“You were there,” she said. “It was the night of the Advocates dinner.”
Walt caught his breath but maintained his composure.
“I’d seen . . . She’d showed me . . . Never mind. I knew who he was, that’s all.”
Walt hesitated, facing a fork in the road. He knew who she was referring to. Some cases go cold. He felt obliged to pursue the identity of “she,” but understood not to. He was painfully aware of the camera aimed at the back of his head.
“You knew who he was,” he said, making it a statement.
“The football guy.”
“You follow pro football, do you?”
“Not exactly.”
“But you recognized a linebacker who’s been out of the league for several years. Can you explain that?”
“I knew who he was. I don’t remember how.” As her eyes lowered to the desk, and her shoulders caved forward, he thought even a first-year graduate student could identify the lie from her body language.
“Seeing him . . . Was that when you stopped for a second in your talk, your address, your speech? You’re right: I was there, and I remember your . . . interrupting yourself.”
“Might have been.”
“Seeing this man caused that kind of reaction? Why is that?” Why couldn’t he bring himself to just ask her the identity of the woman she’d referred to? Why did he insist on dancing around the edges?
“Roy Coats,” she said, naming the man who had brutally assaulted her a few years before. Walt winced at the mention of the man, his memory still holding on to the grainy webcam images of the violent sexual abuse this young woman had endured. His brain lacked the delete button he sometimes wished it had. “I don’t get exactly why. I don’t expect you to get it. But when that guy opened the doors back there and looked inside, it wasn’t him I saw, it was Roy Coats. That happens to me pretty much all the time. In Atkinson’s, out on the street. Can be anywhere. I just see him. He’s looking at me that way he looked at me. Like he knew what he was going to do to me, and me having no clue. Like that. Like people look when they know a secret you don’t. And it makes me physically sick. Like I’m going to puke. I want to scream. I want to scratch his eyes out. Castrate him. Kill him.” She looked up from what had looked like a trance.
Walt felt a jolt. Neither of them had wanted her to say that word.
“Not that I ever would,” she added quickly. “I didn’t mean it that way. Look: that was the only time I ever saw the guy. I’m telling the truth. That one time in the Limelight Room. I hadn’t seen him again until just now when you put his picture down here.” She reached out and touched the photograph. “That came out all wrong.”
Yes, it did, Walt thought. “Roy Coats,” Walt clarified. “You wanted to kill Roy Coats.”
“Exactly. But he’s dead. Look, I know that. Okay? I know he’s dead. But what your mind knows and the rest of you feels are two different things. And that particular time, I saw Roy Coats and all that stuff came back.”
“And that’s the only time you saw Martel Gale?”
“Yes.”
Walt pulled the photo back and returned it to the folder. The job turned sordid too often. At times like this he wondered: why him? Why law enforcement? Why expose yourself to this stuff? “Where do you live?”
“I’m staying, house-sitting at the moment, up at the Engletons’ place.”
“The residence of Leslie and Michael Engleton.”
“Yes.”
“In the main house or the guest cottage?”
“Fiona lives in the guest cottage. I’m house-sitting the main house.”
“Fiona Kenshaw. Our crime scene photographer.”
“Yes.”
“For how long have you been residing at the Engleton residence?”
“They’re on this trip. You know, for like the whole summer. I’ve been there . . . I don’t know . . . two months? Another month or so to go.”
“You and I have seen each other there,” Walt said.
“Yes.”
“You came after me with a baseball bat in your hand.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. There’s that guy in the woods around there. That guy you’re looking for. It was dark. I didn’t know it was you. You looking in the window and all. I thought you were a peeping Tom or something.”
Walt felt himself flush, an uncontrollable reaction.
“Tell me about the baseball bat.”
“I don’t know. It’s Michael’s, I guess. He has a bunch of them in the