Chapter 20

Martha didn't call me back after I told her that I'd spotted Ethan Saltz. I tried several times to reach her and even sent her a text. But somehow I knew in my heart she was dead.

I didn't even try to sleep that night. I was waiting for my phone to make a noise that would tell me Martha was okay, even though I doubted that she was. Just after dawn, I opened up a browser on my phone and did a search for Alan Peralta and Martha Ratliff, adding Portsmouth, figuring that their purchase of a house would be public record. It came up almost immediately: 55 Birchvale Road. They'd paid $650,000 for it the previous year.

I checked out of my motel, and got into my car, the address loaded onto my phone. I drove as fast as I dared and made it to Portsmouth by ten that morning, driving through the center of town on cobblestone streets, brick buildings on either side. It was sunny, but the kind of misty sunshine that indicated that it had probably been rainy in the recent past. After passing through the center, I took several turns along residential streets, eventually finding Birchvale, a lightly wooded street of modest homes that all looked like they'd been built in the 1950s. The address on Birchvale was one of the spiffier houses on the street, freshly painted an olive green, daffodils poking up in its neat front yard. There was a Subaru Outback in the driveway. I drove past the house about half a block and pulled up beneath a large maple tree on the edge of a small cemetery.

If I was about to find what I thought I was going to find inside of the house, then it made sense to not draw attention to myself. I reached back and unzipped my bag that was resting on the backseat of my car. Inside was a blue baseball cap without a logo. I could at least tuck my red hair up under the hat. It wasn't exactly a disguise, but if I were identified later, it might muddy the waters a little bit.

I left the car and walked down the street as casually as possible, skirting puddles on the sidewalk. When I reached Martha and Alan's house I turned down their driveway, then crossed the small yard that led to the front door. The bland fa?ade of the small pretty house filled me with even more dread than I'd been feeling. I somehow knew what I was going to find behind its walls. I rapped on the door, then turned the doorknob. It wasn't locked, so I pushed the door open and yelled "Yoo-hoo," into the house as I stepped inside. I closed the door behind me.

I was in a dim living area, the curtains still pulled, a stairway to my right. A cat padded heavily down the stairs, stopping at the bottom and meowing.

"Hey, there," I said, crouching and holding out my hand. "Where's your mom?"

I yelled another hello into the house, then listened. The cat had sniffed at my fingers and was now rubbing up against one of my ankles. I stood up, deciding to look upstairs first.

At the top landing there was a wide carpeted hallway, three doors leading off from it on one side, and one on the other. Only one of the doors was opened, the one to the right, and judging by its position in the house it made sense that it was the master bedroom. I took a step toward it, suddenly wishing I'd brought my Mace, or even my stun gun. I didn't think there was anyone behind the door, at least no one alive, but I couldn't be sure. I pulled down the sleeve of my sweater, covering my hand so as not to leave any prints on the knob, and pushed the door open.

I could smell the blood before my eyes adjusted enough to see the room. The curtains were open, light from outside illuminating Martha, lying on the floor, blood soaking an area rug that framed her with almost precise geometry.

I looked around, moving carefully. There was a spray of blood across the hardwood floor and even along some of the beige wall beside the door. Martha had bled out from a major artery. Nothing else in the room seemed disturbed. Not that I'd known what the room looked liked before, but it was neat, the bed made, no clothes on the floor.

There was no sign of a struggle.

A wave of faintness passed over me, and I shut my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, nothing in the room had changed. Martha was still dead. As I turned to leave, I noticed a framed print on the wall next to the door, a pen-and-ink drawing advertising the Berkshire Literary Festival. It was familiar to me, and then I remembered that it was a piece of art that Martha had hung in her dorm room back when we'd been students together. I wondered if Martha's killer had seen the print as well, and if he remembered it as I had.

Back downstairs I looked around for the cat, but didn't see him, then I peered through the strip of beveled glass beside the front door, just to make sure that there weren't immediate witnesses in the area. I pulled my sweater down over my hand again and exited the house, walking briskly back down the road to my car.

I drove for a while, not in any particular direction, then I pulled into the empty parking lot of a clam shack that hadn't yet opened for the season. I shut off my engine and thought about Martha, taking a moment to digest the fact that she was longer alive. My hands shook, and I rubbed them on my legs even though they weren't sweaty.

I sat in the car for ten minutes, just staring through my windshield. I had several decisions to make. One of the decisions was whether I was going to call in to the police and report a dead body at 55 Birchvale Road. It would spare Alan from coming home and discovering his wife's corpse, but on the flip side, it might hurt the investigation, especially if I called in anonymously, which was what I would do. The other possibility was to simply go to the police with everything I knew, but I was not inclined to do that, partly because what I was thinking still sounded so ludicrous to me that it was hard to imagine the police believing my story. I decided not to make the call, as myself or anonymously. It wouldn't help Martha, and it wouldn't help me in finding the person who had killed her.

