Night Games (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “So your guests left a little after eleven. And Katherine—Mrs. Haney—left between twelve and twelve-thirty. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You had—” For the first time, the detective hesitated, as if he were discomfited. “You only had about an hour, then, the two of you.”

  “Yes, about.”

  “Not much time.”

  “It was enough. Katherine—wanted to get home.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, the truth is, we—we haven’t been getting along together all that well, lately. And I guess Katherine just—just wanted to go home. It happens, you know.”

  “I know—” As if he were offering sympathy, Hastings smiled: a subtle, rueful smile. Was it over, then? Had the danger passed? Or was the smile merely a trick—a detective’s trick?

  “What kind of a car does Mrs. Haney drive?”

  “It’s a Mercedes. A silver Mercedes, a 450 SL.”

  “Did she drive it last night?”

  “I—yes, I guess so. I didn’t actually see it. But I’m sure she—” Once again, his throat closed. Should he begin protesting? If he were innocent, would Hastings expect him to be indignant? Should he—?

  Unexpectedly, the detective came forward in his chair, rose to his feet, thrust his notebook in the pocket of his jacket. Once again offering the small, inscrutable smile, Hastings was politely thanking him for his time, and turning toward the door. It was over. For now, it was over.

  Seventeen

  SHE LAY WITH HER body curled, part of the bed’s tangle of sheets, blankets, bedspread. This was her only place, now. Her only safe, secure place, her only protection.

  Protection?

  Was it protection, or a prison?

  When could she leave this bed, leave this room, this house? Could she still hear the voices, when she left? Would the sounds of the night pursue her in daylight, like ghosts without substance that had somehow survived the long hours of darkness? Would the horror return?

  Where had all the promises gone? Long, long ago, soothing her fears, they had made her a promise. If she died, they’d promised that she would go to heaven. Clearly, she had imagined the pearly gates, the streets of yellow gold, the buildings fashioned of glowing white stone. Death had been beautiful, a vision of glory.

  But death had been a stranger, then.

  Until last night, death had been a stranger.

  How long had it been?

  How many minutes, how many hours?

  Time healed all wounds, her mother had once said. Had her mother lied? If this wound never healed, if this memory never left her, then her mother would have lied. Again.

  So the present and the future could be the same. The horror of it, the terror of it would never leave her.

  Everything was memory; she knew that now. Pleasure and pain, both were memory. Thoughts remembered were memories. Cruel memories. Happy memories.

  The past was memory: warm, protecting memories, always so safe. The past was sunlight on the grass, laughter so free in golden afternoons. From the past came the carnival sounds of games played, of joy bubbling over. And, more softly, she could hear the sound of her father’s voice, whispering to her. She could—

  At the door, a light knock sounded. It was her mother, at the door.

  Last night, if the door had been locked, it might never have happened. If she’d had a key to the lock, she could have locked herself inside. If her mother couldn’t have gotten in, then she wouldn’t have ventured out. She would never have—

  “Maxine—”

  Her mother’s voice. Again. Could it happen again? If death was the monster and memory her only hope, then she must—

  “Maxine, may I come in? I’ve got someone here, someone to talk to you, Maxine.”

  “I—”

  Would the words come? She must try, must try to speak, must try to make herself heard. She must struggle with the monster claw that clutched at her throat.

  The Monster Claw …

  Was it a movie? A horror movie?

  “I—I’m here.”

  “We’re coming in, Maxine. We’ve got to come in, honey.” She saw the knob turn, heard the latch click, saw the door swing open.

  Her mother had changed her clothes. Again. Three times today, her mother had—

  “Maxine, this is Lieutenant Hastings. He wants to talk to you. He’s here to help us, honey.”

  He was following her mother into her room: a big man with wide shoulders, who was looking directly into her eyes as he came toward her bed. He moved calmly, easily, steadily. In his face she could see no anger, therefore no danger.

