He said, “Has Tammy been to the Caribbean before?”
“Yeah. She and Tommy visited the Bahamas a couple years ago. In the spring, I think.”
“Did they take the Ghouls with them?”
Marilyn frowned and shook her head.
“You don’t know if they killed anyone while they were there?”
“I asked Tommy, and he just laughed and laughed. That was right before he got me pregnant.”
Savich made a note to check to see if there’d been any particularly vicious, unsolved killings during their stay.
“Has Tammy ever talked about the Caribbean, other than the Bahamas? Any islands that she’d like to visit?”
She shook her head.
“Think, Marilyn. That’s right, just relax, lean your head back, and think about that. Remember back over the times you’ve seen her.”
There was a long silence, and then Marilyn said, “She said once—it was Halloween and she was dressed like a vampire—that she wanted to go to Barbados and scare the crap out of the kids there. Then she laughed. I never liked that laugh, Mr. Savich. It was the same kind of laugh that Tommy had after the Bahamas.”
“Did she ever talk about what the Ghouls did to those kids?”
“Once, when she was being Timmy, she said they just gobbled them right up.”
“But the Ghouls don’t just gobble them up, do they? They maybe take an arm, a leg?”
“Oh, Mr. Savich, they just do that when they’re full and aren’t interested in anything but a taste. But I can’t be sure because both Tommy and Tammy never really told me.”
Savich felt sick. Jesus, did she really mean what he thought she meant? That there were young boys who’d simply disappeared and would never be found because the Tuttles had eaten them? Were they cannibals? He unconsciously rubbed his arms at a sudden chill he felt.
He looked over at Dr. Hicks. His face was red, and he looked ready to be ill himself.
Savich lightly touched her forearm and said, “Thank you, Marilyn, you’ve been a big help. If you could choose, right now, what would you like to do with your life?”
She didn’t hesitate for a second. “I want to be a carpenter. We lived for about five years in this one place and the neighbor was a carpenter. He built desks and tables and chairs, all sorts of stuff. He spent lots of time with me, taught me everything. ’Course I paid him just like he wanted, and he liked that a lot. In high school they told me I was a girl and girls couldn’t do that, and then Tommy got me pregnant and killed the baby.”
“Just one more question. Was Tammy planning to contact you from the Caribbean?” He’d asked her this before. He wanted to see if she added anything under hypnosis because now he had a plan.
“Yeah. She didn’t say when, just that she would, sometime.”
“How would she find you?”
“She would call my boyfriend, Tony, up in Bar Harbor. I don’t think he likes me anymore. He said if the cops were after me, then he was out of there.”
Savich hoped that Tony wouldn’t take off too soon. He was still there, working as a mechanic at Ed’s European Motors. He’d check in again with the agents in Bar Harbor, keep an eye on him, maybe some wiretaps. Now they had something solid. A call from Tammy.
“Thank you, Marilyn.” Savich rose and went to stand by the door. He watched as Dr. Hicks brought her gently back. He listened as he spoke quietly to her, reassuring her, until he nodded to Savich and led her from the room, holding her shoulder.
Savich said, “It’s time for lunch, Marilyn. We’ll eat in the Boardroom, not the big cafeteria. It’s just down the hall on this floor.”
“I’d really like a pizza, Mr. Savich, with lots of pepperoni.”
“You’ve got it. The Boardroom is known for its pizza.”
Eureka, California
Simon was pissed. He’d sent Lily back to Washington. She’d been as pissed as he was now, but she’d finally given up, seen reason, and slid her butt into the taxi he’d called for her. Only she hadn’t gone back to Washington. She’d simply taken the same plane he had to San Francisco, keeping out of sight in the back, then managed to make an earlier connection from San Francisco to Arcata-Eureka Airport. She’d waltzed right up to him at the damned baggage carousel and said in a chirpy voice, “I never thought I’d be traveling back to Hemlock Bay only two weeks after I finally managed to escape it.”
And now they were sitting side by side in a rental car, and Simon was still pissed.