Interrupt forced the blade back to the glass and scored the second arc, then covered the circle with silver duct tape. A hard tap with the heel of the hand and something gave. Interrupt peeled off the tape; a round of glass came away with it. A hole now gaped beside the door latch.
It worked.
But the head pressure was flowering.
Interrupt got out the volt-ohm meter, set it to the most sensitive current scale, and attached the coil of wire to it. Theft, hand shaking, Interrupt swept the wire coil around the wood-frame perimeter. According to the meter, no magnetic field. No burglar alarm.
Interrupt slipped the roll of duct tape onto one wrist and, gingerly, reached through the hole in the glass to unlatch the door. It swung open easily. So she hadn't locked the dead bolt; careless, after all.
Swiftly inside now.
Interrupt moved the leather gloves out of the way of the automatic.
From the second floor, light seeped down the stairwell. Interrupt slowly took the steps.
Pain stabbed behind the eyes, enough to bring tears. Damn her. Damn her. Interrupt took the automatic from the belt and flicked off the safety.
Two doors led off the upstairs landing. One to a small room, a study, empty. The other to the bedroom. Interrupt moved in increments, ready to leap ahead or bolt. The bedroom was lighted, empty. The door from there to what had to be the bathroom was slightly ajar, and Interrupt inhaled steam and soap. No sound of a shower running. Then there came a sound—water lapping as a body shifted position.
She was taking a bath.
The headache pulsed like an alarm, and Interrupt nearly groaned out loud.
Gripping the automatic, Interrupt stepped toward the bathroom door.
She splashed, and Interrupt hesitated, and saw the telephone on the bedside table. The telephone. People didn't think twice about it.
Serendipity.
Interrupt snapped the safety back on the automatic and replaced it on the tool belt.
The roll of duct tape still circled Interrupt's wrist. Interrupt tore off a piece, picked up the telephone handset and dialed the lineman's ring-back number, replaced the handset, and taped it securely to the body of the phone.
She had a long cord on her phone; she was one of those people who liked to be able to carry it with her as she moved around. Most likely, she took it into the bathroom now and then.
She should have had a cordless.
The phone rang. Move.
Interrupt kicked the bathroom door open and lurched inside, gripping the phone set.
She was already half up, arms flexed, hands planted on the sides of the tub, going to scramble out and answer the phone. Now she froze, staring gape-mouthed at Interrupt.
"It's necessary," Interrupt said softly.
"I..." she said. "What are you...?" Now she twisted to reach for a towel that lay neatly folded on a small table beside the tub. Beside the towel were an open bottle of shampoo and a box of bath salts.
The phone rang and Interrupt flung it into the bath, then backed hard against the wall.
The phone was still ringing when it hit the water. Current flowed through the water, flowed through her, and there was no escape because water, especially water with bath salts, was an excellent conductor of electrical current and she was immersed in water.
Her body convulsed and Interrupt could see, below her breasts, the muscles of her chest seizing up in an uncontrollable contraction.
Bile rose in Interrupt's throat, burning.
Suddenly, her body relaxed, her chest muscles were released, and she struggled in the water like a stunned fish, gasping for air.
The current had stopped, but the duct tape held the handset firmly in place and Interrupt tensed for the next ring pulse. The bell might have shorted out, but the ring pulse should come.
She knew it, she was trying to come up out of the water, trying to regain command of her shocked muscles.
Interrupt slapped a hand onto the automatic.
Their eyes met, for an instant, and Interrupt saw panic, fear, hatred, shock, or maybe it was just bewilderment.
She grabbed the faucet, trying to drag herself up, and she was still gripping it when the next ring pulse came, pumping current through the water, through her, to the metal. The muscles in her forearms were frozen in contraction and she held onto the faucet as if it were a lifeline.
Interrupt's head was pounding.
Suddenly, she let go of the faucet and toppled backward into the tub, banging her head, sending a wave of water out onto the floor, her arm flailing and striking the little bath table. The towel, the shampoo, and the bath salts tumbled into the water. She lay dazed, but then her hands, slick with green shampoo, came out of the water and reached out toward Interrupt, as if for help.
