Free The Straw Men by Michael Marshall

thin package wrapped in brown paper. What she pulled out, however, was a photograph.
    “This arrived at the Becker residence late the following afternoon. Some time between half past four and six o’clock. It was discovered lying on the path.” She handed it to Zandt.
    The picture showed a girl’s sweater, pale lilac, neatly folded into a square. What looked like ribbed ribbon had been tied around the sweater into a bow.
    “It’s been tied up with plaited hair. Sarah’s was long enough for it to be hers, and it’s the right color. Forensics has taken samples off her hairbrush, and will have confirmation very soon.”
    Zandt noticed that his glass had been refilled. He drank. The whiskey stung in the dryness of his mouth, and made him nauseous. His head felt as if it were a balloon, blown up slightly too much, floating a couple of inches above his neck.
    “The Upright Man,” he said.
    “Well,” Nina said, judiciously, “we’ve checked with the families of the victims two and three years ago, and every officer who was involved in those investigations. We’repretty convinced that the nature of the parcels he left on those occasions has remained secret. It could still be a copycat. I doubt it. But I have an all-media scan in operation, including the Internet, for any use of the phrases ‘Delivery Boy’ or ‘Upright Man.’ ”
    “The Internet?”
    “Yeah,” she said dryly. “Kind of a computer thing. It’s all the rage.”
    “It’s him,” Zandt said. Only he was fully aware of the irony inherent in his confidence.
    She looked at him, and then reached reluctantly back into the file. This time the photograph showed the sweater after it had been carefully unwrapped and laid out flat. Sarah’s name was embroidered on the front, not fancily, but in neat block letters.
    “The hair used for the name is of a dark brown. It is much drier than the hair that we believe to be Sarah’s, suggesting that it was cut some time ago.”
    She stopped then, and waited while Zandt slowly reached into his pocket. He pulled out a pack of Marlboros and a matchbook. He had not smoked since they had been in the room. There was no ashtray. His hands, as he pulled a cigarette out, were almost steady. He did not look at her, but only at the match as he struck it: regarding it with fixed concentration, as if it were something unfamiliar to him, but whose purpose he had divined through intuition. It took three attempts before it flared, but the match could have been damp.
    “I made sure the dark brown hair was tested first.” She took a deep breath. “It’s a match, John. It’s Karen’s hair.”
     
    SHE LEFT HIM ALONE for a while, went and stood outside in the cold and listened to the darkness. Muted laughter drifted across from the main building, and through the window she could see couples of varying ages,bundled up in sensible sweaters, plotting tomorrow’s adventures in hiking. A door was open on the other side of the building and through it she could hear the clatter of plates being cleaned by someone who didn’t own them. Something small rustled in the undergrowth on the other side of the road, but nothing came of it.
    When she returned, Zandt was sitting exactly as she’d left him, though he had a new cigarette. He didn’t look up at her.
    She put a few more pieces of wood on the fire, inexpertly, unable to remember whether you piled them on top or placed them around the sides. She sat in the chair and poured herself another drink. Then sat up with him through the night.

C HAPTER FIVE
    BY LATE AFTERNOON I’d had conversations with the police and the hospital, and before that with my parents’ neighbors on either side. Each of these had been carefully judged.
    I called the cops from the house, and was put through to an Officer Spurling—thankfully not one of the men who’d interviewed me after the incident in the hotel bar. Spurling and his partner had been first on the scene of my parents’ accident, alerted