Night Games (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  Even though he didn’t completely believe her, he decided to nod, to pretend he accepted the statement.

  “Did he put any pressure on you, accuse you of anything?”

  “No. He just listened, that’s all. Listened, and asked questions.”

  “If he didn’t put any pressure on you, then why’d you talk to him?”

  “I—” She frowned. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “Never mind.” As he said it, he smiled, seeking to reassure her. Tactically, it was ill-timed to cross-examine her. Instead, he must convince her that they were on the same side, not antagonists:

  “Let me tell you how I see your position—and the police department’s position, too. And, secondarily, my position. Now—” He cleared his throat, settled himself authoritatively in the chair. He was on familiar ground now: the lawyer, advising the client. “Now, your position is actually very simple, very straightforward. The first time the lieutenant came, yesterday, you were naturally shocked to learn that Haney had been killed, probably very shortly after you’d left the premises. You weren’t willing to answer questions that cut too close to the quick, so to speak. And, naturally, I wouldn’t have permitted such questions.

  “However, when Hastings came back, today, you’d thought things over. You knew you had to cooperate more fully, to help in the investigation. So you told Hastings what you told me, last night. You told him that, the last time you were baby-sitting for the Haneys, almost two weeks ago, now, James Haney—” He broke off, fought for control, finally was able to go on: “James Haney put his hands on you. He was drunk, and he—he took liberties. It happens, constantly. And your initial reaction was, unfortunately, typical. You didn’t want to make a fuss, didn’t want to call attention to the situation. You even felt guilty, for not rebuffing him decisively enough. Which is also typical, unfortunately.

  “But then, Friday night, the game changed. He actually proposed a—a sexual game, a ritual. One of the props was a decorative dagger that he kept on his desk. He handed you the dagger, asked you to take it, admire it. Then he told you what he wanted you to do. You refused, of course. You put the dagger down, and you left the house. And that’s everything, the whole story. Right?”

  Slowly, rigidly, she nodded. “Yes. That’s right.”

  “And that, in essence, is what you told Hastings today. Right?”

  She nodded again: a shallow, chastened inclination of her head. She plainly believed that, for now, the worst was over.

  “You’re sure you’re not leaving anything out, Amy? You’re positive?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “What about me? Did he mention me, ask about me?”

  “Not really. I said you’d be coming home to watch football, that’s all.”

  He suppressed an impatient exclamation. “I’m not talking about today. I’m talking about Friday night. Did he ask about my whereabouts on Friday night?”

  “Well, he asked whether you were here when I got home.” Now she looked him full in the face. “I said you were.” She drew a long, unsteady breath. “I said you were sleeping. I said I heard you snoring, so I knew you were here.”

  “Did he pursue the point, question you further about me?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure about that, Amy? Absolutely sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He rose to his feet and stood beside the bed, compelling her to meet his long, uncompromising stare. Silently, they exchanged a wordless promise, and silently confirmed the penalty for betrayal. Then, quietly, he bade his daughter good night, and left the room. He’d heard what he had to hear.

  Nine

  HE SAW THE MILLERS’ front door swing slowly open. This time, it would be Amy. He knew she’d seen him. He knew she’d recognized the car, his mother’s Celica. The time was almost eight o’clock; the light was fading fast. Soon it would be dark, and—

  Yes, it was Amy. Quickly, cautiously, she was closing the door. She was sneaking out of the house, hopeful that she wouldn’t be seen, wouldn’t be heard.

  It was like they were eloping. Lovers, eloping. Like Romeo and Juliet, from Shakespeare. She was wearing the combat jacket he’d bought for her on her birthday. The jacket was real, not a fake. The salesman said it had come from World War II.

  It was a sign, that she was wearing the jacket.

  Finally, she’d given him a sign.

  But when she reached the sidewalk, instead of turning left, toward him, she was turning to her right.

  Instantly, he felt the sudden suffocation of anger, uncontrolled. But in the next instant she turned toward him. And, yes, she shot him a quick, meaningful glance.

  It was a sign. Another sign.

  And, yes, she was right. They shouldn’t be seen together. Not now. Not in front of her house, even with the light fading so fast.

