Page 57

CHAPTER 57

BABY TAPPED AWAY AT her laptop at Arthur’s kitchen table, the sunset bleeding into night. Arthur brought her a glass of water, but she ignored it. As she tapped and clicked, the water was joined by a cup of coffee, then a slice of cake, then a cookie, then a hard candy wrapped in shiny foil and served on a little porcelain plate. He was carting over a second cup of coffee to replace the one that had gone cold when she looked up.

“You’re gonna bury me alive in a pile of drinks and snacks here,” Baby said.

“I need something to do.”

“Play with the dog.”

They looked at the dog. Mouse was snoring in the corner, his big pink belly sagging on the floor, all four legs stretched out and stiff, roadkill-style.

“Tell me what you’ve found out.” Arthur sat down beside her.

“I haven’t got a lot to work with.” Baby sighed. “On the record, Su Lim Marshall joined Enorme as an administrative assistant in 2012. Now she’s head of the California acquisition division. Seems to have worked her way up the ranks pretty naturally, if quickly. No weird promotional leaps that might suggest she was being rewarded for doing the company some murderous favors,” Baby said. “The company has two other eco-villages in the state, and they were both set up by Marshall. But they were on vacant land. Marshall didn’t threaten or bully anybody out of their houses there, at least. She didn’t need to.”

Baby brought up Su Lim Marshall’s LinkedIn profile, turned the screen toward Arthur. Marshall was classically posed — three-quarters to the camera, hair shiny and perfect, shoulders relaxed, chin up. She looked like a million other corporate types who silently oiled the gears of commerce in dark gray power suits, driving dark gray power cars to dark gray power towers. Baby showed Arthur the two other California eco-villages, clusters of glass buildings, one in the desert and one in the forest.

“So who was Su Lim Marshall before she became an Enorme attack dog?” Arthur asked. Baby was so distracted, he had to ask a second time.

“Why is that relevant?”

“Because who a person is deep down inside is always relevant,” Arthur said. “It’s why anybody does anything.”

“Look, Arthur, I’m not trying to tap into Marshall’s psyche,” Baby said. “I’m not trying to find out if she was picked on in high school or if she’s ever been married or what kind of guy her dad was. I’m trying to find out how many times she’s done this specific thing. ” She tapped the kitchen table. “Because that’s all I can use against her.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. Baby waited. When he didn’t go on, she threw her hands up.

“I hate it when you say ‘Maybe’ like that. Like you don’t mean ‘Maybe,’ you mean ‘You’re wrong.’ ”

“Carol used to hate it too.” Arthur smiled. “All I’m saying is, you don’t know what’s relevant until it’s relevant.”

He pushed the coffee closer to her. She relented and drank, then rubbed her tired eyes.

“You and your sister, you’re also chasing a serial killer, right?”

“Could be.”

“Carol used to watch those documentaries on the TV.” Arthur nodded. Sat back in his chair. “Those crime ones. I never got into that stuff. If we were in bed and there was a bump in the night, she’d kick me out to go find out what it was. So I didn’t need to have my head filled up with crazy stories about guys waiting for me on my back porch with a butcher’s knife. But I still picked some things up from all her watching.”

“Where’s this going?” Baby huffed.

“Seems to me, Barbara” — he gave her a warning look — “there’s usually an awful lot of interest on these shows about who the killer was and where he came from. People want to know if he was picked on in high school. If he was ever married. What kind of guy his dad was.”

Baby thought about it. “You don’t know what’s relevant until it’s relevant.”

“Uh-huh.”

Mouse sprang up from the floor as if he’d gotten an electric shock, rushed to the back of the house, and smashed into the screen door, throwing it open. Arthur and Baby followed the dog to the back porch. To the right, across the fences of the neighboring properties, they saw movement. Two houses down, men emerged onto the back porch, pointed at Arthur’s yard, and looked around. Someone flicked on a light. Music with a heavy, grinding bass began to thrum out into the night. It was so loud, Baby could feel the rhythm in her chest.

“Who the hell are those guys?” she asked.

“I don’t know. What I’m wondering is, why’s the power on?” Arthur said. “There hasn’t been power to any of these other houses in months.”

Mouse was barking at the fence on the right side of the yard, the side where the men had appeared. Then he rushed across the overgrown garden to bark at the opposite fence. Baby and Arthur looked. Lights were also coming on in the house on their left side. A man in a hoodie shoved open a window on the second floor, looked out at them, and grinned. There were thick gold chains around his neck and a set of grilles sparkling in his bottom row of teeth. As they watched, the guy took a pistol from his waistband and leaned casually on the windowsill while holding it.

“Well, howdy, neighbors!” he called.