by The Web(Lit)
"Anything?" said Dennis.
"Uh-uh." Ed manipulated the pick with his tongue and watched me.
"No action from the jokers at Slim's?"
"Nah, just big talk." The sibilant voice. He touched the revolver in his belt with his left hand. I thought of something and filed it away.
"Why don't you take a walk up and down Front. Check things out."
Ed shrugged and rose to a slumping five four. Pocketing more toothpicks, he ambled out the door.
Dennis said, "You can sit in his chair."
I took my place under Miss Redi-Lathe, and he settled half a buttock atop the other desk and folded his arms across his chest.
"Ed may not look like much to you, but he's reliable. Ex-Marine.
In Vietnam he won enough medals to start a jewelry store."
"Southpaw, too."
He took off the mirrored glasses. His light eyes were clear and hard as bottle glass.
"So?"
"It reminded me that Ben's left-handed. I know because I saw him vaccinating the kids at the school. I read Anne Marie Valdos's file. Moreland said the killer was probably right-handed."
"To me, "probably" means not for sure."
I didn't answer.
Laurent's arms tightened and his biceps jumped.
"Moreland's no forensic pathologist."
"He was good enough for the Valdos case."
He chewed his cheek again and shot me a close-mouthed smile.
"Are you his rent-a-sherlock, supposed to raise doubts about my investigation?"
"The only thing he asked me to do was give Ben moral support.
If my being here's a problem, take me back and I'll catch up on my sunbathing."
Another bicep flex. Then the smile widened, flashing white.
"Look at that, I pissed you off. Thought shrinks didn't lose their tempers."
"I came to Aruk to do some interesting work and get away from city life. Since I got here it's been nothing but weirdness, and now you're treating me like some kind of sleazeball. I'm not Moreland's surrogate and I don't enjoy being placed under house arrest. When those boats pull up, I plan to be on one."
I stood.
He said, "Take it easy, sit down. I'll make coffee." Switching on the hot plate he pulled packets of instant and creamer and styrofoam cups out of his desk.
"It ain't Beverly Hills cafe au kit. That okay?"
"Depends on what kind of conversation goes with it."
Grinning, he went through a battered rear door. I heard water run and he returned with a metal coffeepot that he placed on the hot plate
"You want to stand, suit yourself."
I waited until the pot bubbled before sitting.
"Black or cream?"
"Black."
"Tough guy." Deep chuckle.
"No offense, just trying to take the tension off. Sorry if I rubbed you wrong before."
"Let's just get through this."
He fixed two cups, handed me one. Terrible, but the bitterness was what I needed.
"I know damn well Ben's a lefty," he said.
"But all Moreland said in Anne Marie case was that the killer was righthanded if she was grabbed from behind and done like this." Tilting his head back, he exposed his Adam's apple and ran a hand along his throat.
"If she was cut from the front, it could have been a lefty."
He shifted his weight.
"Yeah, I know what you're thinking. We dropped it before it was finished. But it's not like some big city, tons of money to follow every lead."
"Hey," I said, 'big-city cops don't always follow through. I watched thugs burn L.A. down while the police sat around waiting for instructions from brain-dead superiors."
"You don't like cops?"
"My best friend is one seriously."
He stirred creamer into his cup and sipped with surprising delicacy.
"I've got a pathologist flying in. Looking at Anne Marie file as well as Betty's. I don't know if she'll be able to make any determination about how Betty got cut, because her head was taken clean off. Maybe, though. I'm no expert."
Shifting again, he got up and sat behind the other desk, propping his feet up.
"Does your gut tell you Ben's guilty?" I said.
"My gut? What the hell's that worth?"
"My friend's a homicide detective. His hunches have led him to some good places."
"Well," he said, 'good for him. I'm just one third of a dinky-shit three-man police force on a dinky-shit island. Ed's my main backup and my other deputy's older than him."
"You probably never needed more."
"Till now I didn't... Do I think Ben's guilty? It sure as hell looks like it, and he's not bothering to deny it. Only one who thinks otherwise is Dr. Bill, with his usual..."
He shook his head.
"His usual single mindedness I said.
He forced a smile.
"My word was "fanaticism." Don't get me wrong, I think he probably could have won a Nobel Prize for something if he'd put his mind to it. He's helped my mother and me plenty, giving her a free lease on the restaurant till things get better, paying for my schooling. I felt like a shithead, mouthing off to him last night. But you've got to understand, he's like a moray eel gets hold of something and won't let go. What the hell does he want me to do? Let Ben walk on his say-so and watch the whole damn island explode?"