The ring pulse came again, current flowed, and her slack body began jerking again. Now her head sank below the water. Her eyes were wide open, staring, but Interrupt thought panic still flickered there.
When the current stopped it seemed to take seconds for her to surface, trying for air and taking in water.
Interrupt turned away, hearing the desperate sounds of asphyxiation.
Then water lapping gently, then, finally, quiet.
Interrupt turned back to face her. She had not surfaced again. The water was still, tinged an unnatural green by the shampoo.
Interrupt waited, counting out three full minutes, counting in time to the exhalation of each breath. The headache was excruciating, pulsing like a live thing.
Abruptly, Interrupt dropped to the floor and shoved back the toilet seat and hugged the bowl, stomach convulsing, and vomited over and over, helpless as a child.
The room was steamy, stifling, foul.
Interrupt flushed the toilet, found cleansers in the medicine cabinet, and scrubbed the toilet and the floor spotless, scrubbed until the only odors in the bathroom were of cleanser and shampoo.
Then Interrupt fled, through the bedroom to the stairs, craving the clean outside air.
Idiot. Interrupt stopped dead. Idiot. There was no choice but to go back.
It should have been like walking back into a nightmare, but it wasn't. Almost peaceful, because it was over.
Interrupt yanked on the cord to drag the phone out of the water. The duct tape was hard to peel off, and left sticky strands. Interrupt took a bottle of rubbing alcohol from the medicine cabinet, doused a wad of tissue, and gently wiped the adhesive. The telephone, a rose-colored Trimline, smelled of shampoo.
For the first time in hours, Interrupt began to relax. The simple act of scouring the phone was healing.
The telephone. Commonplace thing. No one thinks twice about it; everyone expects it to work. Interrupt had learned that lesson, hard, as a kid. Mastering the components of power that made the world work.
The adhesive loosened.
One day there had been noise on the line, and Interrupt had torn into the phone set to fix it. But something went wrong and it died. Interrupt tore into it again, and then Father came in to use the phone and found his ten-year-old had spread its guts over the table. Father, smooth-shelled but feral at the core, spitting out the warning. Don't ever touch the phone.
The alcohol vapors ate at the pressure in Interrupt's skull, easing the headache.
Don't ever touch the phone. At first, Interrupt had burned with humiliation, but then had seen to the heart of things: that mastery of something that everyone needs and few understand is power.
The rosy Trimline gleamed, without a trace of adhesive. Satisfied, Interrupt dropped the phone back into the tub. The handset floated free and lodged in the crook of her knee.
Interrupt replaced the rubbing alcohol, closed the medicine cabinet, and left.
Outside, there was only the smell of the night, and the cool air to draw the heat from Interrupt's face.
Back on track now, back in control.
Still, an ugly, ugly night. Damn her.
CHAPTER 9
Feferman filled the doorway
, giving off the scent of a whole pine forest.
Andy took a step backward. "The police have already been here."
"I know, they talked to me. Now I'm going to talk to you."
Andy moved out of the way and Feferman lumbered in. The big head swung in a slow circle as the chief special agent inspected the room. Andy watched, eyes burning with fatigue. "What does AT&T Security have to do with murder?"
"Murder?" Feferman cocked his head. "Who says it was murder? She's in the bathtub, the phone rings—there's one of those little brass tables by the tub—she reaches for the phone, she's expecting a call, but just then downstairs a burglar is breaking in. She's startled by the noise and she knocks the phone into the tub." Feferman's small eyes locked on Andy.
"I thought you didn't buy coincidences."
"I don't ignore possibilities. You look like hell, Mr. Faulkner."
"I just lost a friend."
"I just lost a member of my tiger team."
"You shit."
"Considering your obvious distress, I'll let that pass. Now. I'm going to listen to the message that Ms. Fuentes left on your answering machine. I instructed the police not to touch, not to even breathe on, anything in this house having to do with telephones. It all belongs to me now, Mr. Faulkner."
