Blind Spot

  He runs the beam around the inside. It’s a walled front porch. Weird front porch. A handful of foggy mirrors are spaced along the back of the rectangular space. Quaid turns around and secures the door behind him. Jiggles and pulls on the handle to make sure. Yes. Definitely locked. He’s very careful—or fearful.

  He pivots around, leans his back against the door, and closes his eyes tight. Resting? Thinking? He opens his eyes and, in a couple of strides, steps up to the next door. Quaid shoves the key in the lock and turns. He pauses, hand wrapped around the knob. He isn’t moving. Is he afraid of going inside? Why? What’s inside? He pushes the door open and steps over the threshold.

  Quaid’s swaying side to side, as if he’s going to faint. If he passes out, she could lose the connection. Is he stoned or drunk? No. He was fine while he was driving. Perhaps the exhaustion has caught up with him now that he’s stopped running. Maybe he’s crazy. Hallucinating. Is it his emotions? Something about this place? He’s better now. Steadies himself. Shining the light around the room. Furniture covered with drop cloths and bedsheets. Could double for the inside of a morgue or a haunted house. Whose house? Where is it? How can she find it? The lights go on. She can see much better. The place still looks right out of a horror flick. The set of a B movie.

  He turns around and cranks the dead bolt, locking the door behind him. Navigating around all the drop cloths and heading into the dining room. A tarp covers a large piece of furniture—probably the dining-room table. He’s flipping on more lights as he goes. He’s afraid of the dark. Afraid of ghosts. Be afraid, she thinks. The more lights the better.

  He’s in the kitchen, switching on lights. He goes to some cupboards over the counter, to the left of the sink. Opens the door and takes down four tins. She can’t read the labels. He goes into a drawer under the counter and takes out a can opener. From another drawer, he pulls out a fork. He knows his way around this kitchen. Opens the cans and shovels the chow into his mouth. Rinses the empties before tossing them into the trash can under the sink. Quaid opens the tap and lets the water run while he takes down a glass. Fills the glass, guzzles down the water. Refills it and guzzles some more. Homicide makes a man hungry and thirsty.

  He sets the glass on the counter and turns around to head out of the room. Stops in the middle of the kitchen and goes back to the sink. He’s forgotten something. He reaches into his jacket and takes something out. Sets it in the sink. What is it? A white container of some sort. A small jar. Hard to see. If only he’d lean closer to it or pick it up. What’s in the jar? He starts to lift the lid, but he turns his head away. She suspects he’s dumping the jar’s contents into the sink, but she can’t tell for sure. He’s looking away. Why?

  He reaches for a switch to the right of the sink, against the back-splash. The garbage disposal. He’s going to destroy what’s in the sink. Is it evidence? Changing his mind, he withdraws his hand. Good. Excellent. He swivels the faucet so it’s over the side of the sink without the disposal. Turns on the hot water, grabs a bar of soap, and scrubs his hands under the stream. Scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing. Getting under his nails. Shuts off the water and wipes his hands on his pants.

  Back into the dining room. Through the front room. Up the stairs. He’s at home in this house. No hesitation. No stumbling around. No turning off lights once they’re on, either. Even in familiar surroundings, he’s afraid of the dark. Very afraid. She can feel his fear. At the top of the stairs, he turns on the hallway light. He’s going into a room at the end of the hall and turning on the light. Two twin beds, all made up with feminine quilts. Big flowers and butterflies. Stuffed animals piled against the pillows. Two girls share this room. Mounted over each headboard, a cross fashioned out of rope. Quaid’s creepy craft. He goes deeper inside. His eyes linger over one of the beds. He picks up a stuffed rabbit and hugs it to his chest. Her vision starts to blur; he’s tearing up. He sets the toy down.