  “I’m a policeman, Maxine.” As he spoke, he drew a small white wicker chair close beside the bed. Her mother stood beside the policeman. Her mother’s face was pale; her eyes were frightened. Fear had frozen the beauty of her mother’s face.

  The policeman began speaking. His voice was deep and slow: “I only want to talk to you for a few minutes, Maxine. I know you had a shock, last night. It was terrible, what happened to your stepfather. Terrible for you, terrible for your mother. And that’s why I’m here, you see. I want to catch whoever did it. We might already have caught him, we don’t know, can’t be sure. He says he didn’t do it. He won’t admit it, won’t confess. At least, not yet, he hasn’t. So that means we have to prove it, prove he did it. Do you see?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I see.”

  “All right. Good.” Now the detective leaned forward in his chair. His voice was more cheerful, like a doctor who would soon tell her she was better now.

  “All I need,” the detective said, “all I want is just a simple account of what you did, last night—what you did, and when you did it. Now, I think I’ve got it pretty straight, what you did. But I need to have you tell me I’m right. Do you see?”

  “Yes, I see.”

  “As I understand it,” the policeman was saying, “both your mother and your stepfather were out, last night. Your father didn’t come home until late. He didn’t come home from work, like he usually does. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Your mother was here, though. She waited until Amy Miller came, and then she went out to dinner with a friend. That was about six-thirty. I guess you probably had your dinner before your mother left.” The detective looked at her mother, who nodded. Yes, her mother had given her dinner—Chef Boy-ar-dee spaghetti and half a cantaloupe with two scoops of ice cream in the center, one of her favorite dinners.

  “What time did you finish your dinner?” Asking the question, the detective’s voice dropped lower. This time he wanted her to answer more than just yes or no.

  “I—I’m not sure.”

  Some of the easy friendliness went out of his face as he said, “I’d like you to guess, Maxine. Take a guess at the time.”

  “Well, I—I guess it was about six o’clock. I was just finishing, I remember, when Amy came.”

  “What’d you do then, Maxine? What’d you do after your mother left, and you’d eaten?”

  “I watched TV.”

  “Where? Here, in your bedroom?”

  “Yes. Here.”

  “Did you stay in your bedroom all night?”

  “Yes. All night.”

  “Did you talk to Amy Miller?”

  “I talked to her once, I think.”

  “Do you like Amy, Maxine?”

  Lying on her side, with her body still curled as it had been when they first entered her room, she shook her head into the pillow. “No.” With one ear pressed to the pillow, her own voice sounded strange, as if someone else was speaking. She saw her mother touch the detective’s arm. Her mother wanted him to hurry. Her mother was worried about her.

  “Do you remember what time you went to sleep, Maxine?”

  “It was eleven. When the news came on. I was watching a movie. I turned off the TV when the news came on. I went to the bathroom, afterwards. I got into bed and I read for a while. Then I went to sl
eep.”

  “How long did you read, would you say?”

  “I don’t know. Not long, I guess. But I don’t know.”

  “I’d like you to guess, Maxine. Take another guess.”

  “Well, I—I guess fifteen minutes.” As she spoke, she glanced at the digital clock on the dresser.

  “And then you went to sleep.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then what happened? What do you remember, after that?”

  “Well, I—I woke up.”

  “What time was that, Maxine? Do you remember?”

  “I—no, I don’t remember. I just remember being awake. And I was scared, too. I remember that. I was very scared.”

  “Had you heard anything unusual that woke you up? Shouts, screams, anything like that?”

  “No, but I—” She shook her head again. How could she answer? How should she answer? With him looking at her so steadily, so intently, she couldn’t remember how to answer.

  But now, saving her, the big man with the knowing eyes was raising his hand, as if to apologize to her. “Never mind, Maxine. Never mind that question. Just tell me, in your own words, what happened next, after you woke up.”

  “Well, I—I got out of bed, and I—I just stood there for a minute. I was—I was listening, I guess, listening for something. I—I could hear something, from downstairs. But I didn’t know what it was. So I went to the door.” As she spoke, her eyes were drawn to the door, which was open, now.

