Page 66 of The Instruments of Darkness

Estelle Boulier’s eyes went blank and Pascal was convinced their moment had passed. Then Estelle spoke again:

“Yes,” she said, “you can take a look around the property. But don’t leave a mess.”

It was decided that Loscarso should stay with Estelle. They didn’t want her to reconsider and try calling her son. While they had her permission to enter and conduct a search, a smart lawyer could seize on her mental condition to seek an emergency court order preventing them from proceeding. Loscarso, therefore, was forced to make more coffee and look at further photos of the dead before Estelle eventually fell asleep in her chair.

By then, the cadaver dogs were already yapping.

AT HER HOME IN Haynesville, Sabine Drew sat in the kitchen, a newspaper open to the crossword. Her mother was nearby, clearing up after breakfast. She turned at the sound of a cup shattering on the floor, to see her daughter stretch out her right hand to caress empty air.

“Oh, honey,” said Sabine. “Yes, I hear the dogs, too. They’re coming to get you. They’re coming to set you free.”

PINE TREES SPREAD THEIR roots thinly, and there were only so many clear patches of ground in which Lester Boulier could have interred Verona Walters.

They located her within the hour.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Lester Boulier was operating a forklift when the convoy of police cars arrived at Hatch Hill and pulled up outside the main building. He killed the engine, climbed out, and wiped his brow on his sleeve as Pascal and Loscarso walked toward him. Pascal had wanted Loscarso to be present. Without her, they couldn’t have talked Estelle Boulier into allowing them onto her property. Loscarso deserved to be there at the finish. If nothing else, it would help ease her conscience about what she’d been asked to do.

Boulier didn’t try to run. He didn’t even look especially unhappy to see them coming. Around them all work ceased, and they advanced on Boulier to a chorus of gulls.

“Lester Boulier,” said Pascal, “I’m arresting you for the abduction and murder of Verona Walters.”

He Mirandized Boulier while Loscarso cuffed him. Boulier reeked of trash, the same stink of which Verona Walters had spoken to Sabine Drew. He probably always smelled of it, thought Pascal, even after a shower. You worked with something long enough and it became part of you, changed you. Dangling from Boulier’s belt was a pair of green work gloves, but Pascal saw that they were comparatively new. He’d surely burned the others, the ones he was wearing when he killed the child.

Boulier had said nothing so far, barely acknowledging Pascal and Loscarso beyond turning his back for the cuffs. His gaze was drawn to the surrounding hills of garbage, as though this was a landscape he wished to fix in his memory before being deprived of it forever. Only when they began to lead him to the car did he speak.

“I just wanted to frighten her father some,” he said. “I was going to let her go after a couple of hours.”

It might even have been true; if it was, the pointlessness somehow made everything worse. But it didn’t much matter one way or the other, not to Verona Walters and not to her family, so Pascal didn’t bother replying. They put Boulier in the car and closed the door on him. Pascal looked at Loscarso. She was pale and her hands were shaking. She walked to the front of the car and sat on the hood. Pascal joined her as two officers went to search Boulier’s locker.

“I thought it would feel different,” she said softly, “like some kind of victory, but it doesn’t, not at all.”

“The worse the crime, the less it feels that way,” said Pascal. “But it’s an ending. That will have to do.”

“I want to be with you when you inform the parents.”

“Okay.”

He thought he understood why. Some suffering was so great that a failure to assume even a fraction of its burden was a sin. He took his cell phone from his pocket.

“I should call Sabine Drew to let her know what’s happened.”

“She probably already knows,” said Loscarso.

Pascal expected to catch her smiling, but she wasn’t.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “it would be polite.”

“Yes, it would.”

Loscarso stared at her feet.

“Do you really think a dead girl spoke to her?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Pascal, “but I hope not, truly. The difficulty is, I don’t have an alternative explanation that makes any sense.”

“Are you afraid of ghosts?”

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