  Moving on to a room next door. The lights go on. One larger bed with a plain brown spread on top, and no stuffed animals. A guy’s room. Another macramé cross on the wall. No loitering here. Back down the hall and into a third room. He flicks on the lights. Vatican: The Sequel. Virgin Mary statue on the dresser. Candles in jars. Crucifix over the headboard. Quaid’s stepping over to the bed. Unlike the others, this one is bare. No pillows or comforter. What’s that stain on top of the mattress? Two rusty spots. Bernadette recognizes the color all too well: dried blood. People died on this mattress, and he kept it. He didn’t clean it or cover it up or even flip it over to hide the blood. Why did he keep it? Who died here? He had two sisters. They died on this bed. This is his family home. She sees him extend his hand, reaching for the stains. He pulls his fingers back. He’s turning away from the bloody souvenir. Leaving his dead sisters. He goes across the room to another door. A closet? He puts his hand on the knob, but doesn’t open the door. Stands there motionless, staring at the panel of wood. What’s this about?

  He finally lets go of the knob and leaves the room. Goes down the hall to another room. This must be the last room on this level. The lights go on. He’s walking inside. It’s the bathroom. He’s closing the door. Why? He’s alone in the house. There’s a mirror on the door. He’s looking at himself. She can see him in the mirror. For the first time, she can observe this villain head to toe. Quaid’s tall and muscular. Doesn’t fit her idea of the way a priest should look. Ex-priest. He should be small and wiry, or round like Santa Claus. He’s too built, this guy. Dangerous. She wishes he’d step closer to the door mirror so she could make out his face more clearly. Instead, he steps away and goes to the vanity. Starts taking stuff out of his pockets and dumping the junk on the counter. Flashlight. Keys. Billfold. There it is again—the gun. He’s still got it. What kind of gun is it? What are we up against? Looks like a revolver. That humpbacked shape is familiar. The frame is extended, covering all but the very tip of the hammer. Easy to hide; not so easy to shoot—unless he’s had practice. She prays he hasn’t had practice.

  Quaid’s taking off his clothes. There’s gotta be blood. Is he going to throw the clothes away? No. He’s opening a little square door in the wall. The laundry chute. Dropping the duds down to the laundry room. He’s going to try to wash away the evidence. Moving to the tub. Turning on the water. He goes over to the vanity again. He’s looking in the mirror this time, checking himself out. Rakes his cheeks with his knuckles. He’s got a five o’clock shadow darkening his face. A mustache—not big and bushy, but dapper. Prissy. Going closer to the mirror. She can see him better now. Dark eyes. Olive skin. High cheekbones. Chiseled chin and nose. He’s handsome—and disgusting. His skin is spattered in red, as if he’d been painting a barn. Bloody barn. He’s saying something to the mirror. Talking to himself.

  Quaid’s turning away from the mirror. Hops in the bathtub. Closes the shower curtain. Punches on the shower. Steps under the water. Looking up, he closes his eyes.

  Everything goes black. The connection is severed.

  Forty-one

  Unfolding her fist, Bernadette dropped the ring on the church bench. At the sound of the clink, she opened her eyes and was surprised to see an altar in front of her. Drained and confused, she struggled to remember where she was and how she’d gotten there.

  A male voice punched through her fog: “You okay?”

  She blinked and turned her head toward the sound. Her vision was still cloudy. She blinked two more times and the film melted away, revealing Garcia sitting next to her on a church bench.

  “Did you see anything?” he asked.

  She didn’t know how to answer him. She needed a few minutes to collect herself, orient herself, process what she’d seen, and put it into words. Quaid’s emotions were still coursing through her. She felt exhaustion and something beneath that, something that made her anxious. Fear? Was it her own fear, or that of the killer?

  Using the ring retrieval as an excuse to buy time, she slid away from Garcia. She pulled a work glove out of her pocket, slipped
it on, and picked up the band.

  “Agent Saint Clare? You all right? What’d you see?”

  “Gimme a minute.” She peeled off the glove so it was inside out, with the ring safely tucked in the ball of latex. She jammed the package in her jacket pocket. She took a couple of calming breaths and turned in the pew to respond to Garcia, answering his questions in order. “I’m okay. I saw Quaid at home.”

