by David Wiltse
Tovah eyed Becker speculatively.
"Yes, good idea," said Tovah. "He seems eminently stable.
Becker guffawed. "Stable?"
"He is-in his own way. Sane, stable, loyal, all the good things."
"Dogs are loyal," Tovah said. "Men are merely between affairs, whether they know it or not."
Kom returned to the front door holding a portable phone. "It's for you, John."
"Tracked you down," said Tee's voice in Becker's ear. "That's because of my superior sleuthing abilities. Discussing bones again, are you?"
"Playing tennis."
"With Dr. Kom? Why not spend an afternoon tripping old ladies at a crosswalk? That would be about as fair a match."
"We don't have a crosswalk in Clamden," Becker said. "We were playing doubles."
"With the lady wives? The plot thickens. How come you never ask me to play tennis?… Listen, can you spare a minute from your social life?
I've got some business to discuss." Becker glanced at the three other people who stood by pretending not to listen to his conversation. Karen and Tovah looked as if they might start pulling hair at any moment and Kom was trying so hard to appear innocent that it seemed to Becker as if he had just been caught with his dick in his hand.
"That sounds like a very good idea," Becker said into the phone. "Where should I meet you?"
"I'm in the street outside the house. I have red and blue balls on top of my car that I can make go round and round. "
"The top of your car is a funny place to keep them,"
Becker said. "What if it rains? You're sure you need Karen, too? One of us should stay here if we can."
"Did I say anything about needing Karen? She's always welcome but-"
"You're absolutely sure I can't deal with it myself?"
"What are you doing, talking for public consumption now?"
"That's right."
"Tell the Koms to eat my shorts."
Becker put his hand over the mouthpiece and spoke to Karen. "I'm afraid he needs both of us. Sorry."
"Oh," said Karen, feigning disappointment.
Becker looked at Kom, then Tovah. "Sorry. Work."
"Of course, of course," said Kom. "I understand, it happens all the time."
"Be right there," Becker said into the phone.
"I'm so sorry," said Karen, already moving back around the house. "We had such a good time."
"It's this business," Becker said, throwing his hands up and shrugging his shoulders in a gesture of annoyed resignation. "When you have to go…"
"I know, I know," said Kom. He wrung Becker's hand enthusiastically.
"It was terrific. It's a pleasure just to watch you play, just to watch you move around the court. You move like a panther. Doesn't he, Tovah?"
"What?"
"Doesn't he move like a panther?"
She eyed Becker again with the same speculative look, as if sizing him up. "I've never been with a panther," she said. "I don't know that much about them."
Kom took Karen's hand and held it momentarily with both of his. "And you move like a deer."
"Doesn't one of those eat the other?" Tovah asked.
Kom ignored his wife. He fixed Karen with a meaningful look. "Thank you. Thank you."
"Anytime."
"We'll have to do it again," said Kom, beaming and waving.
As they drove away, Becker slumped down in his seat and sighed.
They sat together in Tee's living room and he unfolded his suspicions about McNeil. "That's why I wanted to talk to you somewhere I know we won't be overheard. Certainly not at the station. I don't know that McNeil has any real friends there, but there are always people who'd love to spread the word. I have nothing really to go on, I know that."
Tee's wife emerged from the kitchen and offered soft drinks, returned to the kitchen, came out again with the drinks, retreated once more. After fifteen minutes she reemerged and offered cookies.
"Marge, it's business," said Tee. "We don't have social dealings with them, apparently." Karen glanced at Becker, lifting an eyebrow. To Marge, she said, "I'd love something, Marge, thank you."
"You look like you never eat cookies," Marge said.
"I could eat a box at a time."
"How do you keep that figure? Doesn't she have a lovely figure, Tee?"
"The woman is an associate deputy director of the FBI, I never look at her figure. She doesn't have a figure. To me she's a stick of wood, a shield, like any other cop."
"Isn't he a jerk?" Marge said sweetly.