"Help yourself." What did it matter?
"You're going to show me where the answering machine is."
Andy spun around and walked into his workroom. He could smell Feferman at his back.
Feferman looked over the racks of electronics parts stacked against the wall, the computer on the desk, the modem that hooked the computer to the phone, the answering machine. "You do a lot of tinkering in here? Freelance stuff?"
"There's the answering machine."
Feferman stuck out a thick stubby finger and punched the play button. Tape noise, then loud, clear, and excited, Can-dace's voice. "Andy! Dammit, you're not home. Gotta talk to you." Tape noise again.
Andy held his breath.
Candace's voice continued. "You know I hate these things. Anyway, look, I've been reading code and call records night and day and I finally got some time off to relax and I just couldn't turn it off. I'm at home, and I've just had a brainstorm. Hold the presses, right? If I'm right, this gets you off the hook and maybe gets someone we both know on the hook. I want to kick it around with you before I call Feferman in the morning. Guess I shouldn't tell you, but screw that, we're on the same team. Just call me as soon as you get home."
Tape noise. Feferman slowly rubbed his chin.
Then Candace's final words, light. "Remember at the cutover, the story about Strowger? Call me, pal."
The tape stopped, then rewound. Andy watched it spin. She was dead, and there was her voice, alive, on tape. Eternal digitized life, until the tape rotted.
Feferman sat down in Andy's desk chair and revolved to face Andy. "From the top. You were where when Ms. Fuentes called?"
"I went over this with the police."
"Go over it with me."
Andy repeated the story. How he and Wayne had gone to Blockbuster but the movie they wanted was out, then they had gone to Fry's Electronics and browsed, then to Happi House for Japanese fast food, then to some yogurt place for a cone. Then home, and some TV. Then Wayne went to bed and Andy checked his messages, and, excited, called Candace back. But her phone was out of order. Andy reported it. But, thinking of the number fives, he got suspicious. Thought of going over to Candace's himself but didn't want to wake up Wayne, and Helen wasn't home. Called the police.
Feferman smiled. "So your son is your alibi?"
"I don't need an alibi, Feferman. I'm not a killer."
Feferman shrugged. "That's not my business. What Ms. Fuentes said to you in her message is my business. She was wrong to call you. She should have called me."
"So fire her," Andy hissed.
"That was crude."
"Yeah."
"What's the story about Strowger?"
Andy told him the story about Strowger.
"Does it mean something to you?" Feferman asked.
"No."
"Nothing? Nothing worth dying for?"
"Feferman, she's dead. The hell with Strowger."
Feferman spun the chair around to the desk and picked up the phone set. Balancing it on one big paw, he spun back to Andy. "It occurs to me," Feferman said, revolving his hand to showcase the phone, "that the message on your answering machine is a cause and the death of Ms. Fuentes is an effect."
Andy just stared.
"You, of course, listened to the message and perhaps—I'll have to figure this out with a stopwatch and all that—perhaps you had time to pay Ms. Fuentes a visit. The effect."
"She was my friend."
Feferman squinted at the phone. "Or ... or someone else heard the message, intercepted the call, and subsequently paid Ms. Fuentes a visit."
Andy drew in a sharp breath.
"If that were the case, then it would follow that your lines are wiretapped or your phones are bugged. Did that occur to you?"
It hadn't occurred to Andy. All that had occurred to him since the police had arrived and said "Candace Fuentes" and "electrocuted" had been that he was in a nightmare where unthinkable things were happening. He had sat, after the police left and until Feferman showed up, and tried to understand the fact that his friend and colleague was dead. And, irrationally, he had checked in on Wayne half a dozen times to make certain that his son was just sleeping.
He looked at the telephone resting on Feferman's palm. It was the standard AT&T boxy desk phone, like the telephone that had sat on his father's desk, except that this one was chocolate brown instead of black. Brown had been on sale, a color that went out of style. The color had been irrelevant to Andy. He had cared about what was inside the phone, and AT&T built highly reliable telephone sets.
