“Are you thinking he went inside the bar and watched them while they drank beer?”
“No,” I said. “I think he was too careful for that. I think he hung back, waited until they came out to get into the Volkswagen. Then I think Spurrier approached them and put on the same act. His car had broken down. He was the owner of the bookstore they frequented. They had no reason to fear him. He gets inside, and very soon after his plan begins to unravel. They don’t end up in the wooded area, but at the cemetery. The women, Jill, in particular, aren’t very cooperative.”
“And he bleeds inside the Volkswagen,” Marino said.
“A nosebleed, maybe. Ain’t no vacuum cleaner gonna get blood out of a seat or floor mat.”
“I doubt he bothered to vacuum. Spurrier probably was panicking. He probably ditched the car as quickly as he could in the most convenient spot, which turned out to be the motel. As for where his car was parked, who knows? But I’m betting he was in for a little hike.”
“Maybe the episode with the two women spooked him so bad he didn’t try again for five years.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” I said. “Something’s missing.”
The telephone rang several weeks later when I was home alone working in my study. My recorded message had barely begun when the person hung up. The phone rang again half an hour later, and this time I answered before my machine. I said hello, and the line was disconnected again.
Perhaps someone was trying to reach Abby and did not want to talk to me? Perhaps Clifford Ring had discovered where she was? Distracted, I went to the refrigerator for a snack and settled on several slices of cheese.
I was back in my study paying bills when I heard a car pull in, gravel crunching beneath tires. I assumed it was Abby until the doorbell rang.
I looked through the peephole at Pat Harvey zipped up in a red windbreaker. The hang-ups, I thought. She had made certain I was home because she wanted to speak to me face-to-face.
She greeted me with “I’m sorry to impose,” but I could tell she wasn’t.
“Please come in,” I said reluctantly.
She followed me to the kitchen, where I poured her a cup of coffee. She sat stiffly at the table, coffee mug cradled in her hands.
“I’m going to be very direct with you,” she began. “It has come to my attention that this man they arrested in Williamsburg, Steven Spurrier, is believed to have murdered two women eight years ago.”
“Where did you hear this?”
“That’s not important. The cases were never solved and have now been linked to the murders of the five couples. The two women were Steven Spurrier’s first victims.”
I noticed that the lower lid of her left eye was twitching. Pat Harvey’s physical deterioration since I had seen her last was shocking. Her auburn hair was lifeless; her eyes were dull; her skin was pale and drawn.
She looked even thinner than she had been during her televised press conference.
“I’m not sure I’m following you,” I said tensely.
“He inspired their trust and they made themselves vulnerable. Which is exactly what he did with the others, with my daughter, with Fred.”
She said all this as if she knew it for a fact. Pat Harvey had convicted Spurrier in her mind.
“But he will never be punished for Debbie’s murder,” she said. “I know that now.”
“It is too early to know anything,” I replied calmly.
“They have no proof. What was found inside his house is not enough. It will not hold up in any court, if the cases ever go to court. You can’t convict someone of capital murder just because you found newspaper clippings and surgical gloves inside his house, especially if the defense claims the evidence was planted to frame his client.”
She had been talking to Abby, I thought with a sick feeling.
“The only evidence,” she went on coldly, “is the blood found inside the women’s car. It will all depend on DNA, and there will be questions because the cases occurred so long ago. The chain of custody, for example. Even if the prints match and the courts accept the evidence, there is no certainty that a jury will, especially since the police have yet to find the murder weapons.”