Once Gone by Blake Pierce

Bill,” Riley muttered as she drove. “For a while back there, I was really sure that Ross Blackwell was our killer. I ought to have known better at first glance. My instincts are shot.”
    “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Bill replied. “He seemed to fit your profile.”
    Riley groaned under her breath. “Yeah, but my profile was wrong. Our guy wouldn’t pose dolls like that—and not in a public place.”
    “Why not?” Bill asked.
    Riley thought for a moment.
    “Because he takes dolls too seriously,” she said. “They hold some really deep significance for him. It’s something personal. I think he’d be offended by little stunts like Blackwell’s, the way he posed them. He’d consider it vulgar. Dolls aren’t toys to him. They’re … I don’t know. I can’t quite get it.”
    “I know how your mind works,” Bill said. “And whatever it is will come to you eventually.”
     Riley fell silent as she mentally replayed some of the events of the last few days. That only heightened her sense of insecurity.
    “I’ve been wrong about other stuff, too,” she told Bill. “I thought the killer was targeting mothers. I was sure of it. But Margaret Geraty wasn’t a mother. How could I get that wrong?”
    “You’ll hit your stride soon,” Bill said.
    They reached the outskirts of Belding. It was a tired-looking little town that must have been there for generations. But the nearby farms had been bought up by wealthy families who wanted to be “gentleman farmers” and still commute to power jobs in D.C. The town was fading away and one might almost drive through it without noticing it.
    Roy Geraty’s auto repair and supply store was impossible to miss.
    Riley and Bill got out of the car and went into the rather seedy front office. No one was there. Riley rang a little bell on the counter. They waited, but no one came. After a few minutes, they ventured into the garage. A single pair of feet poked out from beneath one vehicle.
    “Are you Roy Geraty?” Riley asked.
    “Yeah,” came a voice from under the car.
    Riley looked around. There wasn’t another employee in sight. Had things gotten so bad that the owner had to do everything by himself?
    Geraty came rolling out from under the car and squinted at them suspiciously. He was a bulky man in his middle to late thirties, and he was wearing oil-stained coveralls. He wiped his hands on a dirty cloth and got to his feet.
    “You’re not local,” he said. Then he added, “Well, what can I help you with?”
    “We’re with the FBI,” Bill said. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”
    “Ah, Jesus,” the man growled. “I don’t need this.”
    “It won’t take long,” Riley said.
    “Well, come on,” the man grumbled. “If we’ve got to talk, we’ve got to talk.”
    He led Riley and Bill into a little employee break area with a couple of banged-up vending machines. They all sat down on plastic chairs. Almost as if nobody else was there, Roy picked up a remote and turned on an old television. He fumbled around switching channels until he found an old sitcom. Then he stared at the screen.
    “Just ask what you want and let’s get it over with,” he said. “These last few days have been hell.”
    Riley found it easy to guess what he meant.
    “I’m sorry your wife’s murder is back in the news,” she said.
    “The papers say there have been two more like it,” Geraty said. “I can’t believe it. My phone’s been ringing off the hook with reporters and just plain assholes. My email inbox is flooded too. There’s no respect for privacy anymore. And poor Evelyn—my wife—she’s really shook up about it.”
    “You’ve remarried?” Bill asked.
    Geraty nodded, still staring at the TV screen. “We tied the knot seven months after Margaret …”
    He couldn’t make himself finish the sentence.
    “Folks around here thought it was too fast,” he said. “It didn’t seem too fast to me. I’d never been lonelier in my life.