Page 99 of Return of the Spider

Beech had been wearing archery gloves when we encountered him in the woods. Now I noticed his palms. I reached over andpointed to the livid lines around a quarter of an inch wide that ran across both of them.

“Where did those come from, Mr. Beech?”

Beech looked at his attorney, who shrugged.

“Rope burns,” Beech said. “Own fault. Wasn’t wearing my gloves like I should have been last week when we took down Eamon’s deer from the game pole.”

“So your blood’s on that rope?”

“Who knows? That’s what happened.”

I decided not to ask him about Brenda Miles yet. “You and Eamon Diggs good friends?”

“About the only one I got. We keep each other on the narrow, you know?”

French said, “Knew Eamon in prison, did you?”

“Of course,” Beech said. “We met in an after-release program and got hired together at the quarry. One of the few places that will hire people like us. Fresh out, I mean.”

John said, “What about his grandmother’s farm, the one he inherited. Ever been there?”

He nodded. “We’ve shot our bows long-distance-like down there a couple of times, maybe three? I told him to sell the place, buy something where he could live nice, ’stead of renting.”

“Why didn’t he?” I asked.

Beech shrugged. “Can’t let go, I guess. He said it was the only place where he was happy as a kid. With his grandparents.”

“You see the white van at that farm?” French asked. “The one in the shed?”

He nodded. “Got inside and under the hood to see if there were salvageable parts.”

“Were there any?” I asked.

“Engine, radiator, transmission weren’t bad, and the quarterpanels and doors weren’t rusted at all ’cause of the van’s being under the shed roof, but Eamon wouldn’t let me scavenge it. Said it had sentimental value too.”

“You see him drive it? The van?” French asked.

Beech snorted. “I didn’t even think there was a key to it.”

“There was one, and it does run,” I said.

“News to me. What’s the big deal?”

“The van was seen in the vicinity of several recent murders in the greater Washington, DC, area.”

The sour look on Beech’s face deepened, but he did not reply.

“Three were shot point-blank in their cars,” Sampson said. “One was strangled with a rope exactly like the rope you say you burned your hands on, Harry.”

I said, “And the strangled woman was found with a wooden spoon rammed in her vagina, Harry.”

Beech licked his lips nervously but still said nothing.

French leaned across the table. “That was one of your favorite moves, wasn’t it, Harry? Putting things like wooden spoons in the girls you drugged and assaulted?”

All the blood drained out of Beech’s face. He said in a shaking, gasping voice, “I don’t do that kind of thing no more. I was sick in the mind back then. I paid my debt to society and have my head on straight now. I been through behavior-modification therapy. I have!”

“I’ll bet you have,” French said. “Except it modified you from a deviant to a killer.”