An Ice cold Grave Page 0,81

what Xylda said in Memphis? That in the time of ice, we would be so happy?" I asked him.

"She did say that. We agreed that Xylda wasn't a fraud, at least not all of the time."

"I think that as she got older, she got closer to the bone," I said.

"I don't know if that daughter of hers will ever believe it."

"Rain just wants everything to be normal," I said. "Maybe if I'd been brought up by Xylda, with all her ups and downs and spiritual moments, I'd be the same way."

"I think the way we were brought up was bad enough."

He was right about that. Being raised by Xylda would have been a cakewalk compared to living in the trailer in Texarkana.

I thought again of the sacrifice Chuck Almand had made as I sat alone at our table, waiting for Tolliver to bring our order. I'd gathered the napkins and straws with one hand, transported them, and returned to get the ketchup packets. I stared down at the table, which was clean, and wished I never had to go into another fast-food place in my life, before I returned to the subject of Chuck, niggling at the puzzle of his behavior.

Tolliver put the tray on the table, and I began taking my food off. At least I could eat this food one-handed. Without asking, Tolliver tore open three ketchups for me and squirted them on my French fries.

"Thanks," I said, and went back to thinking. But this was no place to tell Tolliver what I was worried about, even if I could put it together - not here, where every soul in Doraville who wasn't at school or at work was crowded in together sharing germs and eating food that was bad for them. I lost my appetite quickly, and piled my trash back on the tray.

"What's wrong?" Tolliver asked. He did care, but I could hear the undertone of anxiety, maybe of irritation. He wanted to leave. Doraville gave him the creeps and the deaths of all those young men was giving him nightmares.

"After we leave here, let's go out to the death site," I said. "I'm really, really sorry," I added when I saw the expression on his face. "But I need to."

"We found the bodies," he said, in as low a voice as he could manage. "We found them. We did what was required. We got our money."

We so seldom disagreed, or at least we hardly ever felt so strongly about our disagreements. I felt sick.

"I'm sorry," I said again. "Can we just leave here, and talk about it?"

In a stiff silence Tolliver dumped our trash into the receptacle and thumped the tray down on top. He held the door for me when we left, and unlocked the car and got in the driver's side, of course, but he didn't start it up. He sat there waiting for an explanation. He'd almost never done that before. Usually, whatever I said went. But now our relationship had changed in deep ways, and we didn't yet know the new balance. It had shifted, though. Now I had to explain, and I accepted that. It hadn't always been comfortable, being Queen of the World. I'd gotten a little too used to it, too.

In the past, I would simply have told him I needed to see the site again, and he would have driven me there without asking me any further questions. At least, most of the time. I pulled my left leg up on the seat and twisted so my back was to the passenger door. He was waiting.

"Here's my thinking." I took a deep breath. "In the story we've got now, the way it looks, Chuck Almand was helping his dad secure the boys. His dad was bringing him along in the family business by showing him how to kill cats and dogs and other small animals, so Chuck would grow up into a big serial killer like Papa Tom. Right?"

Tolliver nodded.

"But that thinking is wrong," I said. "If Chuck was helping his dad, if we accept the idea that it would take more than two people to subdue the boys - "

"Gacy worked alone," Tolliver said.

That was true. John Wayne Gacy had tortured and killed boys in the Chicago area, and he'd acted alone. Plus, in the pictures I'd seen, he hadn't looked like any really fit guy. "He got them to put on handcuffs, right?" I said. "Told them they were trick handcuffs and he'd show them