“I think he tried to kill my daughter. If we’re talking about the same man, his name is Asa Surrette. He’s tortured and killed eight people.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Maybe that’s why he had those girls with him. You think they’re runaways? I wonder if that’s why he had all the dope.”
“What dope?”
“The OxyContin. He had another prescription, too. I think it was for sleeping pills or downers.”
“What were the other items he made you buy?”
“Tampons, toothpaste, fingernail clippers, dental floss, women’s deodorant, Pepto-Bismol.”
“He didn’t say who these things were for?”
“He wasn’t someone you ask a lot of questions. He said I was part of history. What’d he mean by that? What the fuck does history have to do with any of this?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“OxyContin is as close to heroin as legal dope gets. He’s gonna cook the Oxy and shoot those girls up, isn’t he? That’s how he’s gonna get in their pants.”
“He masturbates on his victims after he strangles them. That’s the guy who was in your store, Seymour. You treat your encounter with him as you would a sickness. You let go of it forever. He has nothing to do with your life. You have a lot of friends in that room upstairs. You keep remembering who you are, a likable guy who’s doing the best he can. You got me on that?”
“Yes, sir.”
I wrote my cell number on the back of my departmental business card and gave it to him. When I got up to go, he remained on the steps, staring up at me, not speaking.
“Tell you what, how about a hamburger and a cup of coffee?” I said.
“I think I can handle that,” he replied.
THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE of my conversation with him did not hit me until four the next morning. I sat up in bed, numb, my ears ringing with a sense of urgency that seemed to have no origin. I went into the bathroom and turned on the light and propped my arms on the lavatory, trying to reconstruct the dream I’d just had. In it, I saw a girl locked inside a giant plastic bubble, her hands pressed against the side, her cries inaudible, her oxygen supply running out.
I looked in the mirror and saw Molly standing behind me. “Did you have a nightmare?” she said.
“She’s alive,” I said.
“Who’s alive?”
“The girl who was abducted up by Lookout Pass,” I replied.
I WAS IN ELVIS Bisbee’s office by nine that morning. I told him of my chance meeting with Seymour Little. He made notes on a legal pad while I spoke. “Okay, we’ll talk with this kid and check out the pharmacy,” he said. “Thanks for coming in.”
“I’ve already been to the pharmacy. The prescriptions were phoned in by a scrip doctor in Whitefish. I called his office. He’s somewhere in Canada and not expected back for a while.”
“You went to the pharmacy?”
“That’s right.”
“What makes you think you can come here from out of state and conduct your own investigation?”
“I’m sorry you don’t approve.”
He set down his pen and stared out the window at the trees and the war memorial on the courthouse lawn. “Mind telling why the pharmacist shared his information with you?”
“I showed him my badge.”
“You explained to him you were from the state of Louisiana and you had no legal authority here?”
“That didn’t seem to be a problem for him.”