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“What?”
“That interview I’d wanted you to do with me today,” he says.
I’d completely forgotten about it. He’d let me off the hook for it—I remember that much—but I don’t even know who we were going to interview or why.
He tells me he questioned a guy in county jail who once did a stint in the Huntsville Unit for armed robbery. His cellmate at the time, a guy named Chase Germaine, was there for selling stolen goods.
“They got to talking one night,” Lieutenant Abrams says, “and started chatting about the worst stuff they’d ever done, trying to one-up each other about their criminal careers. Apparently this guy Chase started laughing and said he’d done the worst things a human could do. He murdered people.”
I don’t understand where he’s headed with this, but then he says, “He claimed these murders all occurred in these parts. He cut their throats and left their bodies in the fields. All the victims were migrant workers.”
My mouth suddenly goes dry.
“This guy in county ain’t the most reliable witness,” he says, “but he knew enough details—stuff never released to the public—to indicate he was telling the truth. Clothes the victims were wearing. Belongings that went missing. Chase Germaine is now our number one suspect in the Cereal Killer case.”
“So…?” I say, but I can’t finish my thought.
Abrams doesn’t need me to.
“That’s right,” he says. “Parker Longbaugh was after the wrong guy.”
I ask if this guy, Chase Germaine, is still in prison.
“Nope.” He shakes his head sadly. “Released last spring. Jumped his parole. No one knows where he is. Not only is the real Cereal Killer still out there—God knows where—but it’s not the guy we’ve been looking for. It looks like Jackson Clarke is on the run for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Up until now, Lieutenant Abrams has been using his normal all-business tone, but now his emotions break through. He’s every bit as pissed as Captain Lightwood.
“You lied to me about what you were doing here,” he says. “You made up some excuse about the Cereal Killer case. Well, guess what? That case could have actually used some extra attention, instead of this fantasy theory that one of the most decorated Texas Rangers in modern history was secretly a bank robber. I went out on a limb for you, boys. I shouldn’t have.”
Without waiting for a response, he turns and walks through the same door Captain Lightwood did a few minutes ago. Carlos and I are left standing alone on the porch.
“That went well,” Carlos says casually.
After receiving back-to-back lectures from my superiors, I’m in no mood for his sense of humor.
“You think this is funny?” I snap. “I wouldn’t be in this goddamn mess if you hadn’t roped me into this wild goose chase.”
Carlos glowers at me.
“I just got my ass handed to me bytwoof my superiors,” I say. “Thanks a fucking lot, Carlos.”
He’s simmering with anger but he keeps his voice calm when he says, “You thinkIlet you down?”
“Hell, yes,” I spit.
“Let me ask you one question, Rory.”
“What?”
He steps closer, staring me in the eyes, so close the brims of our hats almost touch.
“Did you know there were comic books in that box?”
All of my anger rushes out of me like air from an untied balloon. He’s right. I’m the one who created this mess. I was so hot after those thugs showed up at my parents’ house—so sure that it must have been Parker who sent them—that I wanted this investigation over as soon as possible.
I open my mouth to answer, but Carlos doesn’t need me to say the words. He can see it on my face.
“That’s what I thought,” he says, and he walks through the front door, just like Abrams and Lightwood, leaving me on the porch, alone and admonished by not one, not two, but three of my superiors.
