She shook her head yes as he pulled out his wallet and tossed it to her.
“Just to make it official. Don’t make fun of the picture.”
“Come on,” she said, after pulling it out. “This isn’t half as bad as the picture on my license.”
“Look at my driver’s license,” he said as he continued his search of the closet.
“Ugh. Now that’s bad!”
He stood up and put his hands on his hips in mock consternation. “Give it here, you. I told you not to make fun of the picture.”
She tossed it back to him and sat for another moment as he began going through the left nightstand.
“I need something hot. Would you like some coffee?”
“Actually, tea would be great if you have it.”
“Oh, tea sounds great. I’ve been drinking too much coffee anyway.”
She got up to fix the tea and turned around when she heard a sharp buzzing sound. Peter was holding up a white plastic vibrator with a glowing tip, which he had just pulled out of the drawer next to Janet’s bed.
“Well,” Meaghan said with a laugh, covering her mouth. “If she did run away, she probably isn’t alone.”
Peter laughed and dropped the thing back in the drawer, and Meaghan went to the kitchen to put some water on. He continued his search, which had so far proven fruitless, moving to the night table on the opposite side, but his mind was elsewhere—on Meaghan Gallagher. An unusual woman, he thought, independent and intelligent, with an ironic sense of humor, not to mention attractive. She was outgoing while at the same time Peter could see an extremely private streak in her, and secrets behind her eyes.
He shook his head in amusement. It really had been too long.
He knelt and began to search under the bed. He was starting to get the idea that this whole thing was a dead end, but he wanted to be thorough. Meaghan came back in.
“Water’s on. How’s it going in here?”
“Almost done. I’m trying to figure out if I’ve missed anything. Let’s take a break for a minute. Tell me about Janet—how you met, that sort of thing.”
“Sure, hardest question first.” She smiled. “It’s sort of a strange relationship, because we were both pretty much loners—a little too individual for the ‘in crowd’ in high school, so we kept to ourselves. I speak for her from what she told me, ’cause we first met in college, Introduction to Political Science with Schmelter. We started talking one day early in freshman year, the way girls do when they’re looking for friends. I could see that like me, she was a pretty private person, and neither one of us had any close friends. So, by default really, we ended up with each other.
“Then, unfortunately, her mom died.”
“How?” Peter asked.
“What’s that?”
“How did she die?”
Peter noticed a small crease of pain by Meaghan’s eyes.
“Cancer. Sucks, huh? Anyway, she came to me then because she didn’t have a shoulder to cry on. Her dad needed support himself, and she didn’t want him to see her weakness. I lost my parents in a plane crash a week before the surprise sweet-sixteen party they were throwing for me. Janet and I had a lot to talk about.
“After that we stuck together, facing the horrors of college as a team. We did everything and went everywhere together. Come sophomore year, we started rooming together, and as you can see, we still are. I don’t know how healthy it was for us to be so close—it certainly didn’t leave much room for others. There were rumors flying around that we were lovers.”
She stopped and gave him a funny smile, shaking her head. They both heard the whistle from the kitchen, then. It had been going for some moments before either noticed it.
“I’ll get the tea,” she said, and turned quickly to go. “If you’re almost done, we can have it in the living room?”
“Fine. I’ll be right in.”
She got up and went to rescue the screaming kettle, retucking and tightening her robe on the way. He stood up and looked around Janet Harris’s bedroom. He ran a mental check on any place she might have personal things that he hadn’t checked. There was one place left. He’d almost forgotten.
He stood at the foot of the bed and lifted the mattress up off the box spring. Holding one end of the mattress up with his right arm, he used his left to retrieve the one thing that was hidden there. Janet’s diary.
After returning the mattress to its normal position, he went into the living room, diary in hand. He could hear Meaghan moving around in the kitchen, and he thought about what she’d said.
She came into the room with a tray and put it down on the coffee table in front of him. She did not notice the diary in his hands.
“Were the rumors true?” he asked.
“Pardon me?” she said, feigning ignorance, obviously hoping he’d retract the question.
“Were the rumors true? Were you and Janet lovers?”
Meaghan simply looked at him for a moment, expressionless. “What a terribly blunt, and completely unsubtle question.”
“If you’d prefer not to discuss it, that’s okay with me. But you might want to read this before I do.”
He put the diary down on the table. From the look on Meaghan’s face, he could see that she hadn’t known Janet was keeping a diary.
“I haven’t looked through it at all, but there might be something in here that can help me. Maybe, maybe not. If you want to read it before me, that’s fine, but if I’m supposed to be finding out what happened to Janet . . .”
He left it at that.
She was very quiet. She picked up the diary and simply stared at the cover for a moment. She opened to the first page, then shut it again, closed her eyes, and rested her chin on her hands. When her eyes opened, she had made a decision.
“Let’s get this straight, Mr. Oct—Peter. I do not consider myself a lesbian, though then again, I have nothing against those who do.”
“Hold on,” Peter interrupted. “[ don’t care what you are or aren’t, and I’m not trying to put you on the defensive. I’m not judging anybody. Now, please. Relax.”
