The Straw Men 3-Book Thriller Collection: The Straw Men, The Lonely Dead, Blood of Angels

She lowered her voice and spoke fast. ‘If that’s what you really think of me, then why don’t you just walk away, go back to fucking Vermont. It’s going to snow hard there real soon. You could just bury yourself in it.’

‘You’re telling me that you helped me out of consideration for my family?’

‘Yes, of course. What the hell else?’

‘Despite the fact you’d helped me be unfaithful to my wife.’

‘That’s pathetic. Don’t blame me for what your dick did.’

She glared at him. Zandt stared back. There was silence for a moment, and then she abruptly let her eyes drop.

He laughed, briefly. ‘That supposed to make me think I’m in control?’

‘What?’ She silently cursed herself.

‘Looking away. Kind of an animal kingdom thing. Male ego massaged by a sign of submission. Now I’m back to being king of the hill, I’ll do what you want again?’

‘You’ve gotten really paranoid, John,’ she said, though of course he’d been right. She realized she spent too much of her time with fools. ‘I just don’t want to argue with you.’

‘What do you think the deal with the hair is?’ he said.

She frowned, thrown by the sudden switch. ‘What hair?’

‘The Upright Man. Why cut the hair off?’

‘Well, for the sweaters. So he could embroider the names.’

Zandt shook his head, lit a cigarette. ‘You don’t need a whole head for that. All of the girls had long hair. But when they’re found, it’s all been cut off. Why?’

‘To dehumanize them. To make it easier to kill them.’

‘Could be,’ he said. ‘That’s what we all assumed back then. But I wonder.’

‘Are you going to tell me what you do think?’

‘I’m wondering if it was a punishment.’

Nina considered this. ‘For what?’

‘I don’t know. But I think this man took these girls, a very particular type of girl, on purpose. I think he had something in mind for them, and each of them failed to come up to scratch in some way. And as a punishment for that, he took something he thought would be of paramount importance to them.’

He took a drink of his coffee, seeming not to care that it was cold. ‘You know what they did to collaborators in France, at the end of the Second World War?’

‘Of course. Women who were thought to have accepted their German invaders too wholeheartedly were paraded down the street with their hair shorn off. A proud moment for our species.’ She shrugged. ‘I can maybe see the punishment thing, but I don’t see what global conflict has to do with it. These girls hadn’t fraternized with anyone.’

‘Maybe not.’ Zandt seemed to have lost interest in the subject. He was sitting back in his chair and gazing vaguely across the patio. One of the slackers accidentally caught his eye. Zandt didn’t look away. The slacker did, rapidly. He made a signal to his friend, evidently suggesting this might be a good time to go wax their boards. They got up and sloped off into the night.

Zandt seemed satisfied with this.

Nina tried to haul his concentration back. ‘So where does that lead?’

‘Possibly nowhere,’ he said, grinding out his cigarette. ‘I just didn’t think hard enough about it last time. Then I was hung up on the method he’d used to find them. How the intersection of their lives had come about. Now it strikes me as curious. How they failed. What he really wanted them for.’

Nina didn’t say anything, hoping there would be some more. But when he did speak, it wasn’t about the case.

‘Why did you stop sleeping with me?’

Caught again, she hesitated. ‘We stopped sleeping with each other.’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s not the way it was.’

‘I don’t know, John. It just happened. You didn’t seem especially hurt at the time.’

‘Just kind of accepted it, didn’t I.’

‘What are you getting at? You don’t accept it now?’

‘Of course I do. It was a long time ago. I’m just asking questions that I haven’t before. Once you start doing that, you find they pop up all over the place.’

She didn’t really know what to say to that. ‘So what do you want to do next?’

‘I want you to go,’ he said. ‘I want you to go home and leave me alone.’

Nina stood. ‘Suit yourself. You got my number. Call me if you decide to get off your butt and do something.’

He turned his head slowly, and looked her directly in the eyes. ‘Do you want to know what happened? Last time?’

She stopped, looked at him. His face was cold and distant. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘I found him.’

Nina felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. ‘Found who?’

‘I tracked him for two weeks. In the end I went to his house. I’d seen him watching other girls. I couldn’t leave it any longer.’

She didn’t know whether to sit or keep standing. ‘What happened?’

‘He denied it. But I knew it was him, and now he knew I’d made him. He was the man, but I had no proof, and he would have run. I stayed with him two days. He wouldn’t tell me where she was.’

‘John, don’t tell me this.’

‘I killed him.’

Nina stared at him, and knew it was the truth. She opened her mouth, shut it again.

‘And then two days later the sweater and the note arrived.’

He looked suddenly very tired, and turned away. When he spoke again, his voice was flat. ‘I got the wrong guy. It’s up to you what you do with the information.’