  “Back at the apartment?”

  “No. His family home.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “I saw his mom’s beauty shop, and the bed where his sisters…” She stood up and felt dizzy. She lowered herself back onto the bench. Glancing toward the altar, she noticed Father Pete igniting candles with a long brass pole. “How long have we been here? Is it already time for morning services?”

  They were sitting close to the front, and she’d spoken louder than she’d intended. The priest turned around. “Don’t mind me. Mass isn’t for hours yet. Thought I’d putter around up here. Try out our new lighter, see if the altar boys will be able to work it without setting fire to the place.” He lowered the flame at the end of the rod. “I hope God answers your prayers, Bernadette. Let me know if you need me later, at the hospital.” The priest turned around and headed to another set of candles with the lighter.

  She was perplexed by the priest’s words.

  Leaning into her ear, Garcia enlightened her: “I told him you had an aunt on her deathbed. You needed to spend some time in church.”

  Bernadette had no idea Garcia had cooked up such a lame lie to get the priest out of bed. She whispered out of the side of her mouth: “He opened shop for that? In the middle of the night?”

  Garcia whispered back: “I couldn’t tell him why we really needed the church.” His eyes narrowed. “Could I, Agent Saint Clare?”

  She stared at Garcia for a few seconds, wondering why he’d suddenly pulled out the formal stuff. Agent Saint Clare. She returned her attention to the altar. She approved of Father Pete. He fit one of the two physical profiles she judged proper for a priest; plus, he’d given them some good dirt on Quaid. She raised her voice loud enough for the priest to hear: “Thanks for letting us in, Father Pete.”

  “We’re sorry about the odd hour,” said Garcia. He glanced at Bernadette when he added: “We won’t waste your time again.”

  “You know me, Anthony,” the priest said over his shoulder. “I never sleep anymore.”

  Garcia turned in his seat and studied her face. “Looks like you could use some sleep. Eyes are all bloodshot. Face white as a sheet.”

  She smiled weakly. “I’ll live. Let’s get back in that fine ride of yours and head for the woods. We can talk during the drive. Think you can find Quaid’s place?”

  “It was all over the old trial documents. His family lived between Dassel and Darwin, off of U.S. 12. A straight shot west of the cities. They had pictures of the outside of the joint.”

  She wanted to compare what she’d seen inside the home with photos of the place. “Did you see interior crime-scene shots?”

  “A ton of them.”

  “Let’s trade notes while we’re on the road.”

  He fished his car keys out of his pocket and held them in his hand, but didn’t make a move to get up. “How sure are you about what you saw, Agent Saint Clare? About where Quaid is hiding?”

  “What’re you saying?” She scrutinized his face. His mouth was set hard. Plus that Agent Saint Clare garbage. What happened to Cat? What in the hell was going on with him?

  “Let’s talk outside.” Garcia slid out of the pew and started down the aisle.

  She got up and went after him. He was waiting for her at the double doors. As he held one side open for her, she walked through and blurted: “He has a gun.”

  “We have guns.” He let go of the door and followed her outside. They started down the steps together, each zipping up against the cold morning air. A faded photocopy of the moon was peeking out from behind the clouds.

  She stood next to the front passenger’s door of the Pontiac and looked over the roof at Garcia. “We should call for backup.”

  “Not yet.” He opened the driver’s door, got in, and started the car.

  She hopped inside and slammed the door shut. “Why not? We know he did it. We’ve got enough to take him.”

  “Have we?” Garcia put the car in drive and made a squealing U-turn in front of the church. “Let’s see if he’s home before we call in the cavalry and embarrass ourselves. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said in a low voice.

  Deflated and exhausted, she stared through the windshield into the early-morning darkness. More than any of her previous supervisors, Garcia had shown an interest in her sight. He’d wanted to watch. Now he was snapping at her and putting distance between the two of them, behaving like a guy trying to kick a weekend fling out of his bed before heading off to work. What had changed?