She looked a little embarrassed, and a little nervous. She took a deep breath and continued.
“I’m telling you this because I would never tell the cops and I figure I can trust your discretion. You never know what could be important in finding her, so someone should know the truth.
“What I was about to say is that I don’t consider myself a lesbian, but I would have to say I am bisexual. Though I’ve only been with one woman, and it was a long time ago, I don’t think it’s something you can stop being. You’re right that the woman was Janet.
“I’m not worried about myself. There’s nobody in my life I need to hide things from. I just don’t want Frank to find out; it would kill him. He’s an old-fashioned kind of guy, and Janet’s situation is different from mine. She’s far from promiscuous—as I said, she’s a private person. But of the lovers she’s had since I’ve known her, there have been at least a couple of women besides myself, as recently as last year. This is a little hard to talk about to a stranger. I’ve only ever told a couple of people.”
She slopped short, looking at him. Something in his eyes, on his face, told her it was okay to continue. He projected an acceptance that was unique in her experience. There was an understanding that radiated from him that would have been impossible to explain. It was, in a way, like the altitude of people who are truly old, who have lived it all and understand your feelings better than you. She was calm now.
“We were lovers for almost a year—God, that’s hard to say—beginning over the summer between freshman and sophomore years, right after we moved in together. The next summer we talked about one of us moving out, but realized it didn’t matter. I don’t really want to explain it to you, but that part of our relationship stopped. We went on being good, loving friends and constant companions, but there was nothing physical about it. We double-dated, set each other up on blind dates, the whole deal. Every onc
e in a while, when one of us got badly hurt, things might happen, but . . .
“By the time senior year rolled around, we each had a full-time boyfriend. I really thought she was going to marry Simon, and I think she did, too. Then he got a job as a photojournalist down in Central America, and she stayed here. Things didn’t work out with Max and me either, so Janet and I ended up where we started.
“I know she’s had a couple of other women since, but she was the only woman I was ever with. I’ve never been attracted to any others. I don’t know why it happened. . . .”
“You should be glad it did,” Peter said, startling her into silence. She seemed almost to have forgotten she was revealing so much of herself, and now her candid speech shocked her.
“Really, you should be glad. Very few people ever really love someone. . . .”
She wailed for him to continue, but he did not.
“She’s my friend, Peter. We have our differences, like any people who share space. I love her, and I hope you can find her, but now I don’t think I want to talk about this anymore. Thank you for being so understanding.”
“Let’s hope I can do more than that.”
It was obvious to Peter that Meaghan felt a need to defend her actions, and he felt for her. Clearly, she and Janet had been there for each other when things were hard and life was more frightening than usual. And just as clearly, they had evolved to a point where they were more like sisterly coconspirators than anything else, still braving the world together. He hoped that Janet was still alive, and more than anything, he hoped Meaghan did not feel as though he’d forced her to reveal her secrets.
Seeing her depth of emotion, her depth of character, he was even more attracted to her. “Now,” he continued, “back to business. Any men in her life?”
Your life, he’d almost said.
“She’s funny, charismatic, good-looking. She attracts a lot of men when she goes out, but she rarely brings them home, and she hasn’t for eight or nine months. It’s even more difficult these days to find a compatible woman, and like I said, that’s been over a year for her. We’re becoming a couple of spinsters, really.”
“I find that very difficult to believe,” Peter said seriously.
“She’s afraid to get involved, you know. She’s been hurt, just like everyone else, even with all her precautions. She doesn’t let anybody in except for her dad and me.”
Peter was starting to think that Janet’s personal life might be a dead end, and it upset him. If her disappearance or, if it came to that, her death, was a random event, he might never find her.
His eyes began to wander as Meaghan chatted happily about a couple of the guys Janet had brought home at some time or another. He glanced around the room and something caught his eye. A slim black woman’s briefcase.
Remembering the missing briefcase at the murder scene earlier that night, he spoke on impulse. “What kind of work does Janet do at the firm?”
“Huh?” Meaghan was confused. “At the firm? She works in corporate, same as me. We used to work for the same firm, but I couldn’t deal with the politics. Anyway, she works on organizing and dissolving corporations, on bankruptcies and stuff. Why?”
“No reason, really. A hunch with no backup. There’s so little to go on that I’m wondering whether her disappearance has something to do with work rather than her personal life. It’s worth looking into. You say you used to work with these people?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Could you do something for me? I need to know exactly what Janet was working on before she disappeared. Maybe three or four days’ worth of stuff. Can you get me that information?”
“Well, they’re not supposed to do that, but I think I can get what you need.”
“Great.”
The conversation had come to a natural conclusion, and he got up to go. He was pulling his coat on and she followed him to the door. Once there, she handed him the diary.
“You don’t want to read it first?” he asked, quite surprised.
“Nah. I checked the date of the first entry. There’s probably nothing juicy about me in there anyway. Well, maybe a little nostalgia, but nothing more than what I’ve already told you.”
