by Dean Koontz
Tony, Frank, and Prewitt hurried to the front door.
“HQ just phoned,” Gurney said. “A couple of kids on skateboards found him about twenty-five minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“Way the hell down on Sepulveda. In some supermarket parking lot. He was lying on the ground beside his van.”
“Dead?”
“As a doornail.”
“Did he have any ID?” Tony asked.
“Yeah,” Gurney said. “It’s just like the lady told us. He’s Bruno Frye.”
Cold.
Air conditioning thrummed in the walls. Rivers of icy air gushed from two vents near the ceiling.
Hilary was wearing a sea-green autumn dress, not of a light summery fabric, but not heavy enough to ward off a chill. She hugged herself and shivered.
Lieutenant Howard stood at her left side, still looking somewhat embarrassed. Lieutenant Clemenza was on her right.
The room didn’t feel like part of a morgue. It was more like a cabin in a spaceship. She could easily imagine that the bone-freezing cold of deep space lay just beyond the gray walls. The steady humming of the air conditioning could be the distant roar of rocket engines. They were standing in front of a window that looked into another room, but she would have preferred to see endless blackness and far-away stars beyond the thick glass. She almost wished she were on a long inter-galactic voyage instead of in a morgue, waiting to identify a man she had killed.
I killed him, she thought.
Those words, ringing in her mind, seemed to make her even colder than she had been a second ago.
She glanced at her watch.
3:18.
“It’ll be over in a minute,” Lieutenant Clemenza said reassuringly.
Even as Clemenza spoke, a morgue attendant brought a wheeled litter into the room on the other side of the window. He positioned it squarely in front of the glass. A body lay on the cart, hidden by a sheet. The attendant pulled the shroud off the dead man’s face, halfway down his chest, then stepped out of the way.
Hilary looked at the corpse and felt dizzy.
Her mouth went dry.
Frye’s face was white and still, but she had the insane feeling that at any moment he would turn his head toward her and open his eyes.
“Is it him?” Lieutenant Clemenza asked.
“It’s Bruno Frye,” she said weakly.
“But is it the man who broke into your house and attacked you?” Lieutenant Howard asked.
“Not this stupid routine again,” she said. “Please.”
“No, no,” Clemenza said, “Lieutenant Howard doesn’t doubt your story any more, Miss Thomas. You see, we already know that man is Bruno Frye. We’ve established that much from the ID he was carrying. What we need to hear from you is that he was the man who attacked you, the man you stabbed.”
The dead mouth was unexpressive now, neither frowning nor smiling, but she could remember the evil grin into which it had curved.
“That’s him,” she said. “I’m positive. I’ve been positive all along. I’ll have nightmares for a long time.”
Lieutenant Howard nodded to the morgue attendant beyond the window, and the man covered the corpse.
Another absurd but chilling thought struck her: What if it sits up on the cart and throws the sheet off?
“We’ll take you home now,” Clemenza said.
She walked out of the room ahead of them, miserable because she had killed a man—but thoroughly relieved and even delighted that he was dead.
They took her home in the unmarked police sedan. Frank drove, and Tony sat up front. Hilary Thomas sat in the back, shoulders drawn up a bit, arms crossed, as if she was cold on such a warm late-September day.
Tony kept finding excuses to turn around and speak to her. He didn’t want to take his eyes off her. She was so lovely that she made him feel as he sometimes did in a great museum, when he stood before a particularly exquisite painting done by one of the old masters.
She responded to him, even gave him a couple of smiles, but she wasn’t in the mood for light conversation. She was wrapped up in her own thoughts, mostly staring out the side window, mostly silent.
When they pulled into the circular driveway at her place and stopped in front of the door, Frank Howard turned to her and said, “Miss Thomas . . . I . . . well . . . I owe you an apology.”
Tony was not startled by the admission, but he was somewhat surprised by the sincere note of contrition in Frank’s voice and the supplicatory expression on his face; meekness and humility were not exactly Frank’s strongest suits.
Hilary Thomas also seemed surprised. “Oh . . . well . . . I suppose you were only doing your job.”
“No,” Frank said. “That’s the problem. I wasn’t doing my job. At least I wasn’t doing it well.”
