In the center of the room, Maureen McCauley was seated at her desk, talking on the phone. She saw him coming, spoke a word into the receiver, and hung up. She wanted to smile but could see, as he approached her, the storm clouds racing across his brow. She wanted to glory in this moment. After all, this was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she written the article to get his attention?
He walked up and hovered over her. The nostrils of the cleft nose were flaring in and out as he breathed. His prominent brow bulged with color above two fiery blue eyes. She thought he was going to scream. He raised his fists over her. Then something helpless wrenched his gesture, in midair, as he dropped his hands, looking at her.
“What are you doing to me?” he said helplessly.
She was taken aback. She had expected him to hit her, to take out his gun and blast a hole in her computer screen, to kick her desk over. She melted.
“I’m not doing anything to you—I’m just doing my job, Nick.”
His breath had evened out slightly. “Your job doesn’t include humiliating me,” he said. “It doesn’t include calling attention to yourself by using my own investigative techniques against me.”
“I’m sorry this upsets you,” she said, standing up, “but people have to know.” Hands on her hips now.
Fowler didn’t even realize he was preoccupied by her strong, thin fingers, her red nails perfectly filed. “People don’t need you in their faces telling them the police are incompetent. Don’t you see how you’re undermining what we’re trying to do?”
“Trying to do, or doing?”
“You have no idea what we’re doing, do you?”
“Neither does anyone in the country.”
He looked away to control himself. “Whoever is giving you this half-ass information that allows you to distort what—”
“The public wants answers, Mr. Fowler.”
Her flippant replies irritated him. “Cut the crap. I’m trying to talk to you. Don’t give me stock, bullshit answers.”
“I’m sorry if that’s what you think I’m giving you.”
He looked her in the eyes. “It’s over—this little game—you understand me?”
“No, Lieutenant, it’s just beginning.” Maureen didn’t realize her shoe was nervously working up and down, making the flesh on her thigh jump like an electrical current. She stilled her foot.
Nick Fowler had a dull feeling that he had already lost this round. He shook his head, staring at her. “What do you want from me?”
Maureen was again taken aback, touched by his sincerity. She tried to fight the impulse to touch his arm. She leaned forward. “Let me help you.”
Nick looked at her. “I just need you to leave me alone.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone.” Maureen was getting worked up again. Her eyes had welled up slightly. She was angry at herself for getting emotional.
Fowler leaned. “Just let me do my job. That’s all I—”
“Use me. If the killer is reading the paper, then we could lure him into a trap.”
“It’s too dangerous for you.”
Maureen smiled. “Why can’t you share it?”
Nick shook his head slightly. “I don’t trust you.”
Maureen was thunderstruck. It had never occurred to her. She smiled ironically, turned, and sat down.
Nick saw that he had hit home. He said quietly, “If you were in my shoes, would you have any trust after what’s happened? Seriously.”
“No.”
There was a static sound, a computer beep, and a voice-call from the girl at the switchboard. “Ms. McCauley, are you there?”
Maureen turned toward the phone. “Take a message, please.”
“Someone left a letter for you.”
“Just leave it out front. I’ll get it later. Thank you.”
There was a pause as Maureen looked back up at Nick. Another beep announced the switchboard operator again. “Sorry, Ms. McCauley, but the letter says ‘urgent’ on it.”
Maureen sighed. “Look, I’ll be out in a—”
“It smells kind of . . . weird.”
Something shivered down Nick’s spine. He reached over and grabbed Maureen’s arm. “Ask her who it’s from.”
Maureen looked startled at Fowler’s sudden intensity. She turned toward the phone. “Does it say who it’s from?”
The girl’s thin voice crackled again through the speaker. “Arthur Murray.”
Nick Fowler was running down the hall with Maureen on his heels. When they got to the reception area, he already had his .38 out, had flung the door open in a crouch, both hands on his revolver.
The lobby was empty.
Fowler rushed outside to see if a car might be pulling away. The parking lot was deserted. One car was parked along the road. There was a cloistered area in front of the building where trees had been cleared. The rest of the building was surrounded by woods. There was no one in sight.
He walked back inside. He asked the receptionist what the person looked like who had dropped off the letter. The girl seemed overwhelmed by the sight of the gun, the sudden barrage of questions. She was flustered, fanning her face. “I didn’t notice anyone.”
“You must have seen someone.”
“There were several people waiting for appointments,” she said, her voice getting more defensive. “And the phones were jumping—as always.”
“When did you see the letter?” Fowler asked.
“I didn’t see it,” she said, remembering back. “I smelled it.” She arranged the buttons on her blouse nervously. “That’s when I called.”
Fowler pulled on a pair of gloves and picked up the purple letter. It was the same stationery, and it was addressed, in ink, to Maureen McCauley, care of the Features Department, Ravenstown Tribune. Maureen motioned him into a conference room off the lobby.
Inside, Fowler set the letter gingerly on the table, sniffed it carefully for poison, again aware of the strong smell of perfume. He pulled out a pocketknife. When he slit open the envelope, another large piece of purple stationery unfolded on the conference table. Again, it was scrawled in the same infantile hand, again signed in dark pink lipstick.