What was inside the phone?
"I've had some training in detecting wiretaps. Would you like me to examine your phones?" Feferman asked politely.
"I'll do it," Andy said, tight.
Feferman grunted and handed him the phone.
Andy knew zip about wiretapping, but he did know what belonged inside a telephone and what didn't. He disconnected the cord. He got a screwdriver out of the desk drawer, turned the phone set over, and removed the back plate. Everything looked right: the wire pair, the transformer system, the connect/disconnect switch, the dial pulser, the signaling bell. He reassembled the phone. "Nothing."
"Christ," Feferman said, grabbing the handset, "check in the most likely place first."
They bent, heads almost touching, over the handset. Feferman unscrewed the cap on the mouthpiece. The transmitter fell into his hand; he rotated the disk, flipped it over, peered inside the drilled holes. It was a simple carbon microphone, but the black ring inside was not standard.
"That," Andy said, "doesn't belong." .
Feferman tossed the transmitter to Andy. "Congratulations, Mr. Faulkner. You've just caught your first bug."
Andy held the thing in his palm. Somebody had gotten into his house and put this thing in his telephone. He kept a spare key under the planter by the back door into Wayne's room so that Wayne could get in when he came home from school, in case he forgot his own key.
Somebody had come into his goddamned house.
Somebody, he suddenly thought, had been outside his house the night of the storm. He hadn't tripped; somebody had knocked him down.
The same person who had come into Candace's house? Andy's hand closed tight over the transmitter and his knuckles stood out white. The same person who had gotten into the number fives.
He agreed with Feferman. He didn't buy coincidences.
"Lifting the handset supplies line voltage to the bug, and it picks up whatever is said into the mouthpiece," Feferman said. "The bug transmits a radio signal to a receiver somewhere. Can't be too far away. Maybe we'll find it, maybe we won't,"
Andy swung on Feferman. "Then we know someone was listening in. We
know someone picked up Candace's message and went to her house and—"
Feferman cut him off. "We know there's a drop-in bug in your telephone. We don't know who put it there." The chief special agent laid a heavy hand on Andy's shoulder. "You could have put it there."
Andy stiffened under the weight of Feferman's hand. "What?"
"As a cover. So we would concoct the scenario we just concocted. You've discovered two things about me, Mr. Faulkner. Remember them. One, I don't buy coincidences. Two, I don't ignore possibilities."
"Feferman, for God's sake, I didn't bug my own phone."
"Who did?"
"The same person who shut down the switches."
"And pinned it on you."
"Yes."
"So this person has it in for you?"
"Yes."
Feferman held up his hands. "But it is Candace Fuentes who is dead."
Andy felt a jolt, something shifting inside. Candace Fuentes is dead. How was that possible? How did a person who was as alive as he and Feferman just hours ago cease to exist? If anyone had asked Andy to describe Candace, he would have said, she's quick. She has a sharp mind and a sarcastic tongue, she looks like a girl at a tea party but she's the toughest one on the five-E team. She's somewhere in her early thirties, she went to Berkeley, she's not married. He had never asked her out, never approached her as an available woman, at first because she was a coworker and then simply because she had become a friend. And now the central fact about Candace Fuentes was that she was dead.
"So I'm naturally wondering," said Feferman, "if whatever Ms. Fuentes was talking about on your answering machine was something that worried you." Feferman's heavy face was alive with interest, the black eyes bright, the bear single-mindedly ogling its prey. "A motive."
"Get out," Andy said.
Feferman blinked.
"Get out. If you want to talk to me about switches, I'll come to your office. If you want to push your way into my house and hound me, I'll file a complaint with your superior."
"There is no superior. I'm the chief."
"You're a hired gun."
Feferman stood and moved close enough to embrace Andy. His size and scent were nearly overpowering. "Are you trying to antagonize me? I'm going to give you my best advice on that subject. Don't."
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