They were standing in a small reception room, with three easy chairs and a coffee table. The coffee table had three deer-hunting magazines, a four-wheeler magazine, a battered copy of The New Yorker, and sales literature for automated meat cutters.
Culver came out of the back, said “Hi, sweetie” to Barstad and “Dave Culver” to Lucas. Lucas shook his hand and introduced himself, and outlined what they hoped to do.
“Is Miss Crazy Quilt gonna get her ass in trouble?” Culver asked.
“That’s why we need to be close,” Lucas said. “We don’t think he’ll pull anything, but just in case . . .”
“All right,” Culver said. “My only other problem is, I don’t want to be dealing with some gang or something that’s gonna be coming by here afterward and tear up the place. I’ve got a quarter-million bucks’ worth of new equipment in the back.”
“It’s one guy,” Lucas said. “He’s not connected to anyone. If we take him off, he won’t be out of Stillwater for thirty years minimum.”
Culver nodded. “So, use the place. You got any friends in the restaurant business, give them my card.”
CULVER’S SHOP WAS divided into three: a front reception area with the coffee table, only a few feet deep; two offices behind the reception area; and a big warehouse area behind that. Gibson looked at it, measured it, walked over to Barstad’s, did some more measuring, and wound up in one of the middle offices. “I can go right through the wall here, and here, no permanent damage,” he told Culver. “Is that okay?”
“Fine with me. . . . Get some of my stuff out of your way.”
“How good will the sound be?” Lucas asked.
“Should be great,” Gibson said. “When I get done miking the place a goddamn cockroach couldn’t sneak through on its hands and knees. We won’t need any transmitters—we can hard-wire everything. Digital sound. You want a camera?”
“I don’t know. Is there a problem with a camera?” Lucas asked.
“It’s a little more intrusive,” Gibson said. “I think we could fix it so he couldn’t see it—in the big room, anyway; there’s no good place in the bedroom or the bathroom—but there’s always the chance that he’ll spot it. If the camera can see him, he can see it. The lens, anyway.”
“See what you can do,” Lucas said.
“There’s also a privacy question,” Gibson said.
Barstad was there, and said, “What’s that?”
“If you are . . . luring him . . . and if you’ve slept together, then he may expect some physical contact. Sound is one thing, pictures are something else.”
She shook her head. “Go ahead. I’m not body-shy.”
They both looked at her. Lucas shook his head and said to Gibson, “Whatever you can do.”
When they were done, and the equipment had tested out, Lucas looked at his watch and said, “We’re all done for the day. Jim, if you’d drop Ellen off at the hotel on the way back, I’d appreciate it. We all gotta be back here, in place, at noon tomorrow. Ellen, you and I can talk about your approach to Qatar when we’re back here tomorrow—think of some possible things you might say, and I’ll think of some, and we’ll work it out tomorrow. Okay? Everybody know what we’re doing?”
Everybody knew.
LANE CALLED LATER, about Qatar: “I missed the sonofabitch—there’re just too many doors here, and I don’t know where the hell he’s gotten to. He’s not home. But I’ve seen him, I know who he is, and I’ll wait outside his house. If he comes in too late, I’ll get here early tomorrow. I’ll get him tomorrow for sure.”
“Soon as you can, man.”
“I know, I know.”
24
MARCY CALLED LUCAS at eight-thirty and caught him still in bed. He picked up the phone and said, “What?”
“The docs had a talk with Randy late yesterday afternoon,” she said. “They told him he might not walk again and all the rest of it. He freaked out. I called over there today, to this Robert Lansing guy, to set up a rush-rush deal to get the photos over there when Lane gets them . . . and Lansing says it’s all off for now. He said Randy won’t talk to anyone—he won’t even talk to Lansing. He screams at everybody who comes in the room. He ripped out all his IVs—the nurses had to tie him into the bed.”
“Jesus.”
“Well, you know, if it was one of us . . .”
“Yeah.” If it was him, Lucas thought, he might sooner or later stick a gun in his mouth. “What about Lane? Do we have anything to work with?”
“Not yet. We’re still on hold. He got Qatar in the parking lot, but just couldn’t get around in front of him enough. The whole problem is getting in front of him. He’s gonna sit on the car all day, and get him coming in.”
“Goddamnit, Marcy. Tell him to push it,” Lucas said.
“Even if he takes a chance on being seen?”
“No, no, no . . . He can’t be seen. That’d mess up everything.”
“Then you gotta be patient, Lucas,” she said.
“No, I don’t. I’m the fuckin’ boss.”
QATAR WAS SITTING at his desk, trying to get through a deck of photographic slides he used in lecture. He didn’t like to use more than twenty per class—they couldn’t be absorbed, he felt, and forced him to rush the analyses; when all was said and done, he was a decent teacher—and they had to be arranged in a certain aesthetic order. He hated to have light, bright slides immediately before or after dark-colored slides. That was like serving heavy, strong-flavored food with light, delicate wine; you couldn’t appreciate either one.
