“Okay.”
“But now . . . when I remember that, I think maybe it wasn’t my father, after all.”
“You think it was this . . . stranger?”
“Yes.”
“There’s going to come a time, Cary, when you’ll have to choose.” He released the boy’s shoulders.
Cary looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s going to come down to this stranger’s will, or your life.”
Cary took this in.
Just down the county road that ran past the front of Brookside, Marty Orloff was kneeling in the shrubs, his head peering through the high grass. He stared up at the man dressed in black, kneeling on a window frame cut into the mansard roof of Brookside Cottage. He heard the man talking, then saw him say goodbye to the Ballard kid and climb back up on the roof. He watched Fowler walk down the stairs, get into his car, and drive away. He wondered what it was all about.
MS. COATES GOT out of the car, tapped on the window, and waved goodbye as she scurried along the flagstone walk to South End. She stepped up onto the porch, looking for her keys in a waist wallet.
Fowler stepped out of the hedge. “Ms. Coates.”
She jumped. “Ohh! You scared me.”
“I’d like to talk to you.”
She stared at him. “What about?”
“Oh nothing . . . murder.”
“I’m sorry, I have nothing to say.”
“We can either go upstairs or you can get handcuffed and take a ride across the highway—it’s up to you.”
She was frowning at him with distaste. “Do you get these lines from reruns, or what?”
He smiled. “No . . . just when evidence piles up.”
“Here we go . . . more intimidation.” She turned and walked up the stairs, her skintight red bodysuit swaying in a tantalizing way. At the top of the stairs, she gave him a glance, unlocked the door.
Inside, she sat down on the couch without a word. Fowler stood in the middle of the floor. “Where did you and Mr. Toby go tonight?”
“To the gym.”
His eyes played over her bodysuit. “Was Harold Finkelstein in your math class also?”
“As I told you, all the freshmen take algebra one.”
He glanced toward the bedroom. “Mind if I have a look around?”
“If you’ll do it quickly, I’m tired.”
Fowler walked into her bedroom. He went through the drawers of her dresser. He searched under the mattress, in back of all the furniture, through the whole closet. He went through the bathroom medicine cabinet. He rattled all the drawers in the kitchen. All the while Ms. Coates sat calmly, statuesquely, her legs crossed, staring straight ahead.
He walked back in, held up a string of pearls. “These yours?”
“Yes.”
He walked over, laid a package of birth control pills on the table, a deboning knife, a pair of boy’s underwear—size twenty-four waist—a lipstick, and a bottle of Shalimar. “Remember Harold Finkelstein?”
Ms. Coates looked sad but impatient. “Yes.”
“His body had the imprint of a pearl necklace on the thigh. A cast was made because we thought it was a bite mark . . . I’d like to check these against that.”
“Fine.”
“The first boy had a tiny fragment of lipstick recovered from his mouth.” He held up the lipstick, twirled it, looking at the bottom: L’Oréal Sunset. “The same brand and the same shade the letters were signed with.”
“What letters?”
“Letters addressed to me from the killer. Letters that were also saturated with this perfume.” He picked up the Shalimar. “The same scent you were wearing the day I interviewed you.”
“I have lots of perfume.”
“A druggist in town remembered a woman purchasing this brand recently.”
“Is buying perfume a crime?”
“On the last victim, Finkelstein, a hair was recovered; after analysis it was discovered to be type A and it contained traces of progesterone—a hormone found in birth control pills. I’ll also need you to take a blood test and let us analyze one of your hairs as a comparison.”
“This is unbelievable.”
“Both boys had cervical secretions present on their penises. Ms. Coates . . . whose underwear is this?”
“I was washing it for a student downstairs.”
Fowler was getting impatient. “What’s his name?”
“One of the boys, I don’t know.”
“Are you always in the habit of washing your students’ underwear—and not remembering what their names are?”
“I resent the implication you’re making.”
