by Ed Gorman
"Sweetie," Laura said, "may I remind you that sweeps are less than five weeks away in most of our major markets and that if we don't get back up to our old share, they're going to put us out on the street?"
"You don't take it as a bad omen?" Tandy said. "Somebody shooting at us?"
"Omens I leave to you," Laura said. "My job is to see that we get renewed for next season. Because if we don't, there goes the three-book hard/soft deal Lloyd is trying to set up for us at Random House. And that means there'll be no book to tour with when we go to England next summer. And if we don't do well in England, we can just forget about the rest of Europe."
"God, I don't know how it ever got so screwed up."
"What got so screwed up, hon?" Laura said.
"You know," Tandy said, sounding eleven or twelve, "everything."
Laura had been tilting her face to the backseat. She turned frontward now. Her jaw muscles tensed. She stared at the countryside.
The town was coming in view. Three structures were tall enough to rise above the rest of the town: a silver water tower with BRENNER painted in black on the side, and two church steeples, one with the traditional cross on the tip, the other with a simple, yearning spire.
To the east you could see a giant shopping center of some kind. "What's that?" I said.
"Factory outlet," Laura said. "Eighty stores. Gucci. Neiman Marcus. Ralph Lauren."
"Out here in the boonies?"
"People come from all over the state. It's open twenty-four hours. You should see that place on weekends. You wouldn't believe it."
"What happened to the town?"
"Antiques," Tandy said from the backseat. "I've never seen so many antique stores in a small town before." She seemed happy, as if her sisterly spat hadn't happened. I'd been right to change the subject away from the shooting.
"That's all that they had left," Laura said. "The factory outlet wiped out all the merchants, so everybody converted to antiques and boutiques. There's even a head shop; you know, like in my mom's hippie days. The chamber of commerce type who showed us around said that they're actually making more money than ever."
Then came the town itself. The fall trees, burning fires of yellow and russet and red leaves, painted the flame-blue sky and lent a watercolor perfection to the small frame houses on the edge of the town limits. The houses got bigger the closer we got to town. I'd checked up on Brenner last night. It had come into being shortly after the Civil War, when returning soldiers had formed a co-op of sorts to store, process, and ship grains. The trouble was, the towns along the Mississippi had not only trains but steamboats for their cargo. Brenner never had the growth and expansion opportunities of the river cities.
The houses got bigger as we neared the downtown area, Victorians and colonials and even a vast, marbled Italianate-style house that looked like something Busby Berkeley and George Lucas had designed during a long session of drinking cheap liquor. This was no doubt the area where the local gentry lived. Ancient servants' quarters could be seen on a few of the estates.
Downtown was three blocks running north-south. Most of the businesses were housed in two-story buildings with dates chipped somewhere into their fronts. For some reason 1903 had been a big year; three of the buildings bore that date. Video Village was housed in a store that had been built at the turn of the century and had probably had a hundred different tenants in that time. How could you have explained to a person of the early 1900s that someday you could buy these little cassettes, you see, and take them home and play them on your TV set? He'd be just as baffled as I would be if a man from 2098 tried to explain to me some of his time's inventions. The library was an Andrew Carnegie, a tiny redbrick Grecian-style structure on a busy street corner. The date 1911 was above the door. It would be quiet inside, and a dusty reverence would have settled lightly upon all the books. Maybe even upon the people themselves.
I was about to say something about a time warp when our part of the century came rushing to brash, plastic, fat-sodden life. Pizza Hut, Burger King, McDonald's, and Arby's lent the local air dash, splash, and trash. Lunchtime cars filled the various parking lots and drive-up windows.
"Turn up here—on the left—for the police station," Laura said. I turned left.
The building was new and strictly functional. The bond issue had probably been passed but by a small enough margin to send a clear signal to the local law people: nothing fancy. For all the bull-market bravado of this decade, taxpayers are ruthlessly cheap. And most times with good reason. Courthouse, jail, police station in a gray, squarish, three-story concrete building with no style whatsoever. The taxpayers had no doubt been mollified. Presumably there was indoor plumbing.