  “It was closed,” she said. “So I—I opened it, and I guess I just stood there, listening. But I couldn’t hear anything. And I couldn’t see anything, not really. So then I—I—”

  She realized that she was no longer speaking, no longer able to speak. She realized that she saw nothing, realized that she’d closed her eyes. Her mother had warned her. She’d known that—

  “Lieutenant—” It was her mother’s voice. She opened her eyes to see her mother turned to fully face the policeman. In her mother’s face she saw anger; in her mother’s voice she heard a warning: “That’s enough.”

  But the big man’s reply was also a warning: “It’s got to be done, Mrs. Haney. And the sooner the better. I don’t think this is helping—” He gestured toward the bed. “I think we should get the whole thing out in the open, get everything said. Then I think Maxine should get up out of bed. I don’t think this is right, what’s happening.”

  She saw hesitation in her mother’s face, heard hesitation in her voice: “You’re right, of course. But—”

  “Maxine—” The policeman was turning away from her mother, ignoring her mother. He could do it. He was strong enough inside himself to do it. “Maxine. Tell me. In your own words, tell me what happened. Take your time. But once you start, I want you to keep at it, keep talking. You’ll feel better when you’ve done it. I promise that you’ll feel better. When you have an experience like this, when you see something terrible, it’s like you’ve been hurt—like you have a wound that’s got to heal. And if you talk about it, keep the wound open, you’ll heal faster. Do you see?”

  She made no reply, only looked at him. He was moving his chair closer to her bed, drawing her close with his eyes. His voice was soft now, his words meant only for her:

  “Tell me what happened, Maxine. Tell me everything that happened.”

  As she lay curled in her bed, she realized that she was going to tell him. Whatever he’d said, whatever he’d done, he’d made her want to tell him, made her need to tell him.

  “The first thing I heard, he was going downstairs. He was making a lot of noise, on the stairs. Like he was drunk, and stumbling. And it—it scared me. I don’t know why, but it scared me. So, after a while, I—I got out of bed, and I went out into the hallway, the upstairs hallway. And I could hear him and Amy, down in the study. I—I heard them before, down there. And I—I listened for a while, just a while. Then I came back here, back to bed. I kept listening until I guess I fell asleep. Because the next thing that happened, I was awake. I didn’t know why I was awake, but I knew something had happened, something terrible. And that—that’s when I went out into the hallway again. And that’s when I saw him, down there at the bottom of the stairs. And—” Her eyes were drawn from the policeman’s face to her mother’s face. Her mother’s face had gone pale. Beneath the makeup, her mother wasn’t pretty anymore.

  “And my mother was down there, at the bottom of the stairs. She was bending over him. She was—it was like she was—”

  Her throat closed. She couldn’t go on. She couldn’t look at them, either of them. And now the tears were beginning, blurring their faces, twisting the room’s familiar shapes into terrifying sights and shadows. With the tears came the fierce, wracking sobs, torn from deep inside herself.

  Eighteen

  “… SO I THOUGHT I’D break it off,” Hastings was saying. “She’s only eleven, and she was starting to come apart. It was—” He shook his head. “It was spooky.”

  Friedman pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk, propped both feet on the drawer and leaned far back in his chair, reflectively lacing his fingers over the bulge of his belly. With his sizable double chin sunk deep in the folds of his collar, Friedman allowed his eyes to half close. He was thinking.

  Hastings glanced at his watch. The time was six P.M. Fifteen minutes ago Ann had called. She’d just learned that her father was scheduled to land at Oakland Airport at about seven-thirty, flying his own airplane. She had a sea bass in the freezer, caught by Dan, her oldest son, just a week ago. Could Hastings pick her father up at the airport? She couldn’t find Dan, she’d said. And if she picked her father up, she couldn’t cook dinner. Hastings hadn’t bothered to conceal his impatience with Clyde Briscoe’s offhand travel habits. But then he’d agreed to do as Ann asked. There was no other way. And, yes, Ann had a way with fish.