“Let me be frank, Ms. Coates . . . I think you killed these boys.”
There was a long pause. She gazed sadly around the room. She got up, walked less seductively into the kitchen, lit a cigarette, walked back into the living room, sat down on the couch all without uttering a word.
His eyes resting on her. “Can you prove me wrong?”
“Sure.”
Fowler sat down on an ottoman. “I’m waiting.”
“For what?”
“Ms. Coates, where do you keep the stationery, the costume you wear? . . .”
“Costume?”
“A black cloak, a hat, a scarf hiding your face.”
“Someone wasn’t very thorough.”
He was still looking at her. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well, doesn’t it strike you as pretty obvious that if I used all these items on my victims, I wouldn’t leave them lying around.”
“Sure, I thought of that.”
“Someone went to a lot of effort to make it look like I did it.”
“Did you?”
“No. I did not kill those two boys.”
He stood up. “I’ll need to take these items, if you don’t mind, and tomorrow you’ll have to submit to questioning at the station house. I’d like you to meet with a Dr. Koenig here in Ravenstown; he will be able to make the comparison tests.”
“Look, Lieutenant, I’ll be glad to donate my hairs, my lipstick—anything—but I’m not the killer.”
He stood up. “If that’s true, we’ll find it out.”
She stood up to face him. “Do you believe me?”
“No.”
38
YES. HERE YOU are . . . beautiful things, prizes, keepsakes . . . let me run my hands over, touch my lips to you, perfect little treasures. Voices blaring, say kiss them, touch them—well I am, for fuck’s sake!
Let me take off my clothes, here, lovely yearbook picture over an inscription . . . letter jacket, the varsity letter on the sleeve—let me put you on . . . let me lick your name—those letters ripped from your underclothes, perfect boring Fruit of the Loom, white and smelly . . . they fit! My tongue like a slug now, an urchin, a wet snail working its way across precious things.
Can’t stop it, it’s overtaking me . . . touch this other picture . . . I like this one, the way the boy is sitting: on granddad’s knee—boy looking up, admiring the old codger—not like mine . . . I cursed mine, wished him fouled by a thousand winds—by devils in all the heavens . . . I feel it inside, rising to the surface . . . what have we here—is it true? . . . our entire league, purple and gold, blue and white, gold letters on black felt, red and white, green and black, navy on gray . . . a pennant collection to envy—easily one of the worst sins—envy. Voices say I have it, no matter, can’t wear the pennants . . . but I lick the name tag, the microscopic print in a sock, letters formed in English, sewn innocently into a sock that will never be worn. So much more space to fill.
Here is the mirror, framed by dark wooden planks. Here we are. The face makeup . . . smooth it on . . . clown white, lips puckered, eyebrows accentuated, the cap, the books, the collar, the tie, the shorts, the socks—no name—and of course, the shoes, shined, buffed, reflecting back the light bulb, still swinging above my screaming head.
Move back and forth, here I am, changing, cutting th
e losses, years dropping away, turning slowly, dancing over my riches.
39
CAPTAIN ALLEN WEATHERS was drinking a soda when his dispatcher, Judy Bayard, dropped the morning edition of the Tribune on his desk, smiling as if she had swallowed a canary, and swung her hips back and forth until she negotiated the door. He always dreaded when she left memos with him because she tended to wear very tight jeans, and it depressed him that he enjoyed watching her move provocatively between his desk and door. It was a silent tradition between them. Today, however, it made him feel vaguely sick to his stomach. He thought about his wife at home and began to calculate his despair.
Weathers had just been reading Sergeant Orloff’s informal report about his star plainclothesman dressing up in costume on a suspect’s roof in the middle of the night.
The paper did not contribute to his digestion. There was a cover story, with the headline INVESTIGATOR WITHHOLDS EVIDENCE. It was an exposé that claimed Fowler had not filed any of his supplemental reports on one boy, Cary Ballard, reports that were so incriminating that the entire investigation was literally hobbled without them. The article asked why Lieutenant Fowler had done this.