Inside, a receptionist directed us to the left side of the building where, behind a glass wall, several people in khaki police uniforms worked at various tasks—typing on computers, talking to citizens, talking on the telephone, and using, with great dispatch, a communications computer board that linked them with the officers in the field. For such a small town, the way the officers conducted themselves—and used their equipment—was imposing. They probably did have indoor plumbing.
We walked through the door. I went over to an officer who had just hung up his phone. I said we'd like to see the chief. He asked what it was about. I told him we'd been shot at. He looked genuinely shocked. "What the hell is that all about?" he said. Then he went to see if the chief could see us.
Two, three minutes later, we walked into the chief's office. I could tell you about the neat and tidy desk; the various law enforcement plaques and awards on the wall; the photo cube bearing the image of a lovely, dark-haired teenage girl, the same girl in infancy, at the high school prom, and more recently hang gliding. But walking into the office of Susan T. Charles, the first thing you noticed was her.
And for two reasons.
One, female police chiefs weren't supposed to be so pretty. And two, women so pretty weren't supposed to have scars that stretched from their right temple all the way down to the edge of their full and sensual mouths. The contrast between her green-eyed, brunette loveliness and the ugly knife scar was stunning.
She watched us watch her. She was used to this. She didn't like it but she'd learned resignation long ago. She even managed a sweet, tolerant little smile for us as she shook our hands and let us unfasten our gaze from the half-moon scar.
The same uniformed cop who'd escorted us in now brought us coffee. He'd taken our order previously.
When he was going, Chief Charles said, "Close the door, would you, Mike?"
"Sure."
He closed the door.
She said, "Let's get right to it. Somebody shot at you this morning?" She sounded as startled as Mike had.
So I told her our story. And explained why Tandy and Laura were here.
Chief Charles smiled. "That's who you are. Several of my friends watch your show all the time. Love it."
Tandy returned the smile.
"And you would be who?" the chief said to me.
I told her my name and what I did.
"He's here to help us with the story," Laura said. "Give us a profile of the type of person likely to commit such a murder."
"You don't believe it was Rick?"
Laura shrugged. "Actually, we don't have an opinion. But it's an interesting story. Renard burning the asylum down. I'm told he even got several of the patients into voodoo."
"That's my understanding," the chief said. "In fact, there were certain voodoo symbols found on the grounds. He must've left them behind right before he escaped."
Tandy said, "We'd like to interview Rick Hennessy, if we could."
"'Interview' means what exactly?"
"Talk to him," Tandy said.
"Put him on videotape?"
"If we could."
The chief sighed. "I don't have to agree, you know." Her tone was as crisp as the white button-down shirt she wore beneath her blue blazer. She had a sporty flame-blue scarf tied around her neck. Very dec
orative. She was quite lovely.
"We know," Laura said. And smiled.
"What are your objections?" Tandy said.
"Well, we already have people from just about every major tabloid in the country camped out here, waiting for the trial to start next week. And they're all over the air and the newsstands talking about the 'Devil trial.' I grew up here. I know the pride this town has. We don't like to look like buffoons. Rick Hennessy killed his ex-girlfriend by strangling her. Then he took his knife and cut several voodoo symbols into her. But there was nothing 'supernatural' going on at all. She'd been unfaithful to him. He couldn't deal with it. He stalked her for several months. We arrested him twice. Then he started reading about Renard. I'm still not sure how that came about. But anyway, he became as obsessed with Renard as he was with his girlfriend, Sandy Caine. She was a straight-A student and a very nice kid. Pretty, too. Had everything going for her. Had already signed up for the U. of Iowa. Was going to major in history. Very serious kid. And a sweet one, too. Her mother was dead, and her dad will never recover. I wouldn't, anyway." She sighed. "Anyway, Rick—who isn't a bad kid, either, for that matter—managed to convince himself that Paul Renard demanded some kind of 'voodoo sacrifice,' as Rick put it. So he killed Sandy. I don't believe in pop psychology but it seems to me that this was an example of somebody who couldn't deal with the fact that he'd killed somebody he loved—so he blamed it on someone else. In this case, a man who is probably dead."