Dear Ms. McCauley,
I have enjoyed your articles immensely. Perhaps you will take pity on Lieutenant Fowler. He is a man wounded by his affinity for the dead. Something beyond this life is drawing him relentlessly, like the tide.
I’m making a study of him. Saving him for last. I could kill you too, if you like. Forgive me for being so forward.
Shall we dance?
Arthur Murray
P.S. Next: another enemy kissed out in nature, where time no longer runs.
Fowler stood looking down at the letter. “How did he know that?”
Maureen’s pretty round face was lowered, studying the scrawl on the letter. The face lifted up, it was blank. “Know what?”
“Is he reading my mind?”
“Maybe he’s following you.”
Fowler seemed to blanch. He reached down for the purple letter.
“That letter was addressed to me.” There was a sharp tone in her voice. “Leave it there.” Nervous now.
Fowler looked at how her jaw was set, the cheekbones flaring out, the skin flushed. How soft the nape of her neck was when she bent down.
“I’m sorry. This is police evidence now,” he said. “After the investigation, it will be returned.” He carefully picked the letter up, folded it into his pocket. “Of course, you could just get inside the station house safe and read it anyway, right?” She rocked back.
He walked out of the conference room.
In the hallway, he heard high heels behind him as he pulled the glass door open. He stepped outside. Maureen flung the door open behind him and stepped out as well. He turned to her. She was staring at him in defiance. He couldn’t allow her to get involved. He was worried now for her life.
“No,” he said quietly.
“You can’t stop me.”
&n
bsp; “I have ways.”
“What is it with you? You’re like an automaton.”
Fowler stared at her. “I’m asking you, for your own welfare, to back off.”
“You know I can’t.”
“I’ll speak to your superiors,” he said strongly.
“You do, and I’ll speak to yours.”
“I hardly think after what you said about Captain Weathers that he would be likely—”
“Stop it!” she yelled. “Just—” She had raised her fists. “Look, it’s too late to keep me out, I’m already in!”
“That’s what I’m worried about. You could be the next one crucified. Wake up!”
A triumphant look spread across Maureen’s face. “You’re jealous.”
Fowler frowned, looking away across the wooded area. He could still see a car parked out on the road. He then heard the faint echo of the engine turning over in the distance and noticed that the car now started up the hill and, backing out of sight, disappeared.
Fowler noted the make and model. He turned to Maureen. “You said it yourself: He may have followed me here.”
“It doesn’t worry me.” Again her voice revealed a strange fragility coming through.
He realized what was in her eyes. It was fear. Nick watched her as he said, “He would just as soon kill you as look at you.”
“Sounds more to me like he wants to kill you.”
Fowler shook his head. “He wants to impress me—that could include killing people associated with me. Look, the answer is no. That’s it.” He started down the steps toward his car.
“Fowler,” she said quietly, her tone uncertain, imploring, as she walked down the steps after him. When he opened his car door, she was next to him, in close. He smelled something aromatic. She grabbed his sleeve, twisting the material, her voice distressed. “This story is hot. It’s going national. If I can get involved, as a liaison, I’m assured of keeping the story. I deserve it. I’ve worked hard for this.”
“What perfume are you wearing?”
“I’ve—what?”
“What fragrance did you put on?”
She was flustered. “I don’t know. It was a gift.”
“From who?”
She stared at him, beginning to smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I would.” Something bitter in his tone.
“Why?”
“Never mind.” He got in the sedan, closed the door.
She yanked open the door. “Don’t shut me out.”
“Stick to reporting,” he said coldly, and slammed the door.
Maureen’s features seemed to thicken with sadness as she watched Nick Fowler pull out of the parking lot. Then she felt anger.
He was like all the rest of the men she had known in her life. They didn’t want to yield one ounce of power to a woman. Nick Fowler would yield, she thought. He would succumb.
She would make sure of that.
26
MARTY ORLOFF HAD backed the car up so the line of trees in front of the newspaper building was drawn like a curtain in front of him. He then pulled the car around, drove the three short blocks through town, up the hill, crossed over High Street, then continued down the other side of the hill by the lake. He took the county road a few hundred yards more, turning into the back entrance of Ravenhill School.
He passed the crime van on the way, which was parked near the marsh, just below Brookside Cottage. He was afraid Fowler might have followed him, so he roared the vehicle across the macadam road that twisted through the campus. He passed the outbuildings, the language arts facilities, came around a small hill, slowed down, and pulled his car up behind Ardsley Hall, where the kitchen staff parked.
When he got out of his car, he glanced at his watch. He pulled the schedule of classes out of his pocket; he had gotten them from the assistant headmaster the day before. He had eight minutes before Ballard left his first-period English class with Mr. Toby on the fifth floor of Madison, then walked down four flights to his second-period math class with Ms. Coates.
He saw there was a pay phone behind Ardsley. He stepped up to it and put in a call down to the state police station house. When the switchboard picked up, he asked to speak to Captain Weathers. He waited, tapping his foot nervously on the gravel. Then he heard a click as the call was being transferred. He heard the gruff voice on the other end.
“Weathers.”
