came back into the bar. “I should go,” he was saying.
“Sure. I understand,” Henry said. They paid the bill at the bar, each contributing cash, then walked out together, Alan slinging his bag over his shoulder.
Henry made the call to the Boston Police Department Tips Line from a pay phone near the Tufts Medical Center. He wore gloves to touch the phone, just in case.
“I know who killed Audrey Marshall,” he said to the man who answered the phone.
“Can I get your name, please, sir?”
“I’d rather not say. I’m calling from a pay phone because I’m scared.” Henry let his voice, pitched a little higher than usual, noticeably tremble.
“Can I ask you what you’re scared of?”
“I’m scared of Alan Cherney. He lives in the same building that Audrey Marshall lived in, and I’m pretty sure he killed her.”
“Can you tell me his apartment number?”
“I can’t. I don’t know it. But he lives right across from where she lived. It’s not hard to find out. All you need—”
“Okay, of course. We’ll look it up. It will be easy to find out. Can you tell me why you think Alan Cherney was involved in Audrey Marshall’s murder?”
“Because he has the knife that killed her. It’s in his bag.”
Henry hung up and, keeping his head down, walked away from the phone. He hadn’t seen any surveillance cameras around, but he couldn’t be sure.
Chapter 35
When he got back to his apartment, Henry put on New Order’s Brotherhood as loud as he thought he could without getting a complaint. He’d known, as soon as he hung up the phone, that he’d made the right decision. It was time to take some of the heat off Corbin. Even if Alan wasn’t convicted, Henry had muddied the waters. It was going to be fun to follow it from afar. His work was done, for now.
He took a long, stinging shower, then dressed, replayed the album, and lay down on his made-up bed. He was going to miss Kate. When he’d left the apartment that morning he’d only thought of it as a temporary absence. Still, it was best that he stayed away. He closed his eyes, flexing one foot in time to the music. He floated on his river, cool and refreshing, and fell asleep while he was still on the surface, bobbing along, contented, maybe even happy.
He woke in a dark apartment, cold and shivering. He’d slept too long, and when he sat up the air felt liquid and he nearly lay back down again. He was plagued with doubts. Had he gone too far with the call to the police? Alan Cherney didn’t know his real name—he’d just said “Jack,” hadn’t he?—but he could describe him. And so could Kate. She could draw him, as he knew. Henry decided that his involvement with Kate and Corbin and Alan was now done. He’d set his traps, and it was time to walk away. He’d been extraordinarily lucky so far—the near miss with the police this morning—and for the next few weeks he wouldn’t leave his apartment except to go to his office in Newtonville.
He made himself a cheese sandwich and drank a glass of milk, then went to unpack his backpack. He carefully laid out everything he’d brought to Kate’s house. His extra shirts, the gloves, his outdoor hat, his antiperspirant, his granola bars, the empty bottle in case he ever needed to empty his bladder while hiding, his antislip socks with the rubber grips, his night vision goggles with the head strap, and his sheathed filleting knife, brand new. It was all accounted for except for the Lycra ski mask he slept in so as not to leave hairs behind. He searched the pockets of his backpack, then the pockets of his pants and his jacket. It was nowhere. He remembered pulling it on the night before when he’d been sleeping under the guest room bed. It had gotten warm in the night and he’d pushed it up to his hairline. That was his last memory of the ski mask. It must have slipped off his head in the night, and was probably still under the bed. Where else could it be?
He headed back out into the night.
Before returning to Kate’s apartment to look for his ski mask, Henry visited Audrey Marshall’s place one more time. He knew it was his last chance.
He stood in the dark kitchen, breathing the air, remembering . . .
Not the work of cutting her—no, that had been hard—but the