"Is the island near exploding?"
"Hotter than I've ever seen it a lot worse than when Anne Marie got killed, and we had grumblings then."
"The march up South Road?"
"No march, just a few kids shouting and waving sticks but look where it led. Now some people think they were fooled into believing a sailor did Anne Marie and they're doubly pissed."
"Fooled by Ben?"
"And Dr. Bill.
"Cause Ben's seen as Dr. Bill's boy. And even though people admire Dr. Bill, they're also... nervous about him. You hear stories."
"About what?"
"Mad scientist shit. Growing all this fruit and vegetables, bringing some into town, but rumor is he hoards it."
"Is that true?"
"Who the hell knows? Guys who work the estate say he fools around with dehydration, nutritional research. But who cares?
What's to stop anyone from growing their own stuff? My mother does. Dr. Bill set her up years ago with soil and seeds, and she grows her own Chinese vegetables for the restaurant. But people get dependent, they like to piss and moan. Doesn't take much to get their tongues napping. Anne Marie was a newcomer, no roots here, but everyone liked Betty."
"Including the sailors."
He turned toward me very slowly.
"Meaning?"
"Moreland said she'd socialized with them. As had Anne Marie
"Socialized... yeah, Betty liked to party before she got engaged, but for your own safety I wouldn't repeat that."
"Any chance Betty and Ben had an affair?"
"Not that I heard, but who knows? But whatever Betty did, she was a nice kid. Didn't deserve to be ripped up like that."
"I know. I spoke to her the morning before she died."
He put his cup down.
"Where?"
"At the Trading Post. I bought drinks and magazines. She told me about her baby."
He arced his feet off the desk and they hit the floor hard.
"Yeah, her mom said she loved the idea of having a baby." Real pain clouded his eyes.
"Anyone who'd do that should have his nuts cut off and stuffed down his throat."
The phone rang. He grabbed it.
"Yeah? No, not yet. No, not before his lawyer I don't know."
He slammed the phone down.
"That was Mr. Creedman. Wants to do a story for the wire services."
"Opportunity knocks," I said.
"Meaning?"
"He's a writer. Now he's got a story."
"What do you think of him?"
"Not much."
"Me, neither. First day he g
ot here, he hit on my mother. She straightened him out soon enough."
He trained his eyes on me. He was a handsome man but I thought of a rhino, ready to charge.
"So tell me, doc, is Ben one of those guys, when you hear about his killing someone you say, "No way, couldn't be"?"
"I don't know him well enough to answer that."
He laughed.
"Got my answer. Not that I've got any grudge against him. I've always admired him for the way he pulled himself up. I grew up without a father, but my mother's good enough for ten parents. Ben's mom was a dirty drunk and his dad was a real asshole, beat the hell out of him just for laughs. According to you guys, isn't that exactly the kind of thing that grows killers?"
"It helps," I said.
"But there are plenty of abused kids who don't end up violent, and people from good homes who turn bad."
"Sure," he said, 'anything's possible. But we're talking odds. I took psychology, learned about early influences. Someone like Ben, I guess it's no surprise he cracked. I guess the big surprise is the time he had in between, acting normal."
"In between what?"
Instead of answering, he finished his coffee. I'd barely touched mine and he noticed.
"Yeah, it's lousy want some tea instead?"
"No, thanks."
"The situation's really bad," he said into his empty cup.
"Betty's family, Mauricio. Claire, her kids. Everyone thrown together, people can't escape each other."
The phone rang again. He got rid of the caller with a couple of barks.
"Everyone wants to know everything." He looked above me, at the bikini girl.
"I should take that down. Ed and Elijah like it, but it's disrespectful."
He got up and came toward me.
"I've seen plenty, doctor, but never anything like what happened to those two women."
"One thing you might want to know," I said.
"After I read the Valdos file I called my detective friend. He ran a search for similar murders and came up with one, ten years old, in Maryland."
"Why'd you ask him to look?"
"I didn't. He did it on his own."
"Why?"
"He's a curious guy."
"Checking out the island savages, huh? Yeah, I know about that one. Two satanists ate a working girl." He shot out some details.
"My computer rarely works right, but I phone stuff in to the MPs on Guam and they hook into NCIC."