“It’s over now,” she said.
“But will you accept my apologies?”
“Well . . . of course,” she said uncomfortably.
“I feel very bad about the way I treated you.”
“Frye won’t be bothering me any more,” she said. “So I guess that’s all that really matters.”
Tony got out of the car and opened her door. She could not get out by herself because the rear doors of the sedan had no inside handles, a deterrent to escape-minded prisoners. Besides, he wanted to accompany her to the house.
“You may have to testify at a coroner’s inquest,” he said as they approached the house.
“Why? When I stabbed him, Frye was in my place, against my wishes. He was threatening my life.”
“Oh, there’s no doubt it’s a simple case of self-defense,” Tony said quickly. “If you have to appear at an inquest, it’ll just be a formality. There’s no chance in the world that any sort of charges will be brought or anything like that.”
She unlocked the front door, opened it, turned to him, smiled radiantly. “Thank you for believing in me last night, even after what the Napa County Sheriff said.”
“We’ll be checking into him,” Tony said. “He’s got some explaining to do. If you’re interested, I’ll let you know what his excuse is.”
“I am curious,” she said.
“Okay. I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s no bother.”
She stepped into the house.
He didn’t move.
She looked back at him.
He smiled stupidly.
“Is there anything else?” she asked.
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“What?”
“One more question.”
“Yes?”
He had never felt so awkward with a woman before.
“Would you have dinner with me Saturday?”
“Oh,” she said. “Well . . . I don’t think I can.”
“I see.”
“I mean, I’d like to.”
“You would?”
“But I really don’t have much time for a social life these days,” she said.
“I see.”
“I’ve just gotten this deal with Warner Brothers, and it’s going to keep me busy day and night.”
“I understand,” he said.
He felt like a high school boy who had just been turned down by the popular cheerleader.
“It was very nice of you to ask,” she said.
“Sure. Well . . . good luck with Warner Brothers.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll let you know about Sheriff Laurenski.”
“Thank you.”
He smiled, and she smiled.
He turned away, started toward the car, and heard the door of the house close behind him. He stopped and looked back at it.
A small toad hopped out of the shrubbery, onto the stone footpath in front of Tony. It sat in the middle of the walk and peered up at him, its eyes rolled way back to achieve the necessary angle, its tiny green-brown chest rapidly expanding and contracting.
Tony looked at the toad and sai
d, “Did I give up too easily?”
The little toad made a peeping-croaking sound.
“What have I got to lose?” Tony asked.
The toad peeped-croaked again.
“That’s the way I look at it. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
He stepped around the amphibian cupid and rang the bell. He could sense Hilary Thomas looking at him through the one-way peephole lens, and when she opened the door a second later, he spoke before she could. “Am I terribly ugly?”
“What?”
“Do I look like Quasimodo or something?”
“Really, I—”
“I don’t pick my teeth in public,” he said.
“Lieutenant Clemenza—”
“Is it because I’m a cop?”
“What?”
“You know what some people think?”
“What do some people think?”
“They think cops are socially unacceptable.”
“Well, I’m not one of those people.”
“You’re not a snob?”
“No. I just—”
“Maybe you turned me down because I don’t have a lot of money and don’t live in Westwood.”
“Lieutenant, I’ve spent most of my life without money, and I haven’t always lived in Westwood.”
“Then I wonder what’s wrong with me,” he said, looking down at himself in mock bewilderment.
She smiled and shook her head. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Lieutenant.”
“Thank God!”
“Really, I said no for just one reason. I don’t have time for—”
“Miss Thomas, even the President of the United States manages to take a night off now and then. Even the head of General Motors has leisure time. Even the Pope. Even God rested the seventh day. No one can be busy all the time.”
“Lieutenant—”
“Call me Tony.”
“Tony, after what I’ve been through the last two days, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be a barrel of laughs.”
“If I wanted to go to dinner with a barrel of laughs, I’d take a bunch of monkeys.”
She smiled again, and he wanted to take her beautiful face in his hands and kiss it all over.
She said, “I’m sorry. But I need to be alone for a few days.”
“That’s exactly what you don’t need after the sort of experience you’ve had. You need to get out, be among people, get your spirits up. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.” He turned and pointed to the stone footpath behind him. The toad was still there. It had turned around to look at them.