"It would be an insult to view her as a hot babe, isn't that right, Karen?" Tee asked. To Marge, Karen said, "Yes, he is. But a very nice one."
Marge stood behind her husband, leaned down and put her chin on his head, her hands on his chest. "Oh, nice, sure. If you like that kind of thing in a man."
"I am not a jerk. I am the chief of police. The chief mind you."
"Chief jerk," Marge said affectionately. "How do you manage to keep looking that way, Karen?"
"Anxiety. It keeps the metabolism high."
"Living with Becker will do that to you," said Tee.
"At work I'm surrounded by men…"
"And they're all jerks. Got it. Still, there must be more to it. I have to live with Tee and I'm still putting on weight."
"You look fine," said Karen.
"Well, you won't find me running around in a tennis skirt. The chief here wouldn't allow it." She patted Tee's head with a trace of asperity, just hard enough to make him blink, then returned to the kitchen. Tee pointed his thumb in the direction of her retreat. "That must have been the wife," he said.
Ginny passed through the room, pulling her long blond hair into a ponytail. "You know Mr. and Mrs. Becker, Ginny. Say hello."
Ginny stopped and flashed a dazzling smile. "Hello," she said, managing to infuse the single word with warmth and sincerity. She paused just long enough to hear their return greetings before continuing on her way.
"She's really beautiful, Tee," Karen said.
"Yeah," he replied, glowing with pride. "And she's a good kid, too."
"The only thing wrong with her is she's too old for Jack," Becker said.
"You think you could retard her aging by a few years? Or maybe we could speed up Jack."
"Hey, please," said Karen. "I'm in no hurry for Jack to grow up-"
" 'And become a jerk,' is the end of that sentence," said Becker.
"I was going to say, 'and leave me." But now that you mention it…"
"To return to safer ground," Becker said, "you were saying you've tried to find this Kiawa?"
"Kiwasee. Tyrone Abdul Kiwasee. He's out on bail and he's done a bunk.
The Bridgeport cops are looking for him, but meanwhile, he's gone."
"You're fairly sure it was him on the telephone?" Karen asked.
"Not positive. But he was the last black I had anything to do with who also had dealings with McNeil."
"We'll get you a caller-ID phone," said Karen. "He'll probably call back, he'll want to know if you found whatever it is he thought you ought to find in the garage."
"You think he'll call back, then?"
"He'll call," Becker said. "He called to make trouble in the first place. If he wanted to be a crime buster, he would have told you what to look for and where. He wants to pull your chain a little bit before he's through."
"You think it's all just bullshit? That there's nothing in McNeil's garage, and it's just my imagination about the knife?"
Becker looked to Karen, who shrugged. "We could run tests on the knife, Tee, but it's a real long shot. I suppose it's still possible to match blood or tissue traces with DNA samples from the bone, if they can get any decent samples from the bone at this point-"
"If he hasn't cleaned the knife as thoroughly as you think he has."
"It looked clean as a whistle to me..
"But it might look different under a microscope."
"But right now it's inadmissible evidence," sai
d Karen. "It was taken during an illegal search."
"It wasn't taken," said Tee. "I was going to take it, but then I heard a noise and… I took off. I just got the hell out of there."
"Not a bad idea."
"For the wrong reason. I felt creepy. There was something strange in the air there. Maybe just because I don't approve of McNeil in the first place, I don't know. Probably the whole thing is my imagination-all of the little things can be explained away, they wouldn't amount to a pinch of shit if we were talking about somebody besides McNeil."
"There are a couple of things that aren't your imagination, Tee," Karen said. "One is the phone call from Kiwasee, or whoever it was. The other is the skeletons of six young women. Those are far too real."
"Something occurs to me," said Becker. "You were looking at this X-Acto knife that you think could have been used to cut up the bodies, then you heard a noise and decided-wisely, I think-to get the hell out of there."
"Right."
"Does that mean your fingerprints are on what could be the murder weapon?"
Tee stared at Becker for a moment. "Oh, shit Chrice," he said.
