Cole Perriman's Terminal Games

by Wim Coleman

  This was worse than any insomnia she’d ever experienced. After a while, she sat up. The humming wasn’t quite as loud in this position. She stared senselessly at the blank wall in front of her for a few long moments. Then she picked up the phone, called the number the two detectives had given her, and dutifully informed the switchboard operator of her whereabouts.

  She looked at her watch. It was seven-thirty in the morning. It was no good just staying here. She had to go somewhere. She had no idea where, but she had to go somewhere. She briefly thought about taking a shower before going out, but it hardly seemed worth it, considering that she would have to put on these same clothes afterward. She walked out of the hotel and got into her car and started driving.

  She decided not to worry about where she was going. She would just drive around until she reached a threshold of exhaustion that matched her relentless aching. Then she ought to be able to sleep. But she might have to drive a long time. Her inner, high-voltage humming had gotten a lot louder—so loud that she could hear it even over the sound of her car engine.

  She guessed that this aching hum was a kind of surrogate sorrow—a thing to fill the gap where her grief ought to be but somehow still wasn’t. And where was her grief? When should she expect it to kick in? Why hadn’t she cried? When was she going to cry?

  To her own surprise, she noticed that she was driving toward Renee’s condominium. Why was she going there? She parked across the street from the condo, turned off the engine, got out of the car, and walked up to the front door.

  Then she realized why she had come. She wanted—needed—to find and talk to somebody, anybody, who had known Renee.

  The front door of the building was controlled by a buzzer system. Renee’s unit was 2-A. Marianne buzzed 2-B, hoping that the closest unit also meant the closest friends. After a few moments, she heard a crackle over the little speaker.

  “Yes?” asked a male voice.

  “My name is Marianne Hedison. I was a friend of Renee Gauld’s.”

  “Yes?” said the voice again.

  Did he hear me? She almost repeated her name, but instead she said, “I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Are you another reporter?”

  “No.”

  “If you’re a reporter, please go away.”

  “I’m not a reporter. I was here last night when the police were here. I just want to talk.”

  No answer came from the speaker. Marianne felt her throat choke with despair. Could she cry at last? That would be wrong. It wouldn’t even be grief. She wanted to cry over the loss of her friend, not some total stranger’s refusal to let her into his home. Her inner hum turned deafening.

  “Please,” she said, trying to keep her shaking voice under control. “I just want to talk to somebody who cared about her. Please.”

  There was a long pause, then a strident buzz. Marianne quickly opened the door. She went upstairs, where she was met by a tall, brown-haired young man, probably in his mid-twenties. He was handsome, but his eyes were red and bleary.

  Maybe he hears the humming, too.

  The man looked Marianne over carefully, apparently satisfying himself that she was not a reporter.

  “Please come in,” he said at last. He ushered her into the unit where a shorter, slightly rounder man was waiting.

  “I’m Roland,” the man who had met her said. “This is Tony.”

  Tony shook her hand and showed her to a seat. “Would you like anything? Coffee? Something to drink?”

  Marianne felt the urge to ask for a bourbon, but she reminded herself that it was still early in the morning. Decorum wasn’t exactly a priority, but she didn’t want to collapse in a dead heap in front of these gentlemen.

  “Coffee, please,” she said.

  Roland exited into the kitchen. Tony was sitting on the sofa, turned slightly sideways, his body hunched forward as though in pain. Marianne could see that he was somewhat older than Roland. His face was strained, but he managed to give Marianne a kind, commiserating look.

  “It’s been so awful,” Tony said.

  “Yes,” Marianne agreed. She glanced around. The room was elegant and ornate, with rich colors and a collection of authentic Chinese and other Asiatic pieces mixed with comfortable modern furniture. The unit looked larger than Renee’s.

  Roland returned with her coffee. “Do you want cream or sugar?” he asked.

  “No. Black’s fine.”

  “I’m sorry if I was rude,” he said, handing her the cup and saucer. “This is the first lull we’ve had in reporters all morning. We’ve told them to go away, but it doesn’t help.”

  “They don’t seem to care about anybody’s feelings,” Tony added. He seemed to keep his body deliberately still, as if holding it taut against the expected onset of pain. Roland stood beside the couch. The three people fell silent. In the silence, Marianne noticed that her internal humming had stopped. She still hurt, though.

  Now she wondered what to say. She reminded herself of her Quaker family, among whom silence was revered. She was always taught that there was nothing wrong with being quiet among people, that a lot could be said in simple stillness. Marianne had often tried to apply that wisdom to everyday social life with its frequent lulls and silences. But it was difficult. She could never be sure whether other people liked the quiet, whether they accepted it as a kind of communication. Renee had trouble with the quiet. Were these two men like Renee—always resisting stillness?

  Marianne felt an urgency to speak.

  “How did you … find out?” she asked.

  She saw Roland buckle slightly, as if someone had struck him. His eyes clinched, and his coffee cup rattled slightly in its saucer.

  Tony spoke in a strained voice, “We—Roland found her.”

