by P. J. Tracy
She made him wait longer this time, intentionally, he was sure. At last the door swung open and she glared at him. “Just because I didn’t slam the door in your face the first time doesn’t mean I won’t do it now.”
“You can’t.”
“Oh really? And why is that?”
“Because.” He pointed at the mat he stood on. “It says ‘Welcome’ right there.”
The sides of her mouth twitched a little in what might have been the beginnings of a smile. She controlled it admirably, he thought. “What do you want, Detective?”
“I think I left my phone in the kitchen.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” She thumped away down the hall, dark ponytail bobbing, then reappeared almost instantly, his cell phone held at arm’s length as if it were diseased.
“Sorry about that. Thanks.”
The door slammed hard behind him but he didn’t care. He carried the phone by the antenna and, once inside the car, slipped it into a plastic evidence bag he took from a stack in the glove compartment.
Charlie was waiting for Grace on the other side of the swinging oak door, his tail stub twitching in a doggy question. “It’s okay, Charlie,” she reassured him. “The big bad detective is gone.”
Charlie seemed satisfied with that and wandered back to his afghan nest on the sofa to resume the evening nap Magozzi had so rudely interrupted.
Grace stirred the pot of beef bourguignonne that was simmering on the stove, put down the spoon, and clasped her hands to keep them from trembling. They felt cold.
She walked through the entire downstairs, turning on every light as she went, trying to chase away the darkness that was closing in on her again. The kid was going to be a problem. She shouldn’t have helped him out in the park. Now he was trying to return the favor, keeping an eye out for her, hanging around, watching, and she couldn’t have that. It was too damn dangerous.
A chiming sound stopped her when she passed the office door, the computer’s alert for incoming e-mail. Probably one of her partners, or all of them, she thought, wondering if she’d gotten a call from the cops, too.
She went into the office, jiggled her mouse to restore the monitor, and pulled up her mailbox. One new message. She clicked on it and brought up the memo line. It read: FROM THE KILLER. Sent from one of those megaservers that offered free e-mail to anybody who wanted it.
She stared at the screen for a long, long time, her finger poised to click on the “read new mail” button.
She wasn’t sure if a minute or an hour had passed before she finally clicked open the message. Very slowly, familiar red pixels started to materialize on the screen with eerie slowness. It was the second screen of SKUD; the one that was supposed to say: “Want to Play a Game?”
Only this message was a little different. This message had never been programmed into SKUD.
YOU’RE NOT PLAYING.
Grace started to shiver, and then to shake so badly she could barely fumble her way through Harley’s phone number.
Chapter 23
At five o’clock Wednesday morning, the phone next to Michael Halloran’s bed started ringing and wouldn’t stop. He stuck one hand out of the covers and felt goose bumps rise on his arm as his hand wandered blindly over the nightstand, searching for the phone, knocking over the clock and a water glass in the process. That brought his head out from beneath the down comforter. The cold in the bedroom made his hair hurt.
“Hello?” he croaked into the receiver, forgetting he was always supposed to answer with his title; forgetting his title for that matter. Sheriff of something.
“Mikey, is that you?”
Only one person in the world called him Mikey. “Father Newberry,” he groaned.
“It’s five o’clock, Mikey. Time to get up if you want to make six-o’clock Mass.”
Receiver still to his ear, he closed his eyes and fell immediately back to sleep.
“MIKEY!”
He snapped awake again. “You call everybody in town to wake ‘em up for Mass?” he squeaked.
“Just you.”
“I don’t go to Mass anymore, Father, remember? Jeez, you’re a sadistic old fart. What are you calling me for?”
“God can cure a hangover, you know.”
Halloran groaned again, vowing to move to a big city where everyone in town didn’t know what he was doing every single goddamned minute. “What makes you think I’ve got a hangover?”
“Because that heretic Lutheran’s car was parked in your driveway all night …”
“How do you know that?”
“… which means the two of you probably stayed up all night drinking Scotch, and now your head’s so heavy you can hardly lift it off the pillow.”
