“It’s the first real lead they’ve had,” Walt added.
“And it’s the first time they haven’t immediately gone after Clay,” John said. “He might be a bad son of a bitch, but he’d never hurt that sister of his. Any of ‘em, for that matter.”
Ray’s shirt began to stick to his back even though the bar wasn’t hot or crowded. He needed to calm down, think clearly. But the fear that made his pulse race had the opposite effect on his mind. “It’s been twenty years now,” he said. “How do they expect to find the owner of a pair of panties after so long?”
“They’ve been asking around,” Walt said, glancing at the basketball game.
What if they asked him? Ray wondered. Then he’d lie and claim he didn’t recognize them. No one else would be able to identify Rose Lee’s underwear. He’d been raising her on his own by then.
He’d be fine, he told himself. But John’s next comment inspired fresh panic.
“They’re being tested for DNA.”
Ray’s hands tightened on his bottle. “What?”
Taking a napkin from a stack to his left, John wiped the counter in front of him. “Pontiff sent the panties to the state crime lab. There might be some bodily fluids on the fabric,” he said.
“Could they see any?” Ray asked.
“Not with the naked eye. But you never know.”
“If there is something, and they manage to solve this case, we should call the producers of one of those forensics shows,” Walt said enthusiastically. “Maybe we’d see ourselves on TV.”
Ray could barely hear him for the ringing in his ears. Bodily fluids…There’d been plenty, hadn’t there? His and Barker’s. “But those panties came out of the quarry. Weren’t they wet? Wouldn’t any b-bodily fluids be washed away?”
“Pontiff told me they were sealed in plastic,” John said, tossing a few more peanuts in his mouth.
Walt waved to the bartender, trying to get another drink. “It’s a wonder they didn’t mildew.”
“According to Radcliffe, there was some mildew,” John said. “But I guess it doesn’t destroy the human DNA. Pontiff thinks they can separate it.”
Ray remembered the exquisite care Barker took with his victims’ personal belongings. The reverend saved them, licked them, touched them, smelled them…
Sweat trickled through his hair, rolling from his temples. He must’ve made some noise because John suddenly looked at him a little more closely. “Somethin’ wrong, Ray?”
Ray staggered to his feet and dragged some money from his pocket. “I’m n-not feeling well. M-must be the flu,” he said. Then he dropped several bills onto the bar—how many, he had no idea—and stumbled out.
The instrument panel lit Madeline’s right side in glowing amber. “What?” she cried.
Hunter stared straight ahead, into the darkness. “You heard me. Take me back.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“What did you expect?” he countered. “That I’d be happy to hear what you just told me?”
“I thought you were going to make every attempt to solve my father’s murder! That’s what you said!”
He focused on her. “That was before I knew there’d be children involved.”
She snapped off the radio. “If you care so much about children, why not do what you can to protect them? There could be a sexual predator on the loose.”
“There are a lot, believe me.”
“And they have to be stopped one by one.”
She had him there.
“If the good guys refuse to fight, the bad guys win, don’t they?” she went on.
But he wasn’t a good guy. He’d proven that with Selena. And now he had a daughter he couldn’t protect from the men who came and went in Antoinette’s life. Although she’d been safe so far, there was no telling who her mother might hook up with next. It worried him constantly.
This case could hit too close to home. He was looking for ways to anesthetize himself against reality, not take a cold plunge into the worst of it. “I’m not really in a position to do this.”
“You came all this way. Do you have a case that needs you more?”
He couldn’t say he did. Actually, he was getting tired of the emptiness with which he purposefully surrounded himself. If he didn’t embrace a more meaningful cause soon, when would he? After working another twenty, thirty, forty “he’s cheating on me” cases? He wasn’t the only one who’d been involved in a bad marriage and paid a heavy price for his mistakes. But it wasn’t just Antoinette’s venom. It was the regret he felt about his own culpability. He wasn’t worthy of more than he had.
“Are you going to answer me?” she pressed.
He rubbed his temples. Should he turn and run? Or stand and fight? “Were they all the same size?” he asked at length.
“No.”
“Have they figured out who the underwear belonged to?”
“Only one pair.”
“And?”
“They belonged to Grace.”
Adrenaline shot through him. The answers to this case seemed to be very close to Madeline. “Your stepsister?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I recognized them, and she identified them.”
“Grace is an adult now,” he said. “She can tell us what happened.”
Madeline didn’t answer immediately.
“What?” he said.
“She says nothing happened, that she was never molested or abused.”
That was more than a little surprising. “But, except for the rope, the items in that bag sound like souvenirs.”
“She doesn’t know how her underwear came to be in that suitcase. She says they must’ve been stolen while they were hanging on the line to dry.”
“Seeing them didn’t upset her?”
Madeline appeared to be choosing her words carefully. “She acted a bit strange, but she’s always been…difficult to read. According to her, they’re not necessarily indicative of a crime. She said that whoever collected those things could’ve been fantasizing. She was an assistant district attorney, so she knows about stuff like that.”
“I don’t buy it.” Hunter didn’t care what Grace had done for a living, he didn’t believe her fantasy theory.