Page 49 of A Talent for Murder

“I haven’t been Ethan Saltz for about six years.”

“Who are you now?”

He hesitated briefly, then said, “My name is Robert Charnock. I run a gallery in Philadelphia. I’m married. My wife doesn’t mind that I’m gone half the time.”

“Your wife?”

“Does that surprise you?”

“Not really. You always struck me as the kind of man who had to have a woman in his life. I’m just surprised you’re married.”

“She insisted, but I find that I like it. There’s a sense of comfort in knowing that I always have someone to have dinner with.”

“And she knows nothing about Ethan Saltz?”

“No, why should she? Besides, Ethan Saltz doesn’t do much of anything these days. All my wife knows is that she married a successful gallery owner who doesn’t like to talk about his past. My Charnock birth certificate is real, by the way, as is my marriage certificate. I’d be worried about being found out, but normal people just aren’t that smart. When they get introduced to someone at a cocktail party, they just assume that the name they’ve been given is a real one.”

“And she doesn’t suspect anything?”

“No, nothing. I mean, maybe she wonders what I get up to when I go off on my art-scouting trips but, honestly, I’m not sure she cares too much about it. She’s got her own life to lead.”

“So do you attend teacher training conferences as Robert Charnock, gallery owner?”

“Oh, I have other names as well. One of those is Brad Anderson. He attends the conferences. As I mentioned, he also owns this shitty house that we’re in right now. And he has a very convincing driver’s license. No birth certificate, but you can’t have everything.”

I shrugged, trying to look unimpressed, and decided to stop asking questions about how clever he was. Ever since he’d told me he was going to bring me food I was hungrier than ever, but I did want to keep him talking. I said, “You never answered my earlier question. Killing all those women and pinning it on Alan Peralta... you did all that just to get back at Martha Ratliff?”

“No, not really. I was annoyed when you pulled Martha away from me, but it was the same level of annoyance I feel when the kitchen at a pricey restaurant cooks my steak wrong. No, the truth is that I spotted Martha on Facebook crowing about getting married and then I saw that her husband was some kind of traveling salesman, and the idea just came to me. You didn’t ask me how I got away with so many murders. It’s something I’ve gotten very good at.”

“Tell me, Ethan,” I said. “How have you gotten away with so many murders?”

A corner of his mouth went up, listening to my tone, but then he said, “I disguise them as something else. Make it look like an accident or kill someone who’s in the middle of an ugly divorce and it looks like someone else did it. Using Peralta was all about padding my numbers. I figured I could shadow him and kill people he came into contact with, and eventually he’d be nabbed for the crimes. It would wreck Martha’s life as well, so two birds...

“But then it turned out that Peralta was coming into contact with the type of people easiest to kill, really. Street prostitutes, drunk women at bars. It’s been almost too simple, and I keep waiting to see Peralta’s ugly mug on the cover of USA Today, but nothing.

“And then there I was in Saratoga Springs, utterly bored, and who do I see? Lily Kintner, disguised—maybe?—as some kind of slutty teacher, and I knew that you were there to keep an eye on Peralta. It was too good to be true.”

“Why was it good?”

He tilted his head back to think. “Because Peralta is boring, and Martha is boring, and I don’t really know you, but I don’t think you’re boring.”

“So you went and killed Martha?”

“I wanted to make you pay for poking your nose into my business again. I always thought I should have killed Martha after you took her away from me, back at college. Although then it would have been risky—I would have been a suspect, for sure. But not now. Now I have nothing to do with her or with you or even with Ethan Saltz.”

“Did she suffer?”

“God, no. Do I look like a sadist? I’m a collector, Lily. Martha Ratliff is now on my list. That’s all that matters.” There was a smug look on his face, like he’d just placed the winning bid at an auction.

My mind conjured up a quick image of Martha, her limp body on the floor of her own bedroom in her own home. I pushed the thought aside, knowing that the only thing I could do for Martha at this moment was find a way to kill Ethan.

“So why am I alive?” I said.

“Well, I’m not going to torture you or anything. Maybe I just want to talk with you, get to know you a little bit.”

“Okay,” I said, then lay back on the cot. “You’ll bring me some Advil when you get back, plus some food.” I figured that if he wanted to hear me talk, I’d at least get something out of it for myself. I turned and faced the wall and listened as Ethan left the room.

Chapter26

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