  “So what’d Mrs. Haney say, after you talked to the kid?” Friedman was asking.

  “She didn’t say anything, really. Obviously, both of them are just trying to keep their heads above water, keep from coming unglued.”

  “That might’ve been your chance to put some pressure on the woman,” Friedman said. “You might’ve been surprised, what you’d’ve gotten.”

  “I know. But I decided to back off, talk to you. I mean—” He shook his head. “We could be in deep water if we start coming down hard on the widow, especially when we’ve got a suspect in custody. Besides, rich people usually have expensive lawyers. And her husband, don’t forget, was in solid with a lot of heavyweight politicians. That can mean trouble, as you well know.”

  “I’m not saying you did the wrong thing. I’d’ve done exactly the same, in your place.” Friedman unclasped his hands and reflectively rubbed the side of his nose with a forefinger. “But that doesn’t mean the two of us can’t give the beautiful widow a very hard look.”

  “I’m not saying we shouldn’t. I’m just saying that we’ve got to—”

  “If we just take the girl’s testimony,” Friedman interrupted, “and if we go with the time frame we’ve got, and if we let our imaginations off the leash, then it seems like we’ve got a pretty simple scenario here. We’ve got Haney coming home about eleven-thirty. We’ve got him staggering around downstairs, staggering upstairs, staggering downstairs, making a lot of noise. Then we’ve got the nubile baby-sitter. How old is she, by the way?”

  “She’s sixteen. A very old, very well developed sixteen.”

  As if he’d expected the answer, Friedman nodded, lazily complacent. Looking across the desk, Hastings impatiently sighed. Friedman was assuming his favorite role: the squad-room sage, as fat and self-satisfied as a Buddha. Up and down the departmental chain of command, many had wondered why Friedman had refused a captaincy in Homicide, when Captain Krieger died. The answer, Hastings knew, was simply that Friedman liked doing exactly what he was doing now: arranging and rearranging the pieces of a puzzle that he’d decided might intrigue him. He didn’t enjoy field work, and he detested playing department
al politics. But he liked to theorize—provided he had a dutiful listener.

  “A well-developed sixteen—” Friedman nodded again. “So let’s say that she and Haney started to screw around in the study. If we believe what Maxine said, or at least what she seemed to be saying, it’s a good possibility. Maybe Maxine was turned on, titillated. Maybe it was a regular thing, with Haney and Amy Miller. It happens, you know. These stories about the sexy teenage baby-sitter and the horny father aren’t all fiction.”

  “Pete, it seems to me that—”

  “Wait—” Friedman raised a restraining hand. “This is only the introduction. Let’s say that, after a few minutes, Maxine goes back to bed, for whatever reason. Maybe she’s afraid of getting caught listening—or looking, maybe. She goes back to bed, and she goes to sleep. Maybe she puts a pillow over her head, to block out whatever sounds are coming up the stairway. So then, maybe a half-hour later or so, Katherine comes home. In the study, they’re still at it. Katherine is pissed. She goes to the study, picks up the dagger.”

  “Jesus, Pete, you’re—”

  “She picks up the knife,” Friedman interrupted smoothly, “and she goes after Haney. Amy Miller, of course, takes off. Haney runs into the hallway. Maybe he turns to defend himself, and gets slashed on the neck. It’s probably a lucky cut, that carotid artery. He falls down, and dies. Maxine, meanwhile, has heard all the commotion. She goes to the top of the stairs, and looks down. She sees her mother bending over her stepfather, maybe with the knife in her hand. Maxine freaks out, understandably. Maybe she’s afraid she’ll be next, who knows.”

  “But—”

  “Maybe there’s a whole side to Katherine Haney that nobody knows. Maybe she’s a monster. A blond, blue-eyed monster. And Maxine knows it. Maybe she expected this to happen.”

  “When did you dream up this theory?”

  “It was half born, as you might say, during the past hour or so, when the reports started to come in. And now, when you tell me what Maxine said, how she’s acting—” He waved a self-explanatory hand.