"What do you think of the similarities?"
"I think satanic psychos have some sort of script."
"Any evidence Ben was into satanism?"
"Nope."
"Have you ever seen evidence of satanism on Aruk?"
"Not a trace, everyone's Catholic. But Ben was in Hawaii ten years ago who knows what kind of shit he picked up?"
"Did he take any side trips to the mainland?"
ILike to Maryland? Good question. I'll look into it. For all I know, he killed girls in Hawaii and never got caught. For all I know, he was lucky the only thing they got him for was indecent exposure."
The look on my face made him smile.
"That's what I meant by acting normal in between."
"When?" I said.
"Ten years ago. He peeped in some lady's window with his pants down and his dick out. He was in the Guard and they handled it. Ninety days in the brig. That's how a lot of sex killers get started, isn't it? Watching and beating off, then moving on to the heavy stuff?"
"Sometimes."
"This time." He looked disgusted.
"Okay, have your hour with him. Give him his moral support."
27. Behind the battered door was a warren of small, dim rooms and narrow corridors. At the back was a dented sheet-metal door bolted by a stout iron bar.
Laurent removed my watch and emptied my pockets, placed my belongings on a table along with his gun, then unlocked the bar, raised it, and pocketed the key. Pushing the door open, he let me pass, and I came up against grimy gray bars and the sulfur-stink of excreta.
A two-cell jail, a pair of three-pace cages, each with a cement floor, a grated, translucent window, a double bunk chained to the wall, a crusted hole with heel-rests for a toilet.
The ceilings were six and half feet high. Black mold grew in cracks and corners. The plaster had been scored by decades of fingernail calligraphy.
Laurent saw the revulsion on my face.
"Welcome to Istanbul West," he said, with no satisfaction.
"Usually guys don't stay here for more than a few hours, sleeping off a drunk."
The nearer cell was empty. Ben sat on the lower bunk of the other, chin in hand.
"Well, well, looks like we've had some movement," said Laurent, loudly.
Ben didn't budge.
The keys jangled again and soon I was in the cell, locked in, and Laurent was outside saying, "Trust me with your wallet and your watch, doc?"
I smiled.
"Do I have a choice?"
Thanks for the vote of confidence. One hour." Tapping his own watch.
"I'" leave the door open so you can shout."
He left. Inside the cell, the stink was stronger, the heat almost unbearable.
I tried to find a place to stand that allowed me some distance from Ben, but the cramped space prevented it so I contented myself with keeping maximum distance from the floor latrine as I scanned the graffiti. Names, dates, none of them recent. A large depiction of exaggerated female genitalia above the bunk.
Sgraffito message: Get me out of this hole!
Ben didn't move. His eyes were unfocused.
"Hello," I said softly. Though my five-ten height missed the ceiling by a few inches, I found myself hunching.
Silence. As complete as at the estate but not at all peaceful.
After only seconds in here, my nerves screamed for some noise.
"Dr. Bill sent me to see if there's anything I can do for you, Ben."
He kept perfectly still, not even a blink, hair greasy, face streaked with sweat tracks. My armpits were already sodden.
"Ben?"
I took hold of his right arm and moved it from under his chin. Stiff and unyielding, as he resisted me.
No catatonia.
I let go. Repeated my greeting.
He continued to tune me out.
Three more attempts.
Five minutes passed.
"Okay," I said.
"You're a political prisoner, giving the world the silent treatment as a protest against injustice."
Still no response.
I waited some more. His cheeks were sunken almost as hollow as Moreland's and his eyes looked remote.
No eyeglasses. They'd been taken from him. Along with his shoelaces and belt and watch and anything else hard-edged. An angry boil had broken out on the back of his neck.
I kept staring at him, hoping my scrutiny would cause him to react. His nails were gnawed almost to the quick, one thumb bloody. Had he always been a biter? I'd never noticed. Or had Betty Aguilar resisted and snapped off some keratin? A clue he'd tried to conceal by chewing his other fingers?
I looked for nail bits on the floor. Nothing but inlaid dirt and scuff marks but they could have been tossed down the toilet hole.
Big black ants single-filed under the bunk. After Moreland's zoo, they were laughable.
No scratches on his face and hands.
His color was bad, but he was unmarked.
"How well do you see without your glasses?"
Silence.
Slow count to one thousand.
This isn't exactly the behaviour of an innocent man, Ben."
