Page 106 of Forever Dark
Then Connor suddenly saw the memory of the three victims.A church tower.A grave.A silo.Three women butchered.
The lightness went out of him at once.
Arnold saw it happen and straightened.
Connor tapped the list.“All right.We start with the ones staying close enough to reach before supper.”
“You want me driving or talking?”Arnold asked.
“Driving first.Talking when I get tired of it.”
Arnold pushed back from the desk.“That’ll be around the second driveway.”
Connor settled the hat on his head.“Oh, ye of little faith.”
The first stop sat three miles outside town in a clapboard house with wind chimes on the porch and ceramic frogs lined up on the steps like sentries.
A woman in her late sixties answered the door in a cardigan buttoned wrong, bright lipstick, and an expression of delighted suspicion.
“Well,” she said.“I didn’t expect to see the law at my front porch today.”
Connor showed his badge.“Mrs.Bernice Toller?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether I owe taxes.”
Arnold coughed into his fist to hide a smile.
Connor kept his face straight.“I’m not here for money.We’d just like to ask about Elias Croft’s revival.”
Bernice opened the door wider.“Come in if you’re not here to insult him.”
The living room smelled of cinnamon and furniture polish.Plastic covers gleamed on the sofa.A tiny white dog on an armchair barked at Connor like it had a personal grievance.
“That’s Chairman Mao,” Bernice said.“He hates men in authority.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Connor muttered.
They sat.Bernice did not.She paced in front of them with all the force of a much younger woman.
“You attended the revival?”Connor asked.
“Three nights,” she said.“Might’ve gone four if my sciatica hadn’t started bargaining with Satan.”
“You speak to Croft directly?”
“Twice.”
“What about?”
“My bunions the first time and despair the second.”
Arnold blinked.“Despair?”
Bernice waved him off.“Just the regular sort.Getting old, everyone disappointing you, television going to hell.”
