How terrified her friend must have been seeing that monster truck bearing down on him, the cruel deliberateness of the madman behind the wheel. She could almost feel his panic when at last he went into the lake, as the icy water closed over him, blocking out the sun and sky. She could feel his desperate struggle for air as the lake roared its deadly message inside his head, as it sucked him down, down, pounding it triumphantly through his very bone marrow.
What must it feel like to know you are dying? How long? How long did it take to drown? When had he lost consciousness? Two minutes…three…four…Katie gasped in air as though her own lungs were about to burst. She closed her eyes against the bombardment of images and sensations. Somehow, I’m responsible for Jason’s death, she admitted to herself for the first time. Knowing it was true, she could only stare at her hands.
“Are you all right?” Jonathan asked beside her.
She opened her eyes and looked at him, almost surprised to see him sitting there. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“I know this is difficult, but we really do have to talk about it.”
“I know. I’m just not sure what it is you want me to say.” Recalling Sergeant Miller’s suggestion, she said, “I guess you’re trying to help me remember something of significance, huh?” Might as well get on with it, she thought. Maybe she would remember something that would help. Why not? It worked all the time in the movies.
“If there is anything,” he said hesitantly. “Anything at all. Katherine, I was wondering—do you have any suspicions, yourself?”
“No, not really.” No one and everyone, she thought. Allen Parker not excluded. But she did not want him drawn back into her life, not unless it was absolutely necessary. Allen was certainly capable of slapping a woman around and of harassment. She could attest to that. But murder? It didn’t seem likely. Still, she couldn’t be sure. Whether or not he was still in Belleville was something she planned to check out herself.
“There has to be some connecting link,” Jonathan was saying.
“Some pattern. It’s all so damned bizarre. Oh, I guess I should tell you, the police are interviewing everyone you worked with, the people in your art class…”
“That should make me popular,” Katie quipped. Her gaze dropped to a burn spot, shaped like a teardrop, on the floor near the fireplace. But maybe they would uncover some important clue. “I suppose it’s not entirely true that I have no suspicions,” she said slowly, her eyes shifting from the floor to Jonathan. He was studying her intently.
“Lately, it seems I’ve come to suspect just about everyone I come into contact with. So I really don’t know how much stock you could put…”
“Katherine, what is it? What happened?”
“Well, there was an incident with Frank today, but it probably didn’t mean…”
“Frank Cramer? The cook at The Coffee Shop?”
“Yes,” she replied, knowing how Frank would have bristled at the term “cook”. He was a chef, dammit, he would bellow when any unwitting soul made the mistake. An artist!
Katie related briefly the incident to Jonathan who listened without interruption. “… and when he shouted that he’d show me, that he’d show everyone—I guess I couldn’t help wondering if his words implied some sort of threat.”
Frank? she mused. Not the most stable individual she knew—but a murderer?
“Right you should wonder. Anything else?” She thought a moment, remembered her encounter with Raymond Losier at City Hall, then dismissed it as too ludicrous to have any importance.
All the while, Jonathan was intently scribbling in a notebook. When he stopped writing, she said, “There is something. Last night when I was walking home from the bus stop, I heard something in the woods, just off the road. It seemed to be—keeping pace with me. I didn’t see what it was.” Jonathan frowned. “An animal?”
“It’s what I thought at first. And what I tried to convince myself of when I got home. But I sensed a person. I wasn’t about to hang around to find out.” She saw herself running, recalled the blind terror that had pushed her on. “Anyway, we can’t keep blaming everything that happens on animals, can we? That’s just about as bizarre as anything else we can think of.”
“You’re a perceptive woman,” he said. “If you sensed a person in those woods, I’d be willing to bet on it.”