Then citing “unidentified” sources, the article mentioned a pair of gloves and other clothes of Finkelstein, the second victim, found in Ballard’s room. The reporter, Maureen McCauley, even went further. She quoted a source at the Buffalo PD as saying, “Former Sergeant Fowler was soft on crime, a real bleeding heart.” Another policeman, obviously a rival, was quoted: “Sergeant Fowler had a tendency to pussyfoot around with criminals—he was too easy.”
Weathers didn’t waste any time. He called one of his ace sergeants, a man who had worked hard, had a decent forensic background, and was a good cop.
Sergeant Robby Cole got the radio call out on patrol. Actually he was idling behind the Tastee-Freez, biscuits and eggs jiggling on his window tray. He picked up the car radio, listened for a moment. The dispatcher was asking him to meet Weathers immediately at the crime van. He threw the car in gear, forgot about the tray, and left his breakfast all over the parking lot.
The captain found Bill Rodney and Nick Fowler sitting around the desk in the van, drinking coffee. Fowler had some lab reports in his hand and was on the phone arranging for Ms. Coates’s interrogation and tests. Weathers’s hairline seemed to bristle more than usual as he rapped on the door, then characteristically ripped it open, stepping up into the van. He threw the newspaper at Fowler who dropped the lab results, hung up the phone, and reddened slightly, opening the paper. He looked down, guessing what was coming. But this caught him off guard.
“You’re fired,” Weathers said quietly.
Fowler looked up. “I withheld those reports because the kid is being set up.”
“That’s against procedure in every department in the country.”
“She got these out of my motel—that’s breaking and entering.”
“I don’t care.”
Fowler stared. “The murderer, whoever it is, is going to a hell of a lot of trouble setting that kid up and I intend—”
“No, mister.” Weathers stared at him. “You’re outta here.”
“I’ll give you the reports, Allen.”
“Before you leave, yes, I’d appreciate it.”
Fowler could barely contain himself. “You’re closed off to what’s happening here, Allen, believe me, I know what I’m doing. I have a suspect.”
“It’s been real, Fowler. I’m sorry.”
“That woman at the paper is playing us both for fools.”
“I’ve had about enough of it,” Weathers said, turning his back. “You’re not going to pussyfoot around my investigation.”
Fowler squinting. “What?”
“Read your clippings, Nick. Now we’re going to play it my way.”
A long pause. “No, we’re not.”
Weathers was half out of the van. He turned in the doorway. “What?”
“All the work I’ve done, everything that’s happened here will be lost. I’m not going to let you do this.”
“It’s out of your hands, Fowler. I’ve already replaced you.”
Fowler blinked. “Sergeant Cole?”
“That’s correct.”
“You’re going to put him in charge of this complicated investigation? He’s not smart enough to rip out a summons.”
“Look, it’s over! You’re history, Fowler. Better get packed.”
Nick crossed toward Weathers. “Are you going to arrest me?”
“No, of course not!”
“I have your word on that?”
A puzzled look crept across Weathers’s face. “What’s this about, Fowl—”
Nick’s fist came around and slammed him. Weathers fell through the doorway of the van, down the steps and stumbled to his knees. Fowler came out of the van swinging. Weathers ducked and caught him with an uppercut in the stomach. They traded fists until Nick’s nose was bloody and Weathers had a nasty cut over his eye, blood down the side of his face onto a blue shirt. They kept swinging until a gunshot went off. Rodney’s arm was up in the air. He was standing glaring at them from the van steps. “For God sakes, don’t you two have any sense?”
At that moment Robby Cole stepped out his cruiser, strode over beside the two men. “What’s the trouble?”
Weathers was getting to his feet. “Nothing,” he said. He glared at Fowler. “I hope I never see you anywhere in this county.”
