Carved in Bone - Jefferson Bass [120]
Sheriff Kitchings was up on the seventh floor of UT hospital, I repeated. His chief deputy was slewing around in a sooty box in the back of my truck. The one other Cooke County officer involved in the case was doubtless chatting with a roomful of TBI and FBI agents, explaining the disastrous turn their investigation had just taken.
“So what you’re saying is, the utter collapse of law and order makes it a good idea for us to go riding back into the jaws of death? That’s your compelling argument?”
That pretty much summed it up. “But this new DNA evidence sheds a whole ’nother light on the case,” I argued, “and nobody knows it. And nobody knows we know it but us.”
“Your powers of reasoning are unique in all the world,” he said, shaking his head. “Not to mention your way with grammar.”
“Grammar, schmammer. Don’t you see? Old man Kitchings gets her pregnant, then he kills her to cover up the pregnancy. Maybe she never even tells him she’s pregnant—probably scared to. But then she starts to show, and he knows the scandal will get out and ruin him. Hard for a preacher to hang onto his flock if they know he’s committed adultery, incest, maybe even rape.”
Art raised a hand like a student with a question. “He would appear to have vaulted to the top of the suspect list, I’ll grant you that. It’s your next step—that we’re the perfect pair to confront the killer—that I’m not sure follows, exactly.”
People had a way of disappearing and dying suddenly in Cooke County, I pointed out. That, he retorted, was precisely why he didn’t think we should be headed there, given that we’d very nearly disappeared and died once already. “But what if Kitchings Senior—or somebody else up there—gets wind of the DNA results some other way? What if he vanishes, runs away, or turns up dead? We’d never know the truth.”
“And you think he’s going to ’fess up to us, after all these years, just because we’re such swell guys?”
“If we show up and confront him with this, catch him off guard, I think he’s a hell of a lot more likely to ’fess up, or at least reveal something, than he is if we don’t.”
“Don’t show up, or don’t catch him off guard?”
“Either. Both. With the sheriff and Williams out of the way for the moment, the coast is clear. And maybe, if we drop the DNA bombshell, we can shock the reverend into admitting something.” Art turned his head and looked out the window. I knew my argument was weak. I knew it wasn’t logic that was compelling me back to Cooke County today. I reached into my shirt pocket and removed the photo of Leena that Jim O’Conner had given me. I handed it to Art. “There’s something in her face that reminds me of Kathleen thirty years ago. Kathleen when she was young. Not just young, either—Kathleen when she pregnant. She’d put on some weight, and her face had rounded out a little…” I trailed off; it sounded foolish.
“So somehow this is about Kathleen now?”
“No. Well, maybe. Not her, exactly. More about me, but me trying to set things right with her, somehow.”
“Come on, Bill, when are you going to let yourself off that hook? It’s not your fault Kathleen died.”
“You can tell me that till you’re blue in the face—I can tell myself that till I’m blue in the face—but that doesn’t seem to change how I feel about it. Maybe this will.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“I don’t know, Art. I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it.”
He sighed. “Well, don’t forget to set fire to it as you’re climbing over the rail.” He slipped the picture of Leena into his own shirt pocket. “Okay, then. Let’s just pray we can persuade the good reverend that confession really is good for the soul.”
I’d pretty much quit praying two years before, but I decided this might be a good time to give it another try.
CHAPTER 39
THE STONE WALLS OF Cave Springs Primitive Baptist Church and its blasted tunnel sent a chill of remembrance through me, and I found myself rethinking the wisdom of our errand. I was just about to say as much when Art tapped my shoulder and pointed toward the house next door. Sitting motionless in his