“Did you speak with him?”
“No, I watched him through the screen door. Warren was rushing around getting his things.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. He was just standing there, next to his car, and these kids were playing football on the street. Little kids, ten or twelve years old, and he was staring at them.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all,” the woman said. “He stared, and all I wanted was for him to leave. He was waiting for one of them to throw the ball a little too close, a little too hard . . .”
“And?”
“Nothing. Warren ran outside, and they left.”
“Will you come to the precinct and sign a witness statement? Tomorrow maybe?”
The woman nodded.
“When was the last time you saw Warren?”
The woman didn’t need to think about it. “February 14, 1986.”
“And you were still living together in 1985?”
“Yes, for most of that year. I moved out in the summer, went back to my parents.”
“In the summer . . .”
“Yes.”
“Were you still together in June ’85?”
“Yes.”
“July?”
“Yes.”
“August 1985?”
Paula Wilson Kruger set her mug on the coffee table between them. “I left him at the end of August,” she said.
“What happened?”
“I took the car keys and drove to my parents in the middle of the night and never came back. My dad came for my clothes and things a few days later.”
“What happened?”
“He came home late one night and said he’d run over a deer.”
“A deer?”
“He came back late, after midnight. He smelled like smoke—not cigarettes but like bonfire smoke—and his clothes were filthy. He said to put them in the machine and wash them right away. There was dirt and mud, but there was also blood all over his jeans and T-shirt. I saw it, and he said he’d run over a deer and had to drag it off the road.”
“Did he say where it had happened?”
“I was too afraid to ask. I’d never seen him so terrified and angry, and I thought anything I asked would set him off.”
“What did you do?”
“I washed his clothes, went back to bed, and when I was sure he was asleep, I left.”
“I know it’s impossible to remember the details of something that happened so long ago, but—”
“It was August 28, 1985,” the woman said, “if that’s what you’re asking me.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Some days you just don’t forget. I never went back. He came to look for me, but I wouldn’t see him. He came the last time on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1986. By then I was already back with Martin—he had been my high-school sweetheart—and we married eighteen months later.”
“Why did you leave that night?”
The silence between them stretched, and Madison found herself listening for the husband’s car and hoping they wouldn’t be interrupted.
“Why did you leave?”
“Because it wasn’t a deer’s blood,” the woman said. “I just knew it wasn’t. And that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
Chapter 31
Nathan Quinn was exhausted. His meeting with Detective Madison had left him drained, and yet, after she left, he had paced the floor for all it was worth: he couldn’t bear to lie down, and the room was too small to contain his brittle energy. Three weeks ago they had nothing; today they had names. His knuckles were white as he leaned on the cane; he knew he would have to lie down soon, even though his mind would keep up its restless vigil.
They had names. He sat down on the edge of the bed and speed-dialed the fourth number on his list. Tod Hollis, the chief investigator for Quinn, Locke & Associates, picked up on the second ring.
“Warren Lee and Ronald Gray,” Quinn said. “The third one is in a psychiatric clinic. We’ll find out who he is soon enough, I’m sure.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“The full works. Every little scrap of information that the police will not have time to go after. Gilman chose these men, but somebody chose him. Somewhere in Gilman’s connections is the man who ordered the kidnapping.”
“I agree, this is not someone who went up to him cold. I’d say you’d have to have done business with a guy before you asked him to abduct three children.”
“Lee and Gray don’t have records.”
“Just because someone doesn’t have a record, it doesn’t mean they haven’t done very questionable things.”