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Ella Davis takes her partner to his hotel in Lyons and parks under the canopy.

Jalbert grabs his battered old briefcase—companion of twenty-plus years of investigations covering Kansas from side to side and top to bottom—and tells her he’ll be at the Manitou PD by nine tomorrow.

No need to pick him up, he’ll drive his personal.

They can go over their plan of attack one more time before Coughlin arrives at ten.

Davis herself is going on to Great Bend, where she’s staying with her sister.

There’s a big birthday party coming up.

Ella’s daughter is turning eight.

“Do we have enough to arrest him, Frank?”

“Let’s see what forensics finds in his truck.”

“No doubt in your mind that he did it?”

“None.

Drive safe, Ella.”

She heads out.

Jalbert gives her a wave and then heads to his room, giving his Chevy Caprice a pat on the way by.

Like his briefcase, the Caprice has been with him on many cases from Kansas City on one side of the state to Scott City on the other.

The two-room suite, far from fancy, is what’s known as “Kansas plain.” There’s a smell of disinfectant and a fainter smell of mold.

The toilet has a tendency to chuckle after flushing unless you flap the handle a few times.

The air conditioner has a slight rattle.

He’s been in better places, but he’s been in far worse.

Jalbert drops his briefcase on the bed and runs the combination lock.

He takes out a file with WICKER written on the tab.

He makes sure the curtains are pulled tight.

He puts the chain on the door and turns the thumb lock.

Then he undresses down to the skin, folding each item of clothing on top of the briefcase as he goes.

He sits in the chair by the door.

“One.”

He moves to the chair by the tiny (almost useless) desk and sits down.

“One plus two, add three: six.”

He goes to the bed and sits beside his briefcase and folded clothes.

“One, two, three, four, five, and six make twenty-one.”

He goes into the bathroom and sits on the closed lid of the toilet.

The plastic is cold on his skinny buttocks.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten make fifty-five.”

He goes back to the first chair, skinny penis swinging like a pendulum, and sits down.

“Now add eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen, makes a hundred and twenty.”

He makes another full round, which satisfies him.

Sometimes he has to go to ten or twenty rounds before his mind tells him it’s enough.

He allows himself a piss that he’s been holding a long time, then washes his hands while he counts to seventeen.

He doesn’t know why seventeen is perfect for hand-washing, it just is.

It works for teeth-brushing, too.

Hair washing is a twenty-five count, has been since he was a teenager.

He pulls his suitcase from under the bed and puts on fresh clothes.

Those he took off and folded go into the suitcase.

The suitcase goes back under the bed.

On his knees he says, “Lord, by Your will I serve the people of Kansas.

Tomorrow if it’s Your will, I’ll arrest the man who killed poor Miss Yvonne.”

He takes the folder to the chair by the useless desk and opens the file.

He looks at the pictures of Miss Yvonne, leafing through them five times (one to five added together make fifteen).

She is terrible to look at; terrible, terrible.

These pictures would break the stoniest heart.

What he keeps coming back to is the charm bracelet—some of the charms missing, from the look of it—and the dirt in her hair.

Poor Miss Yvonne! Twenty years old, raped and murdered! The pain she must have felt! The fear! Jalbert’s pastor claims that all earthly terrors and pains are wiped away in the joys of heaven.

It’s a beautiful idea, but Jalbert isn’t so sure.

Jalbert thinks that some traumas may transcend even death.

A terrible thought, but it feels true to him.

He looks at the pathologist’s report, which is a problem.

It states that Miss Yvonne was in the oil-soaked ground at least ten days, plus or minus, before her body was exhumed by the Highway Patrol, and there is no way of telling when she was actually murdered.

Coughlin could have buried her behind the deserted gas station immediately, or he could have held onto the body for awhile, possibly because he couldn’t decide where to dispose of it, possibly for some psycho reason of his own.

Without a more precise time of death, Coughlin really doesn’t have to have an alibi; he’s a moving target.

“On the other hand,” Jalbert says, “he wants to be caught.

That’s why he came forward.

He’s like a girl saying no-no with her mouth and yes-yes with her eyes.” Not that he could make such a comparison to anyone else—most of all Ella Davis.

Not in this era of #BelievetheWoman.

I believe in Miss Yvonne, he thinks.

He’s unhappy that they don’t have more and thinks about doing the chairs again, but doesn’t.

He walks down to the Snack Shack for a cheeseburger and a shake instead.

He counts his steps and adds them.

Not as good as doing the chairs, but quite soothing.

He sits in his Kansas plain suite, which he will forget as soon as he leaves it, as he has forgotten so many other temporary accommodations.

He eats his burger.

He drinks his shake until the straw crackles in the bottom.

He thinks about Coughlin saying he dreamed Miss Yvonne’s location.

That’s the part of him that wants to confess.

He’ll admit it and then he’s done.