  Garcia braked at a light. “If this doesn’t pan out, Agent Saint Clare, let’s head back into the office and reassess what we have. Maybe we need to take a more conventional approach.”

  Turning her head away from him, she slipped into her own formal language. “Yes, sir.”

  As she stared outside the passenger window, she caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirrored surface of a neighborhood hardware-store window. She looked like a worn little woman—nothing special at all. With that observation, the reason for Garcia’s transformation landed in her gut with a sickening thud. He’d watched her using the sight, and it had somehow disappointed him, let him down. Maybe it wasn’t mystical enough or spiritual enough for the nice Catholic boy. He’d hoped to see a halo materialize over her head, or hear a celestial choir. Hear her talking in tongues. After the buildup in his head, he was disillusioned. All he’d witnessed was a small, tired woman sitting on a church bench, her hand wrapped around a bit of jewelry. She told herself it was all her own fault: she’d let down her guard and trusted another human being. Big mistake. Worse, she’d given that person a glimpse of how she used her sight. “I shouldn’t have let you watch,” she muttered, more to herself than to him.

  “Watch what?” he asked dryly.

  “It wasn’t what you expected,” she said to the glass. “Now you’re pissed off.”

  “I’m not pissed off.”

  “Skeptical, then.”

  She held her breath, waiting for him to deny that he doubted her. He stayed silent.

  The light changed, and he accelerated. They didn’t speak as he steered the Grand Am onto Interstate 94 heading west. Traffic was spotty, and with few obstacles to maneuver around, Garcia was able to keep the pedal to the floor. Ten miles after hopping onto I-94, they took the exit for Interstate 394. The Pontiac sped west through a couple of Minneapolis suburbs before the highway turned into U.S. 12. From there, they’d be at Quaid’s place in under an hour.

  As they entered the town of Long Lake and passed the narrow body of water bearing the same name, Garcia reached over and snapped on the radio. An oldies rock station was in the middle of an Aerosmith tribute. “Sweet Emotion” filled the inside of the car.

  Bernadette stared through the passenger window and felt a headache coming on. She’d already spent too much time listening to Steven Tyler through the ceiling. She didn’t say anything, though. The music was preferable to the grinding silence.

  They cruised past three more lakes and went through four more towns before Garcia lowered the volume on the radio and spoke. “You wanted to discuss the details of what you saw inside Quaid’s home?”

  “I saw a bed with twin stains in a bedroom with religious paraphernalia. I saw two other bedrooms. I saw a kitchen and a weird-ass porch salon and—”

  He cut her off: “All stuff you could have seen in the file. Sure you didn’t look at that file even briefly?”

  “No, I didn’t.” She paused, struggling to keep her temper and voice under control. “Doesn’t matter, sir. All the bureau would care about is that
he’s there and that we get him.”

  “Let’s hope he is there, Agent Saint Clare.” Garcia reached over and turned the volume back up on “Rats in the Cellar.”

  She couldn’t take another guitar riff. “Can you switch stations, sir? Augie has been keeping me up at night with that stuff.”

  Garcia jerked the car to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. He shoved it into park and snapped off the radio. “What did you say?”

  She froze. She’d done something or said something that infuriated him. Was it residual anger over their church visit? She didn’t know what to apologize for, so she went with the most obvious. “I’m sorry. The station’s fine. The music. Whatever. It’s your car, sir.”

  “Stop with the sir crap.”

  “Then you stop with the Agent Saint Clare crap.”

  “What did you say about August Murrick?”

  She frowned, confused by his line of questioning. Had he snapped because she’d mentioned Augie again? Garcia obviously had some weird grudge against the guy. She wanted to get off the subject. “Nothing. Let’s keep going.”

  “Answer my question.”

  She turned away from the window and looked at him. Even by the dim glow of the dashboard, she could read his expression. Garcia was genuinely worried. “Augie and his stupid mutt. They’ve been cranking the Aerosmith late at night.”