Beyond that, as a buzz in the back of his mind, lingered the fear created by the growing media spectacle of the gravedigger. The state forensics team was still working on his hillside, and there were daily alarms, later retracted, of more bodies. And speculations about the ogre who could have killed so many women. Two of the stations had paid retired FBI agents to profile the killer; the profiles were generally similar, with one of the agents specifying a “fastidious dresser” who would be as meticulous in his personal habits as he was in his graveyard.
All of this was humming in the background of his slide-sort, when the phone rang. He picked it up, thinking, Ellen, and it was.
“I’m back,” she said. She seemed uncharacteristically breathless. “Did you get my message?”
“Yes. This afternoon would be fine. How much do you have for the wine?”
“A thousand. I sold a huge star quilt, the rippling light. I thought with a thousand, I could get a really good start.”
“A fine start,” Qatar said. “I’ll bring my book and we can work through the list before we go.”
“Listen . . . I don’t want to give anything away, but . . . have you ever heard of sexual asphyxiation?”
“What?”
“I saw it in a movie last night. Some art film. A guy hanged himself—not completely, but enough to choke off the air—and when the police asked him about it, he said you have the most wonderful orgasms.”
“Well . . . I’ve heard of it, but it sounds painful. I understands it’s often done with silk neckties, but I think it might be dangerous. I mean, brain damage.”
“Oh. But, if you were really careful . . .”
“Ellen, I don’t know. Let’s wait until I get over. We don’t want to go too far.”
“Okay. I’ll see you this afternoon.” Again, a little breathless. She must’ve been busy. “But, James . . . think about it.”
He couldn’t stop thinking about it. He kept thinking about it as he finished sorting, and developed an erection so intense that it was almost painful. He might have done something about it immediately, but for his class. And during his class . . .
One of the young virgins in his Matrix of Romanticism class was nearly perfect: blank, clueless blue eyes, fine slender body, punky blond hair. She would be perfect, he thought, except for her incessant gum-chewing, and the constant presence of an earphone in one ear. She even tried to listen to music during his class, until he questioned it. She un
plugged, annoyed, and told him that she was only listening to background music for his lecture and the art. She always tried to find something appropriate.
Like what? he asked. Beethoven?
“Enigma,” she said. “The Screen Behind the Mirror.”
“Please . . .”
But today she was sitting there with her virginal legs stretched out in front of her, and a little into the aisle, nicely encased in nylon; and she wore a thin white sweater like a fifties movie star.
He thought of sexual asphyxiation and tried to talk about Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa, and also keep his sports jacket appropriately draped as the erection came and went. He could imagine this blank-eye blonde on a bed, the long, groove of her spinal column leading up her back to her neck, her head arches in orgasm and the rope in his hand . . .
By the time he left for Ellen Barstad’s studio, he was in a hurry, his worries about the gravedigger investigation pushed to the back of his mind. He needed to see her now.
In his hip pocket, he carried his rope.
LANE CALLED: “LUCAS, I got him coming out of the building, heading to the car. Good shots. I’m gonna take it over to a one-hour place—I oughta have big prints by the time you get out of there.”
“Good, but have you talked to Marcy? We’re a little hung up on Randy,” Lucas said.
“Yeah, I talked to her. They haven’t worked anything out yet, but having the pictures can’t hurt.”
“Okay. You just do the pictures. You say he’s out of the place?”
“He is, and he’s moving your direction. He’s in a hurry.”
Lucas, Del, Marshall, and Gibson were huddled in the middle office with two TV monitors, both hooked to the same camera and each with its own tape deck; a couple of Bose speakers; two tape recorders; and four separate cell phones.
Lucas picked up his phone and called Barstad next door. “Ellen, he’s coming. Now, if it doesn’t work, if it gets uncomfortable, throw his ass out. If he won’t go, yell for help. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Don’t worry, Lucas. I’m going to hang up now. . . .” And she did.
“Crazy chick,” Gibson said.
They couldn’t see her: She was in the bedroom, and there had been no place for a monitor. Even if there had been, Lucas was worried by the privacy problem: A camera pointing at the bed didn’t seem right, though Barstad hadn’t seemed bothered by the concept. They’d finally decided that the room was simply too small and sparsely furnished. Qatar had been there several times, Barstad said; they didn’t want to change the style just to hide the camera. The only camera was hidden behind the grille of a return-air vent at the front door, from where it could sweep the room.
Gibson could change the sound from one mike to the next with a simple slide switch. The microphones were sensitive enough that they could hear Barstad moving around, could hear the refrigerator open, could hear her flush the toilet.
“One more mike, we could hear her pee,” Gibson said.
“That’s what we want to put in front of a jury,” Del said. “Our witness taking a leak.”
Marshall disapproved. “I worry about this girl. She thinks she knows what she’s getting into, but she doesn’t. She ain’t a hell of a lot more than a child.”