“Well, that shows what you know. I don’t even know where my pillow is.” He looked around him on the bed for the AWOL pillow, eyes narrowed to slits, but he couldn’t see anything. “Besides, I’m blind.”
“It’s dark. Turn on the light, sit up and listen.”
“That’s too many instructions.”
“You didn’t let Bonar drive home last night, did you?”
Halloran searched the fuzz in his mind for memories of the night before. They’d eaten the last of Ralph, he’d called the doctor in Atlanta, then they’d really started drinking.…
Mike finally found the switch on the lamp, nearly screamed when he turned it on. Now he really was blind. “Nope. We had a slumber party.”
“Cute. Listen, Mikey, how long are you going to keep this silly surveillance on the church? You’ve had a deputy parked in the lot since Monday.”
“It’s just a precaution.”
“Well, it’s bad for business.”
Mike tried to swallow, but it felt like he had a hair ball lodged in his throat. He dearly hoped he hadn’t found a cat somewhere last night and licked it. “That’s why you called me at five o’clock in the morning? To tell me I’m cutting into your profits?”
“No, I called you to come to Mass, I told you.”
“I’m not coming to Mass. Goodbye.”
“I found something.”
Halloran brought the receiver back to his ear. “What’d you say?”
“It was in one of the hymnal racks, two pews back from where the Kleinfeldts were sitting. Stuck in one of the hymnals, actually, in that gap between the cover and the binding that happens when the glue gets old and dried and pulls away, you know what I mean? Never would have found it if I hadn’t dropped the book, so you probably shouldn’t fire the men who were searching so hard.…”
Halloran was fully awake now. “What? What did you find, Father?”
“Oh. Didn’t I mention that? Well, it’s a shell casing, if I’m not mistaken, and since it’s been years since we’ve had target practice in the church, I was thinking it might be related to the murders.”
“You didn’t touch it, did you?”
“I most certainly did not,” Father Newberry huffed, proud to be as informed in police procedure as any American with a television set. “It’s lying on the floor, right where it dropped, but of course the faithful will be arriving within the hour and I suppose they’ll kick it all over the place …”
Halloran hit the ground running—well, figuratively, at least. In actuality he was shuffling across the bedroom floor with exaggerated care, trying not to jostle his head. “Don’t let anyone near it, Father. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
The old bastard was smiling so hard Mike could hear it in his voice. “Good. You’ll be here in time for Mass, then.”
Bonar was just stepping out of the bathroom as Mike was shuffling down the hall toward it. He was dressed, shaved, and looked disgustingly alert. “Shower’s all yours, buddy, and the coffee’s on. Man, you look like hell. You shouldn’t drink so much.”
Halloran peered blearily through puffy eyes. “Who are you?”
Bonar chuckled. “A vision of loveliness compared to you, my friend. Who called at this ungodly hour anyway?”
“
An ungodly priest,” Halloran muttered, and then brightened, just a little. “He found a shell casing in the church. Hasn’t touched it. And since you’re already up and dressed …”
“On my way. I’ll see you at the office later.”
Halloran was smiling as he stepped into the shower. He wasn’t going to make Mass after all.
Chapter 24
Grace stood in her living room, smiling down at the three shadowy, snoring lumps on the floor. The fur-covered lump sensed his mistress’s presence and looked up at her from the makeshift bed he’d made out of Harley’s leg. Harley, apparently, could banish the demons on the floor simply by lying on it, making Charlie feel totally safe. Grace knew exactly how he felt.
Calling Harley last night had been a knee-jerk reaction, a perfectly rational antidote to the devastating fear Grace had felt. She could have called any one of them; his phone number just happened to be the first one to pop into her head. And then Harley had called Roadrunner because he was the best hacker of all of them. And then he’d called Annie because “she’d castrate me if I didn’t and I’ve grown fond of my testicles.” And they’d all come running without question, converging as a single unit to do battle against an unknown enemy. Circling the wagons, she thought.
