CHILLER

by Gregory Benford

  But he had taken about as much as he could from these clowns. “I want to see my lawyer again.”

  Detweiler made a thin smile and gripped his cardboard cup of coffee. “People are hard to find in this place sometimes. Could take a long while for a trustee to locate you while your lawyer sits on his ass and charges you couple hundred bucks an hour for it.”

  “And cops wonder why people think they’re scum,” Alex said.

  “Talk, creep,” Detweiler said. The muscles in his jaw jumped, and he gripped the coffee cup so hard, Alex wondered if he would crush it.

  “There’s no murder here. Some people—I’m not saying who—just want to give Susan Hagerty a chance at a second life.”

  “Some jerko killed her, and you con artists are covering it up. Like maybe it’s the jerko I’m looking at.”

  Alex glanced at Stern. “Have you got anybody here who knows the law?”

  “A lawyer lover, huh?” Detweiler said.

  “If you were halfway professional—”

  Alex caught the tightening in Detweiler’s eyes and threw himself sideways. The coffee cup came at him, but then he was on the floor, landing on his shoulder with a sharp stab of pain. It was the shoulder he had broken before, of course.

  The coffee was all over the chair, and the cardboard cup bounced onto the floor near his nose. He wondered if this could rebreak the shoulder.

  Beautiful gesture—get smashed up while heroically avoiding coffee stains. But he was damned if he was going to let Detweiler get the better of him.

  Stern helped him up. His arms had started to hurt above the wrists now. Detweiler shoved him hard back into the chair. He felt moist warmth along his legs. So I get my pants stained rather than my shirt. Terrific. But his shoulder felt okay now, or at least no worse than his arms.

  “What a stinking piece of shit,” Detweiler said. “Get him out of our clean jail.”

  Alex looked at Stern, who seemed almost sympathetic. He suddenly saw that Stern was just marking time here, a smart cop under the command of an old-style, meat-ax superior. But even Stern didn’t seem to have any clue what to do next.

  “Don’t guess we need these,” Stern said, unlocking the cuffs. “Your lawyer’s downstairs. Preliminary hearing.”

  “How long has he been there?”

  Detweiler grinned. “Long enough for you to spill some coffee on your pants.” He already had another cup of coffee in his hand. Maybe that’s his weapon of choice, Alex thought. He debated giving Detweiler an obscene gesture, shrugged, and turned to Stern. “Can we post bail?”

  “Yes,” Stern said. “The DA won’t let us go for a murder charge. Not yet, anyway. So if you got the bucks, you’ll spring.”

  “Don’t tell that shit anything,” Detweiler said, but Alex had already headed for the door.

  11

  GEORGE

  He burst into the Reverend’s study without knocking. The devils that had been tormenting him had clamped their claws around his throat, making breathing hard. They had clouded his vision for so long that only now did he see that he had to go to the one place where he knew he could receive comfort. The massive oak door swung open with a squeak, and George plunged through.

  “Reverend, Reverend, I need—”

  But the Reverend was not alone.

  Two strange men sat in the deep, soft chairs. Both looked at him, startled. The Reverend Carl Montana stood, stately and unhurried, his face showing only mild, fatherly concern.

  George stopped and struggled to breathe properly, normally. So much had happened. He wanted to let it all out now, to deliver all his turmoil into the hands of the Reverend. But now the Reverend’s face wore a severe frown and drawn lips told him to hold back, keep it within. George opened his mouth, gasped, swallowed.

  “I see you have heard the news,” Reverend Montana said.

  “Yes, yes, I—”

  “Please come in.” The Reverend’s voice swelled with reassurance.

  George did not dare speak, sure that from his mouth would form only a pitiful squeak. He came forward on wooden legs, passing among the shadowed comforts of the tall study. The stained-glass windows rose behind the Reverend, like bright angel’s wings. George sank into one of the large chairs, his bones aching.