  Aware that he was back in control, no longer the victim of his own sudden fury, he twisted the key in the ignition, brought the car to life. The engine was running rough. It needed plugs, timing, a new condenser. He’d told his mother she needed new plugs. He’d offered to put them in, if she’d buy them.

  He looked in both mirrors, looked back over his shoulder, then swung the Celica smoothly into a U-turn—a slow, conservative turn, the kind of a turn his mother would make, if she were driving.

  Ahead, Amy had already reached the corner. And, yes, she was turning the corner.

  He flipped the turn indicator, slowed, turned the corner. Standing between two parked cars, she was waiting for him. She was frowning.

  He stopped the car, swung open the passenger door. Quickly, she slid inside, swung shut the door. She was wearing jeans. Momentarily he was unable to take his eyes from the fullness of her thighs, the curve of her calves.

  “Go ahead. Go.”

  He shifted into first, revved the engine, let in the clutch. “Where d’you want to go?”

  “Anywhere. Just drive.” She sat with her fists jammed straight down into the pockets of the combat jacket. Her chin was lowered, dug stubbornly into the collar. Her eyes were hard, staring straight ahead.

  She was mad. Furious, maybe.

  “Where d’you—”

  “Just drive. Don’t stop. Just drive. Anywhere. I don’t want to park. I want to drive. Understand?”

  It would be better if he didn’t answer, better if he just drove, like she wanted. Women were unpredictable, his father had always said. Unpredictable, and—

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, hanging around my house now? Don’t you know what you’re doing?” Her voice was harsh. A stranger’s voice, almost. He looked at her profile, saw the set mouth, the angry eyes, staring straight ahead.

  Inside himself, deep inside, an emptiness had suddenly opened. Again. Still. Always.

  Always, the emptiness …

  With an effort, he focused his thoughts on what she was saying:

  “… the fuck do you want from me, anyhow?”

  “You know what I want. I told you what I want. You know.”

  “All I know is that you’re fucking crazy. That’s all I know. You’re crazy, if you think—” She broke off, began furiously shaking her head.

  Deliberately, smoothly, still in control, he pulled the Celica to the curb, switched off the engine, set the brake. He knew what she was doing. She was testing him. Testing the limits. Always.

  And she was right to do it. She didn’t know it, didn’t realize it, but she was right. Because this was the time that counted, for them. Thumbs up or thumbs down. Like the gladiators, long ago.

  He must have known it would happen like this. Because, last night, he’d memorized what he would say, as if it were a lesson, for class. He’d memorized it, and he’d been right, because what he’d decided to say fitted perfectly with what she’d just said. It was like they were acting, playing two separate parts written by the same person. And the parts would come together. It was a certainty. If he said it right, and she said it right, they’d be toget
her. Both of them. Always.

  “I’m going to tell you about it,” he said. “I’m going to tell you about Friday. About what happened, Friday.”

  Sharply, fiercely, she shook her head. “No, you’re not You’d better not, Teddy. I’m warning you, goddammit. You’d better—”

  “I got back on my bike, and I rode away. You told me to do it, and that’s what I did. I went to my house, and I put the bike away. My folks were out of town, at the Sea Ranch. So I watched TV in the living room, while I decided what to do. It was an hour, maybe, that it took me. Because I had to plan it all, you know. Everything, just like it would happen. And then I got my Buck knife, the one with the sheath. I put the knife on my belt. And I locked up the house. I walked over to the Haneys’, over to the alley. I’d put on tennis shoes, I forgot to tell you that. Because that’s how I got over the wall, see. That’s the only way I got over.”

  He saw her eyes flicker. It was the first sign. Before anything else could happen, this must happen first, this first sign of uncertainty, this halting disbelief.

  “You’re lying. You didn’t jump that wall. You couldn’t jump it. Not with those spikes on top.”

  Conscious that the power was flowing now from her to him, he could choose not to answer.

  “You’re lying.” She was turned to face him fully—furiously. With her hard, hostile eyes, she was searching his face.

  He knew his voice would be calm and confident as he said, “I’m not lying. I was out there. Over the wall. In the garden. All the time.”