“Captain, this is Marty Orloff.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Well, what is it?”
“Look, sir, you asked me to—”
“I know, I know. Go ahead.”
Marty switched the receiver to his other hand. “Lieutenant Fowler did not come directly into work this morning, but drove to the diner, then the Tribune.”
“You followed him?”
“Yeah.”
“What the fuck was he doing?”
“I don’t know, but he came outside talking to the reporter, what’s her name.”
“The one who wrote that goddamned article?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure it was her?”
“A couple of guys pointed her out at the Thirsty Moose. It was her. Definitely.”
“They were talking.”
“Oh yeah.”
Again there was a pause on the phone. “All right, Orloff, you’ve redeemed yourself. I’ll take care of this. Just stick with that kid now, you got it?”
“You bet.”
“Need some No Doz?”
Marty Orloff laughed. “No, sir. Uh, the lieutenant asked me to do some legwork on the victims. Want to hear this?”
“Of course.”
“Turns out Crawford and this kid, Ballard, had a fistfight day or so before he was murdered. Now I hear from kids in Brookside Finkelstein and Ballard had an ugly argument about some girl the night he was killed.”
“Think he’s shielding the boy?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You don’t need to mention this to Fowler. Let me handle it.”
“Right.”
WHEN THE BELL rang, Cary Ballard slumped out of his English class. He was still shaking from being questioned before breakfast by the detective, Bill Rodney. On his way to math, he tried to keep his racing thoughts occupied.
Marty Orloff followed ten feet behind Cary. He was walking behind two other students and couldn’t help but overhear them. The student doing most of the talking, Schwerin, was the same boy who had discovered Crawford’s mutilated body the week before.
“I was down in the tunnels yesterday,” he said.
“Was it gross or what?”
“Totally. They gave me an initiation to see the school ghost—that giant boy we always hear about.”
“Yeah.”
Marty walked a little faster.
“What did they make you do?”
Schwerin turned his head, pushed his tortoiseshell glasses up on his nose, and talked rapidly, his braces giving his words a slight sibilance. Like a steam radiator, Marty thought.
“They told me I had to write something on a bathroom wall about Ms. Coates.”
The other student shook his head, smiling. “Did you?”
“Yeah,” he whined. “But it wasn’t dirty enough—I have to do it again.”
Marty saw Cary turn off on the second floor. He leaned on a railing, knowing he had found a worthless lead to throw the lieutenant. He watched the boy enter his math class at the end of Madison Hall.
Inside the room, Cary felt nauseated as he took his seat in one of the wooden desks bolted to the floor. He didn’t pay much attention to the other boys who were loitering around, waiting for class to begin. Three boys wrestled in the corner, giggling; they were trying to subdue one huge boy, a football player, who was wearing a black and yellow hat with the word “Cat” on the crown. He batted the other boys around like flies. His name was Ray Gluckner.
Ballard noticed there were two desks in the front row that were conspicuously empty. H
e stared out the window at the trees and seemed only mildly interested when Ms. Coates marched into the room, strutting toward the blackboard to signal that class had begun. The three boys in the corner blushed under her stern gaze, stopped horsing around immediately, and took their seats.
Ms. Coates’s triceps began to ripple as she wrote the day’s formulas on the blackboard. The boys watched her calf muscles bulging when she leaned over the desk to pass homework back. They also noticed how, like on so many other days, she had covered her large breasts with clingy material in a primary color. After writing the formulas on the board, she brushed the chalk dust from her sweater in a very suggestive way. This drove the boys to distraction.
Ballard was like all the rest of the boys. His collision with puberty had left him so vulnerable to the fabric of Ms. Coates’s sweaters that her breasts became building blocks of pure science. Usually he would just gawk at her like the rest of the boys, his brain longing to calculate the area just beneath her rather prominent chin. Today he was distracted. He stared into space. He even gazed out the window.
Ms. Coates kept looking at his troubled face in between copying more algebraic formulas on the blackboard. She drifted to Ballard’s side of the room, brushing the chalk dust from her sweater a little more emphatically. One student, leaning over to ogle her, knocked all his books into the aisle on the floor. She rewarded the boy with a smile, then glanced back at Ballard.
There was a knock at the door. A white piece of paper bearing the administrative letterhead was slipped into Ms. Coates’s fingers by a messenger. Ballard didn’t notice; he was adrift on the memory of his morning encounter with the police.
Ms. Coates read the note, smiled like an elf, and adjusted the hem of what had always been the equator of Ballard’s attentiveness; her thigh muscles jumped as she turned and sashayed over to the front of his desk.
“In trouble, Ballard?”
“Excuse me?”
She held the piece of paper over his head, then watched it float down, missing his desk, to the floor. “Oh sorry,” she said, with a smile, as Ballard reached down to the floor. “Got it?” she said, as the tip of her high heel came down on the message just as Ballard’s fingers stretched out to get it.
Ballard had lurched his body out into the aisle to scrape up the piece of paper. He tugged on it, but Ms. Coates’s foot had fastened it securely to the dust on the wooden floor. He was trying not to notice her stockinged ankle fixed like a colossus above the warped floorboards.
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