An Ice cold Grave Page 0,82

how to take them off, and then they turned out to be real?"

"I think so."

"So he had a gimmick, and so might Tom," I said.

"And Dahmer acted by himself."

"Yeah."

"So I don't think you're making such a point."

"I'm thinking there were two people." It would have been much easier to subdue a healthy adolescent male if there were two abductors. And maybe the boys had been kept alive for a time so two men could enjoy them, each in his own way. "Maybe one got off on the sex, one on the torture, or each on some personal combination of the two. Or maybe one just enjoyed the death. There are people like that. That's why the boys lived for a while. And we know they did. So the killers could have equal time with their victim."

"And you're sure about this."

"I can't say a hundred percent sure. I think so."

"Based on what?"

"Okay, maybe based on something intangible from their graves," I said. "Maybe just my imagination."

"So - there was Chuck. And Tom made Chuck help him."

"No. I don't think so. That's where I was going when we started talking about Gacy and Dahmer. See, the animals were pretty fresh. But the boys have been vanishing for five years, right? More or less. The animals, well, none of them had been dead for longer than a year, looked like. Warm summers here, lots of bugs."

"So what's the bottom line?"

"Tom's helper wasn't Chuck. It was someone else, someone who's still at large."

Tolliver looked at me with a completely blank face. I had no idea what he was thinking or whether he agreed with me.

I held my hands out, palms up. "What?" I said.

"I'm thinking," he said. He turned on the car while he thought, which was good, because it was feeling pretty chilly. Finally he said, "So, what to do?"

"I have no idea," I said. "I need to run in to tell Manfred his grandmother died on her own. Though there was someone there who didn't do anything about it."

"What?"

"Someone watched her die. Someone didn't call for help. Not that I think it would've done any good. But..." I shook my head. "That's just creepy. She knew someone was standing and watching."

"But not harming her. And not helping."

"No," I said. "Just watching."

"Could it have been Manfred himself?"

I snatched at the idea. That would make sense. Manfred wouldn't necessarily have known Xylda was passing. "No," I said reluctantly, after I'd thought about my connection with Xylda's last moment in the funeral home cooler. "No, it wasn't Manfred. At least, if it was, Xylda was beyond recognizing her own grandson, and I didn't get any sense of that much disorientation from our connection."

Tolliver dropped me off while he went to gas up the car. I strode through the hospital like I worked there, and I got to Manfred's room to find he was by himself. Trying not to look too relieved - Rain was probably a nice woman but she was a lot of work - I went directly to his bedside and touched his hand. Manfred's eyes sprang open, and for a second I thought he was going to yell.

"Oh, thank God it's you," he said when he'd grasped who I was. "What did you find out?"

"Your grandmother died of natural causes," I said. "Ah - do you remember standing in the doorway to her room and looking at her for any length of time?"

"No. I always went right in and sat in the chair right by her bed. Why?"

"At the moment she died, someone was standing in the doorway watching her."

"Did they frighten her?"

"Not necessarily. Surprised her. But that didn't cause her death. She was in the process of dying."

"You're sure." Manfred didn't know what to do about this random piece of information. Neither did I.

"Yes, I am. She died a natural death."

"That's great," he said, much relieved. "Thanks so much, Harper." He took my hand, folded it in his warm one. "You did that for me and it had to be awful. But now we don't need an autopsy, she can rest in peace."

Xylda's resting in peace had nothing to do with whether or not she had an autopsy, but I decided it was best to let the subject die a natural death, as natural as Xylda's.

"Listen to me," I said. His face hardened at my tone, which was serious.

"I'm listening," he said.

"Don't be alone here," I said. "Don't be alone in Doraville."

"But the guy was arrested," Manfred said. "It's done."

"No," I