  “This is Detective Stern, George. And Detective Detweiler. Detectives, George—”

  “Goff,” George interrupted. “Though in business I use my real first name, Charles.”

  The Reverend betrayed no surprise. “I’ve already told them a few things about you. What a fine man you are.” The Reverend sat back, his hands steepled before his solemn features.

  The smooth baritone notes soothed George, and he could feel his other side, the analytical self, swell and grow strong within his mind. He would have to think hard now, hard and clear and fast, and yet let none of it into his face. Most of all, he would have to be Charles Goff here, put them onto his paper persona.

  Momentary panic grasped him. His legs tightened with the sudden desire to flee. He made himself cross his legs casually.

  “They are the detectives assigned to investigate this morning’s terrible news about Karen.”

  Stern was studying him closely. He had better respond. What would be right? “Karen,” George said numbly. “This morning.”

  Stern said, “She was killed last night, Mr. Goff. I understand you took her to a film.”

  “I… yes. Sure. It was that great new Disney one.”

  “I gave them the tickets,” the Reverend added. “A fine couple.”

  Detweiler’s voice was a sour rasp. “Which showing?”

  “Uh, the early one. Seven o’clock. At the Edwards in Main Place.” Detweiler made a note in a pad. He was phlegmatic, almost sleepy, but George sensed in him the resting power of a man who liked to use his body. Stern, on the other hand, seemed sharper. He had better watch out for both of them. Cops often ran this Mutt and Jeff act to catch you off guard.

  Stern said, “What time did you last see her?”

  “Oh, early. I drove her straight home.”

  Detweiler nodded, made a note. Then he sat back and looked at Stern, as if turning this boring procedure over to the other man.

  Stern’s face was angular, concentrated. “Did you go inside?”

  “Well, yeah, for a few minutes. She was tired.”

  Detweiler said craftily, “Bad date?”

  “She was tired.”

  “Not want to, y’know, play ball?” Detweiler glanced at Montana.

  “This was just a friendly date, Mr. Detweiler.” George tried to sound politely offended.

  Stern asked in a flat, routine way, “When did you leave?”

  “Nine, nine-thirty.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “No, gee, there wasn’t anybody else there.”

  “Then you drove home?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Where’s that?”

  He gave the Santa Ana address of the Goff persona. Then he had to show ID. When he handed Stern his driver’s license he included some credit cards, apparently by mistake. Stern gave them a good look, then copied down one of the card ID numbers, not bothering to conceal it.

  “She was alone when you left?”

  “Yessir.”

  “What was she wearing?”

  “Uh, a black skirt and a peach-colored silk blouse.”

  Stern nodded. “That’s what we found her in.”

  “Found her where?”

  “In a dumpster behind a Vons Market. She had been hit in the head, her skull beaten in.”

  “My merciful Lord,” the Reverend said. He did not look at George.

  Stern asked, “Did you know her well?”

  George shook his head, his face still showing astonished grief. Dumpster. “That—last night was our first date.”

  “They left from my service, Detective,” the Reverend said. “I gave them two free passes myself, to encourage them. I’m afraid I’ve always been something of a matchmaker
.”

  “Neither of you have any idea why she might have gone out for a walk?”

  “None,” the Reverend said. “Especially since she lived in a rather rough neighborhood.”

  “She didn’t have a dog or anything—no reason to go out for a walk,” George said.

  Dog. Don’t mention dog, he thought too late. But then he breathed out, the constriction of his chest clearing. There was no connection of Karen to the Hagerty woman. He had to keep that in mind. This detective was the same one mentioned in the newspapers, assigned to the Hagerty case. Was that an accident?

  Stern asked, “Did she jog?”

  Why ask that? Because the Hagerty woman was jogging? George wiped his brow, then regretted giving any sign of the turmoil within him. “Uh, I dunno.”

  “We thought she might have gone out to run an errand or something,” Stern said. “There was jogging gear in her closet.”