  “You’re lying. You’re fucking—”

  “You were on the couch. He was kneeling on the floor. He had pajamas on. That’s how it started.”

  “No—”

  But now she could only shake her head. Repeating: “No.”

  With his eyes holding her helpless, master and slave, he nodded—once. And, yes, the disbelief in her eyes had turned to fear, as he knew it would. And the fear was the power. His power. Her loss.

  “I was there, outside those French doors. There’s a spot where the drapes don’t cover the glass, down near the floor.”

  “For how long?” She was whispering now. Her eyes were wide. Surrendered. Finally surrendered. “How long were you out there?”

  “Long enough. You know that.”

  “Oh, Jesus. No—”

  “But only the two of us know, Amy. Don’t you see that? Don’t you see that it’ll never change for us now? As long as it’s just the two of us that know, then it’ll never change. That’s why it happened. You know that’s why it happened.”

  “No …” Staring at him, her eyes were wide, fascinated. Helpless. Finally helpless. “No,” she murmured. “No—no—no.”

  Ten

  BECAUSE THE DREAM HAD come again, she knew she’d been asleep. She’s seen it clearly, the featureless phantasm, the monster without a face, without a voice, without hands or feet or claws. As it always did, the monster appeared first as a thickening within the room, a shape materializing from nothing, drawing closer, hovering above her, around her, growing moment-to-moment more menacing.

  Always, her eyes were closed against the terrifying presence. But, always, the monstrous image pierced her eyelids, seared her consciousness, left her helpless, a scream frozen in her throat. Until finally she lay motionless, watching the apparition as it began changing shape, growing an obscenity from the center of itself, a member with a snake’s head set upon a long, thick, thorny stalk. Like some graceful, undulating sea-tendril, the stalk surrounded her with an invisible cage constructed of the endless intricacies of its own movements: a spider’s web of invisible spinnings, slowly, inexorably tightening, binding her to her bed. While the web was drawing tighter, the snake’s head wove slow, graceful patterns of movement about her, beyond the web. But, once the web tightened, the head became rigid, immobilized, animated by the fury that flashed from its eyes.

  Then she realized that she’d opened her eyes. Her mouth was open, too—but not to scream. Instead, mesmerized, she was compelled to receive the touch of the monster’s snake-head upon her lips.

  But the moment of contact was always shattered by a scream: her own scream, torn from her own throat, from her own soul.

  She was left staring into the darkness of her room, momentarily incapable of movement, hearing the echo of the scream as she struggled to free herself from the suffocating clamor of her own heartbeats, terrified …

  … as she was lying now, wide-eyed, terrified, struggling.

  Until finally, her eyes would close, as they were closing now. Finally the heartbeat slowed, releasing her from the nightmare terror.

  But, as she’d known it would, the other terror returned: the walking terror of memory.

  She’d opened her eyes to discover the door slowly, inexorably opening, swinging inward, toward her. Like the monster from her nightmare, he first seemed a part of the room’s darkness as he came closer.

  Did he know she was awake? Could he hear the rhythm of her breathing quicken? Could he see her open eyes, watching him?

  Could monsters sense without seeing?

  She heard the sound of his feet on the carpet. She heard him breathing. In the silence, the sounds were magnified, time compounding terror. Soon she would feel the obscene warmth of his breath on her face. Already the fetid odor of alcohol had fouled the air within the room.

  She’d told him that, this time, she would have the knife ready in her hand. It had been a promise: a last, desperate promise, her one hope remaining. When she’d told him, she’d seen excitement gleam in his eyes: pale, erotic fire, compelling her. The whisper of his reply was a lover’s murmured endearment …

  … the endearment he’d taken so cruelly from her, never to be heard from any man but him. For as long as shame lasted. Forever.

  For as long as he lived.

  Her fingers had tightened on the handle of the knife. Before she’d gone to sleep, knowing he would come, she’d made her plans. Carefully. Calmly. Having already warned him, she’d freed herself from guilt. And his shining eyes and crooning voice confirmed it.

