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“Why should I shut the fuck up?” Acadia demanded hotly after a moment’s pause. “Isn’t this what you wanted? Cross a murderer, an existential man? Or are you just pissed that he’s made it seem more like a blessing than a killing?”
Sunday wanted to spin around and slap her silly. But he restrained himself and said, “It has nothing to do with that. I’m thinking, Acadia. You’ve heard of that, haven’t you? Thinking?”
“Screw you, Marcus,” she said, and she stormed down the hall, went into the bedroom, and slammed the door.
“Don’t matter,” Cochran said. He came around to the front of the couch. “’Bout it being a mercy killing, I mean. He did it, pulled the trigger. Straight up.”
Sunday said nothing. Part of him agreed. But then he noticed a stirring in his gut.
Gut feelings had saved Sunday in more than one desperate situation. Gut feelings had led him to torch Thierry Mulch all those years ago, hadn’t they? Gut feelings had made him a fortune, given him freedom, hadn’t they?
They had, and as he continued to study that image of the dead man, Sunday realized that his stomach had gone nervous and acidic when it should have been calm and alkaline. Watching the video had made him feel vulnerable.
But why?
Why was he so agitated? However Cross tried to mitigate his crime, Cochran was right: he had done the deed. There was no doubt about that, was there? No. Cross had abandoned moral order. Cross had become a cold-blooded murderer. Cross had become a universe unto himself. Just like me, Sunday thought.
But something about the victim bothered him, something beyond the fact that the man appeared to have been terminally ill and eager for death. Something about that man seemed … well … off.
Sunday started up the video again. He watched every move and listened to every breath and sound Cross made before entering that machine tool-and-die shop. He studied the detective’s face when he spoke to the camera and then the scene in which Cross walked into the office and revealed the old, withered black man asking to be delivered from his suffering.
For the most part, the victim’s face had remained in shadow, but for several seconds before the shot, as the old man clasped his hands and bowed his head, a slat of light traveled over his features, revealing it in sections.
“And may God have mercy on my soul,” Cross said and shot him.
“Told you,” Cochran said, and he walked into the kitchen.
Sunday backed the video up and played that light traveling over the victim’s face three times until the pieces gathered in his mind like a jigsaw and made his stomach lurch so hard he thought he was going to puke.
Atticus Jones.
Atticus fucking Jones.
Detective Atticus fucking Jones of the West Virginia State Police. Or what was left of that nosy sonofabitch, anyway.
How the hell had …? What the fuck did this …?
For the first time since Sunday had set his entire diabolical scheme in motion, a shiver of doubt passed through him. Somehow, Cross had found the man who’d investigated his father’s death. Somehow, Cross had gotten to the detective who’d looked into the fiery passing of Thierry Mulch all those years ago. And then Cross had killed Jones to satisfy Sunday and put the old bastard out of his misery?
But why the security jacket? Was that what had become of Atticus Jones? Had the great detective been doomed to the pitiful life of a night watchman?
Was it a coincidence? How was that possible? What were the odds?
Ten thousand to one, Sunday decided. No, make that a hundred thousand to one. No matter how random the universe could seem at times, this was no random event. No way.
It was a message. Cross was telling Sunday that he was on his trail.
Sunday tasted bile creeping up his throat. Then he swallowed hard at it, growing scornful and defiant.
That trail is cold, Cross, he thought. Thierry Mulch disappeared in flames two and a half decades ago. By killing Atticus Jones, you honestly did me a favor; you eliminated one more potential witness against me.
He stood and walked past the kitchen, where Cochran was eating cold Chinese food and drinking a beer, and went down the hall to the closed door of his bedroom. He opened it, found Acadia lying on her side in the bed, reading a book.
“Far as I’m concerned, this is your gig now,” Acadia said, not looking his way. “You and Cochran can go to Memphis and handle it. I’m done.”
CHAPTER
44