  “But you said she was dressed in the same clothes as I saw,” George said.

  “Right,” Stern said. “I’m just looking for a reason for her to be in that particular alley. Did she say anything that might suggest why?”

  He’s just fishing, maybe. “No, nothing I can recall.”

  “Could be she just went to the Vons to do a little shopping,” Detweiler said.

  With a slight edge to his voice Stern said, “She would have had to walk over two miles.”

  George wondered what tension there was between the two detectives. Stern was cool, Detweiler was sarcastic muscle, barely restrained by the Reverend’s presence. Then George snapped his attention back to keeping calm, thinking ahead. He could not allow his drumfire heartbeat and short, scraping breath to betray him.

  Cool and casual, Stern said, “That dumpster was the same one where we found the body of a waitress a while back.”

  George froze. Last night was one howling nightmare, events stacked atop each other, images fever-hot and garish, and he could not make sense of them. He remembered a grimy alley, yes, inky shadows, carrying the body in a sheet… The same alley?

  Gaping vacancy. Blanks.

  Until this instant he did not know that he had gone to the site where he dumped the waitress. Pattern. They look for patterns the killer doesn’t see. He had read that somewhere. Someplace buried far back in a swamp of memories.

  “Mr. Goff? Did you remember something?”

  His face must be giving him away. Cover. “No, no, I just… which Vons was it?”

  “The one at Santa Ana and Lacy. Why?”

  “Just wondering. It’s such a shock.”

  “You live nearby?”

  “A few miles.”

  “I’m afraid we have a serial killer on our hands here, and Karen had the awful luck to come upon him somehow,” Stern said reflectively. “I had hoped that maybe you gentlemen would know of some connection she had, some way she met him.”

  “Maybe she didn’t.” George felt a lump of fear in his throat even as he said it. “Maybe he just grabbed her on the street.”

  Detweiler shook his head derisively. “Nope.”

  “That’s unlikely,” Stern said. “It would not fit what we know of the previous murder.”

  What we know. George could not make himself speak, ask for more. And they undoubtedly would not give it anyway. He sensed that they knew something important. And he had to sit there while they looked him over, tantalized him with it. He had never hated cops more. Not even before, when he was running from them.

  George listened closely, thin-lipped. Stern went on, trying to pry some tidbit of information out of him and the Reverend. Details, times, people she knew. George kept himself alert, tried not to think, not to let his mind spin above the abyss within him. Stern kept asking, but the Reverend shook his large head sadly, answered in mournful tones, and after a while George saw that the detective was just going through the motions.

  George realized that the logic of serial killers now played on his side. There was no visible connection between the waitress and Karen, except the neighborhood. Therefore, the killer was probably a local, not tied to the Reverend.

  The talk went on. He could see that the detectives had dismissed him for the moment. Serial killers never linked themselves closely with their prey.

  But if they got the scent of him, they would close in.

  Stern stood, handed the Reverend and George each a card in case they thought of anything further, and left with Detweiler. He shot George a speculative look, but nothing more.

  When he was gone, George stood for a long moment in the shadowy softness of the study and did not have the courage to meet the Reverend’s stare. The leaden silence stretched. George felt the solemn weight here, the heavy ranks of engraved books that rose into the recesses above. Soft glows flickered through the stained-glass windows, speaking of the chaos of life outside, while within here a grave, cottony hush prevailed, broken solely by a grandfather clock’s somber brass pendulum stroke.

  “We both know there is more to this,” the Reverend said at last, his voice powerful and resolute, the same voice that he used to end his sermons.

  “Yessir.”

  “And we grasp that this hour is fraught with peril.”

  “Yessir.”

  “I want to be sure of you, Brother George.”

  “I am steadfast in the Lord.”

  “Yea verily, but that is not enough. Standing steadfast is only the beginning.”

  “Yessir.”

  “I hope you understand why I did not press that officer of the secular law with any misleading details.”