My next decision took a little longer for me to make. Over a year ago Henry Kimball had come to me for help when he'd been entangled with Joan Whalen Grieve and Richard Seddon. I'd helped him, but not until after he'd nearly died. I didn't particularly want to get Henry involved in something dangerous—I believe he'd suffered enough because of me—but (a) I knew that he would help me no matter what I asked him to do, and (b) I knew that he would keep whatever we found out together a secret. It was hard to explain our relationship, even to myself, but it was an alliance. Maybe for Henry it had to do with love. Maybe for me as well. But most importantly we trusted one another. And he knew things about me that no one else in the world knew.

Before I left the parking lot, I'd made my decision. I drove to Arlington, a suburban town next to Cambridge, and parked outside the office building where Henry now worked. I thought about just knocking on his door but decided to call instead. He picked up right away.

"Hey," he said.

"Are you in your office?"

"I am."

"I'm outside. Do you mind if I come up?"

"No, not at all. When you get to the door press the button next to my name and I'll buzz you up."

When I stepped into his office, we did a slightly awkward dance that involved a kiss on the cheek and a half hug. "Everything okay?" he said, stepping back. We looked at one another. He was basically unchanged since I'd last seen him, his brown hair a little shorter, eyes a little wearier, but wearing his usual uniform of a tweed blazer over old jeans. He'd referred to his style once as "dissolute poet."

"I'm fine," I said. "But I think I might have a job for you, if you're interested."

We moved to separate sides of his desk. The office coloring was beige and there were built-in fluorescent lights in the dropped ceiling. I was looking around, and Henry said, "New office. My last one blew up with me in it."

"I remember. This new one is..."

"Maybe it needs some new paint."

"Yes."

"It's nice to see you in person," I said, not willing to get down to business just yet. Maybe I didn't want to say the words about my friend Martha out loud. I knew it made no difference, but I still wasn't quite ready.

"Thank you for all the letters. They make me feel like I'm living in a different, better time."

"We might be the last letter writers on planet earth."

"We might be."

"How are David and Sharon?"

"My mom fell and broke a hip about six months ago—I probably wrote and told you that already—and now she's much better but likely a pill addict. David's just about the same. I've been reading him Anne Sexton poems. He talks about you."

I saw a slight flush of red cross his cheeks. He admired my father a lot, despite having met him on several occasions. "What does he think of Anne Sexton?" he said.

"He says she keeps his attention, which is his highest praise. And, oh, he met her once, but that's not that surprising, because he's met everyone."

"Did you read him my limerick?"

I laughed and told him I hadn't, at least not yet. Henry had once been an aspiring poet, but these days he only wrote limericks. Most of his letters included at least one.

"I'm glad you're all doing well," he said. "I had this horrible feeling when you buzzed up that you were going to tell me that someone died."

"Someone has died," I said. "No one you know, but that's why I'm here."

"Okay," he said.

"Her name was Martha Ratliff. Do you have a moment to hear the entire story?"

I saw him hesitate briefly, then say, "Yeah, tell me all about it. I'm free."

I told him all about it. How Martha had come to me with a suspicion that her husband might be responsible for up to five murders across the country. How we'd researched those deaths, together, finding some evidence that suggested Alan had most likely been responsible, but not enough evidence to know for sure. And then how I'd gone to a conference in Saratoga Springs to at least look at Alan, to follow him, see if I could find out anything.

"Did you think you'd look at him and know the truth?"

"A little bit," I said. "Foolish, I know."

"So what did you think?"

"Let me tell you another story first. Back when I first met Martha, she began dating one of the adjunct professors at our school. He was this very good-looking guy, and it was obvious to me, but not immediately to Martha, that he was bad news. He got her into all sorts of sexual things she was uncomfortable with. She became a project for him, someone he could manipulate and change. It was all a game to him. He was a sociopath, or maybe just a sadist. I helped her get out of the relationship."

"And you're telling me about this guy now..."

"Because he was there at the conference in Saratoga. Because he was following Alan as well. And now I have a theory."

"Okay."

"It sounds ridiculous, I know, but I think he's killing the women."

"Okay," he said again, this time with some skepticism in his voice.

"Hear me out. He's not picking them. Peralta goes on trips and cheats on Martha. With a woman he picks up at a bar, or a prostitute, or a stripper from a club. Peralta is picking the victims. This other man is killing them."

"Because of Martha?"

"Because of Martha."

"And now he's killed her. Why didn't he just start with that?"

"I have a sick feeling he did it because of me."

"Because of you how?"

"I didn't just spot him trailing Peralta, he spotted me as well. We spoke."

"Jesus."

"Right."

"How was that?"

"It was awkward. Neither of us admitted why we were really there, but we both knew. He seemed amused, pleased almost. After our conversation he must have driven straight to Portsmouth and killed Martha. He did it as a challenge to me, I think."

"Why wouldn't he think you'd just turn him in?"

"I don't know. Cockiness, I suppose. I have no proof. Plus, I think it's possible that he's no longer going by his old name, that maybe he's disappeared."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because I was up all night trying to find him online. There's stuff from fifteen years ago, but nothing new. That's why I'm here talking with you."

"You want me to find him?"

"Yes. I want you to find him, then I'll do everything else."

"What's his name?"