  She’d once acted in a play. Now it seemed so long ago, so incredibly long ago. To learn the part, she’d had to plan every word, every movement of her body, every gesture of her hand. Over and over she’d rehearsed, blindly repeating the lines that would make her someone else. So that, when the sounds of the audience came from behind the lights, for as long as she played the part, she’d been another person. A different person.

  It had happened like that on Friday night. With the knife in her hand, waiting, she’d been a stranger to herself, another person, knowing precisely what she would do, thoroughly rehearsed.

  The knife had been in her left hand, lying beside her, an extension of her body, of her left arm, concealed from him by her leg. She’d known each movement she would make, keyed to cues from him.

  On the stage, the director chalked X’s for characters to stand, delivering their lines.

  In her mind, she’d chalked an X perhaps three feet from where she lay. When he came to the spot, she’d raised the knife, shown the knife plainly. Then she’d transferred the knife to her right hand, ready.

  She’d known what he’d do when he saw the knife, a slim silvery gleam in the darkness. She’d known the sight of the knife would momentarily immobilize him. But she’d known that, inexorably, helplessly, he would then move forward. Because, like herself, he must act according to ritual.

  If he could have touched her, he could have saved himself.

  So it was his hand, inching toward her, that had actually triggered the arc of silver fire flashing between them.

  His hand had triggered the first slash; his first scream had triggered the second, releasing her, freeing her from herself, activating their rite of ritual repulsion, therefore ritual death.

  As he’d flung himself away from her, clawing at the closed door, she’d found herself on her feet, compelled to follow the flash of the knife.

  Until later, af
ter the long moments of memory lost, the moments of the void, she’d realized that he was lying at her feet. She’d looked into his eyes as, slowly, the eyes had glazed over, forever fixed on her.

  Then, released, she’d knelt beside him, placed the blood-smeared knife in his outstretched hand.

  MONDAY

  One

  HASTINGS HAD CLIPPED HIS service revolver to his belt and was putting a paperweight on the papers in his OUT basket when he saw Friedman’s upper body in the glass of his office door. Without ceremony, Friedman entered the office, took the first cigar of the day from his vest pocket and sat in Hastings’ visitor’s chair.

  “I just got updates from the lab,” he said. “And the coroner, too. I thought I’d fill you in, before you went out to the Haney place.”

  “Good.” Unbuttoning his jacket and lacing his fingers behind his neck, Hastings leaned back in his chair. “Go ahead.”

  Before beginning, Friedman lit the cigar, sailed the still-smoking match into the wastebasket and puffed vigorously enough to send layers of blue smoke toward the ceiling. “Most of it pretty much confirms the preliminary reports,” he said. “For instance, there’s absolutely no physical evidence that Cutter was on the premises. No fingerprints, no matching fibers on his person, no mortar from the Haneys’ garden wall. Nothing. As for the rest of the fingerprints at the scene, that’s all pretty predictable, too. Everyone concerned left fingerprints pretty much where you’d expect to find them, and that includes Haney’s prints, and Amy Miller’s prints, in the study. There’re some unclassified prints, of course, in the study and elsewhere. But in a household like that, with cleaning people coming and going, for instance, it’s surprising there weren’t more unclassified prints. And, yes, there was semen on the couch in the study—Haney’s semen, without doubt. Or, at least, it’s his blood type.

  “But here’s where it starts to get interesting—” Friedman paused, purled on his cigar, watched Hastings begin to fidget impatiently—all according to plan. “It turns out,” Friedman said finally, “that there were six separate slashes on Haney’s body. Three of them were on his hands and forearms, the typical fending-off slashes. The fourth slash was across his back, diagonally from the right shoulder down about eight inches. The fifth slash was high on his chest, on the left side. None of the first five slashes were fatal, obviously. The only fatal slash was on the left side of the neck, as you know. All of which, as I’m sure you’ve already figured out, paints a pretty clear picture. He was attacked by an assailant wielding a knife. He tried to ward off the blows. He turned, ran, got slashed on the back. So then maybe he turned, to defend himself. Maybe he took the fifth slash then. And, finally, he took the fatal slash, which cut the carotid artery.