  George stood ramrod straight before the Reverend’s polished rosewood desk, face as stiff as a soldier’s. “I can tell you what happened, what—”

  “I do not wish to know. I am sure you had some intimacy with Karen, but that is beside the crucial point here, George.”

  “Nossir, I didn’t—”

  “I do not wish to know.” The Reverend slapped the desk, his eyebrows knitted together. Then he rocked forward, head in hands. “If I’d known—if he’d said—that it could come to this—I didn’t—” The words cut off with a strangled sob.

  George could not guess what the Reverend meant, but the man’s pain was obvious. The big shoulders shook with silent sobs. George did not know what to do, could not bring out of his own deep confusion any words of solace.

  A heavy silence stretched until George began to feel like praying, or maybe just going away, ashamed of all he had brought down on the shoulders of this man. The Reverend sighed gravely. He sniffed, sat up. His face was composed again. He stared at George for a long moment and finally scowled. Mournfully he said, “The task we share is to keep the cathedral untarnished. That means I shall hear nothing”—his big hand smacked the desk—“of what went on between you last night. For by truthfully saying that I do not fathom such matters, I keep the skirts of the mighty cathedral clean”—he slapped the desk loudly—“of the soil of gossip, of innuendo, of the nay-sayers all about us.”

  George was terrified of the wrathful countenance before him. Still, he ventured to say, “I need to talk about—”

  “Talk is not your task, my friend. You and I are bound together in a holy alliance. We cannot be caught up in some side matter. Terrible though Karen’s death is, it should not reflect upon the cathedral. Upon our deep connection to the good works of Vitality Corporation. Upon your good works, too, George.”

  “Vitality?”

  “They are a great benefactor of ours. Working always behind the scenes, in ways great and small.”

  “I have heard you speak well of them, sir, but—”

  “Scholarships, charitable works, donations—they are a Godsend. I will not have them blemished by this girl’s unseemly passing.”

  “I don’t see how we—”

  “Her church connection need not be stressed, that is my point.”

  “If anybody asks—”

  “No one will. Those detectives are going on about their business, running after some
serial killer. Very well.”

  George felt confused, his head congested by impossible pressures. “If he gets more evidence—”

  “He will then move further from us,” the Reverend said with soft-spoken confidence. “But that is not what I fear, George.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “I fear you.”

  “What?” His shock made the cool air seem to churn with whorls of pale phosphorescence. “How?”

  “I fear that you are our weakest link.”

  “I am the strongest!” George shot back with injured pride.

  “So you seem. But if in your future works you run afoul of someone, there will be those who cast a sharp eye at your ties. Ties to me.”

  “I won’t say a thing.”

  “I must have a pledge, George.”

  “I do solemnly pledge that I shall never say that you had anything to do with—with my Calling.”

  “That is what I want to hear, George. Repeat it.”

  George spoke the words with gravity and a strange sense of liberation.

  “Then let us put this ugly incident behind us. I believe it would be best if you did not attend any further services, George. Come see me here, if you need. I will lead you in simple worship. I will give you my private telephone number, and you may arrange with me for spiritual guidance. The world will be watching.”

  He nodded. The Reverend began to pray. George mouthed the words with a helpless sense of letting go, of acrid fluids draining from him, leaving a slack and empty carcass.

  Only the Reverend’s determination could fill him now, could cut through his fog of lurching emotions. He let the other man’s certainty enter him, invading every vein and fiber, a firm possession and a delicious release.

  12

  ALEX

  He had spent the morning playing basketball on the half courts at Main Beach in Laguna. The action there was worth the drive from his apartment in Irvine. Guys in their twenties turned out to sweat and grunt and suck in the sea breezes. On the small courts you ran less and maneuvered more. There were dunks galore—double-pumps, spin shots, classic alley-oops. Shouts of glory, high-fives, back-slapping, grins and glowers.