“Thanks,” she said, not certain if that made her feel any better. If she hadn’t been such a coward, if she’d just stopped to turn around, even for an instant, she might have seen the face of her tormentor—of Jason’s killer. She could have told the police, and it would be all over by now. It would be all over because you would be dead. You know very well you didn’t really outrun him. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs while you were scrambling around for your key. He was watching you. Smiling. Look hard, Katie. See him. See his face. “Did the police talk to Charlie Black?” she asked, snapping herself out of the almost hypnotic state.
Jonathan gave a wry grin. “Poor old fellow was scared half to death. I don’t think we need include him in our list of possible suspects.” He looked at his watch. “Your friend’s a little late, isn’t he. It’s five to eleven.”
Katie rose to refill their coffee cups. Please don ’ t go, Jonathan. I don ’ t want to be alone. “His father’s been ill,” she said. “I expect he’ll be detained. He’ll be here, though. Drake is reliable.” She thought about the police car cruising the area and told herself she had nothing to fear.
“Live far from here, does he?”
“Who?”
“Devlin. He live far from here?”
“On a farm with his father.”
“Oh? Where?”
Katie let out a nervous laugh. “Why? Does it matter?”
He shrugged and sipped his coffee. “No, I suppose not. I just thought you told me he was a lawyer.”
“Yes. Well, he’s had to put aside his plans to open a practice to help his father on the farm.”
“I see. Commendable.” He checked his watch again.” He stood up.
“Well, I suppose I should be leaving…”
“Oh, I’d almost forgotten,” Katie said, standing to face him. “Jason’s car was parked around front when I got home last night.”
“Yes, I remember. Is that important?”
“Jason never parked at the front. Always around back.”
Jonathan shrugged into his coat, his face thoughtful. “He must have come upon the intruder as he was leaving your house. Stopped the car and got out.”
“Yes,” she answered sadly. “That’s what I concluded. And that’s why he’s dead.”
“The police found truck tire tracks on the property—right down to the lake. But you say you didn’t hear or see a truck—only someone in the woods.”
“There are a lot of little side roads leading into the woods. Old logging roads. It wouldn’t be too hard to hide a truck.”
He was standing at the door now, hands jammed into his pockets, and from the way he was looking at her, she got the impression he didn’t want to leave any more than she wanted him to. But maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part.
“That strawman—that was planned,” Jonathan said. “He had to have broken into Jason’s apartment to get those clothes.”
Katie nodded. They’d already covered that. “Are the police really convinced the man they’re looking for is someone I’m acquainted with?” she asked, knowing even as she did, the question was merely a stall to keep Jonathan with her a little longer. Would she never learn?
“They’re not convinced of anything at this point, but you have to go with the premise, otherwise we really are faced with looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.” Again, he checked the time. “Are you sure Drake is coming?”
She was on the slippery edge of ending the charade, of telling him she never had been expecting Drake, when the phone rang. She walked calmly over to answer it. Maybe it was Drake now. She wasn’t sure if she wanted it to b
e. Or maybe it was him calling to further torment her.
Then she would simply hand the phone over to Jonathan.
But it was neither. A woman’s voice, soft and cultured, asked to speak with Jon Shea. “Tell him it’s Lona, will you, dear?”
Katie handed him the phone. “For you. Lona. This case must be playing hell with your social life.” As he spoke into the receiver, Katie headed for the kitchen, fighting hot pangs of jealousy. She could imagine the owner of that voice—gorgeous, sexy, smiling up at Jonathan, lips moist and parted, eyes inviting. She saw Jonathan’s hand reach for the zipper at the back of the expensive dress, a Dior, saw the dress fall from alabaster shoulders to puddle at her feet, revealing a perfect body. Jonathan’s eyes glazed with passion…
“Sorry about that,” he said, coming into the kitchen where Katie at once busied herself polishing the kettle on the stove with a dish cloth. She saw her face in the chrome. It looked pale and distorted. “I don’t know how she got your number. Probably from the police department. Lona can be very persuasive.”
“I’m sure,” she said coolly. God, she was being so obvious. She didn’t want to be obvious. She couldn’t seem to help herself.
