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She does that, checks his bandages for seepage, finds none, and wishes him a good night. Danny wishes her the same. His stomach hurts, but the pain is down to a dull throb unless he makes a sudden move. He grabs the TV controller, switches around through a few channels, then turns it off. He thinks about Edgar Ball saying he could probably have his old job back if he wants it. The idea actually hurts. There are people in Manitou who are always going to believe he’s guilty of something. Gossip is like radioactive waste. It has a long and toxic half-life.

Stevie sent him an email with attachments to several rentals in Nederland and Longmont. They would have been far out of his reach a week ago, but if Edgar’s right about how he, Danny, might get a little payday…

He’s still thinking about that when he drifts into the first good sleep he’s had since the night before he dreamed that inexplicable dream.

That lasts until 1:20 AM, when the second dream begins.

63

Unless he’s working a case—and thanks to Ella Davis, all of that is done—Jalbert goes to bed every night at nine-thirty. That’s supposed to be the healthiest time, according to what he’s read on the Internet, but tonight he’s not able to get down.

Just tonight? If only. He hasn’t managed more than a few light dozes since finding out a wandering plumber named Andrew Iverson has been arrested for the murder of Yvonne Wicker and two others.

Who is the bad guy in all of this? Frank Jalbert! And who is the loser in all of this? Frank Jalbert!

Twenty good years, half a dozen commendations, all flushed down the commode. Everything he dedicated his life to is gone. His name is mud. While Danny is having a good sleep in Great Bend, Jalbert is wide awake in Lawrence. His mind has turned on itself, gnawing and biting like a mangy dog snapping at its own flanks until the blood flows.

After ninety minutes or so of tossing and turning, he throws back the covers and gets up. He has to walk, and he has to count. If he doesn’t, he’ll go crazy. The thought of sticking his gun in his mouth comes, and it’s attractive, but if he does that, will he not be giving Coughlin the ultimate victory? And Ella! Ella saying We hounded an innocent man for nothing… because we couldn’t believe. That was nonsense, not to mention Monday morning quarterbacking. Were they supposed to throw out years of fact-based police work because a high school janitor said he’d had a dream? When Covid was burning across America, they said to follow the science. When you were a policeman, you followed the logic. Did that not make sense, or had the world gone crazy?

“Ella believed he killed her,” he says as he leaves the house on this hot summer night. “She believed it as much as I did.”

He walks on West 6th Street in his bedroom slippers, past the Walgreens and the Hy-Vee, past Dillons and Starbucks and the Big Biscuit, now closed and dark. He walks past the Six Mile Chop House and the Alvadora Apartments, where he once arrested a murderer who is now doing his just time in El Dorado. He walks all the way to the Highway 40 interchange. He counts his steps. He’s up to 154, a total of 11,935 when added sequentially. Then a sudden burst of insight—of logic—lights up his mind.

Did the girl in Wyoming escape Andrew Iverson? Andrew Iverson in his little plumbing and heating van?

Yes. Jalbert accepts that.

Did Andrew Iverson kill two other girls, one in Illinois and the other in Missouri?

He accepts that, too.

Did Andrew Iverson have two of the charms from poor Miss Yvonne’s bracelet in his kill-sack?

All right, say he did. And say Danny Coughlin put them there.

It makes perfect sense once you throw out the new age bullshit. Ella may believe that crap now, but Jalbert never did and never will. Follow the science, follow the logic.

Coughlin and Iverson knew each other. He’s sure of it. It stands to reason. Jalbert is also sure that the good police work necessary to uncover that connection will never be done. Why would any KBI investigator even try, when everything is tied up in a neat bow? When Danny Coughlin will probably come out of this looking like a hero who just tried to do his civic duty? A psychic hero!

The only question in Jalbert’s mind as he stands looking at late-night cars passing on Highway 40 is whether Iverson held poor Miss Yvonne down while Coughlin raped her, or if Coughlin held her down while Iverson did his dirt.

Would they be the first kill-team? No, of course not. There have been others. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono. Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, those two right here in Kansas.

A car goes by on 6th and a young voice sings out, “Hey Pop, you’re in your pajaaamas!”

There’s diminishing laughter. Jalbert doesn’t notice. He’s putting the pieces together just as he put the pieces of his Classic Movie Posters puzzle together and they all fit.

Iverson called Coughlin from wherever he picked up poor Miss Yvonne—somewhere near that Gas-n-Go down south—and asked if he, Coughlin, wanted to have a little fun. And when they were done, Coughlin stripped a couple of charms from poor Miss Yvonne’s charm bracelet and told Iverson… told him…

“Here, you take these,” Jalbert mutters. “Something to look at when you whack off.”

No bullshit about dreams, just cold logic.

Coughlin thought, I’ll not only get the fun of raping her and killing her, I’ll get the glory of being the one to find her.

It makes perfect sense. Divine sense. Because Coughlin always knew they’d trace the source of that ridiculous anonymous call, didn’t he? How could he not?

It occurs to Jalbert—he’s walking home now, counting forgotten—that he might be able to investigate on his own. Do some digging. Find out where the lives of Coughlin and Iverson intersected. At school, maybe. After that, emails and texts. Iverson killed others; it seems likely that Coughlin has, as well.