“Charlie,” Grace whispered, patting her side in invitation. Charlie scrambled up and followed close on her heels as she crept quietly into the kitchen. She knelt down and stroked his head, then groped in the dark pantry for his bag of kibble and the special Jamaican Blue coffee she always kept on hand for Roadrunner. “Good boy,” she said. “It’s okay, I’m not jealous.”
Charlie’s tail swished back and forth in reply.
Grace found the kibble but was unsuccessful in her blind search for the coffee, so she hit a wall switch and turned on the soft, recessed overhead lights, hoping it wouldn’t wake Harley and Roadrunner. With the gloom of early morning dispelled, she found the coffee immediately and noticed the row of empty Bordeaux bottles lined up on the counter. The throbbing of a headache she’d almost forgotten about renewed itself so she added two aspirin to her morning vitamins.
As she filled up the coffee decanter with bottled water from the fridge, the larger of the two lumps stirred and she heard Harley’s sleep-gravelly voice rasp, “I hope you’re making coffee.”
“Lots of it, and extra-strong,” Grace whispered.
Harley groaned and rolled over, pulling the blanket up over his head.
Overhead, Grace heard the wooden floor in the upstairs spare bedroom creaking. A few minutes later, Annie emerged from the stairwell, fully made up and dressed to the nines in a burnt-orange wool suit with a scandalously short skirt. Hooked on the fingers of one hand was a pair of stiletto heels of the same pumpkin shade; trailing from the other, a dramatic black chiffon wrap trimmed with marabou feathers and sparkling black spangles. If Halloween could choose its own spokesmodel, Annie Belinsky would be it.
Grace gave her an approving thumbs-up. “Very festive.”
They exchanged a giggle and a hug while Charlie crowded in between them to give Annie’s hand a wash. Annie knelt down and ruffled the dog’s fur. “Hey, Charlie. You snuck out on me in the middle of the night, you cad. You know what that does to a girl’s self-esteem?”
Charlie tongued her neck in a happy apology, then went back to the important business of eating.
“Your dog’s a slut, you know that, Grace? Hey, those two bums still asleep?” she asked, peering into the living room.
Grace nodded and put a finger to her lips, then cringed as Annie smiled mischievously and sang out, “Rise and shine, you slobs!”
There was a brief pause, then Harley shouted back. “Annie, you are a dead woman!”
Instead of running for cover and cowering in a corner at the sound of Harley’s shout, Charlie lifted his head, barking playfully. It never ceased to amaze Grace that a dog with a pathological fear of almost everything was so perfectly comfortable with these people that even their shouts didn’t scare him.
Roadrunner popped up, startled and looking a little shell-shocked. “What? What?!”
“Nightmare, Roadrunner,” Harley rasped. “Go back to sleep.”
Annie bustled around Grace and flipped the kitchen wall switch on high, blasting the adjacent living room with several hundred watts of light.
Harley lurched up to sitting position, emerging from under the blanket like a whale surfacing for air. “You are a loathsome creature,” he mumbled, scrubbing at his wildly tangled ponytail. His mood lifted when he noticed her outfit and he gave her a very intentional once-over. “What are you supposed to be? The Great Big Pumpkin?”
Annie scrunched herself up in Quasimodo style and clawed the air with her nails. “Ha-ha. I’m the ghost of your worst Halloween nightmare past.”
“No, you’re much sexier than she was.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Get up, it’s already six a.m. Breakfast time. That mean anything to you, smart-ass?”
Harley cocked his head and gave Annie an adoring smile. “It means I take back anything bad I’ve ever said about you.”
Charlie was now bounding into the living room like an overgrown puppy to start a gleeful campaign of face-licking. Harley fell on his back and submitted to the dog’s ministrations. “Help! Help! I’m being attacked by a mop!”
“You’ll hurt his feelings,” Grace said, watching with a smile as the elated dog moved on to his next victim.
Roadrunner hugged Charlie and gave his back a vigorous scratching. “You want to go for a jog, buddy?”
Charlie dropped to his haunches, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
“Huh? What do you say?”
He barked his answer and loped toward the door.
