Regina's Song

by David Eddings

  Before we adjourned, I pointedly reminded them that their “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” papers were due the next day. I was fairly sure that would clear away the rest of the goof-offs and only leave the good ones. That was the whole idea behind my “Professor Grouchy” act.

  Mary was still in her bathrobe when she answered my knock, and she was looking a little frazzled.

  “Where’s Renata?” I asked. “She didn’t make it to class today.”

  “She had another bad night, Mark,” Mary replied. “These nightmares of hers are starting to worry me. She was shaking like a leaf in a windstorm when I came home from work. If this doesn’t clear up, she might have to go back to Lake Stevens for a bit.”

  “It can’t be that bad!”

  “It’s not good. I zonked her out with another sleeping pill, but I don’t want to make a habit of that.”

  “Maybe I’d better call Doc Fallon,” I said. “I’ve been trying to keep the pressure off Twink, but I might be doing something wrong. If nothing else, maybe he can prescribe a tranquilizer to unwind her spring a little.”

  “Tranks are only about one step away from heroin, Mark,” she cautioned. “Let’s not go down that road if we don’t have to.”

  “Let’s see what Fallon has to say. We can hope that this is just something temporary that’ll pass once Twink gets used to the university. Guess I’d better stay here tonight when you go to work at the cop shop.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Mark,” she told me. “This is my day off, remember?”

  “That’s right, isn’t it? I must have spaced it out.” I looked at her a little more carefully. “You look awful, Mary,” I told her bluntly.

  “Up yours!” she flared at me.

  “What I meant was that you’re looking almost dead on your feet. You haven’t been to bed yet, have you?”

  “I dozed on the couch a bit. It’s a good thing that I don’t have to go to work tonight. Sleeping on the job’s an official no-no.”

  “Was Twink doing anything unusual before you went to work last night?”

  “She said she was writing a paper for your class—though I don’t know how she could concentrate. She had the volume on her tape player turned way up.”

  “Kiddie music?”

  “Not unless the kids have changed a lot here lately. It sounded like some woman singing to a pack of wolves.”

  “Oh, that tape. She’s hooked on that one. It was mixed in with that box of tapes and discs I brought down from Everett.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “Who knows? One of the twins taped it off another tape—or maybe a CD—and forgot to label it. Twink gets kind of spacey when she listens to it.” Then I snapped my fingers. “Now that I think back, she was listening to it on the evening before her last visit to nightmare alley.”

  “Maybe we ought to root around and find it—and then accidentally lose it or something. If that’s what’s causing these nightmares of hers, she doesn’t need to have it floating around where she can get her hands on it.”

  “I’ll take it up with Fallon when I talk with him. There are all sorts of possibilities kicking around. Both times happened on a Monday, so maybe it’s Monday that sends her up the wall—or something else. Let’s see what Fallon has to say before we lock anything in cement.”

  “That might be best,” she agreed.

  “Try to get some sleep, huh?”

  “Sure, kid.”

  When I got home I dug out Dr. Fallon’s phone number and punched it into the phone in the living room.

  “Hey, Doc,” I said when he came on the line, “this is Mark Austin. Renata’s been having some problems with nightmares. They must be moderately awful, because they’ve pretty much put her out of action.”

  “It’s not uncommon, Mark. Outpatients are frequently troubled with nightmares.”

  “Could you write her a prescription for some kind of tranquilizer? Her aunt’s been zonking her with sleeping pills, but I wanted to check with you before it went much further.”

  “What kind of sleeping pills?” His voice was a bit sharp.

  “Hell, I don’t know, Doc.”

  “Over-the-counter, or prescription?”

  “Prescription, I think.”

  He started to swear.

  “I take it you don’t care for the idea.”

  “Sleeping pills are the last thing Renata needs right now, Mark. The basic ingredient in prescription sleeping pills is a barbiturate, and nightmares are one of the symptoms of a withdrawal from barbiturates.”

  “They’re addictive?”

  “Obviously. We have to use them on inpatients here sometimes, but we control the dosage, and we always bring the patient down very slowly. A short siege of withdrawal from barbiturates can throw years of therapy out the window. You’re not supposed to be passing the damn things around like popcorn.”

  A cold certainty suddenly came over me. “You had Twink all spaced out on sleeping pills as soon as she arrived there, didn’t you, Doc?”

  “It’s routine. A psychotic patient has to be stabilized before we can start any kind of therapy. We control the dosage, though, and we keep barbiturates locked up as tightly as opiates. If Renata’s aunt leaves them lying around the house, God knows how many Renata’s been popping on the sly.”

  “She wouldn’t do that, Doc.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. Does the term ‘junkie’ ring any bells for you, Mark?”

  “They’re that bad?”

  “At least that bad—particularly when you’re dealing with a psychotic.”

  “Psychotic? Come on, Doc. Renata’s a little spacey sometimes, but she’s hardly a raving lunatic.”

  “Oh, really? She comes through the door speaking a language only she can understand, and when she finally becomes coherent, she doesn’t even know her own name. If that’s not psychotic, it’ll do until the real thing comes along. You tell her aunt to lock those damned pills away somewhere Renata doesn’t know about. Let’s not leave temptation lying around in the open. How’s she doing otherwise?”