“Ask Mr. Toad,” Tony said.
“Mr. Toad?”
“An acquaintance of mine. A very wise person.” Tony stooped down and stared at the toad. “Doesn’t she need to get out and enjoy herself, Mr. Toad?”
It blinked slow heavy lids and made its funny little sound right on cue.
“You’re absolutely correct,” Tony told it. “And don’t you think I’m the one she should go out with?”
“Scree-ooak,” it said.
“And what will you do to her if she turns me down again?”
“Scree-ooak, scree-ooak.”
“Ahhh,” Tony said, nodding his head in satisfaction as he stood up.
“Well, what did he say?” Hilary asked, grinning. “What will he do to me if I won’t go out with you—give me warts?”
Tony looked serious. “Worse than that. He tells me he’ll get into the walls of your house, work his way up to your bedroom, and croak so loudly every night that you won’t be able to sleep until you give in.”
She smiled. “Okay. I give up.”
“Saturday night?”
“All right.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“What should I wear?”
“Be casual,” he said.
“See you Saturday at seven.”
He turned to the toad and said, “Thank you, my friend.”
It hopped off the walk, into the grass, then into the shrubbery.
Tony looked at Hilary. “Gratitude embarrasses him.”
She laughed and closed the door.
Tony walked back to the car and got in, whistling happily.
As Frank drove away from the house, he said, “What was that all about?”
“I got a date,” Tony said.
“With her?”
“Well, not with her sister.”
“Lucky stiff.”
“Lucky toad.”
“Huh?”
“Private joke.”
When they had gone a couple of blocks, Frank said, “It’s after four o’clock. By the time we get this heap back to the depot and check out for the day, it’ll be five o’clock.”
“You want to quit on time for once?” Tony asked.
“Not much we can do about Bobby Valdez until tomorrow anyway.”
“Yeah,” Tony said. “Let’s be reckless.”
A few blocks farther on, Frank said, “Want to have a drink after we check out?”
Tony looked at him in amazement. That was the first time in their association that Frank had suggested hanging out together after hours.
“Just a drink or two,” Frank said. “Unless you have something planned—”
“No. I’m free.”
“You know a bar?”
“The perfect place. It’s called The Bolt Hole.”
“It’s not around HQ, is it? Not a place where a lot of cops go?”
“So far as I know, I’m the only officer of the law who patronizes it. It’s on Santa Monica Boulevard, out near Century City. Just a couple of blocks from my apartment.”
“Sounds good,” Frank said. “I’ll meet you there.”
They rode the rest of the way to the police garage in silence—somewhat more companionable silence than that in which they had worked before, but silence nonetheless.
What does he want? Tony wondered. Why has that famous Frank Howard reserve finally broken down?
At 4:30, the Los Angeles medical examiner ordered a limited autopsy on the body of Bruno Gunther Frye. If at all possible, the corpse was to be opened only in the area of the abdominal wounds, sufficient to determine if those two punctures had been the sole cause of death.
The medical examiner would not perform the autopsy himself, for he had to catch a 5:30 flight to San Francisco in order to keep a speaking engagement. The chore was assigned to a pathologist on his staff.
The dead man waited in a cold room with other dead men, on a cold cart, motionless beneath a white shroud.
Hilary Thomas was exhausted. Every bone ached dully; every joint seemed enflamed. Every muscle felt as if it had been put through a blender at high speed and then reconstituted. Emotional strain could have precisely the same physiological effect as strenuous physical labor.
She was also jumpy, much too tense to be able to refresh with a nap. Each time the big house made a normal settling noise, she wondered if the sound was actually the squeak of a floorboard under the weight of an intruder. When the softly sighing wind brushed a palm frond or a pine branch against a window, she imagined someone was stealthily cutting the glass or prying at a window lock. But when there was a long period of perfect quiet, she sensed something sinister in the silence. Her nerves were worn thinner than the knees of a compulsive penitent’s trousers.
The best cure she had ever found for nervous tension was a good book. She looked through the shelves in the study and chose James Clavell’s most recent novel, a massive story set in the Orient. She poured a glass of Dry Sack on the