dinner with Taci tonight, discussing something that she wanted to talk about in private, but I didn’t mention that, simply accepted Ralph’s toast. “Thanks.”
We were both well into our meals now and I brought up the topic I’d been curious about since we first met in the police headquarters lobby. “Ralph, I gotta ask you something.”
“Shoot.” He was in the middle of a bite of goulash.
I indicated toward his turtleneck. “No overstarched oxford. No tie.” I figured maybe he didn’t wear one because of the thickness of his neck and his broad chest—that any tie he wore would’ve ended up looking like a clown tie and his supervisors didn’t want that. “Isn’t it pretty much a uniform for guys who are Feds?”
“Got an exemption. I can’t stand the idea of wearing a giant arrow pointing to my groin all day.”
“Oh.”
He looked at me slightly suspiciously. “I mean, can you?”
“Um, no. Of course not.” Man, was I glad I didn’t have a tie on today either. “And when you put it that way, I don’t think I’ll ever look at ties the same way again.”
He took a giant mouthful of food. “It seems kind of desperate to me, a pretty blatant invitation to draw people’s attention to…Well, it’s kind of like—” He was talking with his mouth full of goulash again. “So, my wife, her best friend has this teenage daughter.”
“Right.”
“The kid is always wearing shorts with words written on the butt. What is that about? ‘Syracuse’? Are you serious? I could never respect a college that’s so desperate for students that it needs to advertise itself on the butts of teenage girls.”
Hmm. That was actually a pretty good point.
“And then she wears these sweatpants with ‘Cute’ back there. Is that supposed to be referring to…?”
“Um…Probably. Yeah.” I thought of a time I’d seen a girl wearing shorts with ALL-STAR imprinted on the rump and I realized I didn’t even want to know what she was trying to tell the world.
He shook his head. “I’ll just say this: I’d be at a loss with a teenage daughter. They’re a complete mystery to me. I’d be clueless.”
“You and me both.”
Ralph finished inhaling the goulash and I polished off my cheeseburger. We ate quickly so we could get back to the department, then headed out the door, past the Ford Explorer by the curb.
There was a parking ticket tucked beneath the windshield wiper.
17
Plainfield, Wisconsin
Joshua parked the car in the pull-off at the end of the dirt road.
Barren, leafless trees ready for winter bordered him on both sides.
A sign on a leaning wooden pole beside a small clearing announced NO TRESPASSING .
The house that used to stand here was long gone.
Joshua wasn’t sure exactly when it’d burned down, but he knew it was within a couple months of Ed Gein’s arrest in November of 1957, and he was pretty sure the fire hadn’t been accidental. Just like the people of Milwaukee who tried to purge the memory of Dahmer from their consciousness by razing his apartment building, the good people of Plainfield had undoubtedly hoped to sear the memory of their most infamous inhabitant by getting rid of the place he’d called home.
Joshua stepped out of the car and stretched his legs, then removed the cooler from the backseat.
It’d taken a fair amount of research, but eventually he’d been able to locate the precise spot where the house had stood.
Ironically, or at least conveniently as far as Gein would have been concerned, it was less than five miles from the nearest graveyard—the same graveyard where things would happen this afternoon, during the next chapter of the saga Joshua had recently been putting into play.
Honestly, it’d never been his intention to kill Colleen Hayes. Cutting off her hands had been all he was planning to do to her, even from the start.
In fact, murdering her might actually have been counterproductive to what he was hoping to accomplish.
Well then, what
We were both well into our meals now and I brought up the topic I’d been curious about since we first met in the police headquarters lobby. “Ralph, I gotta ask you something.”
“Shoot.” He was in the middle of a bite of goulash.
I indicated toward his turtleneck. “No overstarched oxford. No tie.” I figured maybe he didn’t wear one because of the thickness of his neck and his broad chest—that any tie he wore would’ve ended up looking like a clown tie and his supervisors didn’t want that. “Isn’t it pretty much a uniform for guys who are Feds?”
“Got an exemption. I can’t stand the idea of wearing a giant arrow pointing to my groin all day.”
“Oh.”
He looked at me slightly suspiciously. “I mean, can you?”
“Um, no. Of course not.” Man, was I glad I didn’t have a tie on today either. “And when you put it that way, I don’t think I’ll ever look at ties the same way again.”
He took a giant mouthful of food. “It seems kind of desperate to me, a pretty blatant invitation to draw people’s attention to…Well, it’s kind of like—” He was talking with his mouth full of goulash again. “So, my wife, her best friend has this teenage daughter.”
“Right.”
“The kid is always wearing shorts with words written on the butt. What is that about? ‘Syracuse’? Are you serious? I could never respect a college that’s so desperate for students that it needs to advertise itself on the butts of teenage girls.”
Hmm. That was actually a pretty good point.
“And then she wears these sweatpants with ‘Cute’ back there. Is that supposed to be referring to…?”
“Um…Probably. Yeah.” I thought of a time I’d seen a girl wearing shorts with ALL-STAR imprinted on the rump and I realized I didn’t even want to know what she was trying to tell the world.
He shook his head. “I’ll just say this: I’d be at a loss with a teenage daughter. They’re a complete mystery to me. I’d be clueless.”
“You and me both.”
Ralph finished inhaling the goulash and I polished off my cheeseburger. We ate quickly so we could get back to the department, then headed out the door, past the Ford Explorer by the curb.
There was a parking ticket tucked beneath the windshield wiper.
17
Plainfield, Wisconsin
Joshua parked the car in the pull-off at the end of the dirt road.
Barren, leafless trees ready for winter bordered him on both sides.
A sign on a leaning wooden pole beside a small clearing announced NO TRESPASSING .
The house that used to stand here was long gone.
Joshua wasn’t sure exactly when it’d burned down, but he knew it was within a couple months of Ed Gein’s arrest in November of 1957, and he was pretty sure the fire hadn’t been accidental. Just like the people of Milwaukee who tried to purge the memory of Dahmer from their consciousness by razing his apartment building, the good people of Plainfield had undoubtedly hoped to sear the memory of their most infamous inhabitant by getting rid of the place he’d called home.
Joshua stepped out of the car and stretched his legs, then removed the cooler from the backseat.
It’d taken a fair amount of research, but eventually he’d been able to locate the precise spot where the house had stood.
Ironically, or at least conveniently as far as Gein would have been concerned, it was less than five miles from the nearest graveyard—the same graveyard where things would happen this afternoon, during the next chapter of the saga Joshua had recently been putting into play.
Honestly, it’d never been his intention to kill Colleen Hayes. Cutting off her hands had been all he was planning to do to her, even from the start.
In fact, murdering her might actually have been counterproductive to what he was hoping to accomplish.
Well then, what
Similar Books
