X (Kinsey Millhone 24)

I held up the paper bag. “Dinner. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Perfect. I should have thought of it myself.”

I unloaded my purchases and arranged the deli items on the coffee table. We traded sandwiches so we each had half a tuna salad and half an egg salad. She kept cans of Diet Pepsi in a mini-fridge and she popped the tops on two. She kicked off her heels and propped her feet on the coffee table. She wore panty hose, and the nylon soles were pristine.

I sat on the floor with my back against one of her two upholstered chairs. We both salted the shit out of the egg salad and then munched happily, engaged in small talk. She finally crumpled the empty paper wrappers and made an accurate overhand shot to the wastebasket before she turned back to me.

“So what’s up, buttercup?”

“I need a reality check and I don’t know who else to talk to. I’d like to run a few things by you and make sure I’m on the right track.”

“If this is about Ned Lowe, I’m completely unbiased except for the fact that I hate the guy and hope he falls in a hole and dies.”

“Fine with me.”

“I can’t wait to hear this.”

“Saturday I drove to Burning Oaks and talked to a couple of people who knew Lenore. One was a former neighbor and one was her parish priest.”

Disconcerted, she said, “You drove to Burning Oaks? What possessed you?”

“Your fault,” I said. “Between you and Pete’s widow, I was shamed into taking up his cause. You remember the mailer?”

“Sure. Pete hid it in the bottom of a banker’s box.”

“Right,” I said. “The keepsakes were meant for April. I’m not sure why he didn’t deliver them himself. He went to Burning Oaks a year ago and the priest gave it to him, which is how the mailer ended up in his hands. I wanted to be clear what I was getting into before I delivered it.”

I filled her in on my conversation with Clara Doyle and Father Xavier and then moved on to the research I’d done with regard to Ned, Lenore, and Shirley Ann Kastle. “I talked to a high school classmate who knew all three, and she told me a convoluted story I won’t go into here. Bottom line was that Ned Lowe was obsessed with Shirley Ann, who dated him for a while and then broke up with him when she and her former boyfriend got back together. Ned stalked her for weeks. Things got so bad, her mother sent her back east to finish high school. Fast-forward five years. Shirley Ann’s mother was terminally ill, and Shirley Ann came back to Burning Oaks to take care of her. Ned attached himself to her as though they’d never been separated. He was married to Lenore by then. Shirley Ann was also married and she told Ned a relationship between them was impossible because of it. I’m wondering if Ned helped Lenore along, thinking he could at least rid himself of that impediment.”

“Oh, man. I don’t like the sound of that at all,” she said. “Go on. I didn’t mean to interrupt. You’ve got the mailer. You’re back in town and now you know your mission.”

“Right. I didn’t think I should show up at April’s unannounced, so I called her on Monday. She completely misunderstood what I was getting at and jumped to the conclusion I was hustling her. She called her dad and he turned around and called the county sheriff. I ended up in a verbal standoff with Ned and a deputy. Nothing came of it, but it was obnoxious and I was pissed.”

“Shit.”

“Under the circumstances, I didn’t think it was smart to hand her the mailer just then. Then lo and behold, she showed up at my office yesterday and I passed it on to her.”

“What was in it?”

“Lenore’s Bible, her rosary, couple of keepsakes, and a photo of Ned, not quite four, sitting on his mother’s lap.”

“Oooh. That’s bad. She abandoned him when he was four.”

“Which is what I want to talk about. You think that’s where all his craziness comes from? Because that’s what I’m picking up on.”

“You want the long answer or the short?”

“Long. By all means.”

“There’s a subclass of kids like him. I think of them as junior psychopaths. They’re disconnected and cold and lack any semblance of humanity. Symptoms typically manifest in adolescence, which is when you start seeing aggression and antisocial acting-out. It can also show up in kids as young as three, and that’s a tougher proposition. Sometimes these kids are ADHD and sometimes not—but they’re always unemotional. They might have tantrums, but what looks like fury is pure manipulation. They have no empathy and they have no desire to please. They don’t care about punishment. They don’t care about other people’s pain and suffering. It just doesn’t interest them.”