They looked at each other, and Peter chuckled. She had told him the whole story because it might be important, maybe because she needed to tell someone. He had feared she had told him because she didn’t want him to read it in the diary, but it wasn’t in there and she’d known it. He was glad.
“So, if I’m going to help out, does this make me a deputy or something?” She smiled again.
“Or something.”
She kissed him, quickly, on the cheek. “Thanks for being one of the good guys.”
He apologized for keeping her up so late and told her he would be by the following night at about eight. He took her hand as they said good-bye.
“You don’t get too many friends,” he said. “We’ll find her.”
“Thank you,” she said, but he was already halfway down the steps.
Outside, the night was brisk and silent and comfortable to him. The smell of coming snow was even stronger in the air, along with a taste of salt from the ocean a few miles distant. Winter was his favorite season.
As he opened the car door he heard the loud fall of feet on the pavement. Looking up, he saw a short man walking toward him, all in black with a white spot at his throat. An elderly Roman Catholic priest, bundled up in his overcoat, trudged past him.
“Late night tonight, eh, Father?” Peter said pleasantly.
“God’s work is never done,” the priest said without smiling, and continued down the street, away from him.
Peter got in the car and started it up. An omen, he thought, though whether good or bad he couldn’t say. His kind had not had a good history with the church.
A few moments later his mind was back on Meaghan Gallagher. He had a feeling it would keep returning to that fascinating young woman.
Peter had gotten home fairly early, about 3:00 A.M., and had stayed up reading for quite some time. He wasn’t very tired, but it was wisest to be in bed on time. His clothing came off piece by piece, and each item was put away neatly in its place.
In his underwear, he went quickly to the door and slid the dead bolt home, then checked to see that the rubber lining under the door was in place. It wouldn’t do to have a space under the door.
He went to the opposite wall and tested the apartment’s two windows. They were locked, but now he closed and bolted the solid wooden shutters he himself had installed on the inside. These lit perfectly into the window frames and had the same lining as the door.
The apartment was sealed.
The hunger had been creeping up on him all night, as it did most nights, and now it sang to him from his belly a wild song, an animal song. As he had become engrossed in the book the hunger and its song had receded. But the moment he put down that book, it returned, more powerful than before, the song virtually a hymn.
He stood in front of the open refrigerator like a child who can’t decide what to eat, but for Peter there were no parents scolding him for wasting the electricity, and after all, he didn’t have much of a choice in meals. He was surprised to find only four bottles left in the fridge. He would have sworn there’d been at least eight before he’d gone out of town. Not that it would have been the first time he’d fed without remembering.
Well, he’d have to call George when he woke up that night. He’d known George Marcopoulos, his best friend, since he first came to Boston. Many years earlier Peter had become a thief in order to end his career as a killer. This new career forced him to move from city to city fairly frequently. No matter how good you were at burglary, if you kept it up, eventually you got caught. Peter wouldn’t be caught, but he might be discovered, and so he’d moved.
To Boston. That night he’d been truly starving and he’d actually paused to drink a pint before making good his escape. Had he left right away, he might have missed the other burglar in B
oston City Hospital that night. But he didn’t. He saw the tall white guy, all in black, slip quietly through the door to the morgue.
Against his better judgment, Peter had slid up to the door and opened it a crack, watching as the thief opened drawers and checked toe tags on bodies. Maybe he wanted to say a last good-bye to a loved one, but Peter doubted it. Before he could do anything, an older, white-haired doctor had come around the corner only to knock over the thief, falling on top of him.
George Marcopoulos, the medical examiner at Boston City Hospital, was on his back with a rather large, serrated edge knife at his throat before he had a chance to call out.
“Look at it this way,” the thief growled as Peter looked on, “you’re probably not the first guy to die from working late.”
As the knife bit into George’s throat Peter moved, dropping the bottled blood he carried. Before the bottles shattered on the floor, Peter had the would-be body snatcher on his back. But the guy was quick, for a human. The point of the blade came out of Peter’s back, had passed dangerously close to his spinal cord, and the guy was pulling up with both hands.
With a howl, Peter had transformed.
The rest hadn’t taken long, but when Peter took human form again, he was in rough shape, terribly weak. George might have killed him then, had he really tried. But he didn’t. The old Greek knew without asking what Peter was, though he’d never believed in his life that such creatures might exist. In moments he was back in the morgue with blood to replace the bottles Peter had dropped.
“Okay, what do I do?” he asked as he approached cautiously.
“Feed me,” was all Peter could say at first, and George did. Afterward, to speed the recovery process, Octavian poured a pint of blood directly on his wound. George stared as it closed of its own accord.
Once Peter was feeling better, the two had cleaned up the morgue. They talked while they did so, George almost in awe. Peter was quite impressed as well. The thief was in a condition that would have been hard to explain to police, and Peter was surprised how easy it was to hide a corpse when one was the coroner at a major city hospital. Of course, it didn’t hurt that it was four in the morning.
Of Saints and Shadows (1994) Page 3