  Marianne felt a wave of shock.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Tony simply, starting to rock back and forth very slightly. “Sit down,” he said to Roland. “You’ve got to sit down.”

  Roland sat down on the couch next to Tony.

  “We can’t talk about that part of it,” Roland explained. “It’s not that we don’t want to, but we can’t. The police asked us not to talk about any of the details of the murder.”

  “I don’t want to,” Marianne assured them. “I only want to talk about Renee.”

  It became easier from there. The three shared a few reminiscences. Marianne spoke of her six-year friendship with Renee, and Tony and Roland spoke just as feelingly of their briefer one. They had met Renee socially and had immediately struck it off. They shared the same interests, politics, and music. They laughed at the same jokes. They had become an inseparable trio.

  Inseparable.

  The word made Marianne shiver deep inside. It seemed a terrible commentary on their friendship that Renee had never told her about these two men. What had happened? Why had so many important things been left unspoken?

  “Do you know what plans have been made for the funeral?” Marianne asked, after the reminiscences began to wane a little.

  “It will be in Iowa, the little town where she came from,” Roland said. “We talked on the telephone to an aunt. We offered to help with things here—the condo, paperwork, you know.”

  “Are you going to the funeral?” Marianne asked.

  “No,” Tony said. “We’ve never actually met any of her family.”

  “We’d love to go,” Roland added. “It would be fascinating to meet her people, to find out how such a free spirit as Renee came out of the farm belt. I’m sure they’re wonderful people. But would they feel comfortable with Tony and me? We decided it’s best for us to do what we can right here.”

  “Please let me know if I can help,” Marianne said. She reached into her handbag for a business card. On the back of it, s
he wrote “Pacific Surf Hotel.” She handed the card to Roland. In return, Roland gave her their phone number and the number of the aunt in Iowa.

  Then another silence fell. Marianne felt moved to broach the forbidden subject of the murder. She had to say something. She had to make her confession.

  “She invited me to come that night,” she said. “I didn’t. I can’t help but think … if I had been here …”

  “It wouldn’t have happened?” Tony said, finishing her thought. “We wonder the same thing. Why didn’t we stop in her unit for a nightcap, a little conversation? We did it so often, why not that night? And if we had, could we have prevented …?”

  His last words dropped into barely a whisper.

  Then all was absolutely hushed and still. They searched each other’s pained and frightened eyes. They looked like anguished waxworks sitting together in the silent living room. As she had at the morgue, Marianne caught a fleeting intimation of some awful purpose behind this cruel act. It was not Renee who was being visited with despair and pain. Marianne was. These men were. They didn’t deserve this visitation.

  Incommensurate. We are all being punished, and our punishment is incommensurate with our wrongs.

  How else could she conceive it? She had failed to show up at a party. Roland and Tony had failed to stop in for late night cocktails. Small crimes of omission, both—but they carried ghastly consequences. Someone had chosen to take it into his heart to judge them for these lapses. Someone had chosen to take the life of someone dear to them as punishment.

  He must be powerful.

  More than ever, Marianne knew she had to find him.

  But first, I have to find Renee.

  She saw no such resolve in the faces of the two men before her. They turned their weary eyes toward each other with nothing but love. Tony took Roland’s hand in his. Tony’s hand was pale while Roland’s was slightly darker, but both were loving and strong.

  Marianne had grown up among people who took each other’s hands after worship, before dinner, when entering each other’s houses—for all conceivable occasions. Marianne’s father and mother used to hold hands constantly—the most passionate act she ever witnessed in the quiet household. And at her parents’ funerals, in the very depths of her grief, Marianne had felt herself warmly enveloped by an entire congregation bound together by clasped hands.

  How did I lose what these men have kept? How did I forfeit this?

  Her throat choked again. But still, she could not cry.

  *

  The living room of Larry Bricker’s West Hollywood home was decorated tastefully with a touch of the macabre. The walls were lined with splendid pen and ink drawings of bats, owls, weasels, wolves, and the like—all creatures of night and darkness. The bookshelf contained perhaps hundreds of reference books about death and violence, all of them hardback, some of them leather-bound antiques. First editions of Larry Bricker’s own horrific fare were prominently displayed as well.

  Clayton was sitting on the couch. Bricker was sitting in a chair across the room from him. The slight, balding man’s eyes were glazed with shock as he stared at the floorboards.

  “I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you,” Clayton said.

  But Bricker did not seem to hear. This bothered Clayton. He wanted very much for Bricker to have heard him say he was sorry, but he wouldn’t feel right repeating it.

  In the silence, Clayton found himself studying the coffee table in front of him. He realized he had seen one just like it in a South Carolina museum. It was, in fact, a portable embalming table, probably dating to the Civil War.

  Clayton tried to imagine what a normal visit to Larry Bricker would be like. Bricker would undoubtedly show off his slightly funereal belongings and decor with liberal doses of morbid jest. Guests would be hugely entertained.