  “It’s a little early to tell. This is only the first week of class.”

  “Maybe that’s what’s bringing on these nightmares.”

  “Hell, Doc, she’s taking to this like a duck takes to water. She’s only auditing my class, but she’s already writing papers that she doesn’t have to. That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. Plus she gets belligerent every time I offer to give her a lift. She wants to ride that ten-speed of hers no matter what the weather’s doing. I was talking it over with my housemates last night, and one of them’s majoring in abnormal psychology. She thought this sudden outbreak of independence has to do with the time Renata spent at your place. Since a mental patient’s life is pretty tightly controlled, Sylvia thinks that Renata might be going through a little spell of self-assertion to get the taste of that out of her mouth.”

  “That might come very close. Your friend there at the house might be useful. Has she met Renata yet?”

  “Not so far, but she wants to, and the others are interested as well. We’re all grad students, though, so we sort of outrank Twinkie. I don’t want to intimidate her.”

  “Is your group aware of Renata’s situation?”

  “In a general way. I gave them a bare-bones synopsis of what Twink’s been through.”

  “Maybe I’d better have a talk with the one in abnormal psych—Sylvia, did you say? You’re personally involved with Renata, and this Sylvia can probably be more objective, notice things that you’ll miss. Why don’t you have her call me?” He seemed to hesitate. “Are there any relationships floating around in your group that I should know about?”

  “That’s against the rules, Doc. I’m fond of Sylvia, but there’s none of that involved. She’s an Italian girl and sort of excitable, but she is sharp.”

  “Ask her to call me,” he said again.

  “Will do. She knows your reputation, so she might be a little gushy righ
t at first, but she’ll settle down. Meanwhile, I’ve got to hit the books, Doc.”

  “Learn lots,” he told me in an amused sort of way.

  After supper that evening, Charlie suggested that the guys might want to visit the Green Lantern to get the real story on the Woodland Park incident from his brother. James begged off, though. He was digging into Hegel’s “thesis, antithesis, and synthesis” theory, and it was making him a little grumpy.

  Charlie’s brother was sitting at the bar nursing a beer and sourly watching the local TV reporter desperately trying to ride the “Seattle Slasher” story into the big leagues.

  “Don’t you get enough of that crap at work?” Charlie asked him.

  “It’s the bartender’s set, Charlie,” Bob replied, “and he’s the one who runs the controls. The whole town’s going wild about this ‘Slasher’ business. Do you want to call mom? She’s been trying to get hold of you for the past week.”

  “She’s OK, isn’t she?”

  “She worries, Charlie. Mothers are like that—particularly when one of the puppies forgets to touch base every now and then.”

  “I’ve been pretty busy, Bob.”

  “Don’t blow smoke in my nose, kid. It’ll only take you five minutes. Do it. Get her off my case.”

  “All right, don’t tie your tail in a knot, I’ll call her. What’s the skinny on this latest rubout?”

  “Are you changing your major? Are we yearning to become a TV personality now?”

  “Get real, Bob. You couldn’t pay me to take a job like that. Everybody makes a jackass of himself once in a while, but those people do it on camera. No, we’ve got three ladies at the boardinghouse, and all this ‘Seattle Slasher’ stuff’s starting to make them jumpy. If Mark and I can get the straight scoop on what’s going on, maybe we can calm ’em down.”

  Bob looked around. “Let’s grab a booth,” he suggested. “We’re not supposed to talk about these things in public.”

  We adjourned to one of the back booths, and Charlie and I each ordered a beer.

  “If the ladies in your boardinghouse are really spooked about this ‘Slasher’ crap, your best bet would be to arm them with some of those little spray cans of Mace—or maybe pepper-spray,” Bob told us. “If you squirt a guy in the face with one of those, it puts him out of action immediately.”

  “We hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted. “Where could we pick up stuff like that?”

  “Any gun store should have it,” he said. “I could swipe some for you, but our cans are bulky. The ones they make for ladies are usually attached to a key ring.”

  “Convenient. I’ll look into it.”

  “They’ll probably never have to use them, but just having them handy should give them a sense of security.”

  “So, what’s really happening out there, Bob?” Charlie asked. “All we’re getting from TV is a bunch of dog doo-doo.”

  “You didn’t really expect the truth from a TV set, did you, Charlie? Television’s entertainment, not truth. OK, about all we’ve got to go on so far are the similarities between this murder and the one on campus two weeks ago. We’ve got two semiprofessional criminals who got themselves cut to pieces in a parklike area late at night. Muñoz was a real pro, but this Andrews guy was more of a wanna-be. Andrews did have some gang connections here in north Seattle, but I don’t think he actually qualified as a member. Lieutenant Burpee’s trying to persuade himself that Andrews was more important than his record seems to indicate, but it won’t float. I busted Andrews myself last year, and he didn’t even come close to Muñoz. He had a day job pumping gas at a filling station, so it’s obvious that his criminal activities weren’t paying the rent. He was a small-time hanger-on who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Are we saying that this ‘Seattle Slasher’ stuff doesn’t float?” Charlie demanded.