“Don’t worry.” Nick took a step toward Weathers, ripped his shoulder holster and gun off, and smacked them on Weathers’s chest. “I have extensive notes on this case. Rodney knows the file. Now all you have to do is teach him how to read.”
He walked away.
Weathers wheeled. “I’ll see you never work in this state again, Fowler!”
NICK PACKED SLOWLY, staring out the window of the motel room at the highway. The knuckles of his right hand were black and blue and his nose was swollen. He folded his clothes into two suitcases, put his desk items into the briefcase, without the supplemental reports, which he laid on the front seat of his Dodge. He took one final look at the cheap pink stucco walls of the motel, even looked back once as he pulled his car out onto the highway.
After he dropped the reports and the keys to the squad car off at the station, Fowler walked outside, got into his car and hurtled it up the exit ramp onto the interstate. He drove north, staring out at the dull landscape, his mind churning over the fragments of his weeks in Ravenstown. A familiar gloom set in. He stared out the window knowing he was depressed. What bothered him was why it felt so comfortable.
40
SEVERAL HOURS LATER the midafternoon sun was blazing off the windshields in the hospital parking lot. Nick got out of his car and masked his eyes as he approached the glass door.
Inside he found the front desk, where a middle-aged nurse was twisting an auburn strand of hair at her temple while reading a patient’s chart. She looked up. Her wide eyes met his gaze. She smiled. “May I help you?”
Nick looked down at the counter, staring at his bruised knuckles.
He couldn’t seem to speak.
“Are you all right, sir?”
Nick looked up slowly. He saw a look of concern on her face. “I was wondering . . . I don’t know if you can help me, but . . .”
“What is it?”
“Someone I knew was here many years ago and I was wondering if I could . . . see the room.”
The nurse frowned. “See the room? I don’t understand.”
Nick was looking at his hands again. “I remember the floor. Five North. But I don’t remember the room number.”
“I’m afraid there’s no way I could do that, sir.”
“I remember the view out the window—like it was yesterday. Two very tall pines outside, close to the window, and rocks . . . some kind of a rock garden below.” His voice shuddered slightly.
“A rock ledge?”
“Yes, probably.”
“That would
be five-oh-one, on the corner.”
“That’s right. It was at the end of the hall.”
“Sir, I’m afraid there’s someone occupying that room at this time. It would be against regulations to—”
“Ma’am, excuse me . . . the person I’m talking about disappeared when I was seventeen, became a missing person, in fact. He checked in here, alone, without telling his family—without identification—so no one could call. He died a month later.”
“Sir, I—”
“It was my father.” Nick was blinking back a wave of emotion. “I just need a few minutes. Please.”
The nurse hesitated. “I think that patient might be smoking in the dayroom. Let’s see if I can let you in.”
When she opened the door, Nick walked into the unoccupied room and recognized it right away. He stared at the two single beds. In the empty closet hung one pair of pants, a shirt; a suitcase was on the floor, the flap open. White hospital gowns were hanging in a corner. A nightstand with cigarettes and a paperback, a little lamp, paper cups, Kleenex boxes. The light was poor.
Nick walked to the far bed and drew the curtain that wrapped around the metal bed frame. There was an empty bed, the sheets and blankets tucked in tight. Nick hovered over the bed. The nurse could see his shoulders tensing up, his hands out to the sides.
She blurted out. “Is this the room?”
There was a long silence. He was still looking down. “When he disappeared like that, I always believed he was hiding from me. I always thought I had done something wrong.”
The nurse gestured slightly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Nick was shaking his head. “I always felt like I failed him.”
The nurse stepped forward and touched Nick’s sleeve. “He might have felt he was failing you. Old age is a devastating thing.”
“But why would he do that?”
“Could be any number of reasons. Depression, disease, sometimes they don’t want the people they love to see them that way.”
“It’s something else.” He turned to her, his eyes full. “Just a feeling . . . in here.” He touched his chest. “I could have done something.”
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