He was looking at her oddly, then, to her shame, she saw the hint of a grin touch his mouth. Her own face flamed as she fought the urge to slap it off. He was as arrogant as ever. There was nothing, she supposed with a twist of malice, like a pursuing Lona to inflate a man’s sagging ego.
“Well, I’d best be leaving before your company arrives,” he said.
But he made no move to go, instead stood looking at her, indecision coming into his blue eyes. “Don’t hesitate to call, Katherine,” he said solemnly, all trace of the grin gone now. “Not for any reason.”
“I won’t.” She turned abruptly from him, moving to the sink where she began rinsing the few dishes there. He came up behind her and reached past her to turn off the faucet. Then he placed both hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “I mean it, Katherine. Not for any reason.”
“Yes. I heard you.”
Seeming satisfied with that, he released her. “Lock the doors when I leave. I’ll be in touch.”
She thought about telling him of the ominous phone call she received today, then changed her mind. He would probably see it as a ploy to keep him here.
As Jonathan was getting into his car, Katie saw the police cruiser drive slowly by, dome light flashing silently as a beacon, bringing her a small measure of security.
In the studio, she recapped her tubes of paint and set her brushes to soak, wondering as she did if Lona was the society woman Linda Ring had told her about—the woman Jonathan had almost married. And why was he taking a year’s sabbatical? Surely, it had to be more than the death of a single patient, as tragic as that was. Weren’t doctors conditioned to expect that not all of their cases would end successfully? Especially psychiatrists. Jonathan did not seem so fragile as to be bowed by one failure. But perhaps there wasn’t just one.
Well, he was no concern of hers, she told herself, as she set about making up her bed on the cot. And he certainly owed her no explanations. Let Lona help him work through whatever was haunting him. And hadn’t she, Katie, already mapped out her own life? A life free of personal commitment? No husband. No children. She would travel light. A no-risk life. What a joke that was. There was no guarantee of safety, no matter how carefully you planned your life.
She was proof enough of that.
As Katie mechanically changed the pillow case on the pillow, she thought of those people who had once been an integral part of her life—her father, Todd, Aunt Katherine, even her mother…they moved across the screen of her mind like a parade of ghosts from a past lifetime. Now Jason would join them. She pushed the thought away.
The postcard from her mother was on the desk. She hadn’t read it yet. Mainly because she knew in essence what it would say. “George bought a bigger cruiser…met some people who really know how to party…how’s the painting going? You must come for a visit soon.”
They both knew, of course, that Katie would never take her up on her invitation, which was born out of a sense of duty, and to her mother’s credit, perhaps even guilt.
From the time Katie was eleven, she’d known it was because she bore such a strong physical resemblance to her father—tall, green-eyed, even to the same gold highlights in otherwise brown hair. Her father might be gray by now, or maybe even bald, if he was alive at all. “You’re just like you’re goddamn father,” her mother would shriek whenever Katie did anything to displease her.
Stan Summers, a salesman for a pharmaceutical company, had betrayed her mother by running off with the office secretary—What a cliché, Daddy!—never to be heard from again, and Katie’s presence was a constant, bitter reminder of that fact.
Laying a piece of wood on the fire, Katie directed her thoughts to a more pleasant subject. A cat. A gray momma cat. She could get one now that she was home to take care of it. Probably though, she thought, it would make more sense to get a dog. She would feel safer with a dog. She would get both, she decided with the smallest uplifting of her spirits. A cat and a dog.
She opened the drapes a little and looked out on the darkness. No wind now. No raging water. Just calm. A terrible, waiting calm. She let the drapes fall back into place and came away from the window.
The house, too, was silent.
What if someone tried to break in here right now? What would she do? How would she protect herself? She vaguely remembered the handgun her Aunt Katherine always kept upstairs in her room in her dresser drawer. No doubt it would be considered an antique by now.
Did the gun even work? And if it did, were there any bullets? She was being ridiculous, of course. Even if the gun was functional and she did manage to find the bullets, she didn’t know the first thing about guns. The intruder would probably take it from her and shoot her with it. Providing she didn’t shoot herself first.