"Some people think he's living here right now."
She grinned. It was a kid-sister grin and it was fetching as all hell. "You sure you're not a tabloid reporter, Mr. Payne?"
"Not the last time I looked."
"That's the 'theory' they're pushing. That Renard didn't really die and has come back here. And that he killed Sandy, not Rick."
Then she looked at Tandy. "But I'll bet you're pushing the supernatural angle, aren't you?" There was an edge in her voice now. "And you'll take your camera along the street and interview people until you find a few idiots who believe in the supernatural theory, too. And there we'll be, on the tube, Brenner, Iowa—or 'Ioway,' as the hicks say—talking about spooks and demons and nasties."
"You've really got me wrong, Chief," Tandy said quietly. She sounded hurt. And looked hurt, too. "I'm not a fake. I'm a serious psychic investigator. You may not believe that, but anybody who has ever worked with me will tell you that. And I'm certainly not here to make fun of your town."
Apparently sensing Tandy's pain, Chief Susan Charles said, "I'm sorry. I went over the top a bit, I'm afraid."
"I'm not a cynical person, Chief. I'm really not."
The chief nodded. "All right. I accept that—if you'll accept the fact that I'm very protective of this town."
"That means we can't see him?" Laura said.
"That means you can't see him alone. I want my deputy Bob Fuller in there at all times."
"All right," Laura said.
"And I want to see the segment before it goes on the air."
"That we won't do," Laura said.
Susan Charles smiled again. "I didn't figure you would."
Laura laughed. "You're one hard lady to read."
At just this moment, my eyes happened to be concentrating on Susan Charles's facial scar. I was wondering how it had happened. And when.
She caught me. Our eyes met. She seemed to be as curious about me as I was about her.
"Are you going in with them, Mr. Payne?"
"I thought I would."
"I need to talk to one of you about the shooting this morning."
"Listen," Tandy said. "Why don't Laura and I go ahead and get set up and introduce ourselves to the Hennessy boy. You can come down after a while, Robert."
"Fine with me."
The chief touched a button on her intercom system. "Would you tell Bob Fuller to come to my office please, Am? Thank you."
Deputy Fuller was a burly, balding, fortyish man who might have passed himself off as just another small-town cop. But the eyes belied that. Sharp, steady, quick in appraisal, full of hard intelligence. He looked us over as the chief explained who we were and what we wanted. He seemed less than overwhelmed. "UFOs, huh?" he said, giving us a haiku version of his judgment. His khaki uniform had been dry-cleaned and faintly crinkled starchily when he moved. His black oxfords were so shiny you could use them for shaving mirrors.
"Mr. Payne was with the FBI," Susan Charles said.
"I'll try not to hold that against him." He didn't even try to make a joke out of it. He had the sometimes deserved animus of most cops for the federales.
He led Tandy and Laura away.
Susan Charles said, "He doesn't talk much."
"He doesn't need to. His opinion was loud and clear."
"He's a very practical man. Doesn't go much for theoretical stuff." Then, "I wouldn't think FBI men would go much for theoretical stuff, either." I liked her euphemism for "crazy." Theoretical. Nice civilized touch.
"If you mean Tandy, there's nothing 'theoretical' about her. She helped me on two very important cases when I was still with the bureau. In both cases, she found bodies we'd been looking for for weeks."
"Wow."
"Is that a sarcastic wow?"
She laughed. "Did it sound like a sarcastic wow?"
"I wasn't sure."
"Well, it wasn't. She just shot way up in my estimation. I'm impressed—with her helping you, I mean. With this thing with Rick...she doesn't really believe there's a supernatural connection here, does she?"
