The Killing Vision Read Online Free PDF Page B

found?”
    She shook her head.  “Haven’t heard from the
sumbitch in seven years.  Don’t expect to now.”
    Halloran glanced around the cluttered room. 
Pictures of Sarah Jo lined a shelf along one wall.  One of them—the same
photograph that had been repeatedly plastered in shop windows and left to fade
on telephone poles the last three months—showed a smiling, fresh-faced girl on
the verge of womanhood, her large blue eyes staring into the camera lens into
infinity, into the unlucky and damnable fate that awaited her.  Chapman was
staring at it, too, and Halloran quickly looked back at his notepad.
    “Mrs. McElvoy,” said Chapman, “just now you said
‘that bastard.’  Do you think it’s a man?”
    She snorted, a wretched, ugly sound.  “It’s always a
man, ain’t it?  Ain’t no woman that would kill a little girl and leave her
floatin’ in the river.  Ain’t no woman alive would do that.”
    Halloran folded up his memo pad and stuffed it back
into his pocket, glancing about the house.  “Mrs. McElvoy, do you have anyone
staying with you?  Any family?”
    “Nope.”
    “Friends?”
    “Nope.  They’ve come by and stayed for a bit, but I
sent them on home.  Ain’t nothin’ they can do.”
    “Do you want us to send someone over for you?  A
counselor or anyone?”
    She shook her head.  “I’ll tell you what I told
everybody else.  I just want to be left alone now.  I want to be by myself. 
Just let me grieve in private.”
    He nodded, then rose from the sofa.  Chapman, taking
the cue, practically leaped to his feet.  “We’ll be in touch,” Halloran told
her.  “Call us if anything changes.”
    He made to give her a reassuring touch on the
shoulder as he passed, and she grabbed his arm.  She looked up at him with
pleading, dazed eyes.  “Tell me one thing before you go.  Tell me the truth.  I
want to know.  I need to know.”
    “Yes, ma’am?”
    She swallowed and looked away.  “Was…was she raped?”
    He saw no reason to keep it from her.  “Yes, ma’am,
she was.  In a manner of speaking.  She was violated with an object.”
    Mrs. McElvoy, nodded, tears flowing freely down her cheeks
now, her face contorted with agony.  He patted her shoulder, and Chapman
followed him out the door.
    Outside, last night’s rain had made the heat more
intense, the air heavy.  Halloran’s forehead broke into an instant sweat.  They
reached the sedan, and he was just opening his door when Mrs. McElvoy’s voice
surprised him.  “She was comin’ home from band practice, you know.”
    “Excuse me?”
    She stood on the front porch, leaning against one of
the peeling posts, her arms crossed over her chest.  “The day she disappeared. 
She had band practice after school.  She left the schoolhouse walking.  Like
she always did.”
    Halloran nodded.  He remembered writing that in the
report himself.  “She always walked past the water treatment plant and up by
the cemetery, didn’t she?”
    Mrs. McElvoy wasn’t listening to him.  She was
gazing at the sky.  “She played clarinet.”  She looked at him abruptly.  “Did
you ever find her clarinet?”
    Halloran shook his head.  “No, ma’am.”
    Without another word, Mrs. McElvoy turned and
disappeared into the house.
    Halloran blew out a breath.  It would be a two-beer
night.
    * * *
    5:22 PM
    When Joel dropped him off at home, Wade pulled the
pack of Winstons from his shirt pocket, stuck one between his lips, and lit
it.  It was the first thing he did every afternoon when he got out of the
truck, since the company wouldn’t let them smoke in the goddamn thing.  Like it
was made of gold or something.
    He stood for a moment in the front yard, savoring
the taste of the nicotine and the humid weight of the afternoon air.  Part of
him didn’t want to go inside, even though his stomach was growling for dinner. 
He just didn’t want to look at Marla today, listen to her bitch and complain,
see whatever stupid