Roadrunner yawned and stood up, looking almost fresh except for the large cowlick that stuck up from the back of his head. “Is it okay if I take him out for a run?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Harley looked around at them with a sour expression. “What’s the matter with you people? Why is everyone so goddamned perky?”
“Maybe because we didn’t drink two bottles of wine apiece last night,” Annie said snidely.
“For your information, Miss Holier-Than-Thou, that is not wine—it’s Bordeaux. And at two hundred bucks a bottle, I had to finish what your uncivilized palate could not. You don’t open a bottle of ‘89 Lynch-Bages, have a glass, then chuck it.” He fumbled in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet on a chain. “Roadrunner, stop at Mell-O Glaze on your way back and get me a box of those apple beignets.”
Roadrunner held up his hand. “My treat.”
Harley’s brows shot up. “You’re buying? What is this, the end of the world?”
“The end of the world comes when you stop being an asshole. See you guys in half an hour.”
Grace was unloading food from the refrigerator. “Harley, go upstairs and lie down in the guest room. We’ll call you for breakfast.”
Harley stood up and stretched. “Nah, that’s okay. Just give me a carton of orange juice and ten aspirin and I’ll be fine.”
Grace held up a pitcher of orange juice. “Come and get it.”
Harley strode into the kitchen, took the pitcher from her, and set it down on the counter. Then he took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “I want you to know that I’m not afraid of cholesterol.”
Grace chuckled. “Good thing, because I just went grocery shopping. Ham, bacon, eggs, sausage, potatoes, cheese …”
“I died and woke up in heaven.” He swooned, making a beeline for the coffeemaker.
Annie was now at the cutting board with sleeves rolled up and knife in hand, poised over an enormous ham. “This reminds me of college,” she said happily, sawing off the first slab. “Remember when we used to have crash-overs, then pull out whatever was left over in the fridge and cook it up in the morning?”
Grace went to work cracking eggs into a ceramic bowl. “God, we made some disgusting stuff, didn’t we?”
>
Harley grabbed three mugs from the cupboard and hovered by the coffeemaker, waiting impatiently for it to finish its cycle. “What deranged individual made that lo mein omelet with goat cheese? Remember that? Jesus, that was disgusting.”
“It was Mitch,” Grace said. “He was the only aspiring epicure in the bunch.”
“Misguided epicure,” Harley corrected her. “Although I’ve got to admit, he’s come a long way. Frankly, I think his skills are wasted on Diane. She’s always eating unshelled birdseed and macrobiotic tree trimmings and crap like that.” Harley poured coffee and added a hefty dose of cream and sugar to his. “Speaking of the ol’ boy, he’s probably already at the office having a nervous breakdown alone. I’d better give him a call and fill him in.”
“Invite him over for lo mein omelets,” Grace said.
Harley went into the office to call Mitch while Annie started her baking powder biscuits and Grace set the table. When Harley emerged five minutes later, he was shaking his head.
“What?” Annie and Grace asked simultaneously.
“Bad news, kids. The Monkeewrench connection to the murders blew wide open, along with all of Mitch’s gaskets. We’re all over the news.”
Grace sighed. “It was bound to happen.”
“Just a matter of time,” Annie said, slapping dough back and forth between her hands. “Anybody who played the game and saw the newspaper yesterday would have put two and two together, just like we did.”
Harley poured himself more coffee. “Yeah, I know, but Mitch isn’t taking it so well. Five clients already called him this morning to pull their accounts. Right now he’s crunching numbers and he says it’s not looking too good.”
“Did you tell him about the e-mail?” Annie asked.
“Well, I was going to, I meant to, but the poor guy was already totally undone, and if I told him about it I’d have to explain we’ve been here all night, that we didn’t just pop over for an impromptu breakfast, and then he’d feel left out because nobody called him … you know. Figured it’d be better if we told him about it in person. Anyhow, he won’t be joining us for breakfast.” Harley peered over Annie’s shoulder and watched as she cut out little circles of dough. “But on the plus side, that means more biscuits for me.”