  “I’m not convinced yet,” Bob replied. “It’s possible we’re looking at ‘trademark’ killings.”

  “I don’t follow you,” I admitted.

  “It comes along every so often,” Bob explained. “If you’ve got a gang out there that wants to put up ‘no trespassing’ signs on its own personal, private turf, chopping assorted rival gang members into mincemeat would probably get the point across in a hurry. These two killings might be the work of a single hit man, or it could be a new standard operating procedure. There’s no real reason to keep on carving on the carcass after the guy’s dead, is there?”

  “Then you think it might just be some sort of advertising gimmick?” Charlie suggested. “Like ‘look what’s going to happen if we catch you poaching’? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “It’s a possibility. There’s no other connection between Andrews and Muñoz that we’ve been able to find.”

  “Then Burpee’s theory about Cheetah might hold water after all,” Charlie suggested.

  Bob shook his head. “This isn’t Cheetah’s part of town. He’s strictly a downtown boy. Far as he’s concerned, north Seattle’s a foreign country. I doubt he even knows how to get to Woodland Park, and if he went there, the trees and grass would spook hell out of him. He comes from a world of cement and telephone poles. What it boils down to is that we don’t have enough to work with yet. Maybe after three or four more of these murders, we’ll have a better idea of who we’re dealing with, but for right now, everything’s still up in the air.”

  “You’re expecting more, then?” I asked.

  “Isn’t everybody? The whole damn town’s holding its breath in anticipation.” Bob looked at his watch. “I’ve got to run,” he told us. “Call Mom, Charlie. Do it tonight, before you forget.”

  “I’ll get right on it, Bob,” Charlie promised.

  “Sure you will,” Bob said sarcastically. Then he turned and left the tavern.

  “What do you think, Mark?” Charlie said. “Should we sound the all clear for the girls?”

  “I don’t think so. We don’t know enough to start taking chances now. Let’s stay close to the ladies until this guy moves on.”

  “If he moves on.”

  “If he doesn’t, we’ll just have to rearrange some things. Meanwhile, I’ll hit a gun store and pick up some of those pepper spray key rings.”

  “Good idea.” Then he shrugged. “It’s all part of the fun of civilization, I guess.”

  “Did you want to take a run at ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,’ sport?”

  “ ‘Nasty’ and ‘brutish’ maybe.” He drained off his beer. “Let’s hit the bricks, Mark. I’ve got work piling up back home.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I was a little foggy during my Milton seminar on Wednesday morning. I don’t function too well that early anyway, and our lecture focused on the religious turmoil during the seventeenth century. Religious squabbles seem to send people off the deep end, and the announcement by some enthusiast that “my God’s better than your God,” almost inevitably sets off yet another war.

  I stopped by a gun store after class and bought three of those pepper spray key rings Bob West had recommended. The little cartridge didn’t look very big, but it probably carried enough to disable a single attacker. Our ladies weren’t likely to need something for crowd control.

  Then I went back to Wallingford to consider my options on my end-of-term Milton paper. I discarded the notion of a comparison of the early books of Paradise Lost to Dante’s Inferno almost immediately. The geography and politics of Hell didn’t thrill me very much. Maybe my best course would be to steer completely clear of Paradise Lost and concentrate on Milton’s prose works.

  Just after noon, I made myself a couple of sandwiches to tide me over until suppertime. Sometimes I think lunch is more a habit than a necessity. We don’t really need to eat three meals a day—particularly when we aren’t involved in physical labor. Eating when you don’t really need to eat tends to make you roly-poly, and it’s rapidly reaching the point where it’s easier to jump over the average American than it is to
walk around him. Dieting is now a major American industry, but a universal “let’s skip lunch” attitude would put Weight Watchers out of business.

  But I make a mighty fine sandwich, if I do say so myself.

  I finished eating and glanced at my watch. It was almost twelve-thirty, and I decided to call Mary. It was raining again, and I thought I’d better find out if Twink was up and moving. If she was coming to class today, she’d need a ride.

  “She left about ten minutes ago,” Mary told me. “She said she wanted to bike it.”

  “It’s raining, for Chrissake!”

  “She’s got a raincoat, Mark. Don’t get all worked up.”

  “Did she get over whatever it was that knocked her out yesterday?”

  “She’s fine—all bright and bubbly. Everybody gets the blues now and then, but Renata bounces right back. I think it’s a good sign, don’t you?”

  “We can hope so. Oh, I talked with Fallon about those sleeping pills. He sort of flipped out about it. I guess Twinkie was pretty well hooked on them in the sanitarium. They brought her down easy, but you might want to hide the ones you’ve got from her. Fallon thinks she might be a secret sleeping-pill junkie or something like that.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “I’m just passing on what he said.”

  “Tell him to get stuffed. I know exactly what I’m doing. The only time I hit her with one of those pills is when she starts going around the bend, and that doesn’t happen often enough for her to get hooked.”