“You’re Halliwell?” he asked as he slipped on a long wool coat. Once again, more like a lawyer than a cop.
“That’s right. Detective Unger?”
Unger put his hand out and Halliwell shook it, thinking that the man reminded him more than a little of a gunfighter from some old spaghetti western.
“Pleased to meet you. I’ve got an appointment later so I thought we should just get on to business, if you don’t mind. I’ll walk you over to the crime scene and we can have a look around, give you an idea of what happened. If that suits you.”
The man had been all activity from the moment he’d appeared, putting on his jacket and then checking the gun in his shoulder holster, as if he expected armed resistance to their outing. As he spoke, he went to the reception desk and flipped through several messages his daughter had written down. When Halliwell didn’t respond immediately he glanced up, eyebrows raised.
“That’ll be fine,” Halliwell said.
Unger nodded and put the messages back down on the desk. He bent over it to kiss his daughter on the forehead— an act that seemed out of place with his overly businesslike demeanor— and Halliwell decided he liked the hawk-faced man. Unger slipped a thick scarf and a wool cap off the coatrack by the door, earning Halliwell’s envy, and then led the way back outside.
They had less than an hour of daylight left and already the world had a gray twilight pall about it. As they strode around the front of the police station and then started down the street back toward the center of town, Halliwell caught Unger up on the circumstances of Max Bascombe’s murder and the disappearance of his children.
“Well, we know Oliver Bascombe’s alive, at least,” Detective Unger said, his small blue eyes glancing sidelong at Halliwell. “Or he was last night.”
“No doubt about your witness I.D.?”
“None. Three different kids picked him out as having been in the park last night. Half a dozen people who were in the train station identified his picture as well. The officers who tried to chase him down didn’t get within twenty feet of him, but the lead officer, Morgan Dubay, was close enough. It was him, all right.”
They reached the town square and crossed the street in front of a small pub called Two Dogs. On the other side of the park, smoke rose from two thick chimneys that jutted up from the train station.
“Never really doubted it, considering the way the girl was killed.”
Unger grunted, lowered his head and stared at the ground a moment, and then narrowed his gaze as he peered at Halliwell again. “What do you make of it, then? The son do it? He unhinged or something? Or is he running and whoever killed his old man and the St. John girl is chasing him?”
Ted Halliwell rubbed his hands in front of him, blowing on them to warm them as they started through the park on a path that led amongst tall evergreens, past a playground that was closed for the winter— all the swings missing— and toward an outdoor skating rink still roped off with yellow crime scene tape.
“There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense about the Bascombe case,” he said, without glancing again at Unger. He didn’t want to have to try to put into words the unease that took him when he considered the unusual way first Oliver and then Collette had vanished, Oliver in the midst of a blizzard, and both without any obvious clue as to the mode of their departure.
“But do you make the son for the killings?”
Unger had asked a direct question. Halliwell couldn’t avoid answering it.
“I don’t figure him for a killer. But you never know, do you?”
There was a pause in the conversation as Unger took in the question, which Halliwell had purposely posed with a weariness he knew the other detective must share. That was the price of the job they both worked, a dulling of blind faith in humanity.
“No,” Unger agreed. “No, I guess you don’t.”
As they approached the rink— and the train station beyond— Unger stopped and pointed south to where the evergreens were more plentiful and grew together in a dense little wood right in the middle of the park.
“According to the kids, who were the first to see him, Bascombe came out of those trees there with an Asian woman in some kind of fur coat with a hood.”
Halliwell frowned. “First I’ve heard about her.”
Unger shrugged. “The A.P.B. was for Bascombe. Anyway, point is, all the witnesses to Alice St. John’s murder had the killer showing up the same way. Guy in a black or gray cloak— sounds like the Grim Reaper from the description— rushes out of the woods, grabs the nearest kid, and—”
He grimaced and shook his head. “Poor little thing. My wife had Alice in her kindergarten class six, seven years ago. Cute as a button.”
The details of the girl’s murder were in the preliminary coroner’s report and Halliwell felt no need to press Unger on them. The little girl’s murder had been hideous, her eyes gouged out, the cause of death blood loss and trauma. But there were things about the report that were unclear and he could not avoid addressing them.
“I’m sorry, Detective. It’s a hell of a thing.”
Unger nodded grimly.
“The preliminary report says the investigating officers never found her eyes. Is that still—”
“Not a trace,” Unger replied in disgust. “You believe it? The guy kills her right out in public, mutilates her like that, and keeps them as . . . as trophies or whatever. It’s inhuman.”
Halliwell started toward the skating rink. He didn’t bother ducking under the police tape. There was nothing to see but ice. New-fallen snow had covered up any trace of blood or the markings the local cops had made to note the position of the body. There were no evidence markers. Nothing but that bright yellow tape. Still, he found himself staring at the spot where he imagined it had happened. Two kids were making snow angels in the park not thirty yards from the site of the murder, but there weren’t any others in sight. He wondered how many parents were keeping their kids under lock and key this week. Most of them, he imagined.
“My officers were at that end of the park,” Unger continued, pointing north. “They spotted Bascombe and the woman talking to some kids here. Then the two of them started for the train station and one of the kids shouted after them. According to the kids, they seemed to know about Alice’s murder. Anyway, the officers were suspicious and went after them, thinking to question them, and Bascombe and the woman took off. They ran into the station.”
As he spoke, Unger led Halliwell across the paved drive that separated the station from the park and up the stairs of the train station. They went through and out onto the platform. There was no train in sight.
“It’s a tourist thing, the train. Scenic railroad. They serve hot chocolate and sing Christmas carols and pretend they’re riding to the north pole. The kids love it, apparently. But it’s nice that they can make some money to keep the old trains running and the station in decent shape. It’s a historic landmark and I’d hate to see it end up replaced by more shops.”
Halliwell nodded. “It’s a beautiful town. You could live your whole life here and never have to think about all the crap the rest of the world deals with every day.”