Survival Clause, стр. 53
“Not Toronto,” Grimaldi said. “He’d have had to make it across the border to Canada, and there’s no record of that.”
“Surely there are ways to sneak across the border where nobody will check your papers? People come across the border from Mexico all the time.”
Grimaldi shrugged. “He could be in Toledo or Tupelo or Tucson. Or somewhere that doesn’t start with a T. Or he could be buried on Art Mullinax’s back forty.”
The track ended and we reached the paved road again. The SUV picked up speed heading back to downtown Columbia. I settled a little more comfortably into the seat and added, “Why would Art Mullinax kill Kent Jurgensson?”
“Motive’s easy,” Grimaldi said, and brought on an echo of Rafe, who had told me the same thing, not just once but multiple times. “Maybe he knew the Trent family. Or maybe he was just disgusted that Jurgensson committed statutory rape in general. Maybe he has sexual abuse in his own past, and this brought it back. Maybe he was angry because he and Jurgensson—and your uncle and Laura Lee’s father—played golf together, and Jurgensson had fooled them all into thinking he was a nice guy. Any one of those might be reason enough to kill him.”
I supposed. But— “There’s no way to prove any of that.” Except maybe for a connection to the Trents, if one existed. Or any sexual abuse, if it had happened and there was a record of it. But even if a connection to the Trents or a record of sexual abuse existed, it wouldn’t be proof of murder.
“No,” Grimaldi agreed. “And I’ll never get permission to dig without more than I’ve got.”
“But you think he did it. Why?”
She shrugged. Or maybe it was more like a squirm. “It might just be that I want to find someone guilty of something. I’m not any closer to figuring out who killed Laura Lee Matlock, and my mother, and Ramona Mitchell, and everyone in-between. We don’t know who’s stalking your husband—although we will figure that out eventually. But if Mullinax killed Jurgensson, at least that’ll be one thing I’ll know for sure.”
“Except there’s no proof.”
“No,” Grimaldi said regretfully, as the first stoplight in Columbia rose up in front of us. “And after so many years, it’s not likely I’ll find any, either.”
Probably not. Especially if no one had suspected anything back then.
“I guess you’ll be going back to the police station and digging up the old files on Jurgensson.”
“I already have them on my desk,” Grimaldi said. “Now I’m going to look at them again and see if Mr. Mullinax’s name shows up anywhere.”
Better her than me. “Drop me off at home first,” I told her. “I have some work of my own to do.”
She glanced over, and I added, “Nothing to do with this. We’ve got an open house scheduled tomorrow on Fulton. I should print out some fliers and sign-in sheets, and make sure we’re ready.”
And I should also prepare some dinner for my husband, so he wouldn’t suggest going to Beulah’s again. At this point, my instinct was to keep Carrie under lock and key and out of the public eye as much as humanly possible.
Fifteen
Rafe made it home in time for dinner. The fact that he was able to stop working to go home for a meal with his wife probably indicated that the case was going cold, as the previous seventeen had done.
He grunted when I said so. “We’re trying.”
“I’m sure you are,” I said, ladling out chicken and broccoli. “We didn’t do any better. The biggest surprise of the day was that Curtis is the first victim’s son. Although I don’t see where that could have anything to do with anything.”
“No,” Rafe agreed, picking up his fork.
“If Frankie was black, though, I guess he’s off the suspect list for the other murders. Grimaldi said the profile Agent Yung provided said the killer is definitely white.”
“Not sure there’s anything definite about it.” He poked at some of the chicken before he stabbed a piece of broccoli. Instead of lifting it to his mouth, he added, “Look at me.”
“I am looking at you. You’re not eating.”
He popped the broccoli in his mouth and chewed. “What I meant,” he said when he’d swallowed, “is that I’m black.”
I opened my mouth to say that he’s as much white as he’s black, maybe more, and he added, “Or as near as makes no difference.”
Maybe so. At any rate, I didn’t debate it, because I knew what he was getting at. “And most of the women you’ve slept with—at least the ones I know about—have been white. Or Hispanic, in Carmen’s case.”
Yvonne, Elspeth, me, Carmen, me again… And I knew there had to be others, even if I couldn’t put names or faces to them. The ones I knew about were one redhead, two blondes, and Carmen. The pinup girl he’d had on the wall of his bedroom in the trailer in the Bog growing up, she had been white, too. A platinum blonde with china blue eyes and lacy white lingerie.
“If somebody tried to make a profile of me,” he said, “based on the women I’ve taken to bed, they’d prob’ly conclude that I’m white, too.”
“And they’d be half right.”
He shrugged.
“So what are you saying? That it could be Frankie after all?”
“’Course it could,” Rafe said, sounding irritated. “He married a white girl, didn’t he? Don’t that tell you what his type is?”
I guess it did, now that he mentioned it. “So we throw the profile out?”
“Not necessarily. I’m just saying that sometimes the profile’s