"That I'm not sure about. I haven't had any time alone with her. My recollection is that she didn't go in much for anything except straight ESP powers. Back when I worked with her before, I mean. She said that she thought that the ESP 'gifts,' as she called them, could be explained scientifically. But she pretty much rejected the supernatural and things like that. I remember she said that she felt sorry for the people who got rooked into them."
"She seems to have changed her mind."
"Her sister told me that she now sees all these things as 'of a piece.'"
"I imagine that's a useful way of seeing things when you've got a TV show to do each week," she said. "So tell me more about the shooting."
I did better than that. I put the shell casing on her desk and then drew a description of the cleated boot impression I'd found. I was telling her about the angle the shooter had used when a tall blond man with actor good looks and actor arrogance knocked loudly on the frame of the open door. He wore a white silk shirt, chinos, and had a blue tennis sweater tied jauntily around his neck. He had that easy, smirking, big-lug kind of arrogance that never quite went out of style, not even when most of the men on TV were turning sensitive back in the seventies and eighties. "Excuse my interruption, folks. I'm looking for Laura and Tandy. I'm Noah Chandler. I produce their show."
"There you are!" a female voice said from down the hall.
A stocky woman in uniform khaki appeared, out of breath, next to Chandler. "You were supposed to wait for me to bring you back." She looked at Susan Charles. "I'm sorry, Chief."
"It's all right, Am."
"Sorry," Chandler said, giving us a boyish Hollywood grin. "I saw you on the phone and figured you'd be on there for a while."
"They'll be in the interrogation room," the chief said to Am.
"Well, nice to meet you." Chandler said, giving us a little salute before leaving the room. He stared openly at Susan. Irrationally enough—and to make my ninth-grade crush complete—I got jealous.
"He used to be on a TV show."
"Professional wrestling," I said.
She smiled. "No, some kind of cop show. He was a detective or something." Then, "Well, back to business."
She kept the shell casing and the sketch of the boot sole.
Her phone rang. She listened a moment and said, "Sounds bad. Just a second. Mr. Payne—"
"Please, just Robert."
"Robert, then. There's been a train derailment and I have to see to
it. I was going to walk you down to the interrogation room, but I guess you can find it by yourself."
"Sure."
"Straight down to the end of the hall. Then turn left. It's right there."
"Fine."
"Thanks."
"Thank you," I said.
I left her office and started down the hall.
I was about halfway to the end of the corridor when I saw them, two unmistakable impressions made by mud and cleated shoes on the newly polished floor. Three rows of Vs. Just like the ones the shooter had left in the woods. Fresh, too.
The tracks grew faint but they led right to the interrogation room where Mr. Showbiz himself, Noah Chandler, was standing in the doorway.
FOUR
He held the door for me and I walked in past him. "There's another door," he said, nodding toward the east wall. "That's where they are. I was just thinking about knocking and going in."
We walked over and he knocked. He smelled expensive. He was undoubtedly wearing a cologne whose name was something manly. Mountain Musk. Canyon Connection. Stallion Sweat. You know what I mean. He shouldn't have ogled Susan that way.
Laura said, "Come in."
There were five of them at a long, plain folding table, the kind you rent for weddings and funerals. There was an outsize cassette tape recorder on the table. Deputy Fuller sat near us, at this end of the table, by himself, his back to us. Arms folded.
I assumed that the kid with the pimple on the tip of his nose and the green sleep boogers in the corners of his green eyes and the straggly, long, unclean black hair and the black western shirt with the fancy piping and even fancier fake-pearl buttons was Rick Hennessy. I also noticed the symbol of Satan he'd had tattooed on the top of his right hand. His folks probably got it for him for Christmas.
The short, slender, older man with the Einstein white hair and the searing blue eyes I didn't recognize at all.
"This is Dr. Williams," Laura said.
"Please," the man said. "Aaron will do fine."
"Aaron, then. He's the chief psychiatrist at the Mentor Psychiatric Hospital. He's also been working with Rick for the past two years."