Bone tired, Katie switched on the radio for a time check. It was ten minutes to midnight. After resetting both her watch and the mantle clock, she picked up the postcard on her desk and saw with surprise that the picture on the fact of it was of her mother lounging on a lawn chair under a palm tree. She held a tall drink with one of those striped straws angling out of it, smiling happily at whoever held the camera.
George, most likely. With her champagne-blond hair and the new face-lift, she looked at least as young as her daughter. Katie smiled. Despite her own deep hurt, she was glad that her mother was finally happy. Setting the postcard down on the desk, she went to turn down the covers. But before getting under them, she grimly removed the stove poker from its usual place against the wall and placed it on the floor within her reach.
Katie got into bed and closed her eyes. But despite her need for sleep, it did not come. Tomorrow, she thought, she would definitely drive out to the pound and inquire about a dog and a cat that could tolerate one another.
She turned on her side, tugged at the blankets, tried to fall asleep. But the harder she tried, the more awake she became. The house, too, wakened. She lay listening to the creaks and groans caused, she knew, from boards and nails complaining under the stress of too many seasons—of simply the house settling—harmless sounds that up until now had all but escaped her notice. But now they fed her fears, provoked her worse imaginings, making her uncomfortably aware of how alone she really was, and how vulnerable.
***
Not until the sun was coming up behind the hill did Katie finally fall asleep, but it was a sleep plagued with dreams of herself running down endless corridors, the sound of breathing all around her. Like giant waves it came, rising and falling like the sea, flooding her mind and heart—drowning her. Soon the breathing became laughter—insane laughter echoing off walls and ceilings, while Katie herself, half-mad with terror, ran blindly on, knowing even as she did that there was no escape. And then the dream began to change, and she was in a different place, a cold place with high, whi
te walls, and she saw that the laughter came from Jonathan and an elegant dark-haired woman with blood-red lips and vampire teeth named Lona. They were standing together looking down on her, while Katie crouched small before them, trying to cover herself with her arms, trying in vain to hide her nakedness.
She woke at noon to a dull, punishing headache, her body cramped and cold, the blankets kicked away.
The laughter lingered.
There was a moment of sick bewilderment before she understood that the laughter was coming from the radio, which she’d left on. Canned laughter. The station was airing some old, near-forgotten radio comedy show.
Chapter 19
Rose Nickerson dabbed mercurochrome on the inside of her wrist, painting the scratch Tiger had left when he’d leapt from her arms yesterday. About three inches long, it was deep and, right now, on fire. She blew on it, suspecting infection. “What’s gotten into you, Tiger?” she said to the orange cat reflected in the medicine chest mirror.
Tiger sat on her haunches on the laundry hamper, looking up at his mistress in that patient way he did when he was waiting for her to put food in his dish. But she’d already done that.
“Don’t worry, Tiger,” she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “we’ll get rid of him.” Tiger seemed to relax, began washing his face.
Rose knew very well what had gotten into her old friend. Tiger had heard Harvey’s voice just as she had, heard his warning. She didn’t know how he had, but she didn’t question it. Weren’t cats known for their mystic powers? It was just that nothing similar had ever happened with Tiger before. Which only served to further convince her of the rightness of her decision.
“We will banish this stranger from our kingdom,” she said, stroking Tiger behind his ears. He purred his approval.
She had tried to tell him this morning as she was setting out his plate of bacon and eggs, that he had to go, that she had no further need of him. But something, perhaps his silence, the absence of his usual charming self, which now seemed false, made her hesitate, stopped her. But she would not be stopped again. She would not be unkind about it, of course, she thought as she returned the bottle of mercurochrome to its place on the shelf. It was not in her nature to be unkind. But she would be firm. She would make the excuse that her cousin was coming to stay, and she had to free up the room. Surely the good Lord would understand and forgive her small white lie.
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