  Indeed, when Clayton had arrived, Bricker had been jaunty and hospitable, as if prepared for just such a performance. Then he had almost collapsed with shock when Clayton told him the news. He had been sitting here in silence during the long moments since. It was certainly no time for gruesome jokes. The room itself was suddenly infused with an uncomfortable blend of fact and fancy, and Clayton wondered if Bricker might actually be feeling a little uncomfortable in his own surroundings. This might well be the first time Bricker had encountered real violence, real destruction.

  “I tried calling her yesterday,” Bricker said, finally breaking the silence. “I got her machine. Now I know ... why she didn’t call back.”

  Clayton nodded. “I have to ask a few questions,” he said.

  The man looked up from the floor straight at Clayton. “Of course,” he said.

  “Please tell me about your relationship with the deceased.”

  There wasn’t much to tell, but Bricker was painstakingly honest about it. He hadn’t known the woman long at all. They had only met last weekend when she interviewed him for her radio talk show. But he was fond of her—very, very fond of her. He was sure they would have gotten involved if …

  “We knew each other such a short time,” Bricker said.

  Clayton understood the precise feeling behind the words. Bricker couldn’t grieve the woman’s death, having known her so little and so briefly. What Bricker grieved was the time itself in its awful fleetingness.

  Bricker went on to explain that he was the deceased’s date at the party. He made no equivocation about it, and Clayton didn’t have to coax it out of him. But Bricker knew exactly what time he had left the party, and several people had seen him leave. He was able to give Clayton a couple of names. He said he had come straight home, but didn’t know if anybody had seen him arrive.

  Clayton thanked him for his forthrightness and rose to leave. If Bricker was concerned that he might be considered a suspect, he didn’t show it. Clayton was glad of that. Despite Clayton’s own conviction of the man’s innocence, he could not offer Bricker any assurance that he wouldn’t be suspected. A lot depended on how his alibis held up. Clayton hoped they were solid.

  They were standing in the entrance now.

  “Please call me if I can help,” Bricker said in perfect simplicity.

  “We will,” Clayton said. “Thanks, Mr. Bricker.”

  “Larry. Please.”

  As Clayton walked toward his car, he noted the cleanness of the air, so recently washed by a good night’s rain. Clayton wondered what Gauld’s killer was doing at the moment. Was he enjoying this pleasant change in the weather, or did he have other things on his mind?

  I’d sure like to know.

  *

  Nolan was sitting at his desk in the detective bay area. The morning was still young, but it had already been a long day. He had paid a visit to the guard who had been on duty at the condo the night of the murder. He would doubtless have to talk to dozens of other people today.

  In the meantime, his thoughts kept floating back to the Hedison woman. He had checked her phone records, and a phone call had been made from her Santa Barbara residence to Gauld’s condo at about the time of the murder—not that that necessarily proved anything.

  Nolan didn’t like knowing she was out there on her own. Sure, she had called and given her whereabouts, but what if she’d jumped on the first plane out of the country a minute later?

  Gotta check up on her the next chance I get. Christ, I’d give anything for a good night’s sleep.

  Nolan snapped out of his reverie as Clayton walked up to the desk and sat down tiredly.

  “So what’s the deal with Larry Bricker?” Nolan said.

  “He’s not the one,” Clayton replied simply.

  “How do you know?”

  Clayton groaned. “I’m a detective, too, remember? I know a suspect when I see one.”

  “All right. Don’t get testy. Have we got an alibi to check on this guy?�
�

  “Yeah. Couple of people at the party. We should talk to his neighbors, too. He’ll come out clean. What about the security guard?”

  “I grilled him pretty hard, but he’s clean. His wife says he was home by two.”

  “His wife? Can’t he do better than that?”

  “He sounds all right to me.”

  “Wouldn’t two o’clock leave him time before he left? When he was supposedly making the last-check rounds?”

  “Sure, but what’s the motive? Besides, he’s got a long, clean record. Been with the company for eight years. A good company, too. The way I see it, the killer was already hiding in the closet while the guard was making his last rounds.”

  Clayton heaved a deep sigh. “No laughs yet, huh?” he said.

  “Nope. This audience is murder.”

  “So whaddya checking next?”

  “Insomnimania,” Nolan said. “Maybe I can figure out how the game fits in—if it fits in.”

  “Want me to come?”

  “Nope. You do something else. I’ll take the woman with me.”

  “What woman?”

  “Marianne Hedison—if she hasn’t split town.”

  Nolan could see Clayton’s mouth drop. “What the fuck is this?” Clayton asked. “One minute you want to haul her in, the next she’s your new partner. What’s with you, anyway?”

  “I want to keep my eye on her.”

  “Whaddya think, she’s part of some high-tech conspiracy, some ring of snuff artists? Give it up, Nol.”

  “I want to keep my eye on her,” Nolan repeated slowly and insistently. “Besides, she might help me with all that computer jargon.”

  “Sometimes I can’t understand you, man,” Clayton said.

  “Just let me do things my own way.”

  Clayton shook his head irritably. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll check the radio station, talk to people there.”

  “Sounds good.”