“She says he doesn’t carry a gun, he doesn’t carry a knife. If he goes to get a knife, she’ll scream her head off and we’ll be there in twelve seconds.”
The twelve seconds wasn’t a guess. They’d timed it.
“That’s a long goddamn time if somebody is cutting your throat or hitting you on the head with a ballpeen hammer,” Marshall said.
“Yeah, well . . . So I’m worried too. This is what we’ve got, and I think we’re ninety-seven percent okay,” Lucas said.
DEL HAD MOVED out to the front while Lucas and Marshall argued; Qatar drove a green and silver Outback, and from the silvered window, Del could see the entire parking lot. The waiting grew uncomfortable as they listened to Barstad moving around in her apartment. Then Del said, “He’s here.”
Lucas was speed-dialing Barstad. She picked up, and he said, “He’s here. You know how to call us.”
“I know. I’m ready.” She was gone.
“He’s out of the car,” Del said. He stepped away from the window and headed back toward the office. “Here we go.”
“Oh, shit—look at this,” Gibson said. He was staring at the monitor. They’d heard Barstad step away to the bedroom after she hung up the phone, and now, five seconds later, she was back—and she wasn’t wearing a stitch. She was walking toward the door and the camera.
“Jesus,” Lucas said.
Del picked up the tone and bent around the monitor to look. “She must have goose bumps the size of watermelons,” he said. “You know . . . she’s . . . jeez. She’s not bad. All natural.”
She glanced up at the camera as she got to the door, and Lucas thought she might have been smiling. “Fuckin’ crazy goddamn . . .”
BARSTAD OPENED THE door and said, “Come in quick. It’s a little cool.”
“Mmm,” he said. He fitted a hand around her hip and they kissed, long and carefully. As they broke apart, he said, “You look nice. The cold is nice for your nipples.” He reached out and gently pinched one, and the slight pain caused her to breathe in, sharply, quickly. She said, “James, I really need something here.”
“So do I,” he said. He had the cord in his pocket, but for now, forgotten. She had taken his hand and was pulling him back toward the bedroom.
“Wait,” she said. “The bedroom’s so dark.” She went to the wall, where a futon unfolded over a couch rack. “Help me,” she said.
Together they pulled the futon off the rack and threw it on the floor, and she began tearing at his clothing. He was saying, “Wait, wait wait . . .” as she pulled at his shirt and then at his belt. He was staggering around with his pants down around his ankles when she caught him in her mouth, and he started to laugh and tried to push her away and finally collapsed on the futon.
“GOD HELP ME,” Gibson said. “Look at this.”
“This could be a problem,” Lucas said. “This could be a problem. Christ, the defense attorneys will put this on and they’ll impeach the shit out of her.”
“I don’t know,” Del said. “She’s so up front about it. Maybe she’ll just tell them she likes . . . Oh, Jesus.”
“Maybe she likes it, but on television?”
Marshall backed out of the office. “This is over the edge.”
“The guy’s kinda hung,” Gibson said.
“You think so?” Del asked. “I was gonna say he was a little small.”
As sex always does, it ended, with Barstad and Qatar lying on the futon. The camera wasn’t good enough to tell, but the cops imagined that both of them were covered with sweat and out of breath; they thought that because everybody in the monitoring room was sweating and out of breath. Lucas could smell them all.
BARSTAD, NEARLY RECOVERED, said, “James. You were ready. What have you been doing? You were really excellent.”
Qatar smiled at her, but his ears tingled: There was a false note there, a kind of patronizing overtone. He’d never heard it before. He said, “Thank you. You can get me . . . seriously turned on.”
“Do you like slapping me?” she asked. There it was again, that tone.
“If you like it,” he said. “I think I like the Ping-Pong paddles better.”
She made a little moue. “That just made my bottom hurt, and I didn’t get to see it.”
“But I got to see it,” he said. “And it more than made your bottom hurt.”
“We’re past that,” she said. “Moving on.”
“Moving on sooner or later,” he said. He stood up. “I’m going to run back to the bathroom. Back in a sec.”
FROM CULVER’S OFFICE, they could hear him in the bathroom, the water running in the sink. On the television monitor, Barstad lay with her back to them, but once or twice peeked over her shoulder i
n the direction of the camera.
“She’s really getting off on this,” Del said.
“So am I,” said Gibson. “I wonder what her date calendar looks like.”
“Ya oughta keep your goddamn mouth shut,” Marshall snapped at Gibson. Lucas said, “Hey,” and Marshall said, “Goddamnit, Lucas, she’s the spitting image of Laura. If I’d known this—”
Gibson interrupted. “Here he comes.”
QATAR WALKED BACK toward the camera, much diminished now. He was carrying a blanket from the bedroom, and when he dropped beside her, put it over his shoulders and around hers. “Did you ever talk to that woman again? The lesbian thing?”
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