Late in the afternoon Metzger loaded his dog in the car and returned to the nature preserve. He started with Sandy on a long leash but within a few yards the dog was already tangled around a tree trunk, so he released it and the dog bolted happily into the woods. Metzger walked toward the place where he had fallen the previous night, Sandy roaming in a large, active circle around him. The dog found the hole before he did. Metzger came upon Sandy sniffing excitedly around the edges of the excavation. There was nothing eerie or otherworldly about it in daylight. A human being had been digging a hole. Footprints were pressed into the loose dirt piled beside the hole, the sharp marks of the shovel were still visible on the sheer sides. The digger had encountered a large rock-Metzger could see a slash of white through the dirt where the shovel had hit stone. He could see where the digger had squatted, his butt leaving an impression in the dirt, and where another weight, broader, lighter, and smoother, had flattened the soil but left no trace of its identity.
The dog continued to sniff excitedly, tracing a path around the hole.
Metzger snapped on a shorter hand leash, then said, "Find, Sandy. Find."
The dog circumnavigated the hole in a larger circle, and moved off through the trees, nose to the ground.
After several minutes and as many sidetracks, the dog stopped by the roadside, roaming round in a small circle, its nose always fixed by one point. The ground litter had been matted down and Metzger could see the distinct impression of heel prints where they had pressed through the litter and dug into the dirt. He stood there, trying to see what the man would have seen-the road, a driveway, and the upper story of a house visible through the leaves just across the road. The chimney of another house farther east. He stood here at night, Metzger thought. He would have seen house lights if any were on. He tried to remember if any had been on when he drove by, but could not recall. He would have seen me though, he thought. He would have seen me drive by, one way and then the other. Metzger imagined the man, crouched by the road, hidden by the trees and the darkness of the night, watching the cop car cruise by.
Was he laughing at me? Metzger wondered. He felt angry, and a little shamed by his own incompetence.
13
Luv knew that Denise was ready. Really ready. He met her in a restaurant parking lot and drove with her to the motel in his "company" car. He almost always used the company car for his assignations. A four-year-old beige Chevy Caprice, it was as innocuous as a car could be, almost impossible to describe because it would never catch the viewer's attention. He kept it clean, serviced it often, made sure his emissions sticker was up to date. Luv took no chances on random inspections by the police, gave no one a reason to look any closer. That was the kind of stupid mistake that got people caught all the time.
Idiots were stopped because of broken headlights with several kilos of cocaine lying in the back seat. Luv had something a bit more incriminating that could be discovered by some overzealous cop-if Luv gave him the chance. He had Inge's remains in the trunk. Tonight he would be rid of them. Right after he took care of Denise.
When they stepped inside the motel room and he took her in his arms, she was trembling already. Luv thought it was with excitement and anticipation and he continued to embrace her, allowing her to collect herself, but when he gradually released her and tried to put his lips to hers she put up her arms and stopped him.
"I have something I have to tell you," she said.
"What?" he asked softly, ready for any kind of foolishness. They often needed reassurance of some sort at this crucial point.
"I had-I have a mark," Denise said. She looked shyly at his chest, then lifted her eyes to his, summoning the courage. "A birthmark," she said.
"Oh, my darling," said Luv with genuine sympathy. "That's all right."
"It's ugly," she said. "I don't want it to-repulse you."
"It won't bother me."
Luv sat on the edge of the bed as she hesitantly lifted her blouse, revealing a purple stain that spread across her stomach. It looked raw, painful, as if freshly applied, as if her skin had been seared.
"It doesn't matter," Luv said, meaning it. He was not offended by ugliness any more than he was swayed by beauty. Appearances were beside the point. "Not at all."
"Larry used to make fun of it," she said, lowering the blouse to cover herself again. "I think it made him sick. It made him think-It disappointed him to be with me when he looked at it."
"The sonofabitch," Luv said angrily. "The dirty sonofabitch. He didn't deserve you."
"No," Denise agreed. "No, he really didn't."
