More Twisted

the window of the garage and saw that it was empty. Then Altman sent Randall to the front of the driveway to hide in the bushes and report anybody’s approach.
    He then returned to the house and began to search, wondering just how hot the cold case was about to become.

    Two hundred yards from the driveway that led to Howard Desmond’s cottage a battered, ten-year-old Toyota pulled onto the shoulder of Route 207 and then eased into the woods, out of sight of any drivers along the road.
    A man got out and, satisfied that his car was well hidden, squinted into the forest, getting his bearings. He noticed the line of the brown lake to his left and figured the vacation house was in the ten-o’clock position ahead of him. Through dense underbrush like this it would take him about fifteen minutes to get to the place, he estimated.
    That’d make the time pretty tight. He’d have to move as quickly as he could and still keep the noise to a minimum.
    The man started forward but then stopped suddenly and patted his pocket. He’d been in such a hurry to get to the house he couldn’t remember if he’d taken what he wanted from the glove compartment. But, yes, he had it with him.
    Hunched over and picking his way carefully to avoid stepping on noisy branches, Gordon Wallace continued on toward the cabin where, he hoped, Detective Altman was lost in police work and would be utterly oblivious to his furtive approach.

    The search of the house revealed virtually nothing that would indicate that Desmond had been here recently—or where the man might now be. Quentin Altman found some bills and cancelled checks. But the address on them was Desmond’s apartment in Warwick.
    He decided to check the garage, thinking he might come across something helpful the killer had tossed out of the car and forgotten about—maybe a sheet containing directions or a map or receipt.
    Altman discovered something far more interesting thanevidence, though; he found Howard Desmond himself.
    That is to say, his corpse.
    The moment Altman opened the old-fashioned double doors of the garage he detected the smell of decaying flesh. He knew where it had to be coming from: a large coal bin in the back. Steeling himself, he flipped up the lid.
    The mostly skeletal remains of a man about six feet tall were inside, lying on his back, fully clothed. He’d been dead about six months—just around the time Desmond disappeared, Altman recalled.
    DNA would tell for certain if this was the vet tech but Altman discovered the man’s wallet in his hip pocket and, sure enough, the driver’s license inside was Desmond’s. DNA or dental records would tell for certain.
    The man’s skull was shattered; the cause of death was probably trauma to the head by a blunt object. There was no weapon in the bin itself but after a careful examination of the garage he found a heavy mallet wrapped in a rag and hidden in the bottom of a trash-filled oil drum. There were some hairs adhering to the mallet that resembled Desmond’s. Altman set the tool on a workbench, wondering what the hell was going on.
    Somebody had murdered the Strangler. Who? And why? Revenge?
    But then Altman did one of the things he did best—let his mind run free. Too many detectives get an idea into their heads and can’t see past their initial conclusions. Altman, though, always fought against this tendency and he now asked himself: But what if Desmond wasn’t the Strangler?
    They knew for certain that he was the one who’d underlined the passages in the library’s copy of Two Deaths in a Small Town. But what if he’d done so after the killings? The letter Desmond had written to Carter was undated. Maybe—just like the reporter Gordon Wallace himself had done—he’d read the book after the murders and been struck by the similarity. He’d started to investigate the crime himself and the Strangler had found out and murdered him.
    But then who was the killer?
    Just like Gordon Wallace had done  . . .
    Altman felt another little tap in his far-ranging mind, as fragments of facts lined up for him to consider—facts that all had to do with the reporter. For instance, Wallace was physically imposing, abrasive, temperamental. At times he could be threatening, scary. He was obsessed with crime and he knew police and forensic procedures better than most cops, which also meant that he knew how to anticipate investigators’ moves. (He’d sure blustered his way right into the middle of the reopened