sure we’re all tired, and Mrs. Maitland would probably like to get home to her children.”
Hopefully before she passes out, Ralph thought.
Holly went on. “The outsider knows he’ll be seen and noticed at the Heisman Memory Unit. It’s what he wants. And he’s sure to leave more evidence that will incriminate the real Mr. Holmes: hair from one of the murdered girls. But I believe his most important reason for going there on April 26th was to spill Terry Maitland’s blood, exactly as he later spilled blood from Mr. Claude Bolton. It’s always the same pattern. First come the murders. Then he marks his next victim. His next self, you could say. After that, he goes into hiding. Except it’s really a kind of hibernation. Like a bear, he may move around from time to time, but mostly he stays in a pre-selected den for a certain length of time, resting, while the change takes place.”