Luv took her face in both hands and looked deeply into her eyes. "It doesn't bother me, Denise. Only if it bothers you. Will you be self-conscious about it?" Denise hesitated only slightly. "No." He smiled sweetly. "Good."
He peeled the blouse away and pressed his face against the mark, which spread across her stomach and trailed tendrils beneath her skirt waist like a giant amoeba.
"Listen, I'm crazy about you. You're more woman than anyone else I know. I feel so lucky that you want to be with me."
"Oh, Lyle," she said, her eyes big and teary.
He kissed her and laid her back on the bed and made love to her as if he really meant it. She quivered and trembled and her breath came in excited gasps whenever he moved his hand or his lips. When he removed her clothes and put his hand between her legs she said, "I've waited so long for you."
Afterwards, she clung to his neck, her gratitude so huge and exposed that he felt protective. Some decent feeling stirred within him, touched by her vulnerability, cajoled by her brush with mortality. He wrapped his arms around her and then his legs, pressing himself against her to shield her from all of life's evils, including himself. "You are so brave," he said. "I admire you."
"I'm not brave," she said, understanding that he was referring to her birthmark. "I just don't have any choice."
She touched the back of his neck and smiled to herself. She could not believe her luck. He was such a good man.
"If I ever meet up with your ex-husband, I'll kill the bastard," he said. At the moment, he believed himself.
"No," she said softly. "Don't let him ruin this. Don't let's let anything ruin this. I feel more alive than I ever have in my life."
"I love you," Luv said, startling himself with the pronouncement. The words had burst forth of their own accord, pushed out by the force of this most unexpected emotion. Luv could scarcely believe he was feeling what he was feeling. "I do!" Denise moaned and clasped him to her.
Stunned, amazed, delighted by the joy rising in his chest, he cried again, "I love you."
He got onto his hands and knees above her, leaned his face until it was touching hers. Her lips had been kissed so much they looked like satin, smoothed and extended beyond their limits. Her eyes were green, he realized, a bright hazel green, and her hair was t
he tint of autumn leaves. It sprouted and curled around her face and across the pillow in a thousand tiny rings. He grinned at her wildly, then laughed high in his throat, the lunacy and sheer delight of it all overwhelming him.
"I'm in love!" he cried. He sat up, towering over her, spreading his arms wide for all the world to see. His laughter built and cascaded out of him. "I'm in love."
She watched him with some alarm as his excitement teetered for a moment on the edge of control. She did not want to stop him in his enthusiasm-she knew that she, too, was in love-but the wildness frightened her. Denise reached her arms up to him and he collapsed down on her, embraced her and rolled back and forth across the bed, his limbs wrapped completely around her.
De Cap'n's in love, he thought in wonder. De Cap'n's in luvvv.
Three minutes after he had returned her to the restaurant lot and was driving toward the parking spot where he stowed the company car, he had forgotten the brief but ecstatic surge of "love." Forgotten that he had felt any emotion at all toward the woman he was just with. He liked to indulge such temporary enthusiasms, the victims enjoyed it, believed it, occasionally required it. It meant-beyond the zeal of the moment-no more to him than the sex, which meant nothing at all once it was past.
What mattered most to Luv about Denise once he had left her was that he could now mark her down in his journal. She was another victim, another triumph to add to his ever-growing list.
Kiwasee had located the house and was happy to see the New York Times, in its blue plastic bag still lying in the driveway where it had been flung by the man in the delivery car earlier that day. A downstairs light was burning at two in the morning, a certain giveaway that no one was at home. He approached through the backyard, listening for a dog, then found a window that was unlocked and entered the house. He moved through the rooms silently, but without trepidation. This was not Bridgeport, where some crazy mother might come at you with a knife or a baseball bat or some kind of automatic pistol that would shoot you as many times as a machine gun. Folks in Clamden was nice and civilized and cowardly and stayed in bed if they heard a noise. They was Kiwasee's kind of people, whether they knew it or not, because he was just as peaceable as they was. Burglary wasn't no crime of violence.
